“How do I predict the next 5 steps to influence the outcome that will help achieve the customer and business goals?”, if that’s the question hovering your mind, it’s time to wear your Strategy Hat. Wearing this hat will help you take a holistic view on the business to understand customer needs, market conditions, stakeholder expectations, competition strategy and then device a plan for your product to grow. But how exactly do you understand the market and user conditions? It’s simple – Befriend the data! Once you start making sense from the available data, you- Start understanding the pain poi ..read more

I did not have much experience in technology before my first role as a PM so I might be a bit biased here. Try telling this to the tech team and watch them have fun because you won’t understand most of the technicalities. However, there’s nothing to worry about. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to code – you only have to remember that a code is written based on a logic. If you are a logical person, you will get used to the technology and will start challenging the tech team eventually to up their game. Here’s a situation. Imagine, your tech team comes to you and proposes to build someth ..read more

Over the course of a series of blogs, we have established that a Product Manager wears multiple hats depending on the team, product and situation/problem that you’re solving. While we established it, we did address how a Product Manager tackles these challenges – Do they take a reactive or a proactive approach? Is the Product Manager a leader or a follower? In the Marvel universe, is the Product Manager an Ironman or Captain America? I have used the Marvel reference to draw analogies and references, and it’s more fun this way! If you look at the character of Captain America, he is the on ..read more

One fine morning as restaurant owner Gene Moshel walked into his deli in the bustling city of New York. His eyes set on one cause – digitise the way things work. He used his Apple computer as a server and started keeping track of his inventory. Each year he would add an enhancement like order entry subsystem, remote printing, touch screen and thus, became the renowned creator of the modern day Point of Sale (PoS) system. IBM soon followed suit. The Apple computer, which was only suitable for a deli, was replaced by a mainframe controller which did all the processing. This led to the first comm ..read more

I am Nishita, a native of Mumbai (or Bombay as previously known), having just stepped out into professional life last year. And I lead the Business Development team for Engati, a new age chatbot platform at Coviam. Graduating from college as I completed my bachelorette in Engineering was both exhilarating and scary. I was happy at the opportunity to now finally be able to try my skills and make a small cacoon for myself in professional life. To go and seek out things that I would love to do and feel happy about moving the dial to better the world. To make a difference and to have the ..read more

X: I’ve heard a lot about Product Management. What do you do as a Product Manager? PM: Identify the problem and come up with solutions to tackle the problem. X: Every PM I ask tells me that, they identify the problem but they do not tell me how to do it. So, how do you do it? PM: I observe the data, try to link the data to the business value and then decide what needs to be done accordingly. Data plays a key role in identification of the problem. X: Everyone in the organization has access to the same data. What do you do differently? PM: Most of them look at the data, while I o ..read more

A Supply Chain Product Manager – is it the same as a regular Product Manager “Are you a front end Product Manager or a backend Product Manager, read on to find out where you fall..” One thing I have noticed across the product management blogging world is that most of these blogs are centred around products which are directly customer facing. Most blogs discuss on product management from a perspective of engaging your user. Or keeping them hooked on to your product. User engagement is a theme amongst most product management blogs. But, for a Supply chain product manager (read backend PM ..read more

This blog title is inspired from the book Extreme Ownership: How U.S navy SEALS lead & Win written by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin. The reason to title this blog this way will be uncovered when you read through it and I am sure you will agree with me why I named this blog so. The book was an eye opener for me and gives every individual a lot of insights about how to lead and how not to lead a group of people and what does leadership mean at its core. The best chapter of this book “No bad teams, only bad leaders” initially made me to step back and think…really!! I wondered initially and f ..read more

The Beginning On-Campus Recruitment The day started with a pre-placement talk during which Coviam gave a glimpse of their products, work culture, and experiences of being a part of Coviam. The session was crisp yet informative. Interview Session Ambiance The interviewers from Coviam were highly knowledgeable and friendly. They created a comfortable interview session for the candidates and brainstormed ideas, suggestions, and solutions whenever required. When the room environment became tense, they cracked jokes to spread positive vibes and break the tension. Optimistic Environment The objecti ..read more

This is the most familiar hat of a PM but is also one of the toughest. When you wear this hat you represent the customer while the rest of the teams represent themselves. You as a PM need to take a more holistic and empathetic approach towards understanding the problem that a customer faces and then craft a solution within the limitations of the business, along with planning for the future. People often don’t understand or underestimate the importance of a PM and the design team working together. However, a PM is required to work with the UI/UX designers to bring your product or feature to the ..read more