Strategy & Team Dynamics: Diversified Product Portfolio

How it Shapes Culture and Team Dynamics

If you are lucky enough to work in a company with a diversified product and/or services portfolio, you’ll never be bored. Lots of products, mean lots of opportunity for you and your team. I personally prefer a larger company with more products, it means more interesting work.

Admittedly, there aren’t too many small to medium sized companies that have lots of diverse things to sell, but it’s worth diving into this strategic approach to see how it shapes culture and team dynamics. And by the way, we are talking both volume, and diversification. Great examples would be Amazon and Apple, both which have branched out into different products.

Keep in mind, that it might not always be the case that a diversified strategy turns out this way, but in my experience, these are some things to consider.

The Diversified-Strategy Company

Working in a company, managing teams where there are a lot of products can seem exciting. Multiple products, lots of different markets and endless opportunity for innovation and growth.

But what does this mean in terms of culture?

🏢. Silo’s: You will likely find silo’d teams each laser focussed on their own product goals and milestones. This is great, except it can hinder cross-collaboration as teams become too myopic. As the team leader you need to be the glue and facilitate cross team comms as needed.

⚔️. Competing Goals and Priorities: Each product line will usually have its own roadmap, project delivery plans and budgets so there will be competition for shared resources. There may also be the usual politics around certain products vying for attention from shared groups like sales and marketing. Everyone wants to make a splash!

💡Innovative: naturally, innovation sits high on the agenda for these sorts of companies, which tends to create cultures that are dynamic, open and driven by expansion. Although they still juggle business risks, it is reduced since they spread their eggs across many baskets enabling them the ability to think and create with greater freedom than a focussed company, like BrewDog or Patagonia.

Let’s analyse the diversified strategy company in the context of the 3Ps Framework.