The Makings of a Synchronized, Customer-Driven Approach to Product Strategy
Editor’s Note: This article explores the benefits of a unified, customer-driven approach to product strategy with insights from Aaron Pribil, a seasoned expert with over two decades of experience. Recently joining HaystackID as a Product Manager, Pribil discusses his journey into eDiscovery and his approach on aligning product development with client needs. Pribil shares how stakeholder objectives can lead to long-term success and discusses HaystackID Core and how this offering helps eDiscovery practitioners with their matters of all sizes. This piece highlights the necessity of thorough planning, stakeholder alignment, and continuous client feedback plays a key role in developing products that truly make an impact.
By HaystackID Staff
Many companies race to innovate and be the “first” to solve a hairy challenge for their customers with new products or technologies. The all too common but detrimental issue is that they often do so without conducting thorough due diligence. Prioritizing quick development over careful planning and research is a fast track to failure, especially with 34% of small businesses closing their doors due to a lack of proper product-market fit.
“Companies face intense pressure to innovate and push boundaries, but when you do that too often and quickly, you have half-baked products. They’re essentially vaporware,” said Aaron Pribil, Product Manager, HaystackID. “HaystackID has a unique approach to product development, one rooted in helping solve our client’s complex data challenges.”
With more than 20 years of industry experience, Pribil recently joined the HaystackID team and plans to continue elevating how we serve our clients so they are well-equipped to tackle today’s pressing data challenges and what’s to come.
Furthering HaystackID’s Approach to Customer-Centric Data Discovery
Starting his career as a fraud analyst and software tester in the early 2000s, Pribil soon made his way into legal tech and working with clients to make sense of their data. From providing eDiscovery training to establishing product leadership, Pribil has forged a successful career and has seen what differentiates the market leaders from the market laggards. The core differentiator comes down to knowing your clients.
“You have to know what makes your clients tick. To know that, you have to get feedback from them regularly, especially in an industry like ours that is changing quickly,” Pribil said. “Working in product lets me do what I like to do, which is looking at complex issues and finding the best path to a solution.”
Pribil‘s approach to product strategy mirrors our approach to data discovery—focusing on our clients and arming them with the tools and solutions that directly meet their challenges. In a recent article, HaystackID’s President Andrea Wallack said, “We believe that the customer journey is the cornerstone of our success. By walking alongside our clients every step of the way, we build lasting partnerships founded on trust, expertise, and a shared commitment to navigating the complexities of data discovery.”
Addressing the Core Challenge
Rather than innovating for innovation‘s sake, we have a long legacy of building solutions that help our clients meet their goals, as evident through HaystackID Core®. Our three primary offerings—HaystackID Core Standard (SaaS, PaaS), HaystackID Core Plus (PaaS, IaaS), and HaystackID Managed Core (Tasks, Projects, Programs)—deliver the appropriate eDiscovery power and precision to corporations, law firms, and consultancies. From solving and managing targeted collection, discovery, and review challenges to getting support for your cybersecurity needs, legal departments experience substantial ROI from HaystackID Core, from cost recovery to external revenue generation.
“With HaystackID Core, we help our clients take what they do to the next level and make eDiscovery processes more streamlined and efficient,” said Pribil. “They can integrate HaystackID Core into their existing workforces while we provide them with better experiences so they can focus on work that drives an impact.”
Achieving Consensus: The Cornerstone of Effective Product Strategy
Like most things in business and life—from what you and your friend watch on Netflix to your product roadmap—you need alignment. Having consensus around what you aim to achieve is not a mere nice to have, especially with 44% of projects failing from a lack of alignment between business and project objectives. In his role as Product Manager, Pribil works diligently to ensure he understands every stakeholder’s key objectives to inform the product strategy.
“I have aggressive goals of what I want to achieve to continue providing an unparalleled experience for our clients,” said Pribil. “But, I can‘t accomplish that in a silo; I spend a lot of my time working with different stakeholders throughout HaystackID to understand what they are trying to achieve so we can align on our goal and walk in lockstep toward driving value for our clients.”
Reaching alignment comes down to knowing your audience. A Chief Security Officer will be laser-focused on mitigating risk and maintaining data integrity, while a Chief Client Experience Officer’s line of questioning may be around how any product updates impact a user’s workflow. Being well-versed in stakeholder principal concerns is only one piece of the puzzle, according to Pribil. A successful product strategy entails talking to our clients to get their direct feedback on what is working and what they need to do their jobs more effectively.
“Building products from the inside out, meaning you don’t integrate your clients into your process, won’t give you the outcome you’re looking for,” Pribil explained. “The way you drive real value for your clients and for your company is by building transparent relationships with your clients so they give you feedback that helps you build a better product that addresses the exact issues they experience.”
Pribil’s dedication and experience in building a synchronized approach to product strategy is imperative. Practitioners face intense pressure to deliver faster than ever, while experiencing unprecedented data challenges that seem to evolve daily from the influx of mobile data to AI innovations. With a customer-centric approach, however, HaystackID will help our clients ensure that they position themselves to thrive in the here and now, and whatever is to come.
Safeguarding Your Data
In our data-driven world, one challenge every organization has on their radar is staving off cybercriminals and keeping their data secure. Sometimes, however, a data breach is inevitable and what organizations do immediately after this incident can determine their future. Learn actionable strategies for successful incident response and PII recovery after a data breach during our May 29 webcast with industry experts. Learn more and register here.
Assisted by GAI and LLM technologies.
Source: HaystackID