Portfolio Management

A roadmap is not a strategy! Yet, most strategy docs are roadmaps + frameworks. This isn't because teams are dumb. It's because they lack predictable steps to follow. This is where I refer them to Ed Biden's 7-step process: — 1. Objective → What problem are we solving? Your objective sets the foundation. If you can’t define this clearly, nothing else matters. A real strategy starts with: → What challenge are we responding to? → Why does this problem matter? → What happens if we don’t solve it? — 2. Users → Who are we serving? Not all users are created equal. A strong strategy answers: · What do they need most? · Who exactly are we solving for? · What problems are they already solving on their own? A strategy without sharp user focus leads to feature bloat. — 3. Superpowers → What makes us different? If you’re competing on the same playing field as everyone else, you’ve already lost. Your strategy must define: · What can we do 10x better than anyone else? · Where can we persistently win? · What should we not do? This is where strategy meets competitive advantage. — 4. Vision → Where are we going? A roadmap tells you what’s next. A vision tells you why it matters. Most PMs confuse vision with strategy. But a vision is long-term. It’s a north star. Your strategy answers: How do we get there? — 5. Pillars → What are our focus areas? If everything is a priority, nothing really is. In my 15 years of experience, great strategy always come with a trade-offs: → What are our big bets? → What do we need to execute to move towards our vision? → What are we intentionally not doing? — 6. Impact → How do we measure success? Most teams obsess over vanity metrics. A great strategy tracks what actually drives business success. What outcomes matter? → How will we track progress? → What signals tell us we’re on the right path? — 7. Roadmap → How do we execute? A roadmap should never be a list of everything you could do. It should be a focus list of what truly matters. Problems and outcomes are the currency here. Not dates and timelines. — For personal examples of how I do this, check out my post: https://lnkd.in/e5F2J6pB — Hate to break it to you, but you might be operating without a strategy. You might have a nicely formatted strategy doc in front of you, but it’s just a… A roadmap? a feature list? a wishlist? If it doesn’t connect vision to execution, prioritize trade-offs, and define competitive edge… It’s not strategy. It’s just noise.

An Enterprise Architect walks into the CFO’s office and says: “We found 47 applications that can probably be rationalized.” The CFO smiles.😊 “Great. How much can we save?” The architect answers: “Potentially €1M+ per year.”💶 The CFO smiles even more. Then comes the difficult question: “Who owns them?”⁉️ And suddenly the conversation is no longer about technology. It is about politics. Application portfolio rationalization is rarely blocked because nobody understands the architecture. It is blocked because every application has an owner, a history, a budget, a process workaround, a power base, and someone who once fought hard to get it approved. - One system is “temporary” for 9 years. - Another is “business critical”, but nobody can explain what would break if it disappeared. - A third one is used by 11 people, but one of them is very senior. This is why application rationalization is not an Excel exercise. It is an internal negotiation. The mistake many architecture teams make is starting with the application list: ❌ duplicate systems ❌ low usage ❌ high cost ❌ outdated technology ❌ no strategic fit All true. But not enough. To win the internal battle, you need to start with the political map: ❓Who pays for the application? ❓Who owns the business process? ❓Who will be blamed if migration fails? ❓Who benefits from keeping complexity? ❓Who benefits from removing it? ❓Who has the authority to decide? Only after that can you build the rationalization roadmap. In my experience, successful application portfolio rationalization needs five things: ✔️Make cost visible, but do not make cost the only argument. ✔️Link every application to business capabilities, processes and owners. ✔️Separate technical redundancy from business dependency. ✔️Create decision forums where Finance, Business and IT decide together. ✔️Avoid blaming teams for historical complexity. Most complexity was created by valid decisions in a different context. The goal is not to “kill applications”. The goal is to remove complexity without breaking the business. And that requires more than Enterprise Architecture diagrams. It requires trust, sponsorship, timing, negotiation and a clear value story. Because rationalization does not fail in the repository. It fails in the meeting room.

