Ways to increase sales and profitability for product management

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[Music] hello and welcome to yet another episode of the disruption talks where we invite top experts to discuss digital acceleration winning strategies Innovation and scaling products my name is Barbara I'm a Consulting director here at netguru and today we're going to indulge into the topic of measuring success aligning customer value with profitability and let me warmly welcome our today's guest alen kill the product lead at Vault hello Alina hi Barbara thank you so much for having me how are you today I'm doing great okay perfect so we're gonna um dive deeper into um into aligning customer value with profitability within the next 30 minutes however I want ask to to kick off with a little bit of introduction from yourself so that we all get to know you a little bit better and I want to um ask you first of all what inspired you to pursue a career in product de product management and how did your journey um LED you to vote plus yeah so uh my journey in product management started with early exposure to user research and how customer feedback shapes strong product strategy I was working in operations at Rocket internet and was asked to help with user interviewing now I had recently completed my degree in Psychology so this was super interesting to me and I really enjoyed the experience it was also my foot in the door to a career that I hadn't heard of before then uh so I began pursuing a pathway towards product management now since product management us usually isn't an entrylevel role it took me some years to uh to get there so I worked in business development to product operations and from there I got my first product management opportunity from actually the same person that I worked on user research with at Rocket internet okay so Vault was a natural progression for me as I already had industry experience when I worked at delivery hero which is another company operating in the quick Commerce delivery space now Vol had recently launched where I'm located and I just love the ux of the app so I was wondering right so I was wondering what team sits behind that and I I just did some LinkedIn stocking to be honest and they noticed so I wasn't actively looking for The Next Step at the time but uh one thing led to another and now I've been at Vault for over three years that's that's an amazing story and um can you share some significant challenge that you face while working on vault plus and ideally how you overcame it can you walk us through that yeah uh so I've experienced a similar challenge while being responsible for multiple products across multiple companies and this is that we have heroic Ambitions but we aren't sure what the right direction is we don't have so many people to move quickly towards that ambition and there's just lots and lots of feedback coming in constantly about what needs to be done what should be done and somehow you need to make sense of this all so to do that I just start with some basic questions what is the purpose of my product what are we trying to achieve here how does this fit into where the company is is wanting to go right who are the customers of my product sometimes it's a person opening the app sometimes it's a third party sometimes it's uh internal stakeholders like account management and what are the problems that they're facing that my product help solve or should help solve now the Market's important too what is a market doing in relationship to similar products like mine uh how does mine compare to that and it's good to think about other teams in the company as well what are they working on or will work on that's relevant to my product how does my product come together with their plans and then finally what is standing in the way of my product fulfilling its purpose in the best way and importantly what do we measure to know that it's on the right track so with these questions uh we're able to work backwards and we start here it helps you uncover what you don't know yet and it it strengthens your understanding so I'm a big proponent of speaking to customers and potential customers to understand their problems wants needs if you're not solving real problems then any growth you see will likely be incentivized and it's just not sustainable so an example of this is unless you're targeting a super primed user segment with marketing campaigns then you'll generally see better retention from organic growth mechanisms now it's not to say that marketing isn't important it can definitely help you grow your reach it's just not a replacement for organic growth and then if we come back to the original challenge so you've gone through all this discovery and research exercise you know where you need to go with the product now you're able to compare and intelligently discuss feedback in relationship to a wider direction that importantly the important people have bought into if the people who control your budget don't agree with the direction then the prioritization discussions get a little tough you want to bring yourself side yeah against the common goal reality check right exactly exactly so if you're on the same side uh it's a lot easier to have these conversations you want to go to the same place how do we get there in the most effective ways and hopefully that Discovery exercise has just helped do that so because many of us work with smaller teams uh we we'd like to have or smaller teams than what we'd like to have uh this is because we're operating with capital efficiency in mind right it becomes critically important that we use the people that we've got in the most impactful way posses we can do this by growing our confidence that our next efforts solve real problems before we do them and if that's hard to do then we build them in ways that answer the question question in the shortest way possible thank you very much for sharing all that and