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Product consultants help you generate new ideas, optimize resource allocation, and develop products that increase user satisfaction.
But what is a product consultant exactly? When do businesses need one?
Product consultants are professionals who advise businesses on the development, strategy, and positioning of products—essentially helping them achieve their unique goals and stand out in the competitive business landscape.
Think of it like this: You wouldn’t build a house without an architect, would you? While you technically could, you would risk design errors, security issues, and even costly mistakes—and the same applies to product development.
While consultants are commonly involved during the initial development stages, their expertise can also be used to optimize existing products to address any shortcomings.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a deeper look at what product consulting entails, how it compares to other services like product management, and more.
Understanding the Concept of Product Consulting
Now that we know what a product consultant is, the next question is: What are their key responsibilities?
Since enhancing product development is complex and far from linear, here are some of the tasks product consultants typically handle:
- Market validation: Is there a demand for your product or service? Product consultants will help your company test and validate a concept within your target market—before committing valuable resources to its development.
- Customer discovery: What are your target audiences’ pain points? Goals? Consultants talk to potential customers to better understand their specific needs so you can develop a product they truly want.
- Feature prioritization: Which features should you implement first? Product consultants assess the needs of your target audience and help you determine the order in which different features or functionalities should be implemented to achieve the greatest value.
- MVP scoping: Which features should your minimum viable product include? Consultants determine the key functionalities that your MVP requires—using the insights from feature prioritization to define the smallest, most impactful set of features needed to validate your concept and gather meaningful user feedback.
- Product strategy: What is the best approach to bring your product to market? Consultants help you define the “why,” “what,” and “how” of a product, considering factors like goals, budget, and the needs of your target audience to shape product strategies.
- Prototypes and wireframes: Want to validate your idea with users before full-scale development? Product consultants build prototypes to help companies gather feedback and refine their concepts, thereby identifying issues early and reducing project risk.
Overall, the role of new product consulting is to guide businesses through the early, high-impact phases of building a digital product. Consultants help businesses clarify their vision, identify real user problems, and align product goals with market demand—all before writing a single line of code.
Even more, consultants ensure businesses leverage the latest technologies to increase efficiency, create more personalized solutions, and stay ahead of the competition. With AI product development, you can automate and optimize various stages of the development process—helping you bring high-quality products to market faster.
And if your product is already launched, don’t worry—product development advisors can also support you after release. They do so by evaluating the performance of your product, identifying areas for improvement, and ultimately increasing the likelihood of your product’s success.
With Scopic’s product consulting services, we’ll help you define what to build, why it matters, and how to do it. Our experienced Senior Product Manager, Kyron Beckx, discusses his work with clients:
“As a product consultant, I work with founders and teams to turn early ideas into structured, executable plans. A lot of my focus is on helping clients make smarter decisions upfront – clarifying what to build, why it matters, and how it fits into their business. I’ve supported teams building new platforms from scratch, refining existing tools, and navigating messy handovers or legacy systems.
In most cases, the real value comes from asking better questions early, aligning the product with business goals, and making sure the team has the clarity and confidence to move forward.”
Product Consulting Vs. Product Development Vs. Product Management: What Are the Differences?
Knowing the difference between product development vs. consulting, and how each compares to product management, is key to understanding which service your company needs and when.
To set the stage, product consulting lays the groundwork, product development executes it, and product management sustains and evolves the product over time. All 3 of these services are critical, with top software consulting companies leading the process with valuable insights and guidance.
Product Consulting
By now we have a clear understanding of the role and responsibilities of a product consultant—from market validation and customer discovery to product strategy and more. In essence, product development advisors take a great idea and ensure it becomes a successful, market-ready product that meets customer needs and drives business growth.
Top AI consulting companies have experience across industries and applications, staying up to date with the latest technologies to ensure their guidance remains effective in an ever-evolving market.
This guidance goes way beyond opinions—their consulting relies on research and data-backed decisions to ensure everything is accounted for and nothing is overlooked.
Product Development
Product development is the process of creating and launching a product, encompassing everything from initial ideation to final release. The insights provided by consultants can help guide this process, acting as a strong foundation for development.
