Product Catalog
Telecoms
This is a Telecoms diagram but the theory is the same cross sector.
Data view of product catalog
(sorry the green field of grass just seemed like a good idea at the time!)
Product Concept to Live Product
I want to sell online, mass market customers, how do I define this?
Product Specification
first what defines the product, what is its specification?
Example of a partially tangible product spec
Broadband service to a new customer, this is a tangible product, Fiber connection to a location. A Ont will be available(the termination point of fiber to a location), this is defined here in part so the range of speed and support options are available and they depend on both the location and speed requirements as not all Onts are created equal! Within the location a router is made available that can work with the Ont speed. Extra services can be defined for site installation and higher levels of support.
In addition to all this, some immutable points regarding, for example, any packaging and labeling that are needed.
Example of an intangible product spec
A broadband service. This product spec can be defined(and sold) in isolation. The range of available service speeds will be defined. There is nothing to deliver or package, post sales care will fall into BAU.
Product Offering
The product owner wants to define a filtered set of product spec details that may be changed for their product offering to the customer. They will also define the pricing model which could be a base price plus some selections will cause a price change. For example, within the fiber connection there could be two speed options of 2Gbps and 10Gbps so the latter would have a higher price point. Another, unrelated option would be a mobile phone purchase with a plan; a gold phone would have a higher price point than other colors.
Another dimension to consider is the product lifecycle. A great example of this(found in the docs) would be a valentines day offer so its only available on 14th February, a two phone purchase and the color must be pink!.
Another dimension is channel and sector, a mass market customer buying online will likely not get the same deal as an enterprise customer buying through a Salesforce CSR. This will be defined in the pricing construct. Another sector of interest might be wholesale where the price is low and the quantities high.
Product(instance)
When the customer(by sector and by channel) makes a purchase a product instance is defined which details the customer and their product offering selections. In the fiber example lets say the customer is a home customer(mass market) who ordered through online channel. They selected the 10Gbps option over the 2Gbps. In the purchase process a number of checks will have been carried out, is there fiber at the address, what is the max speed of the service, what is the max speed offered by the service provider(can be two different answers) and lead time to connection at the network level.