Ashish Gupta, Product Manager in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
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Ashish Gupta

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Location
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Toptal Member Since
November 26, 2020

Ashish is an impact-driven product manager who has led the development of multiple enterprise SaaS products from scratch. These products are now being used in Fortune 500 companies in India and Europe. Ashish has led cross-functional teams of over 12 people to build products for startups and one of the biggest companies in India, ITC Limited. Ashish excels at assessing business opportunities, building lean products, and creating go-to-market strategies.

Project Highlights

Low-code Platform to Build Solutions for Heavy Industries
Led a 12-member team to build a cross-platform, scalable, and modular low-code platform to create enterprise-grade apps via a drag-n-drop interface. Delivered a growing top line with deployments in India and Europe with Fortune 500 companies.
Snippet-based Planner to Improve Project Plan Creation for Large-scale Projects
Led more than six people to develop an innovative snippet-based planner to reduce the amount of time to create project plans to one-fifth of benchmarks. It is one of its kind product offering in the O&G industry.
Real-time Price Discovery Solution to Reduce Procurement Costs in Auctions
Achieved an annual recurring savings of $1.3 million with a real-time price discovery solution to reduce the costs of goods (tobacco); managed a distributed team in 31 locations with 40+ members for the deployment.

Expertise

Work Experience

Product Manager

2018 - PRESENT
Maximl Labs
  • Managed a cross-functional team of 12+ people to build a low-code platform to create rich-media and advanced workflow-based apps for heavy industries. Led the feasibility assessment, conceptualization, development, and GTM for the product line.
  • Led a team of six people to develop an innovative snippet-based planner to reduce the amount of time to create project plans (20% of benchmarks). It is one of its kind product offering in the O&G industry.
  • Built a self-service field service management (FSM) product for SMBs to manage their last-mile operations and improve the on-field productivity of desk-less workers by 15%. Managed a team of eight people to build the product from scratch.
  • Created the go-to-market strategy for the company leading to a renewed positioning. Managed a team to create a brand new website reflecting the renewed positioning for the company.
  • Spearheaded the marketing strategy of the company to exhibit the renewed positioning, establish thought leadership and get in-bound leads.
  • Instituted the customer success function to effectively manage the post-purchase journey of a client for both partner and direct channels.

Head, Digital Transformation

2016 - 2018
ITC Limited
  • Built and successfully deployed (31 locations) a real-time price discovery product to reduce the purchasing cost of tobacco. Managed the SAP team for development and 40+ members operations team for deployment. Got yearly recurring savings of $1.3 million.
  • Led the development of the ML solution to automate quality check of packed tobacco cases. Managed 20+ stakeholders (production team, QC team, and tech partner). The project was awarded the most innovative across ITC Limited. Implemented in all factories.
  • Built a product to completely digitize data collection and farmer authentication (Aadhaar based) for CSR documentation to reduce paper wastage, payment delays and enhance traceability. It is being used to authenticate 10,000+ farmers quarterly.
  • Developed an IoT-based solution comprising of a mobile application and a hardware unit to reduce fuelwood consumption and get a superior crop quality during the curing process. It was successfully implemented across 30 locations.
  • Led the digital strategy segment of the annual planning activity of the division for two consecutive years; it consists of a 5-year plan.

Low-code Platform to Build Solutions for Heavy Industries

Led a 12-member team to build a cross-platform, scalable, and modular low-code platform to create enterprise-grade apps via a drag-n-drop interface. Delivered a growing top line with deployments in India and Europe with Fortune 500 companies.

Objective: A low-code platform that creates rich-media and advanced workflow-based industrial applications through a drag-n-drop interface.

USP: The time to value for customers was reduced from months to weeks through faster experimentation and iteration cycles. It also provided higher agility and lower cost in the creation of solutions on the platform.

Customer Segment: Heavy Industries | Channel: Direct & Consulting Partners

Responsibilities: Product, GTM Strategy, Marketing & Customer Success

Impact: It has a planned expansion to Europe in FY 2020-21, within 1.5 years of conceptualization.

Snippet-based Planner to Improve Project Plan Creation for Large-scale Projects

Led more than six people to develop an innovative snippet-based planner to reduce the amount of time to create project plans to one-fifth of benchmarks. It is one of its kind product offering in the O&G industry.

Objective:
A project planner to accelerate plan creation for large scale projects using an innovative snippet-based approach.

Tasks:
• Led the creation of best in class snippets for industrial turnaround jobs which enforce best practices while helping clients create project plans much faster.

USP: Reduces time to create project plans to one-fifth of the benchmark.

Customer Segment: Heavy Industries | Channel: Direct

Impact:
The planner has become a part of the project management offering of Maximl while acting as a differentiator.

