Traditionally in India, the companies that were doing IT products and the ones doing engineering products did not work together, says Deepak Kumar, Chief Technology Officer, Srishti Software. However, he admits that the Indian companies are now taking cue from products like iPod and iPhone and engineering and IT teams are working in tandem. He shares his views on product management, in an interaction with B.V.Shiva Shankar, Associate Editor, CIOL. Excerpts:

CIOL: Tell us about the latest trends and advancements in product management?
Deepak Kumar: End user expectations from products have grown significantly in past
few years. They expect good user interface, good usability, and value
for money. Internet is making even small players viable and keeping big
ones on their toes. This has put a lot of emphasis on good product
engineering and design. For vendors it means that they not only need to
establish their position in the market but maintain it as well, which
means continuous innovation and excellent ongoing service. This has
mandated that there is more stress on product engineering, making simple
& easy to use products, provide more integration & good user interface.

Additionally technology and architecture drivers like Web 2.0 are pushing the boundaries forward.

CIOL: Apparently there is a lot of scope for engineering services in
product management, is it a point of convergence of engineering services
and IT services?
DK: Yes! Traditionally in India, the companies that were doing IT
products and the ones doing engineering products did not work together.
However Indian companies are now taking cue from products like iPod and
iPhone and engineering and IT teams are working in tandem. The sectors
like healthcare, defense, space, energy, consumer electronics etc., all
will fuel demand for innovations spanning both IT and engineering
sectors. In countries like USA and Japan this is already an established
trend. In India initial glimpses of this trend are starting to get visible.

CIOL: Turning market information into product requirements is the key
to the successful business. What are the technological requirements to
achieve this?
PM: Even though we know that the key to successful business, there are very few IT supplier's in India who allow rapid integration of market information into
product requirements.

First of all product teams should use methodologies that allow them to
quickly prepare initial versions of the product that can be put in front
of end-users to invite feedback. These feedbacks continue till the
product is launched and actually increase after that. The product teams
should be able to enhance the product based on feedback. In
India, however there are not many vendors who are able to provide this
and most of them do not even understand these concerns. So customers
intending to launch their own products should be very cautious while
recruiting their IT team and selecting vendors.