how can companies accelerate time to Market uh what's the best way to speed up um product delivery favorite question classic yeah the classic challenge um so I think there are three very important things here the first is your process for product delivery you want to streamline your processes and be flexible to adjust to learnings along the way frontload your plan as much as possible this is having the product brief and design in place before starting development and I think sometimes we forget to frontload developmental Discovery in the same way that you would product Discovery so take the time write rfc's break down the project into deliverables get the questions answered if you break down silos between teams get early buyin encourage open communication we reduce the amount of uh oh that we find along the way right be willing to adjust an animation that can cut the time in half just because the design was beautiful but maybe it didn't know about engineering constraints at the time everyone on the team brings expertise to the process so use it to create the most efficient and effective delivery by figuring out the plan getting the questions Ed early we can avoid needing to rework along the way which is time consuming resource expensive and frankly it's just frustrating for the team having this understanding of the pieces to the puzzle means we deeply understand what needs to be done and our estimates get better now that's important because with good estimates we can keep a better finger on the pulse of how we are progressing and we can catch early if we are deviating from our expected timelines and address that it also helps us talk about what kind of acceleration we could expect if we wanted to invest more people into the project okay so streamlining is important then the next thing we uh want to do is verify as much as possible that the work you're doing gets you to where you're wanting to go and it's also the most effective way to get there you can have the fastest time to Market in the industry but if you're not solving real problems you're just not going to see the impact that you want that's lost opportunity so the time that you spend doing the wrong things is lost time you could have spent doing the right things you're not just not moving forwards you're falling behind you can grow that confidence through user industry research to understand how your customers and potential customers experience things another effective approach is to get real world feedback early do validation studies that confirm your design is easy to use and that customers get it you can release MVPs or what we like to call it Vault MLPs a minimum lovable product which is a similar that's great yeah it's a simple slice of value that the final product with uh that that the final product may have all the bells and whistles and this slce says just hone down a little bit but still lovely and it allows for iterative improvements based on real user data okay so that was a second thing the third thing is that your team is bought in to the mission and happy so I personally don't really prescribe to The Squeeze harder type of management where to get more out of people you just keep squeezing hard harder and harder people end up leaving you're underst staffed you have to hire retrain and then negative flywheel just continues now research demonstrates a clear link between employee happiness and productivity so you can grow this by uh fostering buyin treat the development team as part of the team instead of a resource for execution take the time to discuss the wise take on their feedback and Empower engine engineering Discovery to have a voice in shaping the solution then empower the team to own their own timelines through these rses and breaking down deliverables now the team drives the discussion on when we deliver and why instead of working with an arbitrary timeline that someone else made up and that person may not even know what it means to deliver the product because the engineering team is now delivering this timeline we have much greater confidence that we can do it besides just trying to do anything to reach a timeline that someone else has come up with finally respect the commitment if the team is committing 200% to reach a certain timeline make sure to give them some Flex time when the stakes are lower to rest and recover if you run people into the ground it's just going to run them out of your building right so right in summary make sure you're doing the right things in the right way and that's how you get the maximum impact that your teams sounds easy but the reality is obviously um sometimes very different but thank you very much I mean it's great to have these um um this map of uh of of ways of doing that in in mind and when when I'm thinking about inspiring the team as well I I wanted to discuss with you the current trends in the food delivery subscription service industry industry um what would you say um are the current trends and uh how do you see um them evolving uh through next years it's a great question I'm a little biased uh but I think it's a great exciting industry to to watch so in general the food delivery ex uh industry has been experiencing rapid transformation so this has been driven by growing demand for convenience for Speed and it's led to the rise of quick Commerce and 15minute delivery services so this is where we are today as we look forward I think we will see Automation and Robotics becoming increasingly prevalent uh such as order fulfillment and warehouses and the use of self-driving delivery vehicles this technology aims to streamline operations to reduce delivery times and costs so there are some articles on mean in China who is using drones for deliveries since 2021 so that's not even new news right and there are some major players in the states yeah so major players in the States this is Uber e door Dash even Walmart which is like a a huge brick and mortars uh Supermarket