The opportunities for Product Innovation and how Network and Product Managers can pave the way.

Ana Sancho, Global Head of Sales at MGTL, examines the role of Network and Product managers in steering product innovation with the right technology.
The industry agrees that product innovation is next to impossible without implementing three key suggestions: Network Governance, Collaboration and Performance.
In other words, product innovation is closely tied to the availability of meaningful data points and key business indicators, typically managed by the Network and Markets team and extracted from governance framework, performance reviews, internal feedback and requirements.
The most common challenge in the industry today for product and network managers is the lack of a repository of meaningful data, easily accessible and audit-traceable, to support product innovation theory, market sampling and testing within approved governance. In fact, the most common scenario is having product and network managers navigate through endless spreadsheets and reports while trying to utilise critical data points as the drivers of business development and product innovation. This is besides the reporting and internal feedback on innovation market test results and other influencing industry disruptors.
State of the art platforms, specifically designed by Network Managers for Network Managers , are already available, many successful business cases demonstrating how Financial institutions have stepped up their game with sophisticated product innovation to better serve their clients. They have ensured a flawless, on-point management of their entire network of agents and sub-custodians and therefore mitigated risk.
Understanding the critical contributions to business development, embedded in the network and product management roles, illustrates why these two key functions must be equipped with tools to easily extract intelligence out of existing data.
Network governance.
The Network Management team defines policies, practices and processes to manage a number of service provider relationships. It essentially involves balancing the interests of many stakeholders, such as Operations teams, Product Management, Client Services and Relationship Management, Compliance, Risk and Liquidity Management. Network Governance provides the framework for attaining the business objectives, i.e. cross-border payments or asset custody, and it encompasses practically every sphere of management, from action plans and internal controls to performance measurement and MIS.
Collaboration.
An important part of the Network Manager’s job is serving as a liaison between Agents and Relationships and business colleagues. This collaboration allows the “buy side” to understand service requirements and to design performance metrics that reflect the needs of the business. Continuous feedback between Product Management, Operations and Network Manager support the necessary “theory, market testing and governance framework cycle” for product innovation.
Performance.
The use of key business intelligence measurements and performance visibility, linked to product innovation objectives and strategy, increases the likelihood of successful innovation results. Running performance reviews with a regularity similar to financial and due diligence review timings significantly changes the game.
Continuous industry developments, increasing numbers of disruptors, price arbitrage, mounting regulatory requirements and complex business needs, both in the traditional and digital segments, generate a multidimensional pool of data points that are difficult to embrace and digest for product managers. Workflow and data management tools such as MYRIAD collect, sort, verify and audit-track key data points, making data available to the internal business units and periodically reporting on the specific impact to your product innovation theory. Simply put, capability such as this can position your product significantly ahead of the game