While there are many services that product developers provide, here are their key responsibilities:
- UX/UI design: Great product design is essential for creating a user-friendly, engaging experience that attracts and retains users. With 88% of online consumers less likely to return to a site after a bad experience, it’s clear that UX/UI design is a critical part of product development.
- Technology stack selection: Choosing the right tools and technologies is key to building a secure, scalable, and successful product. Developers consider factors like your project’s needs, current market conditions, and budget before creating a tech stack.
- Front-end development: The goal of front-end development is to create an engaging, user-friendly application. This involves focusing on elements like text size, colors, images, buttons, and interactive features—essentially everything users see and interact with.
- Back-end development: Back-end development focuses on the server side of applications. It involves everything required to build and maintain the parts of an application that process data and perform actions, forming the essential “behind the scenes” backbone of the entire operation.
Product Management
Product management is the practice of overseeing a product’s lifecycle, from defining the vision and strategy to guiding development and ensuring it meets customer and business needs. Overall, a product manager’s role is to maximize the value of a product, with efficient cross-team collaboration a key part of their responsibilities.
By acting as the bridge between different departments—including development, sales, and marketing—they help ensure everyone is aligned with the product vision, priorities, and goals.
While commonly mistaken for a project manager—which typically monitors task completion, communicates progress to stakeholders, and oversees day-to-day execution—product managers are more involved in researching and developing a strategic plan for the product.
How Do Product Development Consultants Help My Business
Launching a successful web application is far from easy, but with the help of a product development advisor, you can create a product that stands out in the market.
Here’s how an experienced consultant can assist you:
- Clarify ideas: Your company may have a thousand great ideas, but without a comprehensive strategy, they often remain unrealized potential rather than tangible results. Consultants perform in-depth research, define your company’s long-term goals, and develop actionable plans to bring those ideas to life.
- Plan smarter: Through market analysis and strategic planning, consultants provide data-driven insights that help businesses optimize their products and stand out in their industry.
- Reduce risks: Consultants help you identify, assess, and mitigate potential problems throughout the product lifecycle. They also create plans to ensure compliance and recommend effective risk mitigation strategies.
- Save time and money: With application and web development consulting, you can reduce costly errors, create smarter strategies that save you money, and respond faster to market changes—resulting in a higher ROI.
When Should I Hire Product Development Consultants
Most commonly, consultants are hired early in the product lifecycle to assist businesses that have an idea but lack clarity, direction, or validation. In addition to guiding the strategy before development starts, they can also step in and help improve existing products.
In other words, there are various situations and stages when consulting product development can be beneficial. But since we know that’s somewhat of a vague answer, here are some telltale signs you require assistance from a consultant.
- You don’t understand the needs of your users.
- Your product isn’t gaining traction.
- You lack the expertise needed to handle a particular project.
- You want to improve operational efficiency.
- You’re facing tight deadlines.
- You’re unsure whether AI or other technologies could enhance your product.
- You want to ensure compliance.
- You have an idea and have no clue where to start (which is totally okay!).
- You want to test an idea before full-scale development.
Conclusion
Now that we’ve discussed what is a product consultant, how their services compare to other solutions, and when businesses should seek their expertise, you’re better prepared to take the next step in engaging a product consultant to help bring your ideas to life.
At Scopic, our comprehensive product consulting services help fast-track your product’s success. In fact, we offer a variety of services, from consulting to product management, to ensure every stage of your product lifecycle is optimized for maximum value.
Contact us today to learn how our team can assist you.
About New Product Consulting Guide
This guide was authored by Baily Ramsey, and reviewed by Alessandra Papini, Strategic Sales Manager at Scopic.
Scopic provides quality and informative content, powered by our deep-rooted expertise in software development. Our team of content writers and experts have great knowledge in the latest software technologies, allowing them to break down even the most complex topics in the field. They also know how to tackle topics from a wide range of industries, capture their essence, and deliver valuable content across all digital platforms.
Note: This blog’s images are sourced from Freepik.
