User Needs vs. Business Goals: Finding the Perfect Middle Ground

Product managers and leaders may often find themselves juggling between fulfilling user needs and business goals when they don’t align. What users want might, at times, be at odds with the company’s goals and directions.

There could be new shareholders coming on board, a shift in focus towards a different market segment, or a drive towards higher profit margins. Bear in mind that profitability isn’t always directly linked to delivering on user needs and product design. There are other factors at play, such as available resources, funding, market dynamics, pricing, competition, and timing.

Hence, product leaders and teams can be user-obsessed, but they need to understand the brutal realities of running a business. So, how do you strike the right balance for your product team and avoid constantly getting pulled into different directions?

I’ll outline several practical strategies for balancing user needs with broader business objectives. By striking the right balance, you can still deliver value to your customers and the company’s bottom line.

Thus, the art of persuading and managing stakeholders is crucial for your business or startup. Part of the work that I do with my clients is to shape and strengthen their product strategies, which is not just for creating user-centric products but also to gain stakeholder approval. Based on my consulting experience, here are a few tried and tested methods for winning over your stakeholders or investors.

1. Embed Business Objectives into the User Experience

Focusing on users is crucial throughout the product lifecycle. Let’s make that clear first.

However, product leaders should also stay anchored to larger business objectives—whether that’s driving growth, improving operational efficiency, or winning market share—while keeping in mind that objectives can change over time.

The solution is to embed business goals within the user experience itself. Can you design an experience that delights users while also encouraging deeper brand loyalty, delivering upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and reducing user churn?

Think of key places in the user journey where you can introduce product upgrade plans or related services that can boost revenue. Or build a highly personalised user experience to make users more dependent on your product so that it’s much easier to convince them to upgrade.

2. Prioritise Ruthlessly

One of the hardest tasks for product leaders is to deliver products that serve users’ needs and business goals on tight timelines with limited resources or budget.

You’ll need to ruthlessly prioritise—focusing on high-impact initiatives and reducing low-impact activities. This means making tough decisions such as cancelling projects that don’t align with the long-term vision or strategy.

You can use the Impact-Effort matrix or the RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) method, which provides a more structured approach to prioritisation. Be mindful of feature creep, where product teams try to fulfil a lot of user requests, making the product complicated and bloated and losing focus on what truly matters.

3. Use Data to Your Advantage

Data is the evidence that connects user needs with business goals. You should utilise both quantitative and qualitative data to prove how the user experience is contributing to business objectives.

Study data on user behaviours, such as the most used feature, where users are dropping off, and how they interact with the product. These insights can then be cross-referenced with business goals, such as customer acquisition costs (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLTV), average revenue per user (ARPU), and user churn rates. By doing so, you can see where user needs and business goals intersect and where they start to diverge.

Meanwhile, qualitative data from user interviews, focus groups, and customer feedback can help teams understand the “why” behind user behaviours. By pairing this feedback with solid metrics, you will have a complete picture of how you are addressing user needs and business goals.

4. Iteration Is the Way to Play the Long Game

In business, things can change rapidly. Product leaders must be willing to pivot when necessary, adapting their product to meet changing market conditions and consumer trends. This is why you should approach product design and development as an iterative process.

Design itself is a continuous process, where you’re constantly trying to perfect the product. By doing things in an iterative fashion, you’ll get to pause, observe, test, and improve the product and discover the sweet spot that satisfies both customer and business needs. You’ll also reduce any product and business risks by taking more calculated steps based on user feedback and cold, hard data.

5. Strike a Balance Between Design and Financial Goals

It’s tempting to pepper your product with various call-to-actions (CTAs), flashy marketing messages, and revenue-making elements to try and lift key business metrics. However, you’ll just overwhelm your users and drive them away. Don’t be tempted to over-optimise the product by adding features that overcomplicate the product.

This is where you need to be smart about how you bundle your products and services into an attractive package and design your product. You can still achieve your sales target through focused simplicity. By concentrating on a primary CTA and removing clutter, you can gently guide users towards the most impactful action and increase conversion rates.

6. Create a Unified Vision Across Teams

One common pitfall I see in companies is siloed thinking between teams. To deliver a product that meets business goals, it’s crucial for product teams to work closely with other experts, including marketing, sales, finance, and customer service.

These cross-functional groups should share a unified vision and key metrics. You’ll see problems when teams don’t share a common goal. For example, the sales and marketing team may focus on ARPU and CAC, while the product team is more focused on product reviews instead. When there is a disconnect, that’s when tension will arise.

7. Communicate Regularly with Business Stakeholders

Product leaders need to have an open and consistent line of communication with stakeholders—both internal (partners, investors, executives) and external (users). You should be able to clearly articulate how product decisions align with the company’s goals, while also addressing user pain points and desires.

It’s important to work with your stakeholders early to ensure everyone is aligned on the product’s direction and objectives. To achieve transparency, you need a channel to gather stakeholder feedback and share regular updates.

Having said that, one of the core principles of effective product leadership is recognising that without users, there is no business. It might sound obvious, but this can be overlooked in the rush to meet short-term goals.

When you compromise the long-term vision, you may hit short-term targets but will fail to sustain the momentum in the long run. This is something you should remind business leaders in your communication—user-focused strategies will translate to greater business outcomes over time.

8. Compromise, Stay Agile, and Adapt

Finally, product leaders must learn to compromise, be flexible, and adapt to changing situations. The relationship between user needs and business goals is dynamic, not static. And the reason is that the board of directors can change, economic conditions can deteriorate, consumer preferences will evolve, and new technologies and competitors will enter the market.

Compromises are a necessary part of the product process, as nobody has access to infinite funding, resources, and time. Product leaders are already juggling many needs from different stakeholders and users, so it’s best to stay flexible and adapt quickly when the situation calls for it.