You are absolutely right ! Been there, done that for 10+ years in a global business environment, and currently offering this as a service for companies who don't have the skills in-house.
What you described is the role of Product Management in a (software) product development environment: to act as the intermediary between the "business" (users, general management, marketing, sales, finance, and who knows else...) and the development team. Consolidate the business requirements, match these against (corporate) strategy, and work closely with the development team to translate the results into technological solutions.
Based on my experience, in many companies this is an underestimated, or even totally ignored part of product development. But, if implemented well, it leads to quicker development cycles, higher quality software, and feature-sets that meet or even exceed the expectations of the end-users. As a result:
- developers feel more valued, as they deliver products that are highly appreciated
- sales and marketing feel better, as the products they asked for meet their clients' needs
- general management is happy, as the above will lead to higher revenues and lower costs
and most importantly
- clients will be impressed with how well you address their needs, and spend more money with you !
To do this right, you need professionals who have the skills to understand / interpret business needs, as well as how technology can be applied to address these. This is a challenging task in a project for a single company, more challenging when you're talking about a single country, multi-client (commercial) application, and a potential nightmare if you're dealing with a (large) number of clients across multiple countries.
People who can do this well are rare, but worth their weight in gold ! With their support, a development team can decrease time-to-market, improve quality, and start to truly deliver on customers' needs.
Erwin Bergsma
Managing Director - Global Retail Business Solutions Ltd