Latest news with #ProductManagement
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
UBS' MacLeod on Trade, Investor Sentiment
Niall MacLeod, Head of APAC Product Management at UBS, discusses the key highlights of the "UBS Asian Investment Conference", and investor sentiment from clients. He speaks with David Ingles in Hong Kong. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Finextra
6 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Modern Banks Must Adapt to be More 'Phygital'
Describing the evolution of modern banking, Sovan Shatpathy, SVP, Product Management & Development, Oracle Financial Services joined the FinextraTV virtual studio to explain how banks can thrive. As well as contextualising the current landscape and offering insights into the way that banks are now focussing more intently on the customer journey, Shatpathy asserts that all banks cannot be physical or digital, they must be 'phygital'.
Entrepreneur
21-05-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
What I've Learned About Being a Product Manager from Harshibar
Recently, I watched Harshibar's video about her experience as a Product Manager at a unicorn startup called Coda. As someone interested in tech careers, her insights resonated with me and... This story originally appeared on Calendar Recently, I watched Harshibar's video about her experience as a Product Manager at a unicorn startup called Coda. As someone interested in tech careers, her insights resonated with me and offered a realistic glimpse into the PM role that goes beyond the glossy job descriptions we often see. What struck me most was how she described the constant context switching required in her position. This isn't just about multitasking—it's about rapidly shifting between different mental frameworks, projects, and stakeholder needs throughout the day. The Hidden Challenges of Product Management Harshibar's morning routine reveals something many aspiring PMs don't consider: the precious value of uninterrupted work time. She mentioned having a block from 9 to 11:30 AM for solo work because most of her team is in various time zones. This is fascinating because it highlights how PMs must strategically guard their focus time. Finding large chunks of time without meetings is like discovering gold in the PM world. This protected time allows for the deep thinking work that drives product decisions, whether preparing write-ups, responding thoughtfully to messages, or planning upcoming projects. The back-to-back meetings that fill her calendar after this morning's block showcase another reality of the role. I understand her comment about how draining back-to-back meetings can be—especially when you're new to the job. The mental stamina required to stay present and engaged through hours of video calls is substantial. It's difficult when all your team members are new. Teams you are familiar with and friends make a big difference. New teams are hard to break into personally, which a PM must do. The Mental Gymnastics Required What I found most insightful was Harshibar's description of the mental gymnastics involved in PM work. She explained: The kind of interesting and challenging aspect of being a PM from my experience at least is that there is a lot of context switching involved in the role… I'm basically meeting with some people who are in the best of their field whether it's design or engineering or marketing… To step into a meeting as a product manager and to kind of drive a decision or lead some product vision I need to come up to speed with what's going on. This perfectly captures what makes the role both exciting and exhausting. PMs must: Quickly absorb complex information across multiple domains Ask insightful questions that move projects forward Make decisions without always having a clear 'right answer' Switch contexts between wildly different projects throughout the day Mental flexibility is both the greatest challenge and the most valuable skill a PM can develop. It's not just about knowing a little bit about everything—it's about knowing how to navigate uncertainty with confidence. Finding Balance in a Demanding Role What I appreciate about Harshibar's candid take is how she acknowledges the need for breaks. She mentions stepping outside, having coffee, or playing with her dog Yogi between meetings. These small moments of respite aren't luxuries—they're necessities for maintaining the mental clarity needed to perform effectively. The remote work aspect of her job at Coda also offers flexibility that wouldn't be possible with a traditional commute. Instead of spending up to an hour and a half traveling each way, she can use that time for focused work or personal restoration. The PM role seems to demand a careful balancing act between intense focus and intentional breaks. Without this balance, the constant context switching might quickly lead to burnout. My Takeaways for Aspiring PMs After reflecting on Harshibar's day in the life, I've developed a few thoughts for anyone considering this career path: Protect your focus time fiercely—it's when your most valuable work happens Develop strategies to manage your energy through meeting-heavy days Practice the art of context switching as a deliberate skill Build in small breaks to reset your mind between different projects Recognize that feeling mentally stretched is normal, not a sign of inadequacy The PM role clearly isn't for everyone. It requires comfort with ambiguity, strong communication skills, and the ability to make decisions with incomplete information. But it offers a unique challenge for those who thrive on variety and enjoy connecting different disciplines. I'm grateful for Harshibar's honest portrayal of her experience. It's refreshing to see beyond the job title to the lived reality of product management—its demands and rewards. For anyone considering this path, her video offers valuable insight into what the day-to-day entails, beyond the buzzwords and job descriptions. Photo by fauxels, Pexels The post What I've Learned About Being a Product Manager from Harshibar appeared first on Calendar.
