For some of those who do not know, Ethan Stiles is the vice president of product for Food at the Starbucks Coffee Company. In a span of 15 years, Ethan has worked in business strategy and product roles globally at different sets of companies like that of Samsung Electronics, McKinsey & Company, Group Health Cooperative, and AT&T Wireless.
When Ethan was at Starbucks, he has delivered compounded growth to the company year on year. He was the one responsible for the launching of the Pink Drink and Ombre Pink Drink which got the millennial generation goes gaga. Furthermore, Ethan was able to determine the root causes for underperformance and implemented a new strategy that achieved a 20%+ volume growth in a declining category, this turned around the Starbucks VIA product line.
For a brief background, Ethan Stiles earned an A.B. Economics from Harvard University and a Masters in Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. Ethan is also available for speaking and writing engagements and is interested in board opportunities.
Ethan Stiles specializes in four major areas; these are product management, profit and loss leadership, organizational development and business strategy. Below are some ideas on what these areas are and this affects your organization:
On product management:
In general, product management is the practice of tactically driving the development, the market launch, and the continuous improvement and support of a company’s product. A product management job entails the duty to strategize and arrive at tactics so as to increase the market share of an existing product, or to put into market a newly developed product. This is, however, a big task that not one person can accommodate, however, the product manager is the one who will determine what is best in terms of product management.
Of course, this decision is not just based on gut feel; this requires a lot of research. Through these researches, the product management professionals will be able to determine the market of the company, the user personas, and its current and prospective competitions. After determining the sufficient basic industry information required, and then the product management professional cans start to shape his knowledge into a strategic plan either for an existing product or for a newly developed product. This strategy includes the goals and objectives, broad-strokes bird’s eye view of the product itself, and may even come up with a rough timeline.
After such a strategy is approved, then these plans will now be coordinated with the relevant teams to put the plan into fruition, like the product marketing team, development, etc. After product building, testing and market introduction, the job of the product professional will now determine what works, what doesn’t, and what to improve based on the collected data and direct feedback from users. After that, the core team will again be called upon to work within the incorporation of the feedback into the future duplications of the product.
On profit and loss of leadership:
The profit and loss responsibility is one of the most crucial executive positions. This type of responsibility comes with the monitoring of the net income after expenses per department or business unit level, and the organization as a whole, with a direct influence on how the company resources are to be allocated.
Persons who are responsible for the P&L often have the final approval on what projects to approve or reject based on its return on investment and are also required to continuously find ways to drive down costs without having to compromise product quality.
The profit and loss are highly regarded when it comes to executive recruitment which holds true in multi-million or multi-billion dollar organizations. Managing a company’s net income is no easy task. It takes a person with broad experience to be able to make sound decisions and maintain a company’s profitability and sustain its place in the market.
On organizational development:
As a consequence of a rapidly changing environment, one of the important advantages for an organization is the ability to manage these changes and to make sure that your manpower remains to be healthy and trustworthy.
By definition, organizational development is the endeavor to encourage the members of an organization to expand their sincerity with each other about their views of the organization and their experience in it and to take greater accountability for their own actions as organization members.
In organizational development, the practitioners are sometimes considered to be organizational physicians who intend to improve the effectiveness of an organization.
On business strategy:
A Business strategy is an organization’s high-level plan in reaching specific targets and objectives. These plans are successful it contributes to the growth of the business, establishing a strong competitive position, and strong financial performance. Should this high-level strategy flunks, this will depend on its impact to the business, if it can still be remedied, the organization can adapt to a new approach, but if the outcome is severe, this can lead to the organization going out of business.
There should be clear cut targets and plans and back up plans should in the process of execution, some parts of the plan will not succeed. A business strategist holds a very crucial role in the advancement of an organization because it will be his skills that will contribute to how the business plans are going to turn out.
A company thrives not only because of its name or legacy but on the people behind it. Should your business needs a push upward, Ethan Stiles is one of the people equipped to help you develop goals, sustain your growth, and get your manpower in check to make sure they are also aligned with the organization’s values and visions.
It is very important for an organization to be able to determine the weak and strong points of your organization so that there will be reconciliation towards compromise or a change in directives. The track record that Ethan Stiles possesses makes him a suitable person to provide you with sound decisions that should contribute to the progress of your organization.
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