they're pairing with uh drone logistics companies to explore drone based food delivery so we're seeing this in multiple places places and even in Europe by the way we are seeing major players such as deliver jie takeaways uh doing the same thing so that's one thing I would definitely watch out for another is that we're seeing players expanding into high margin spaces uh Beyond food delivery so delivery companies are expanding that inventory to include things like alcohol Pharmaceuticals grocery sales uh Grocery and pharmaceuticals become particularly interesting for subscription servic is as we're talking about recurring needs you're always going to need more groceries if you have a subscription or prescription excuse me a prescription you're going to need uh a refill of that prescription and so we can make this easier for customers by automating the refilling of what they need so that they don't need to remember to do this and that in turn helps subscriptions by having a better retention so ing to statistica meal kit Services alone are expect Ed to be a 20 billion industry in 2025 so uh Lots going on in that space now personally I find Explorations into Financial Services quite interesting food delivery companies already process large volumes of transactions daily which means that they can learn a lot on spending habits cash flow and the financial needs of customer and delivery Partners so by offering fin Financial products like loans the company can diversify the revenue streams while reinvesting in the ecosystem around them such as couriers or Merchants Financial well-being if our partners are doing well that's also in turn good for us right so some examples of how door Dash and volt are operating here are door Dash's Dasher direct Financial platform for Dashers which features a business prepaid Visa card and mobile banking app and Volt's newly launched uh volt Capital which provides accessible and affordable financing for merchants okay so you asked about the subscription space as well here we're seeing a shift towards more personalized and flexible offerings and customers want the freedom to customize their plans and access exclusive perks online shopping can customize the browsing and Order experience in ways that Breck and mortar just can't do right uh you've got one experience when you walk into the shop and you can't readjust it for every person coming in but in essence that's exactly what we can do online so in addition to that flexibility customers care about price especially in the current economic climate so they're comparing the subscriptions they pay for and they're cutting back on the ones that don't provide as much unique value and we're seeing more and more bundling as result so so the streaming industry is a really great example of this where about 70% of new streaming subscribers are expected to opt in for bundled Services rather than subscribing to multiple Standalone subscriptions and an example of a bundle like this is Disney plus which includes Disney Plus Hulu e ESPN plus and these are becoming popular because they offer a cost-effective way to have a variety of options at a time when consumers are more cautious with their spending and the average spending on subscriptions is in Decline so there are lots of great articles on the out there on everything I've just discussed so if listeners are interested in reading more we can maybe share some of those that would that would definitely be great so so uh definitely uh we should share all the Articles you you're mentioning or you're taking information from I I am personally very much interested in going through them as well um and uh when we're talking about Trends um how do you think um industry can better understand and cater to the evolving needs of customers and like especially uh for the younger generation is is there a connection between these Trends and the needs of the younger Generations definitely definitely and I would love to hone in on the younger generations of it all because I find them absolutely fascinating this is because in some ways I like to think of our future or younger Generations as a peak into the future of where we're going and that's because they're operating with more recent contexts than older folks plus I mean literally they're the future right so uh the first thing is leveraging data analytics for personalization I've already commented on the importance of customized personalized experiences now younger Generations have grown up with this and it's become their basic expectation instead of a a positive let's say and we can think of how successful Tik toks personalized algorithms are with shorter attention spans people are just not willing to browse the catalog they expect us to do it for them so then the second thing is sustainability and ethical practices this matter more and more to younger consumers when they're making purchasing decisions particularly younger European customers prioritize health and environmental factors when they're deciding where to buy from and what to buy things like reduce carbon emissions recyclable materials and fair trade matter okay so the third thing is recognizing getting the attention of younger generation will build lifelong loyalty if we can can build habits now even if this segment of customers have less buying power it solidifies a relationship for the longterm we can do this by meeting them where they are such as having a strong social media presence that speaks their language offer special discounts to make your products more in reach for younger consumers and Foster habits while they're building them consider their values and include Corporate social responsibility as part of your strategy and make sure that transparent it's not just pandering these are all ways that we can reach young consumers earlier in the Journey of finding their own path okay okay and I wanted to move a little bit um um into the topic of um company prism and discuss a little