The Sun
20-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Google fixes worst thing about online clothes shopping with 30-second phone trick – and it works on BILLIONS of products
THE pain of ordering clothes online that don't suit you could soon be a problem of the past. Google has revealed a game-changing new trick that allows people to try on billions of garments virtually. 2 All you need to do is upload a full length body image and the "try it on" tool will magically add the clothing onto you within seconds. The firm says its latest tech is powered by a clever image generation model which is capable of understanding the human body and the various ways we wear clothing. It can pick up on how different materials fold, stretch and drape on different bodies to produce an authentic looking shot of you in the clothing you've selected. "It preserves these subtleties when applied to poses in your photos," said Lilian Rincon, Google's Vice President for Product Management. "The result is a try-on experience that works with photos of you." The feature is only available to test in the US for the moment. It comes as part of Google 's major new AI Mode tool, a deeper chat-bot style addition to the main Google Search. Shoppers will also be able to get price alerts for products so they don't miss sales. Users can set a price they're prepared to pay for an item and Google will send them a notification as soon as it's within that value. Consumers will be able to buy the product there and then too without needing to navigate to the retailer's website. THIS COULD REVOLUTIONISE SHOPPING Analysis by Jamie Harris, Assistant Technology and Science Editor at The Sun This could mean you never have to miss a big sale never again. We've all been there - spotted a cute jumper but don't like the price, so you keep checking back in case it's on sale (or, simply forget). This new feature will keep tabs on that item and send you a notification as soon as the price has gone down to a price you're happy to pay. And better still, you'll be able to pay for it there and then with Google, no need to go to the retailer's own site and add to basket. The feature is only coming to the US first but will surely come to other countries later.
Forbes
19-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Rethink ROI: When Accuracy Matters, Integrated, AI-Backed Tools Measure Up
Written by Kamal Janardhan, Senior Director, Product Management, Google CMOs and CROs are in a tough position. Not only is there1 increasing pressure to connect ad budgets to business outcomes, but analytics professionals—the people relied upon to make the numbers work— are looking for better performance from their legacy measurement technology. In fact, in a recent study from BCG and Google, we found that only 40% of global organizations completely trust the performance of their current measurement solutions. To address this, leading companies are implementing AI-backed technology powered by rich first-party data to better understand their campaign's performance, run experiments, and more accurately predict the impact of future media investments. What solution can do all of this? It's actually a combination of three tools. Marketing Mix Models (MMMs) for a macro view of past and future performance, incrementality testing to identify best-performing channels and tactics through experimentation, and attribution analysis to optimize budget allocation. When used together, these tools provide a comprehensive and trusted understanding of marketing effectiveness, breaking down silos and enabling data-driven growth. To get a clear picture of their media's performance, marketers must embrace an integrated measurement toolkit with three key parts: MMMs, incrementality testing, and attribution. Each of these approaches are widely used by data teams across the globe on their own — our survey showed 79% adoption for MMMs, 86% for incrementality testing, and 81% for attribution. But the real magic happens, when all three are used together. Today, only 46% of organizations use all three of these tools concurrently. We believe this number plays a major role in low trust levels among analytics professionals. To fully address the top six characteristics of a modern measurement approach, a three-step measurement process is essential. When you overlay the strengths of each measurement approach, you see that each tool provides a critical part of the complete picture of marketing performance. They each offer distinct strengths across critical dimensions like causality, actionability, and recency. And when you integrate different insights in strategic ways — like adding incrementality experiment results to your MMM, you are able to leverage their complementary capabilities, enabling cross-verification of results and building a complete and trustworthy understanding of your marketing's impact. Marketers recognize the potential of AI to address common challenges in measurement. Globally, 72% of analytics professionals 'frequently leverage AI' within their measurement efforts, signalling that the industry is beginning to view traditional methods as insufficient on their own. But even amid AI enthusiasm, a concerning reality is taking shape: when we benchmark AI maturity across marketing functions — or how advanced people feel their AI usage is — measurement consistently lags. While media and personalization, creative production, and even operational processes show higher levels of perceived AI acumen, only 9% of global companies consider their AI capabilities 'leading' when it comes to measurement. This contrast reveals a significant gap between AI adoption and mastery for measurement related use cases. Companies paving the way for AI-powered measurement are giving us deeper visibility into how these tools can drive sharp, future-forward strategies. According to BCG, leading organizations leverage AI over twice as much as competitors, with 76% of these leaders currently using AI to generate actionable learnings from their campaigns. What's more, nearly half of leading users are already using AI powered features like predictive modeling and forecasting to shape forward-looking strategies in smart ways. The majority of brands are still working out the best ways to deploy AI across their businesses and a key observation from these industry-wide efforts is that without clean, connected data, even the most advanced AI tools struggle to deliver impactful results. In 2025, 42% of surveyed companies across the globe still lack a CRM, and 57% don't have a CDP—the very technologies required to unify and activate customer data. These deficiencies can lead to fragmented insights, with 29% of marketers reporting limited data availability and only 24% achieving a 360-degree view of their customers. To fully leverage the untapped power of AI measurement, brands must unify first-party data from across their systems. Incorporating data across different sources – spanning offline, online, transactional, and more – into your MMM for example can help to uplevel the model's performance and provide the comprehensive understanding needed for more effective recommendations. This critical step demands close attention from leadership to align internal teams. As Derek Rodenhausen, Managing Director at BCG, recently stated at a measurement industry event, '30% of the battle is getting the right KPIs and toolkit, the other 70% is getting the right people and processes in place to enable those KPIs and tools to really work.' The future of marketing measurement hinges on brands' ability to merge three essential solutions — MMM, incrementality testing, and attribution — and, crucially, to support this integrated framework with the power of advanced AI and clean, connected data. Those who are leveraging all three measurement approaches already recognize their transformative potential, with 8 out of 10 intending to increase their usage in the coming years. This signals a growing understanding that true measurement confidence comes from a holistic view, powered by intelligent technologies. Brands can no longer afford to rely on a disjointed, uncertain approach to measurement. As CMOs and executive leaders everywhere continue to call for proof of returns, marketers need confidence and accuracy. Developing a fully-integrated, AI-backed measurement strategy alongside a robust data foundation is the key to driving sustainable business growth during this ROI reckoning.
