In this Accredian Spotlight interview, we feature Gaurav Bhatia, a Principal Consultant with over 16+ years of experience. He is currently associated with Enlighta. His insatiable quest for knowledge and upskilling led him to enrol in the PGP in Product Management at Accredian.
Question 1: Which program & batch are you part of at Accredian & tell us more about your current work profile?
Gaurav- I enrolled with the PGP in Product Management (PGPPM) program in October 2021 batch at Accredian.
I have over 16+ years of experience in the field of Information technology sector. I am working with Enlighta in Vendor Governance domain as Principal Consultant and my responsibility includes:
- Research and Development for Product
- Reviewing and responding on RFPs
- Requirements Gathering and Solution Designing
- Software Development, Configuration, and Implementation
- Stakeholder Management and communication
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Product Management?
Gaurav- I’m currently working as a Principal Consultant with Enlighta. We provide solutions for Vendor Governance and Contract Management. I excel at understanding the business problems and requirements and analysing the requirements and designing the solution for requirements and problems.
It’s been 8 years with Enlighta and I work with multiple international companies and help them to govern their Vendors more effectively and efficiently.
I got interested in the Product Management domain and divided deep into it to understand it better and use concepts, frameworks and tools to contribute more effectively and efficiently for growth.
Question 3: What all Product Management concepts, frameworks & tools have you mastered in your program at Accredian so far?
Gaurav- At Accredian I learned about fundamental concepts of Product Management like:
- Important Principles of Product Management
- Product Management Lifecycle
- Product Planning, Product Planning Cycle– Vision, Mission, Strategy and Goals, Roadmap.
- Product Planning Process consisting of 7 Phases.
- Product Concept Development
- Competitive Analysis
- Market Research
- MVP development
- Product Launch
- Product lifecycle
- Sunset, etc.
Question 4: What are some of the initial challenges when you got started on your Product Management journey and how did you overcome it?
Gaurav- Initially, I faced difficulty in understanding various things because these fundamental concepts are new to me.
Being a working professional, time management was one big challenge that I faced but I used to ensure to attend all classes, and if I am not able to attend class, then I make sure to review the recordings and understand the concepts.
Question 5: Who is your favourite faculty at Accredian and what did you learn from them the most?
Gaurav- I just started the journey with Accredian to learn key aspects of Product Management. All the faculties were exceptionally good in their respective subjects. I like Ms. Khanjan Desai and Mr. Sai Charan Tej as faculty members.
I learnt about fundamentals of Product Management from Khanjan and learned about Product Roadmap, Vision and Mission, why they are important for the Product and how we can create those.
Question 6: In your view, what is the goal of product management & how has it evolved in the last few years?
Gaurav- The main goal of a Product Manager is to understand the customers problems, understand which problems are pervasive enough and customers are willing to pay to solve to create a viable business. Product Management turns ideas into successful products systematically.
The role of Product Management has evolved over the years and has taken different forms since the last few years.
Earlier, Product Management was limited to backgrounds of engineering and business. Nowadays, people from different domains, expertise, backgrounds are joining Product Management to solve specific problems and create unique products.
Product Management fundamentals are getting used to create and manage different types of products.
Nowadays, the demand of customers is constantly changing and competition is increasing. To meet the demand and competition, companies need to develop niche products, enhance products with new features and capabilities and adopt new technologies in a rapidly changing environment.
Technology and emerging technologies play a key role in the development journey of a product and it keeps changing and evolving for upcoming years.
Question 7: What are the current trends in Product Management that you are most excited about?
Gaurav- Product Management is one of the fastest growing fields today and India is becoming a hub for start-ups. Due to the Pandemic, lockdowns and social distancing, we witnessed how off-line products become less desirable and demand for online products increased rapidly.
Gaurav- As per McKinsey, the share of digital customer interaction increased from 41% pre COVID to 65% post COVID.
Due to the lockdown, many offices work with distributed teams where employees are working from remote locations. Most employees won’t return to offices and companies have evaluated the benefits of this.
Some of the events happened due to pandemic circumstances:
- The medical service providers – Hospitals, Doctors moved to an online meeting consultancy model
- The education industry needed to suddenly move to an online mode. Trend of online study portals increased rapidly
- Entertainment companies shifted from theatres to OTT platforms
In this uncertain environment, the trend of managing products from home is increasing. Many companies are hiring Product Managers and adopting Product Management principles and frameworks to design and develop successful and scalable products, which can play an important role in growth. And this one trend that I am excited about.
Question 8: Which are some of the Product Management blogs, podcasts, communities & channels that you follow?
Gaurav- I started following these to enhance my knowledge:
- Accredian Blog
- The Product Folks
- The Product Plan
- LinkedIn Groups for Product Management
Question 9: Please tell how your journey has been with Accredian so far and what are the elements that you liked.
The journey so far with Accredian is helping me learn the key aspects of Product Management.
Question 10: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Product Management?
Gaurav- My advice to people wanting to make a career in Product Management is that one should develop a Problem solving approach and empathise with users for handling design and the development of products.
One should not fear learning different frameworks and tools which can help to develop successful products. At the end of the day, the person should know how to adapt concepts of Product Management, how to evolve the Product, how to do user research, how to understand different user pain points and provide solutions to pain points.
Hope you enjoyed reading this interview. If you want to read more such interesting student stories, check out Accredian Spotlight.