bit more about vult plus uh in general and um can you share what strategies uh does Vault plus use uh to ensure great customer EXP experience because it is an app that we all love um but then while also being profitable for the company so how do you guys find that balance it's not easy um can you can you share that with us sure let me touch real quick on what Vol plus is because maybe not everyone in the audience is familiar with it so V plus is our subscription product at uh Vault where for a set price per month or per year you can get free delivery from uh participating venues uh within your area so this is a really good deal it generally checks out around two to three purchases per month so if you're an active user of of volt this this is a great option for you so that's a little bit about what volt pluses now coming back to the question what does volt plus do to ensure a great customer experience but also provide value for the company right it comes back to my earlier point about solving real problems s so we spend a lot of time understanding how people experience Vol plus and what their lifestyle is like how can we make it better easier I like to think about financially viable products being good for the customer in the long run because it means the product will be around for a longer time than if you're bleeding money so sometimes you invest in growth and that's a strategy however having the mechanisms in place knowing that you can be there in a profitable space how to get there this is important now of course uh if pulling the lever to profitability kills the value proposition of your product you don't really have a sustainable product do you people will stop using it so this is why I like to think about both the long-term business impact of the product at the same time thinking about the value for customers it's true that not every product's job is to drive profitability there are other reason reasons that product is important both for the customer for the organization but for subscriptions this is definitely a consideration of course of course and how do you how do you measure success um of your product um what are the key metrics that you're using and what are the key metrics that are important actually from your uh point of view yeah this is a super important part of being a good product manager and frankly it can look different depending on the purpose of your product the leadership style at your company I personally like to use both qualitative and quantitative metrics key performance indicators like subscription user base growth uh retention lifetime value of customers and unit economics of the subscription are important we follow how customers change key behavioral signals like uh are people coming back to the app more are they placing more purchases we also monitor The NPS or net promoter score to understand how our subscribers feel about their subscription and we ask them why they cancel when they leave we do all of this to really understand from our customers perspective how are they feeling and I'm actually quite proud of how we've built up these communication channels in the last year we spent a lot of time speaking and listening to customers understanding their experiences on top of this we also have a culture of uh volt grade which is the stuff you put into production should feel nice so we build not just things that move a metric but also things that if you open it you're proud of what that feels like now I know that's totally subjective but it gives me the power to say no let's spend a little more time on polish before we leing and I just love that we value the unmeasurable things too absolutely um and I have one last question um and I'm gonna come back to the to the trends conversation because I'm um wondering uh what in your opinion is the big next big Trend uh for the industry um that you believe everyone should focus on yeah it's a real exciting question um if I had a crystal ball so I've commented already on robotics Banking and personalization so I'll take it back to my psychology roots for this one and disclaimer I don't think it's really a trend yet but I do think it's worth thinking about and these are social needs humans are social animals so the weakening of community ties over time has made people feel more lonely and more isolated than in the past and the pandemic really grew these feelings and while technology does help people connect virtually it can be used to replace face-to-face interactions without offering the same depth and emotional connection as in-person interactions do and this higher usage of social media has been found to increase feelings of social isolation because of fomo and inadequacy due to constant comparison so we end up with a bunch of people who crave meaningful connection now can we create opportunities for Meaningful connections that is relevant for our food delivery subscription service or am I reaching I personally think so I think we can do this by working with our Merchant Partners to create in store special opportunities such as a limited time discount for subscribers encouraging people to go to an outing together or perhaps doing something else like offering online live master classes that people can participate in together this would create opportunities for exchange without the social anxiety that you may have in a one-on-one interaction so I don't have a perfect understanding of this yet but I definitely think it's interesting to explore great thank you very much for sharing all that and Alina I mean thank you very much for this insightful conversation I think you're leaving us with a lot of um great things to digest um especially in the transends area U it makes me think uh about about the the future of uh quick Commerce and fot delivery industry definitely so thank you very much again um it was a great pleasure um and I wish you a wonderful Tuesday and a week thank you very much my pleasure Barbara bye bye e