Many founders treat pricing as a revenue optimization problem. Figure out the product first, scale usage, then monetize. That's backwards. Pricing isn't about extracting money. It's about discovering whether you built something people actually value. At Gamma, we used pricing as a proxy for value and kept it pretty much the same for over 2 years. Free usage will lie to you (especially for B2B and prosumer products). Usage spikes feel like PMF. They're not. Usage without payment tests your onboarding, not your value. If you come out with too generous of a free plan, you'll never know what true willingness to pay looks like. Here's how to use pricing as a proxy for value: 1. Pick your value metric Choose the thing customers actually hire you for. Documents generated. API calls. Minutes transcribed. At Gamma, we gated by AI credits as the primary value metric, with business levers like custom branding. 2. Draw a hard boundary between free and paid Let people experience the "aha," then stop them at a generous but bounded gate. We gave users plenty of AI credits up front. Once they hit the limit: upgrade for access to more AI. 3. Research your range, then let behavior decide We used Van Westendorp to find our starting range. Ask users four price points: too cheap to trust, good value, getting expensive, too expensive to consider. Plot where these intersect to bracket your range. Then test a few prices within it. Research shows what people say they'll pay - conversion shows what they actually do. We watched free-to-paid conversion and early churn signals, picked the winner, and moved on. 4. Instrument retention and talk to customers Track whether paid users keep crossing your value threshold each week. Stay close to customers through power-user communities or direct outreach. Ask questions like: "What job were you hiring us for?" and "What would justify a higher price?" 5. Treat pricing changes like product pivots Once you've validated pricing, the only reason to change it is if you've fundamentally changed what you're selling. We haven't changed ours in two years because the value metric (AI usage) hasn't changed. Constantly repricing means you're still searching for product-market fit. Why this matters: Pricing early clarifies who values you, which channels convert, and which segments to double down on. You're better off launching pricing way earlier so you can see who's actually willing to pay for it.

💡 Why Take a Step-by-Step Approach to AI Portfolio Management? Summary: Companies should apply a step-by-step portfolio management approach when it comes to AI. They should view the connected portfolio through a dual lens: first, as an advancement pipeline with clear gates through which projects must pass; and second, as a whole-portfolio dashboard that shows balances across risk/return, time horizon, capability areas, and mission alignment. This dual perspective enables both rigorous project-level discipline and strategic portfolio-level optimization. --- Business leaders now face intense pressure to transform their organizations with AI, even though the technology, public attitudes, and the competitive landscape are all still in flux. The result is often too many pilots with too little coordinated oversight. Without a way to systematically decide where to start, how fast to move, and when to stop, AI efforts quickly become a drain on attention and resources rather than a source of advantage. A familiar pattern recurs across many companies: isolated, piecemeal deployments, limited buy-in by senior executives, and weak linkage to strategic goals. Organizations need to follow a disciplined step-by-step portfolio approach that treats AI innovation as a structured pipeline of projects that is managed by applying coherent, repeatable principles. This approach enables leaders to allocate scarce resources strategically, secure and maintain executive sponsorship across multiple initiatives, and sequence the right projects at the right time rather than chasing disconnected proofs of concept. 📌 Find out more in our (FAISAL HOQUE, Erik Nelson, Tom Davenport, Paul Scade, PhD) new Harvard Business Review article here: https://lnkd.in/eTF83uuE.

Are our portfolios still calibrated to a climate that no longer exists? This is a valuable topic to discuss with your investment consultant during your next strategic asset allocation review. This question is more complex than most climate disclosures indicate. Many capital market assumptions still implicitly assume that the climate is stationary. Strategic asset allocations (SAA) are based on decades of historical data. Diversification assumptions may hold in typical years but can fail during critical periods. Physical risks are often treated as tail events, even as such risks become more frequent. This is not a fringe concern. The USS / University of Exeter No Time To Lose report and the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' Emperor's New Climate Scenarios have made this case; many climate scenarios used by financial institutions may understate risk because they fail to capture tipping points, compound events and non-linear damages. Climate scenario analysis has improved significantly, but in many cases it remains separate from the strategic asset allocation process rather than fully integrated. It primarily supports reporting requirements. However, does it influence capital market assumptions, portfolio construction, or the strategic asset allocation itself? For funds with long-term, intergenerational mandates such as pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and endowments, the current El Niño is not the primary concern. The greater concern is the shifting baseline underlying future El Niño events and whether portfolio assumptions have adapted accordingly. Four questions worth exploring with your consultant at the next SAA review, borrowed from the world of cyber resilience: Anticipate: Do our scenarios address specific physical pathways such as multi-breadbasket failure, monsoon disruption, grid-cooling stress, and wildfires, or do they focus mainly on transition risk? Withstand: Where might hidden correlations exist? For example, Australian, Brazilian, and Indian agricultural exposures may appear diversified in typical years but can become highly correlated during an El Niño event. Recover: Do we have the governance, conviction, and liquidity to act as a stabiliser when assets and markets reprice? Adapt: Are climate-resilient infrastructure, energy systems, food systems, transport, water, and adaptation technologies considered core allocations over a 30-year horizon, or are they still treated as peripheral? At your next away day, ensure climate scenarios are integral to the strategic asset allocation process. A practical first step is to work with your investment consultant to review the climate scenario set used in the previous strategic asset allocation exercise, assess the severity of excluded scenarios, and evaluate how those exclusions influenced the final allocation. This discussion may reveal where the most future risks may lie. David Friedberg provides a useful four-minute overview of the developing El Niño on the All-In Podcast. 

