Charles Phillip Morton
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Qianzhen District, Taiwan
Toptal member since August 24, 2021
Charles is a product owner and, more recently, a product manager by trade. He has extensive experience in eCommerce, logistics, and fintech. He built the end-to-end delivery solution for South Africa's largest e-retailer, supporting over five million deliveries with a bespoke mobile delivery and hub management solution. Charles' digital transformation efforts also decreased driver book out times by 80%. He enjoys devising creative yet simple solutions to complex business and technical problems.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Product Management
- Business Analysis
- Business Cases
- Information Systems
- Product Requirements Documentation (PRD)
- Requirements & Specifications
- Retail & Wholesale
- Roadmaps
Work Experience
Product Manager
NGO (Healthcare)
- Worked with a group of global volunteers to build a virtual hospital application connecting patients, doctors, and other service providers in rural Zimbabwe.
- Coordinated a cross-functional volunteer team of business sponsors, UX designers, and engineers to build a mobile application.
- Aligned business, UX, and technical stakeholders from around the globe around the product vision and defined and prioritized product features accordingly.
Foreign Language Teacher
Fu Cheng Senior High School
- Trained teachers to creatively implement edtech tools in their teaching activities.
- Design the curriculum of a new course using student-centered teaching and appropriate use of technology to teach English picture books to middle school students in creative ways.
- Assisted the school in fulfilling international education goals (bilingual document consultation, video conferencing with overseas schools, and exchange programs).
Product Manager
Takealot
- Supported 80-110% YoY growth for five consecutive years through the re-architecture and scale-up of core legacy systems.
- Increased OTIF by 20% through implementation of a graph database-based system to provide accurate delivery and to protect logistics network capacity during peak periods.
- Supported five million+ deliveries per month through the development of a bespoke hub and delivery management solution.
- Increased last mile visibility from zero to 95% through a bespoke Android delivery management solution.
- Completed an MVP for an on-demand food delivery system in three months. The system currently powers deliveries for the largest food delivery business in Africa.
- Decreased last mile driver turnaround time by 80% through digital transformation efforts.
- Reduced integration time for 3PL couriers from over three months to a few weeks through the design and implementation of a REST API interface.
Lead Business Analyst
Capfin
- Served as product owner for the credit operations business unit comprising collections, legal, and fraud functions.
- Increased the 30-day recovery rate by 19% by developing a ranking system to prioritize accounts to be contacted based on the probability of paying and contact history patterns.
- Oversaw the planning and technical implementation of a $30+ million monthly debit order collections strategy.
- Reduced third-party handovers by 15% by implementing debt rescheduling and a custom re-payment plan functionality.
- Drove initiatives to reduce technical debt and simplify the codebase to increase performance and system stability.
Product Owner
POCiT
- Held accountable for user stories, backlog grooming, product stakeholders management, facilitation of Sprint planning, managing second and third-level support queries, and interfacing between product stakeholders and development and QA teams.
- Led a team that launched a web version of the mobile payments app, increasing the adoption rate by 12%.
- Increased the conversion rate by 9% through proactively researching, testing, and implementing additional product features, functionality, and integrations. These addressed customers’ requests, pain points, and added competitive edges to the product.
- Spearheaded an industry-first rollout of secure bill payment functionality for a top South African fashion retailer.
Systems Analyst
Digiata
- Configured and supported client solutions focused on automating business processes and integrated these processes with underlying applications and components.
- Implemented a bespoke product suite, including direct deposit allocations, cheque printing, payment, and debit order collections.
- Automated the processes utilizing Digiata’s in-house middleware/ETL and website builder. These solutions range from the onboarding of clients, pricing of financial instruments, data conversations, client clients, reporting, and workflow solutions.
Project History
Last Mile Digital Transformation Initiative
http://www.takealot.comActed as the product owner of all mobile applications, back-end and reporting systems, and administration dashboards. Transformed an acquired food delivery business into South Africa's largest B2C courier.
Deliver on Promise Date
https://www.takealot.com/about/takealot-delivery-teamLed the product development efforts for an initiative to develop graph database-based system to supply accurate delivery dates and manage network capacity during peak periods.
I led all product management efforts to deliver a solution that significantly reduced customer complaints and protected last-mile hubs and 3PL couriers from being flooded during peak periods.
Email Bill Payments for Leading Retailer
Led design and development efforts of the secure bill payment functionality integrated into monthly statement emails for a major retailer.
Education
Postgraduate Certificate in Education in Education
Moreland University - Washington DC, US
Master of Business Administration Degree (MBA) in International Business
National Sun Yat-Sen University - Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Bachelor's Degree in Informatics
University of Pretoria - Pretoria, South Africa
Certifications
Diploma in Business Analysis
Faculty Training Institute
Skills
Tools
Jira, Confluence, Balsamiq, Slack, Google Docs, Atlassian Suite, Balsamiq Mockups, Roadmunk, Figma
Paradigms
Agile Product Management, B2C, B2B2C, Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C), Human Interface Design, Scrum, Kanban, Test-driven Development (TDD), Testing, User Testing
Industry Expertise
Logistics, Education Technology (Edtech)
Other
Information Systems, Supply Chain, Requirements & Specifications, Business Cases, Business Analysis, Roadmaps, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Microsoft Office, Product Owner, User Requirements, Stakeholder Management, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Product Management, Feature Prioritization, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Analysis, Information Technology, SQL, Backlog Management, Models, Feature Planning, Retail & Wholesale, Agile Practices, Fintech, B2B, Mobile Web, Android, Microsoft Excel, API Integration, QA Testing, Systems Analysis, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Product Roadmaps, Third-party Logistics, Business Strategy, Market Research & Analysis, Market Opportunity Analysis, Web Applications, Feasibility Studies, Contact Centers, Call Centers, Vendor Selection, SMS, Feature Roadmaps, Payment APIs, Business Models, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Product Design, Product Vision, GAP Analysis, Product Strategy, Remote User Testing, User Feedback, Product Launch, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), User Surveys, Edtech Design, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Monitoring, Iteration Management, Management Accounting, Finance, Internationalization, Market Entry, Marketing, Operations, International Commerce, Decision Analysis, Coding, Human Resources (HR), Marketing Communications (MarCom), Mockups, Web, Cloud, Aha!, Smartsheet, Lucidchart, Technical Program Management, Project Management, Business Systems Analysis, Strategic Planning & Execution, Graph Databases, Scala, Scaling, Budgeting, .NET, Team Mentoring, QA Test Plan Management, IT Strategy, Java, User Flows, Business Requirements, Prototyping, Product Operations, Product Support, User Experience (UX), GraphQL, Agile Product Delivery, Request for Proposal (RFP), Vendor Management, Telematics, SaaS, Telemetry, Data Analysis, Financials, Billing Systems, Analytics, Mobile User Acquisition, Notion, Audience Targeting, Education, UX Strategy
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