I am the COO of Loma Bank, but my experience as a Product Manager shines ever so often. I remember one time when a straightforward task turned into a balancing act I hadn’t fully anticipated.
So we needed to create a new feature for our mobile app — a feature customers had been asking for—but also one that needed to be in sync with our business goals and regulations. It was one of those defining moments that taught me that product management is not merely about executing tasks; it’s about navigating the intersection between customer needs, market demands, and what the business needs.
I think this journey of learning to blend vision with reality is something every product manager needs to learn because it is one of the most important points of my career.
As a product manager, you’re essentially the bridge between what customers desire and what the business aims to achieve. You have to listen to your users, understand their pain points, and let these insights inform the kind of product or solutions you create.
But you’re also accountable to the business side, ensuring that each feature or update adds measurable value and moves the company toward its goals. At Fintava, where I’m the Chief Product Officer, I have continued to learn how to maintain this balance.
Every decision I make isn’t just about adding functionality but about delivering impact—keeping one eye on customer satisfaction and the other on business growth.
In fact, I think effective product management is truly an art form. You need to be intentional and collaborative about execution. You also have to be prepared to adjust course when things don’t go as planned.
So how did I go about balancing customer needs vs company needs? I don’t have a complete hang of it yet but I’ll try and give you something to work with.
Balancing customer needs vs company needs as a product manager
I understand the excitement of new ideas and how can get about developing new products. But a successful product vision goes beyond brainstorming sessions; it’s about understanding what the customer truly needs and how that fits within the company’s goals.
Let me give you a scenario: Loma Bank customers wanted faster loan processing times, which seemed like a straightforward goal. But we also had to consider the bank’s priorities: minimising risk and maximising profitability.
The first is creating a product roadmap and it’s often where vision meets reality.
One thing I’ve learned through these experiences is that a good product roadmap isn’t set in stone. It should be flexible enough to adapt to shifting customer needs and market trends.
Keeping an open feedback loop with users, stakeholders, and cross-functional teams ensures that the vision remains aligned with real-world needs. It’s this flexibility that keeps a product relevant and allows it to grow in a way that stays true to both the customer and the business.
The next step which is the harder part of executing what you have in your product roadmap. I had to work closely with engineering to streamline the application process while ensuring the compliance team could still perform the necessary checks.
We broke down the project into smaller, manageable phases, starting with automation for initial loan approvals based on specific risk criteria. By working closely with both departments, we created a flow that significantly sped up the process for low-risk applications, without compromising the bank’s risk management goals.
Throughout the execution, we had to remain flexible and ready to adapt. As we implemented these changes, new challenges emerged, particularly around data accuracy and security. Ensuring that the automated system could accurately assess each application required adjustments to our algorithms and additional testing phases.
To address these without losing momentum, we brought in quality assurance early on to identify potential issues before rollout.
We also held regular cross-functional meetings to keep everyone aligned and promptly address concerns. This collaborative approach allowed us to roll out a faster, more reliable loan processing feature that aligned with both customer needs and the bank’s objectives, proving that with the right execution strategy, it’s possible to balance speed with stability and trust.
Obviously, the actual process is a lot more difficult than the picture that I’ve painted here, but the crux of the matter is it is a balance and knowing this will help you create a process for whatever product or feature you want to build.
Perhaps in subsequent articles, I’ll delve deeper into maintaining these balancing acts with projects I’ve worked on in the past.