When ROI is used to compare strategic initiatives, strategy disappears. Some firms unintentionally kill their strategy by evaluating every initiative with the same metric—usually ROI. When ROI becomes the universal yardstick, strategy collapses into short-term financial sorting or into expensive failures based on hockey-stick projections. This is especially dangerous if CEOs are remunerated on the basis of EBIT targets or short-term stock options. As a board member and strategist, I recommend a different approach: assess initiatives along the Three Horizons. Three Horizon thinking is strategic because it forces leaders to do what strategy fundamentally requires: Allocate resources across different time horizons under uncertainty to optimize the current business and build the business of tomorrow. In other words: perform and transform. Horizon 1: Strengthen the core business These initiatives keep the company competitive today. Yes—ROI is appropriate here. Efficiency, margin, and cash flow matter. Horizon 2: Grow emerging businesses These initiatives build the next engines of growth. ROI is dangerous here because too many assumptions are required. The right question is: Does this strategic initiative meaningfully grow our emerging business? Horizon 3: Create options for the future These are investment into resources and capabilities that lead to potentially disproportionate competitive advantages. Early ROI calculations are meaningless. Instead ask: Does this strategic initiative create options we may need later? A real strategy allocates resources across all three horizons. In my experience, only Horizon 1 initiatives should be assessed by ROI. Horizons 2 and 3 require strategic judgment, not spreadsheet logic. Please repost if you agree. Comment if you disagree. Follow if you like more reframing. #strategy #leadership #transformation #VRIO #ROI #investments     Source of the Three Horizon model: Baghai, M., Coley, S., & White, D. (1999). The alchemy of growth: Practical insights for building the enduring enterprise. Perseus Publishing.

Too many product decisions still happen in silos. Strategy gets separated from delivery. Roadmaps drift away from outcomes. Backlogs turn into long wish lists. As a result, teams stay busy but create little value. While that's always been an issue, it is now more important than ever with AI. Without clear strategic directions, teams are at risk of building products that nobody wants or needs, that have the wrong features, and offer the wrong UX—at an ever-faster rate. Great products, however, aren’t built by separating strategy from execution. They’re created by connecting them. That’s exactly why I developed my product strategy model—a powerful way to link product vision, strategy, roadmap, and backlog. In my article, I describe the framework in its latest, revised version, and I explain how you can systematically connect four critical elements: → Product Vision ⭐️ → Product Strategy ♟️ → Product Roadmap 🎯 → Product Backlog 📦 Additionally, I discuss who should own the elements, how the product strategy relates to portfolio strategy and business strategy, and how you can apply the framework: ✅ Strategy means making deliberate choices—including what NOT to build. ✅ Outcome-based roadmaps create far more clarity than feature-based plans. ✅ Product teams work best when they own both strategy and execution. ✅ Strategy and execution must be closely aligned: strategy guides execution, and execution informs strategy. ✅ The best strategy is useless if it doesn’t shape day-to-day product decisions. I hope you'll find the article helpful. Let me know your thoughts and questions in the comments. #productmanagement #ProductStrategy #productvision #ProductRoadmap #productteam

