Eric Hellweg, Harvard Business Review , @ehellweg Eric Hellweg, HBR’s Executive Director of Product Management and Digital Strategy, will discuss how the team at HBR has transformed the brand from a primarily print product to one with digital at its core, using lean principles and by instilling a “product management mindset” –and a true product management function—inside this traditional media organization.

1. HBR: A Study in Transformation
Eric Hellweg
Executive Director, Product Management
and Digital Strategy
@ehellweg

2. HBR Back in the Day

3. HBR Today

4. The HBR brand is stronger than ever
 Reaching circulation high
 Improving willingness to pay of core customers
 Developing new products based on solid customer knowledge
 Driving much of the growth of the brand from website
 Increasing CPMs

5. But things weren’t always so pretty…
5

6. We want to impart three lessons:
6
1. Be something (we’ll explain)
2. Be patient
3. Be obsessed with the user

7. Started with a simple framework
7
 Forget
 Borrow
 Learn

8. Lesson #2: Be Patient
8
 Transformations seem daunting at first…
• Nine years ago, HBR was:
> Print only
> 200k subscribers
> 200k web visitors who only purchased reprints
• Nine years ago, HBR had no:
> Social media profile
> Original online programming
> Vision of the future

9. Lesson #3: Become Obsessed with User
9
• Created “Advisory Board” for continuous conversation with users
• Connected marketing feedback with editorial insights
• Segmented users
• Designed database to track user behavior and segments
• Launched conjoint to get a better idea of how elements complement
• Began prototyping new products based on user responses

10. Lesson #3: Become Obsessed with User
10
1. Don’t waste our users’ time.
2. Prioritize flexibility– quickly adapt.
3. We are not the users. Think from the outside in.
4. Always speak to our users in a consistent, friendly, respectful tone.
5. Test, test, test will be part of all launch activities.
6. Prioritize a long-term relationship over a short-term transaction.
7. Whenever possible, prioritize users over other stakeholders.

11. Product Management @ HBR
“The ability media companies have to innovate and compete in this
tech-eats-everything-world is fully dependent on how they view
product and product management. As of now, it seems very few
(traditional) media companies are able to agree on these terms
internally.”
—Espen Sundve, “The Need for Product Management in Media”
https://medium.com/managing-digital-products/the-need-for-product-management-in-media-fe02cddf5ec3

12. Product Management @ HBR
12
User Need
Is It
Feasible?
Business
Goal

13. Product Management @ HBR
13
Editorial

14. Product Management @ HBR
1. What do our users want?
2. What are our business goals?
3. What is feasible to get done?
(Research, analytics, user-testing, iterative design and development)
A-LA CARTE PRODUCTS SITE “PRODUCTS” & EXPERIENCES
PRODUCT MGMT FOUNDATION
• Maintain high price
• Find new product sources
• Support branded lines
• Modular components
• New features
• Incremental improvements
• Video and audio
• Libraries
(Guides+Video, HBR Tools, etc) (Visual Library, Archive, Emails, Assessments, etc)
Increase Willingness to Pay
Lower Costs of Acquisition and Retention

15. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
FY13 FY15 FY18P
HBR.org only
Digital Replica
Print + HBR.org
All-Access
Print Only
Shift to All Access

16. 16
Thank you!
@ehellweg