Careers in IT – part 2

In India when we talk about ‘IT’ we almost always mean ‘IT services’ and we almost always forget this big big world of ‘products’. That’s Primarily because till very recently India was not party to this whole products bandwagon ..but its now changing and there are opportunities and roles for everyone in this space too. Here is a sneak peek into the kind of roles available for MBAs in the IT products world..

Program/Product Management : Many folks mistake this to be the conventional ‘program/project manager’ role in the services organizations. This is slightly or rather quite different. These roles are typically offered by companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc. Product Managers are responsible for the entire design and delivery of the product. It is he who does analysis of what the cusomters in the market are looking out for, where is the opportunity, what are competitive products offering, what innovations and ideas to come up with and hence what should we have as features in the product. Even the look and feel , colors used, the user experience when a user uses the product or say service (if you take online services like Google as an example) – is designed by the PM. The whole nine yards of the 'DESIGN' of the product from a user point of view is what he is responsible for. These roles may or may not have direct people managing responsibility (depends on the seniority, the product that you are working on, team size etc). Also, typically these folks have to be technically inclined to a great extent. Though the technical design may not be the direct responsibility of the PM, he has to understand it and stand for it to a large extent.

The other part of the role is the entire project management aspect of it, making sure the delivery is on track, milestones met, betas rolling out at the correct time etc.

Overall a fun job for those who love product design, are technical, have customer focus and get kicked when they see something they built being used by hundreds and thousands, but of course someone who doesn’t mind the job of tracking milestones and running to developers and testers to make sure work is being done and on time (needs convincing and negotiating power ). Also someone who can stand for his product in front of customers, press, evangelise it and do everything to make it a success!


Product Marketing : Very typical ‘marketing’ role. Your work can range from actually defining the price and positioning of a product in a particular market to orchestrating a launch to getting posters made and making sure they are pasted ..

The juicy part of marketing in big shot companies still happen in the US, that is because till very recently these things were more or less decided in the US office and the marketing team there ( and fair enough – after all the market is largely there). But lately with India emerging strong even as a consumer for e.g. for online and mobile services and even for say Windows (forget the piracy for a moment :-)) now inexpensive versions are being devised for emerging markets – so yes these roles are there but not as juicy as they would be at times in the US even now..but it sure will change in the near future.

But then there are other cool stuff – so how about working on the entire ad campaign for Yahoo.co.in? Or the launch of XBOX 360 in India ? Sounds cool ? Yes there are roles for these too – not too many though.

So a mixed kind of role, sometimes fun, sometimes not that fun. Depends a lot on the market, the product, the opportunity, economy (as if everything else did not depend on these - jeez!!)

Product Sales : I specifically kept this separate because it is important to know that marketing is a world different from sales. As a sales guy of Oracle or Siebel or SQL Server, all that would mean to you would be to meet those numbers on your head by pure ‘selling’. Sell licenses to customers and make those numbers. You don’t do the ‘marketing’ as mentioned above – you just sell. What else can I say about this – I think this sums it all. Needs a lot of travel, a lot of convincing power, gift of the gab, network and everything that a good sales guy needs !!

Other roles : The above three were the most standard roles – others keep coming in on a company to company basis. Online sales managers of Google to Developer Evangelists of Microsoft. Technical specialists to functional consultants who know ins and outs of a product and help customers deploy and use the products in the optimal way. Partner management and channel management like the ones offered by HP (hardware specifically)…there are a host of them..


Overall, the product space in India is heating up and its one helluva time to be in this space at this point of time as India grows big both as producers and consumers of software products. So come join the party …!!!