Making the case for product in a cost-conscious environment

If you’re in upstream oil and gas, highlight the operational cost of downtime and the premium on speed. In that context, product teams aren’t a structural change — they’re a competitive advantage. They reduce handoffs, resolve issues faster and get solutions in the field when they matter most. 

One SaaS company embraced product thinking to improve internal IT service. A cross-functional product team launched a suite of self-service AI tools that deflected 43% of help desk tickets, saving millions annually. They tracked and published those savings on a dashboard each month, using it to validate the model and expand adoption. The initial investment — training, tooling and role changes — was quickly eclipsed by the returns. 

Another client, a global manufacturer, built a product team around pricing. By rolling out real-time pricing that charged premiums for peak delivery windows, they boosted revenue per order by hundreds of basis points. Because the team was cross-functional and empowered to move quickly, they delivered the innovation in half the time it would have taken under a traditional project model.