With public equity and fixed income markets in turmoil in recent weeks the traditional 60:40 portfolio model has again been challenged. There's little doubt uncertainty will pervade these markets for the foreseeable future. Therefore it is timely to release further research on the beneficial portfolio characteristics of private market assets. In this paper "Optimising private market asset allocations" we examine the integration of this asset class within traditional asset allocation strategies to  assess performance impacts across investor risk profiles. We believe that including private market assets can significantly enhance portfolio returns for investors who adopt a risk-based utility-maximising strategy in portfolio construction. Additionally, we find that unlisted infrastructure has the most potential of the private market assets considered to improve portfolio Sharpe ratios, especially for ‘Defensive’ and ‘Balanced’ investors. Our research applies a utility maximisation framework which facilitates risk appetite aware optimisation to tailor portfolios to match specific investor risk preferences and lifecycle stages. A novel two-stage returns unsmoothing approach is used to more accurately estimate true private market return volatility. We show that even after returns unsmoothing, private markets can significantly enhance portfolio outcomes. This study finds that defensive investors benefit from allocations  to infrastructure and private credit, achieving lower volatility and higher returns. Balanced investors see similar advantages with  a stable allocation to infrastructure, while growth investors lean towards private equity for higher risk-reward profiles. This analysis adds further weight to our assertion that private market assets have a material role to play in optimising investor portfolios. With IFM Investors Economics & research Frans van den Bogaerde, CFA and Christopher Skondreas #investment #assetallocation #risk #privatemarkets #portfolioconstruction

Five years ago I would not have believed this. The biggest names in CPG are quietly taking food out of the center of the plate. Unilever is carving out an $8B ice cream portfolio to focus on beauty and wellness. Nestlé is leaning harder into health science. The categories with pricing power are not pantry staples. They are skincare, supplements, functional hydration, and performance nutrition. Why the shift is rational, not trendy: Food margins are getting squeezed. Trade down is real, private label is sharper, and price elasticity in core staples is hitting its ceiling. Health and wellness carry willingness to pay. Consumers accept a premium for outcomes, routines, and performance. They do not reward cost plus in pasta sauce. Loyalty is drifting in food. Promotions move share week to week. Self care and efficacy-led categories hold repeat. You can already see where momentum lives. L'Oréal skincare growth outpaced many classic food portfolios last year. The Coca-Cola Company is pushing deeper into functional and non-carbonated. PepsiCo’s most defensible engine is Gatorade’s ecosystem of hydration, not soda. These are not side bets. They are where pricing power and repeat accrue. What I am advising leadership teams to do now: • Reweight the portfolio. Map pricing power, repeat, and trade down risk by category. If the math says wellness and self care carry the margin story, allocate accordingly. • Build credibility before you buy it. If you are a food-first house moving into health, you need scientific muscle, regulatory fluency, and communities that care. Partnerships, acqui-hires, and advisory benches matter. • Treat personalization as a revenue lever. Recommendations, routines, and subscription logic are table stakes in self care. Own the data and make it useful. • Keep the core honest. Food will not disappear, but it must earn its space with cleaner RGM, fewer zombie SKUs, and real reasons to stick around outside of price. I am not declaring the death of food. I am pointing at where the next decade of pricing power is likely to sit. The winners will rebalance now, not after a third year of elasticities telling the same story. If you are leading a CPG portfolio, are you future proofing around outcomes and routines, or are you managing a slow decline in categories that no longer set the pace? #FMCG #CPG #ConsumerTrends #GrowthStrategy #Beauty #Wellness #RevenueShift #BrandEvolution

Wealth creation sirf bada corpus banane ka naam nahi hai, balki usse timely use karne ki ability bhi equally important hai! Last year, one of my clients had a ₹2 crore portfolio—invested entirely in stocks and real estate. But when he needed ₹10 lakh urgently for a medical emergency, he struggled. His stocks were down, real estate was illiquid, and selling would mean a major loss. ➡ This made him realize: wealth isn’t just about high returns, but also about accessibility 🔹 Stocks: High liquidity but volatile. Selling in a downturn can lead to losses. 🔹 Real Estate: Long-term wealth but difficult to liquidate instantly. 🔹 Mutual Funds: A balance of growth & accessibility. Ideal for planned withdrawals. 🔹 Fixed Deposits: Secure, but may have premature withdrawal penalties. A balanced portfolio ensures you have both wealth creation and emergency access. Always maintain a mix of high-return and liquid assets. ➡ Because financial freedom isn’t just about having money—it’s about having money when you need it!