From Vendor Reliance to Product Confidence: A Modernization Story for Traditional Tech Teams

What happens when a legacy financial services firm decides to take control of its product delivery—but doesn’t yet have the muscle to do it?

That was the reality for one annuities and insurance provider when they came to fluent.

Like many organizations in regulated, risk-averse industries, this company had long relied on vendors to design and deliver its digital tools. The idea of building a product organization in-house felt ambitious. But leadership knew: if they didn’t learn how to deliver internally, they’d always be chasing the market instead of shaping it.

This is the story of how they did it—with clarity, consistency, and coaching.

The Problem: No Ownership, No Discovery, No Progress

The client’s internal teams were structured around projects, not products. Business analysts and project managers were constantly reacting to requests from stakeholders—but no one was driving with a strategic product lens. And every time something needed to be built, it was thrown over the wall to vendors.

There was no:

• Ownership of domains

• Continuous discovery or feedback loops

• Internal capability to sustain learning or delivery

As one coach put it:

“We weren’t solving problems—we were waiting to be told what to do.”

It wasn’t just inefficient. It was unsustainable.

The fluent Solution: Build the Muscle, Not Just the Org Chart

fluent partnered with the client to build an internal product organization from scratch. The goal? Move from reactive vendor-dependence to confident, capable product leadership.

Here’s how we did it:

Intensive Product Training

We began with a 2-day immersive product management class focused on:

• Discovery & framing

• Solutioning & iteration

• Roadmapping & stakeholder alignment

Newly hired product managers and internal transfers attended side by side—building a shared language and mindset.

Coaching by Domain

Each PM was coached to own a domain—whether related to financial products, distribution, sales, or internal systems. We helped them:

• Define outcomes, not just outputs

• Build value-aligned backlogs

• Navigate stakeholders

• Run experiments inside complex systems

  
  

Planning & Visibility Cadences

We introduced and coached:

• Quarterly planning to set strategic goals

• Biweekly demos to create feedback loops

• Forecasting & estimation practices to ground decision-making

At the same time, we worked with adjacent functions (PMO, finance, vendor partners) to help them adapt to this new product operating model.

The Impact: Confidence, Clarity, and Forward Momentum

In just a few months, product managers moved from passive implementers to strategic leaders in their domains.

Product roadmaps gave teams a north star

Stakeholders got visibility into what was being built (and why)

Employees felt empowered—and morale improved

Velocity improved, and OKRs became more than a formality

One product manager described it this way:

“Before Fluent, I didn’t know what good looked like. Now I feel like I can lead, not just deliver.”

Why It Matters

This wasn’t about installing a framework. It was about helping real people in a real company learn to work differently.

And it proves a powerful point:

Even legacy, regulated industries can build modern product organizations—if they’re willing to lead with learning, not ego.

Final Takeaway

If your company is still dependent on vendors to deliver your strategy, the problem might not be the vendor. It might be the capability gap inside your org.

But that gap is fixable—and fluent can help.