Wanted alive and kicking: New-age product managers
Summary
MUMBAI : At the annual campus hiring ritual at the Indian Institutes of Technology this year, a rather ubiquitous profile stood out, but with a more evolved job definition. Software companies, consultancies, consumer firms, and startups have been prowling premier engineering and business schools for potential product managers who can go beyond the traditional requirements of the role. What this means for a new generation of product managers is that they are also required to be data mining experts, able to evaluate social-economic trends and behaviour patterns of consumers, and estimate likely changes in purchasing power. “There are separate business channels now for (business-to-consumer, or B2C) and (business-to-business, or B2B) markets for the same product," said Kamal Karanth, co-founder of Xpheno, a recruitment firm focused on tech and startup hiring. Instead of hiring generalists, we look at candidates who understand crops, climatic requirements and farmer prosperity," said Sanjay S Singh, chief human resources officer at UPL Ltd, a producer of agrochemicals and industrial chemicals.