Aste's unique product manager business model - 5 benefits

What is the Product Manager business model?

Aste’s unique product manager operating model means that all employees have the same title: product manager. The job title of a product manager can therefore be a graphic designer, service designer or UI/UX designer, for example.

Maija Vaara, who works as a copywriter at Aste, admits that the approach felt strange at first, until it became clear how important it meant.

“A lot of marketing agencies really emphasise the junior and senior copywriter titles, but when I came to Aste, everyone was at the same level. After a while I realised that that’s the thing and the beauty of it.”

Learn more: Trust and cooperation make Aste Helsinki one of the best places to work in Finland

You don’t want to hide your enthusiasm and potential behind titles

In practice, product responsibility means that each employee takes responsibility for his or her own projects and for communication with the customer.

Product managers form multidisciplinary and self-directed teams around customer needs. The aim is to keep the organisational hierarchy as low as possible.

All employees have their own agreed job descriptions, but the product manager model allows for flexibility. This is important, as the enthusiasm and potential of experts is not hidden behind titles, but instead they are encouraged to develop their own skills.

“In marketing planning, for example, it’s really important that the copywriter and AD work seamlessly together, where the boundaries between the plots sometimes even blur. The best results are achieved when you dare to present your own ideas without fear of stepping on someone else’s toes,” says Maija Vaara.

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Five benefits of the Product Manager approach:

The Product Manager model emphasises the values that are important to Aste: efficiency, working together, courage and trust.

1. Significance

The company’s low hierarchy makes for a comfortable working environment, and makes employees feel responsible and meaningful. Employees are treated equally and management is excellent at listening to and responding to their needs. The company has a really good team spirit and work ethic.

2. Efficiency

Aste’s product manager model reduces middlemen and distributes responsibility to the authors. Everyone shares responsibility for actively removing barriers to information flow, developing straightforward procedures and using tools that improve process efficiency.

3. A strong partnership

Aste aims to create an open and mutually beneficial partnership with its customers. We want you to do business with us smoothly and easily. The best way to achieve this is for customers to have direct contact with our experts, without any intermediaries.

4. Courage

Courage helps us and our customers to succeed and grow. Courage is looking at opportunities without prejudice and having the courage to stick to your decisions. Product responsibility encourages everyone to improve what we do together and to improve where there is room for improvement.

5. Trust and confidence

Trust is the starting point for all good cooperation. In the Product Manager model, both individual experts and teams of experts are given a lot of responsibility and trusted to get the job done right. When projects are managed together, this further strengthens trust between employee and employer, and with customers.

Text: Maija Vaara, Aste Helsinki

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