MS office, JIRA & Confluence
Vinod Balasubramanian
Product Manager @ Mercedes Benz For Automotive Software Development
Bengaluru
Summary
8.5+ years experience in business strategy, program, product management in manufacturing, e-commerce & IT domain. Highly skilled in managing projects, building product roadmaps. Possesses in-depth experience in all facets of product development including design, development, quality, costing & product launch. Also, have a proven track record driving growth & profitability. Skilled in analyzing market trends, identifying opportunities & developing strategic plans to achieve business objectives. An versatile leader who can drive effective collaboration between cross-functional teams & ensure client satisfaction by delivering projects within the stipulated time-frame while ensuring quality.
Overview
8
8
years of professional experience
6
6
Certifications
1
1
Language
Work History
Principal Consultant: Product Management
Mercedes Benz Research & Development India Pvt Ltd
04.2023 - Current
- Product Manager for Internal Knowledge Management Platform, AI/ML tools and Cloud Developer Workspace
- Generated significant revenue by securing new business opportunities through effective networking efforts.
- Compiled research data and gave professional presentations highlighting finds and recommended optimizations.
- Conducted thorough reviews of operations to devise and deploy improvement strategies.
- Liaised with customers, management, and sales team to better understand customer needs and recommend appropriate solutions
Program Manager
Amazon Development Center India
06.2022 - 02.2023
- Create business requirement document and align with stakeholders on problem statement
- Work with Business, finance, supply chain execution, transportation and other Amazon teams to identify pain points and scope out project
- Develop product strategy based on prevalent state of business, and create product roadmaps
- Research existing product types on offer and find out which company/brand makes the best version of those, for development purposes. Circulate questionnaire or conduct series of brief interviews with product vendors, development teams, and other product team members to learn as much as possible about product
- Build cases for and against certain products after thorough research into their merits, in front of major stakeholders
- Recommend new products and help marketing team create effective strategies
Senior Engineer: Scrum Master
Renault Nissan Technology & Business Center India
02.2022 - 06.2022
- Owned the Agile processes and championed Agile-based best practices for a 16-member Agile team
Project Manager
Grundfos Pumps India Pvt Ltd
06.2020 - 02.2022
- Establish project management processes for green field setup
- Prepared project plan, ensured quality, timelines and manage project team
- Partner with Supply Chain & Operations team to identify & on-board new vendors & also work closely with them to reduce the cost & lead time.
- Align with the sales team to understand the market requirement & demand forecast
- Work with tech team to drive DtV in order to bring down component & manufacturing cost
Senior Project Management Specialist
TE Connectivity Services India Pvt Ltd
06.2019 - 06.2020
- Responsible in building, planning, managing, driving and executing Automotive Infotainment Projects (NPI/NPD) for various customers across the globe
- Accountable for quality, schedule and cost
- Responsible to ensure that the project is completed within the limits of cost and timelines, with no compromise on quality aspects
- Responsible for the implementation of Kaizen. Analyze project scaling based on CAPEX, Resource Cost, Schedule risk, Design Risk and Process Reuse
- Follow up with sales team for gathering the details regarding customer milestones and quantities. Conduct Concept Design Review, Development Design Review and Safe Launch
- Drive the project through various phases and ensure that it is handed over to manufacturing team at SOP phase with all the documents like: PPAP, handover check list, tool transfer documents, updated MS Project framework and close the project
Senior Executive: Business Development
IFB Automotive Pvt Ltd
01.2016 - 05.2019
- Researching, planning & implementing new target market initiatives. Pursuing leads and moving them through sales cycle
- Cold calling & emailing potential customers. Conduct customer meeting, pitch about the product, capabilities & future scope to bring in more business
- Develop marketing and sales strategies
- Managed overall project activities of NPI/NPD (Waterfall model & Agile Methodology)
- Ensured implementation of Poka yoke and 5'S at all stages of project. Recorded and managed project issues and escalating where necessary. Resolved cross-functional issues at project level
- Worked with business team to conclude product pricing
Education
PG Diploma in Business Administration -
IMT Ghaziabad
India06.2023
Master's in Mechanical Engineering -
University of Canterbury
New Zealand12.2015
Bachelor of Technology: Mechanical Engineering -
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
India04.2013
Skills
Project & Product Management
Accomplishments
Mercedes Benz
1. Stack Overflow for Teams | Jun'23
Deployed Stack Overflow for Teams on Mercedes Benz Premises. It was made available for 8000 developers; productivity was increased by 23%. Currently working of building AI products such as self moderated knowledge management tools
2. ANSIFY | Sep'23
Developed in-house Q&A platform integrating with AI
3. Cloud Developer Workspace| Jan24
It provides top notch, requirement specific, easy build instances/VM/workspace to develop
Amazon
4. MYG: Manage your Growth |Dec'22
For the US market place, we built MYG to tap in all customer queries & map it with the product details page the gaps to identify gaps and brands are communicated to incorporate all the missing details which would enhance customer buying experience. Following are the success metric:
Customer queries reduced by 36%, this resulted in increase in overall satisfaction score by 12% in US market place
% of product return reduced by 16.3%
5. Built Product Defect Taxonomy using ML models & deep reader| Feb'23
For the WW Managed brands (25.7 K brands), we built defect taxonomy, where we extract customer reviews and map it against the defect topic and share these insights to the brands on monthly basis to drive their product improvement.Under the soft lines category, increased the % of 4-star products by 29%, which resulted in sales increase by 9.7%
Grundfos
6. Designed & Developed Motor & Controller for Agriculture Sector| Feb'22
For MNRE KUSUM tender, we designed and developed Motor & Controller. Following are the success metric: Developed motor & controller at 7% & 18% lower than the outsourced product price respectively
TE Connectivity
7. Connectors & Sensors for Automotive OEM's | May'20
Handled & transformed projects from 32% OI to 61% OI by optimizing the design, ensured component price reduction by negotiating with suppliers & increasing the supplier base network
Software
MS Project & Primavera
Google Data Studio & SAP MM
Certification
SAFe POPM
Hobbies
1. Playing Table Tennis: Represented Tamilnadu State for All India Nations
2. Travelling
Timeline
Principal Consultant: Product Management
Mercedes Benz Research & Development India Pvt Ltd
04.2023 - Current
Program Manager
Amazon Development Center India
06.2022 - 02.2023
Senior Engineer: Scrum Master
Renault Nissan Technology & Business Center India
02.2022 - 06.2022
Project Manager
Grundfos Pumps India Pvt Ltd
06.2020 - 02.2022
Senior Project Management Specialist
TE Connectivity Services India Pvt Ltd
06.2019 - 06.2020
Senior Executive: Business Development
IFB Automotive Pvt Ltd
01.2016 - 05.2019
PG Diploma in Business Administration -
IMT Ghaziabad
Master's in Mechanical Engineering -
University of Canterbury
Bachelor of Technology: Mechanical Engineering -
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
SAFe POPM
Certified Scrum Master(CSM)
Certified Scrum Product Owner(CSPO)
ICAgile - ICP- ACC
Lean Management
Institute of Professional Engineers, New Zealand (IPENZ)
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