CC:World Blog – Gérard Métrailler

April 1, 2025April 1, 2025

GenAI for Business Leaders: Strategic Lever or Cognitive Trap?

Generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs), such as GPT-4o, have swiftly revolutionized our work dynamics. They have emerged as indispensable business tools, reshaping the modern corporate landscape. These advanced AI systems promise transformative benefits, driving unparalleled productivity, innovation, and profitability. Despite the complex challenges that come with their adoption, companies embracing GenAI are on the brink of a transformative era. The success of this journey hinges on intentional oversight, robust governance frameworks, and a strategic balance between automation and human judgment. How prepared is your organization to harness the full potential of this transformative era?

January 31, 2025January 31, 2025

Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Why Leaders Need a Systems Mindset

Leading a business is like running a control center. Every switch, gauge, and flashing red light represents decisions, external forces, and a network of human relationships. It’s tempting to jump from crisis to crisis, putting out fires. But without stepping back to see the whole system, leaders risk missing the bigger picture. Problems persist, and root causes remain untouched.

Systems thinking shifts focus from firefighting to foresight. It reveals hidden bottlenecks, delays, and inefficiencies. It helps leaders make smarter decisions by understanding how changes ripple across an organization.

My introduction to systems thinking came when I decided to attend an elective course at university. What I learned about seeing the bigger picture and inter-connectedness has shaped my thinking ever since. This mindset has helped me always consider how decisions ripple through organizations over time.

March 1, 2023March 8, 2023

Time to go beyond Product-Led Growth – think Customer Journey

In recent years, PLG, or Product-Led Growth, has become a significant buzz in the tech world, and rightfully so. Products that delight customers and fuel growth loops are essential. If your offering can’t deliver considerable value to your users, if your product isn’t resolving major pain-points, or isn’t providing big WOWs over the alternatives where it matters, then you’ve got (lots of) work ahead. But with the rise of digital channels, customers interact with businesses in multiple ways that drive the overall experience. Only focusing on the product or go-to-market-led growth is no longer enough – it’s time to prioritize the whole Customer Journey (CJ).

It isn’t about Product-Led, OR Sales-Led, OR Marketing-Led Growth. It’s all the above simultaneously. It’s about Customer-Led Growth. It’s about delivering an end-to-end experience at every touchpoint of the customer life cycle that feels like one, delighting the user at every step.

July 28, 2022July 28, 2022

Leveraging Lean Startup in established organizations

As organizations mature and become more complex, aversion to risk increases, resulting in a slow decision process. Yet the world around is not standing still, and the speed of change continues to accelerate. Nimble young businesses, who live by the Lean Startup approach of building, measuring, and learning, move from nothing to a product customers love in what appears, from an established company perspective at least, virtually no time.

If both have strategic clarity around the vision, startups leave established organizations in the rear-view mirror because they optimize for simplicity and velocity. Startups practice the lean methodology to avoid spending time on things that ultimately won’t deliver value. They prevent waste by learning early and quickly where they are wrong.

May 4, 2022May 4, 2022

V1 innovation within a V+1 org

Startups are optimized towards launching version 1.0 offerings, identifying product-market fit, and putting in place the best go-to-market organization to attract new customers. Once the “magic” happens (or should I say the challenging work pays off), when users and products find each other in a happy place, the growth loops evolve towards retention in addition to the original focus purely on acquisition. As the company matures, there is a natural tendency to increasingly drive the business towards delivering incremental products, focusing on the existing target audiences. After all, that’s where the revenue has come from historically, so why not concentrate the R&D and go-to-market investments on what we know best and minimize financial risks? Larger companies sometimes have a hard time going after something unproven that will take investing multiple years to become a meaningful part of the revenue. It could even take market share away from existing offerings!

March 9, 2022March 9, 2022

Where in the org is Product Marketing?

As companies evolve, they (sometimes) take the time to reflect on the best teams’ structure to achieve their strategies and goals. For most groups, the roles and responsibilities are self-contained within that function. For example, while the sales team organization to deliver the expected results might change significantly over time, from an inside-sales structure to heavy OEM or direct-to-consumer focus, the boundaries remain within “sales” – I can’t name any examples of companies beyond the Seed stage where the R&D leader manages the enterprise sales team. Yet, for one role, defining its location in the org-chart is not as clear… and that challenge is fundamentally described in the function name: Product Marketing.

May 10, 2021May 10, 2021

It’s not your opinion, it’s your expertise that matters

Everyone has plenty of them, and sadly, many of us are not afraid of sharing them regularly. Not only that, but they often have absolutely no relation with reality. Problematically, the more authoritative your position, the more significant their effect. Yes, I’m referring to opinions. Yet ultimately, what matters is expertise, not opinions.

May 8, 2017March 1, 2021

Product-Management Mastery: It takes (at least) 3

I’ve had the immense privilege of working with highly talented product managers over the years. I’ve also shared paths with others who still had a long and tumultuous path ahead of them as they struggle to master their craft. If I’ve discovered anything, it’s that product management is part art, part craft and part science.

While I’ve argued previously that product managers do nothing and there are as many definitions of the product manager’s role as there are products and companies, we all strive—or, at least, should be striving—to master our craft. The journey itself toward what I’ll call Mastery in Product Management is hugely rewarding, each product manager should have his or her own understanding of what mastery is in their field and how to recognize when they have achieved that level. This is my take on it.

May 20, 2016December 5, 2020