Navigating with data: inside the role of a Product Owner

At Zaptec, a Product Owner (PO) owns a product, physical or digital, from the first idea to the finished solution. They carry responsibility for performance, quality, and long-term development, ensuring the product supports Zaptec’s overall strategy.

The role means setting a clear vision, defining and prioritising the backlog, and balancing new features with product health and continuous improvement. The PO is the main point of contact for the product, the one who knows the specifications, understands the “why” behind design choices, and makes sure the right things are built and improved.

A PO faces many decisions, often without knowing what’s truly right. Should we optimise production to reduce COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold)? Fix a bug reported by Support? Update for new compliance requirements? Or develop a new feature that could increase sales?

There’s rarely a clear answer. However, what we can do is build a strong foundation of data, so that every decision has the highest possible chance of benefiting the product, the company, and the end-user.

A PO works with highly skilled developers and production specialists, supported by resources across the organisation. Close dialogue with Support brings insight into real customer issues, while collaboration with production and suppliers builds understanding of quality, cost, and risk.

In a young and rapidly evolving industry, much of the learning occurs along the way. That’s why data-driven decisions serve as a compass, helping us navigate through uncertainty.

To make sound judgments, we gather data from several sources:

• Production systems
• ERP systems
• Support systems
• Our own product data analysed in Power BI

Together, these datasets provide a comprehensive view of product health, performance, and real-world usage.

One of the key metrics we track is First Pass Yield (FPY) – the share of units that pass through production without errors or rework. FPY = (“units passing without faults” / “total units produced”) × 100%

A high FPY indicates stable production and strong process control. We follow these numbers on a weekly basis, looking for trends or deviations.

We also measure test times and continually assess the extent of testing required. For instance, if a sub-test hasn’t failed across 10,000 units, does it still make sense to run it? Removing it could save 20 seconds per unit. At scale, that’s a significant gain –without compromising quality.

ERP systems provide insight into stock levels, sales, and installation rates. This information is crucial for managing obsolescence, which occurs when components reach the end of their life.

A well-timed PO decision is to replace a component before the warehouse runs empty. But replacements aren’t always straightforward. Some affect functionality, require re-testing or re-certification, and can extend timelines by months.

That’s where data on lifetime, consumption, and risk become essential for planning ahead.

The Support team is a goldmine of insight. Through weekly meetings, we review the most critical cases for each product.

By combining this with data – how often an issue occurs, how many units are affected, and in which markets – we can prioritise what truly impacts the most customers.

It provides us with an objective basis for action, rather than relying on instinct or isolated incidents.

Beyond operational systems, we maintain our own product datasets, which include diagnostic data uploaded directly from the field. A PO’s job is to identify which signals actually matter: the ones that reflect quality and performance.

That might include:

• Temperature and current readings
• How often the unit resets
• Communication errors or voltage deviations

We analyse these together with developers to gain deeper insight into how the product performs in real conditions.

But product data isn’t only about spotting faults. It also helps us identify which features are genuinely used and the real value they bring.

By studying usage patterns, we can ask:

• How often is a new feature activated?
• Which markets or segments use it most?
• Was the development effort worth the investment compared with other proposed improvements?

This kind of insight is invaluable when planning future development. It helps us balance innovation with impact, ensuring our time and capacity are directed toward features that create the most value for customers and have the most substantial long-term effect on the product.

I’m responsible for a load-balancing product that needs to work in every country where Zaptec operates. In many markets, it has to integrate with the customer’s existing smart meter.

The data we receive from these meters is crucial to understanding which protocols are used and what we need to develop to ensure seamless integration.

Without this data, the process would be like navigating in the dark: high risk and slow progress.

Being a Product Owner isn’t about delivering features for the sake of it. It’s about steering a product through complexity, using insight as your guide.

In a world where change is constant, data is the closest thing we have to a compass. It helps us make better decisions, understand consequences, and build products that endure, valuable to both the company and the people who use them.