Batting in the Foreign Pitch?

As product management is gaining ground in India, we are witnessing newer challenges than what we had a decade back. Glocal, Global Village, Multi-site sounds awesome isn’t it? Yes, but the product managers will know that it takes a lot more than just sounding awesome. Remotely managing products can in fact be a nightmare, far from being awesome. In this post, let’s look at what are the factors that play a key role in managing global products from India.

Access to target customer/market

One of the most crucial input for a product manager is the understanding of the target market and the customer. The lack of easy access to the target segment may critically hinder a product manager’s ability to design the value proposition of the product. After all, what’s a compelling value proposition when the product-market fit is shaky? As Steve Blank says the key to start up success is to ‘get out of the building’. This applies to building new products as well. Product Managers must have seamless access to the market.

Travel, Video conferences, Social Networks have bridged this gap to an extent. But technology is just the means. The real customer development process can only happen when the product manager, albeit remotely working leverages technologies and opportunities to meet real people and understand the market better.

Cultural diversity

Cultural diversity plays a key factor in product adoption. It is of course part of understanding the market. However, product managers managing global products from India needs to be more proactive in not just understanding the problems and needs of a customer, but the underlying cultural backdrop against which the needs have arose. While technology product are tending more towards cultural homogenization, human centric products and services  need to focus on the delicate cultural aspects which can prove to be a critical factor of success of the product.

In such a case, the exposure of product manager to these cultural diversities will have a strong impact on the product design. The need for global Product managers to acclimatize themselves to the target culture and their practices becomes very important. And it is not impossible. The key is for the product manager to spend quality time in the customer location. Well, for starters, next time when you are in your customer city, do not go in search of an India restaurants, but indulge yourself in the local bistro. Great conversations happen there.

Transformation from a Service-Product Mindset

Indian technology companies for long have been in the Service Industry mindset. We have always focused on delivering the requirements right. But managing global products is a different ball game. The biggest difference is – you can no longer say “we have delivered as per the requirements”, because you define the requirements here. There are no ready-made requirements here.

The other big paradigm shift is the globally spread teams. A Product Manager has to collaborate with Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Quality Control teams spread across the world. If we are developing a product for the European market, as  product manager, you not only have to understand the requirements, but be able to communicate the same and get it delivered from the globally spread teams.

This list can go on, but the essence is to appreciate that we are batting on a foreign pitch and it calls for proactive and unconventional approach to product management. Such product managers have to overcome the barriers of geography, culture, time zones among many other things to be able to deliver successful products. So if you are one of those, you may want the following things in place

1) A travel bag and your frequent flyer loyalty cards
2) A great headset for teleconferencing
3) A High Speed Internet connection

4) Keep your calendar free in the evenings

Now that you are good to go, start preparing for the bouncy Australian pitch, get the best of the gear and take guard, mate!!!