Why India’s Best Talent Wants To Join Product Management

You wake up in the morning. Pick up your smartphone and click on your food delivery app. Less than 3 mins later you can already see a map with a rider rushing to pick up your breakfast.

We are so used to this now that we forget that this wasn't possible a few years ago.

We also fail to appreciate the work that has gone in to ensure that you are getting an experience which is now second nature to us. In 3 mins you have opened the app, you were able to immediately reach your favourite restaurant/dish, you placed an order with customizations, selected an address, applied a discount coupon, added a tip, made an OTP based payment without punching a number (it was auto-read) and were left staring at a screen tracking your order as if its a video game.

Imagine the work that went behind it. This work was done by multiple cross-functional teams consisting of engineers, designers, researchers, data scientists, led by Product Managers. Over the last decade, one of most sought after and highly paid domains that has emerged is that of Product Management in Technology companies. In InsideIIM's annual survey, a PM role at a top technology firm is more popular today than being a brand manager in an FMCG company. Tens of fresh graduates have shifted aspirations from Consulting to this new emerging domain. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Facebook, Booking.com, Airbnb, Spotify, Shopify - these are behemoths built by some very talented teams and product managers. Closer to home, we have Flipkart, Hotstar, PayTM, Swiggy, Bookmyshow. No wonder they are an elite class of professionals when it comes to compensation.

---

We bring to you a Advanced Product Management Masterklass with Ellora Nath who is a Senior Product Manager, Booking.com in Amsterdam. She has also worked with e-Bay and Practo in the past. She is a BITS and an ISB alumna. You would have heard her journey on our platform. In case you haven't, listen to her below.

Don't Do An MBA To Figure Out Your Future - Ellora Nath, Product Manager, Booking.com, ISB Alum

 Ellora was clear she wanted to work before she did any sort of MBA. Starting off as a Developer, her stint at eBay included tasks such as figuring out how to mine data faster for Tableau Dashboards, to being a part of the team that launched the live auctions feature. While she was just a developer back then, the experience was quite insightful. She even talks of how working in an MNC helped her grow through the many mentors that she had, and the opportunities that she seized.

Sign Up For Advanced Product Management Masterklass With Ellora Nath here!

***

My Experience At ISB, Practo Ft. Ellora Nath, Senior Product Manager, Booking.com

Speaking more in-depth on Product Management, Ellora says that the most important part of her responsibilities was ‘User Research'. A product manager's sole focus should be the user, and that included a lot of research, AB tests, understanding 3PL (Third Party Logistics) and Minimum Viable Product (MVP), etc. In the end, she talks of how the opportunity to work with ‘Booking.com' came her way and why she decided to seize it.

Sign Up For Advanced Product Management Masterklass With Ellora Nath here!

***

What It's Like To Work As A Product Manager Abroad Ft. Ellora Nath, ISB Alum

Having worked in India, for an MNC like eBay, and then a start-up like Practo, Ellora's move to Amsterdam was what she calls 'writing a new book' in her life. She explains how life and work culture in Europe is different from life and work culture in India, going on to tell us what skills and abilities you need to develop to be able to thrive in a foreign workplace. She gives us a glimpse of her responsibilities as a Product Manager.

Sign Up For Advanced Product Management Masterklass With Ellora Nath here!