1. INSTITUTE OF PRODUCT
LEADERSHIP
Successful Product Management from
India with Global Insights

2. Introduction
• 20+ years experience with mix of Business roles
(Arvind, Pepsi, Ford) and later product management
• Product management at Ramco Systems (4yrs),
Hyperion (thru Symphony Services - 3yrs), SAP(6+ yrs)
– Global roles from India
• Product management experience - drawing board
to release to early customer adoption to large scale
GTM
• Education : Chartered Accountant cum Cost
Accountant
• SAP Labs, Bangalore, India

3. Top 10 on Successful PM
•Build key customer circles
•Stay close to Sales
•Specialist circles
•Social media network
•Peer to peer networking
#1 : Network to thrive

4. Top 10 on Successful PM
•Speaking in events (1:n)
•Speaking with customers/prospects
(1x 1)
•Talk technical or functional
•Communicate to executives
#2 : Communicate to succeed..

5. Top 10 on Successful PM
• Remember you are the Specialist…
• Level 1 across company portfolio and
strategy,
• level 2 across your product portfolio and
functional,
• level 3 in your product and best practices
• Functional & Technical expertise (usually
in India we are perceived more
technical)
• Your customer exposure levels will only be
more when you are a specialist
#3 : Specialize

6. Top 10 on Successful PM
• You can know as much as your
counterparts anywhere…Analyst
Reports, websites, interacting with
sales/presales
• Win stories, loss analysis participation
• Contribute to differentiators. Both
feature/function as well as more
strategic…comparison charts, different
ones for field and development
#4 : Know your competitors

7. Top 10 on Successful PM
• Understand Developed and Emerging
market dynamics
• Understand Nuances of each market
e.g. US: Keep it simple and bit high
level, Europe : Get to the details
• Style of business functioning e.g. Result
oriented, Process oriented, Complexity
#5: Know your markets

8. Top 10 on Successful PM
• Talk like a customer to developer
• Be face of development to sales ,
demonstrating in front of customers –
find opportunities to meet them
• Build data points to back up every
discussion
• Build credibility across internal/external
stakeholders
• Talk use cases/real life examples/personas…
#6: Negotiate….

9. Top 10 on Successful PM
• Remember its not enough if you have great
idea, you need to convince senior
management
• Be prepared for a 15mins, 30 mins…meetings
with ideas & how it can be monetized
• Leverage every opportunity:
• Investment in new areas
• Convincing to continue investment
• Strategic acquisitions for fast time to market
• Managing different point of views
#7: Senior Management Buy In

10. Top 10 on Successful PM
• Find all avenues to share your knowledge
on product, best practices and the
“whys?” more than what? Or how?
• Blog, tweet, build content, do trainings,
challenge yourself against real life
examples
• Drive discussions towards the way you
want to position your product
• Pick on customer advisory board sessions
• Tell your customer success stories
#8: Spread your knowledge

11. Top 10 on Successful PM
Inbound
Outbound
Strategic
Development Facing
Customer/Partners/
Sales Facing
Management Facing
Assess where
you are strong
and work on
where u want
to improve
#9: Balance your time…

12. Top 10 on Successful PM
•Claim ownership
•Have Business, Technical and User
view
•Compare it with market
•Know your numbers
#10: Mini CEOs of your products…

13. Questions
My Contacts:
Muthu.ranganathan@sap.com
Follow on twitter : @muthurangnathan
Connect on Linkedin