Strategic Marketing Planning by Product Managers—Room for Improvement?

Product managers have a unique position in the organizational hierarchy. Neither line nor staff executives, they are responsible for planning and managing the activities of the firm's revenue generating product-market entries and are key executives in the firm's strategic planning and implementation activities. Do product managers utilize planning processes that require the types of data and data analyses recommended in the strategic planning literature? What organizational and personal characteristics are related to product manager planning activities? This article reports findings of an empirical study designed to answer these questions.