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New products driving IT-engineering convergence

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CIOL Bureau
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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:

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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.

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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.

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CIOL:What role do you see for technology in collaborating product

planning and product marketing?

DK:
In any product the product engineering and marketing goes hand in

hand. The product development methodology should allow interactions

between product development, marketing and even end-users. Proper

milestones for prototypes, alpha, and beta should be defined with

specific target end-user communities. Quick feedback and incorporation

of these are highly desirable.

Thankfully, now a day's agile methodology and tools allow collaborating

and meeting these targets easy.

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CIOL: What are the factors that act as deterrents while defining the

product management roles and responsibilities?

DK:
Most of the products, during their initial phases, are developed in

non-linear fashion in a slightly in-formal working culture. Typically,

product teams are driven by a very small set of people, some times just

one person, who are very passionate about it. However conflicts start

when it expands to next set of people. For example, at this stage

technology team starts striving to make the best product while the

marketing team want the products to be out to the world fast. Sometimes

conflicts start arising on issues which are non technology related like

what feature should be added, what should be the approach to the market, how

to price etc. Creating a military style hierarchy does not work either,

as it kills creativity and passion. Thus creating the initial team

and defining individual responsibilities becomes one of the most important

tasks during early phases.

 

CIOL: For whom do you think the product management is the most critical,

producer or consumer?

DK:
It is for both.

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The producer wants to limit their expenditure while

keeping the innovation going. They want to maintain quality & support

levels and want to enhance their reputation & brand, making product

management and engineering key to them.

Consumers want predictability, in terms of service offerings and

time-lines, which allow them to plan and reduce risk in their business.

Good product management by the supplier makes consumers business more

profitable and viable.

CIOL: Do you think the approaches for product enhancement and new

product should be different? If yes, what should be the differentiator?

DK:
The approach has to be different because as they have more differences than similarities. Product enhancements are typically incremental and based on customer or market feedback. So emphasis goes on maintaining old functionalities, making sure they work well with new features, maintaining service levels despite new releases, and at the same time keeping the costs contained. It is hardly ever

possible to move products to new technology or environments without much

budget and considerations.

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However, new products are around new ideas, sometime quite radical. This

allows radical approaches to be experimented with. At the least, a new product

can always make use of technology that is current. For example

any Internet based product can make use of Web 2.0 related technologies

without any additional effort, while doing the same for a product

written few years back may prove tricky.

CIOL: What is the main driver for product management, cost or quality?

DK:
Many people in India try to define quality of a product using the

same parameters as software projects: e.g., conformance to the

requirements document, less number of bugs etc. However if we start

comparing with other products, from non-IT sector, that we use like a cell phone, a car, a spoon, soap, or a shirt; we would start figuring

out that quality of a product is a factor of quite a few additional

criteria. Making an adequate quality product, consummate to quality that

end consumer is expecting, is an absolute must and uncompromisable.

Cutting the level of quality for cost will typically push the product

out of the market.