Field Service Management Application for Small and Medium-sized Businesses

Led a team of eight to build from scratch a self-service field-service management product for SMBs to help them manage their last-mile operations and gain a 15% improvement in field productivity.

Objective:
A self-serve field service management product to manage last-mile operations.

USP: Aims to improve on-field productivity of desk-less workers by 15%.

Customer Segment: Contractors (SMB) with Field Teams | Channel: Direct

Tasks:
• Managed a cross-functional team of eight people to build the product and GTM.

Impact:
It is in the pilot phase and is ready to be launched in early 2021.

Real-time Price Discovery Solution to Reduce Procurement Costs in Auctions

Achieved an annual recurring savings of $1.3 million with a real-time price discovery solution to reduce the costs of goods (tobacco); managed a distributed team in 31 locations with 40+ members for the deployment.

Objective:
To reduce tobacco procurement cost (~70% of operating expenses) in auctions by leveraging price arbitrage available across multiple tobacco auction platforms (TAPs) using an end-to-end digital solution.

Tasks:
• Liaised with different stakeholders from management, operations team (user), and finance department (savings validator) to conceptualize and implement the solution.
• Led the complete solution development with the SAP team.
• Fulfilled my key responsibilities of business objectives alignment, features, UI/UX, development, and field implementation.

Impact:
The product was deployed in 31 TAPs with a savings of $1.3 million recorded in FY 2018-19 (recurring savings). The project savings were tracked at the ITC HQ level, and a case study was done by SAP on the project.

Machine Learning-based Real-time Quality Assessment System

Led the development of the system to automate the quality checks of packed tobacco cases; managed 20+ stakeholders including the production team, QC team, and technology partner.

Objective:
To implement an end-to-end solution to automate the quality assessments of packed tobacco cases in factories to bring objectivity and speed in quality assessment.

Tasks:
• Led the development of a machine learning and computer vision-based system comprising of both hardware and software components to achieve the project objective.
• Managed various stakeholders including the production team, QC team, and a technology partner—totaling more than 20 people.

Impact:
The system was implemented in tobacco processing plants replacing the manual QC process. It was awarded the most innovative project across all ITC divisions in November 2018.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) — Beneficiary Management

Built a solution to completely digitize data collection and farmer authentication (Aadhaar based) for CSR documentation to reduce paper wastage, payment delays and enhance traceability.

Objective:
To digitize the CSR documentation process to reduce paper wastage, transportation hassles, payment delays and bring increased traceability to the process.

Tasks:
• Managed the solution conceptualization, prototyping, development, deployment, and legal aspects.
• Integrated Aadhaar-based authentication to bring enhanced beneficiary traceability.
• Managed operations, sustainability team, and technology partner (totaling more than 15 people).

Impact:
The solution is being used while distributing CSR benefits to 10,000+ farmers. It led to a reduction in payment lead time by 30% and reduced the number of days spent in the field by 50%.

Digital Solution for Crop Estimation Using GPS

Conceptualized, developed, and implemented a novel technique to conduct crop estimation activity using GPS and achieved 98% accuracy in the field—leading to instant adoption and replacement of decades old methodology.

Objective:
To design and develop a digital solution for crop estimation.

Tasks:
• Conceptualized, designed, and coded a GPS-based Android application as proof of concept (POC).
• Achieved 98% accuracy against the target of 95%.
• Negotiated with multiple vendors to implement the validated POC solution for the full-scale deployment.

Impact:
The solution is now being used to do crop estimations for over 15,000 farmers yearly and has replaced the old process used in the division (received PPO for the work; 3/12 people received it).

On-demand Emergency Response System

Conceptualized and developed an emergency response system with funding from Underwriters Laboratories, USA.

Objective:
To create an emergency response system. The project was commissioned by the then chief minister of the state and the event was covered in multiple national newspapers.

Tasks:
• Conceptualized and developed a solution (mobile application) for on-demand emergency responses to fire incidents.
• Collaborated with the state government's fire and emergency services for product development and launch.
• Provided data-backed consultancy to the fire services department of another state for better preparedness in their emergency response.
• Published a conference paper in "National Conference on Fire Research and Engineering” at IIT Roorkee, India.

Impact:
The solution was launched as a pilot by the chief minister of the state with coverage across multiple national newspapers.

Smart Grid Solution to Monitor Energy Consumption Remotely

Built a system to monitor the energy profile of buildings using current transformers (CT) and Raspberry Pi.

Objective:
To implement a portable energy monitoring system for buildings.

Tasks:
• Conceptualized and designed a system for remotely monitoring the building energy consumption.
• Built the system using current transformers (CT) and Raspberry Pi.
• Employed Python scripting for data collection, archival, and graphical analysis.

Impact:
The solution became an integral part of the smart-grid project at the institute level in Singapore.
2012 - 2016

Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar - Gujarat, India

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