Dhiren Jani, Product Manager in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Dhiren is available for hire
Hire Dhiren

Dhiren Jani

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Bio

Dhiren has advised CTOs, CXOs, and large teams at large enterprises on digital transformation. His projects included setting up agile processes, innovation programs, creating technical specifications for outsourcing and vendor selection, and portfolio prioritization and budgeting. Dhiren is a product manager and digital consultant with 20+ years of international experience in the USA, Europe, and Asia Pacific. His expertise includes both packaged software as well as custom software development.

Project Highlights

Digital Transformation for a Software Vendor in Europe
Set up the agile product management function and created cross-functional program management for the new business.

Expertise

  • Agile
  • Cloud Platforms
  • Competitive Intelligence
  • Functional Requirements
  • Go-to-market Strategy
  • Product Owner
  • Product Strategy
  • Technical Product Management

Work Experience

Director of Business Strategy and Innovation

2022 - 2023
Rakuten
  • Tracked and prioritized multiple client-facing projects for different products at different stages of maturity.
  • Ran the pricing team, created pricing and monetization models, and configured them on Salesforce CPQ and MS Excel.
  • Conducted market research on new opportunities and worked on GTM planning, customer segmentation, prioritization and best offer planning.
  • Created a sales reporting template per product to track quarterly pipeline, sales opportunities, and conversions.

Vice President of Product Management

2021 - 2021
Gentrack UK Limited
  • Introduced product management and product lifecycle processes. Interviewed and hired product managers, business analysts, and UX designers.
  • Managed a product portfolio consisting of cloud platforms (AWS and serverless), CRM, billing, digital front end, customer portal, integration services, and managed services.
  • Worked on strategic planning, product portfolio, budgets, and financial plans for the division.
  • Coordinated with outsourcing and technology partners.
  • Ran the initiative to build a KPI dashboard for the business unit and track cross-functional program status.
  • Created product requirements for the CPQ and product catalog microservices and tracked them till delivery.

Vice President of Product Management

2019 - 2019
Markets and Markets
  • Created business and technical specifications to be delivered by agile teams.
  • Connected with enterprise technology buyers, IT vendors, and industry analysts to collect feedback on the new offering.
  • Created Agile processes, a GTM strategy, and an organizational structure.
  • Launched the web-based offering and built the sales process for selling to IT teams in SMBs and large enterprises globally.

Consultant (Director of Products)

2017 - 2018
BCG Client in Eastern Europe
  • Worked on the product portfolio and cross-functional program governance for the organization.
  • Contributed to the marketing and innovation programs related to blockchain, IoT, and cloud solutions.
  • Introduced product management processes from new product business cases to end-of-life programs.
  • Developed the strategy, marketing plan, and portfolio of managed services offerings.

Consultant

2017 - 2017
BCG
  • Designed multiple mobile-app prototypes for banks and enterprises for digital transformation programs across Asia. Also selected a vendor for development, negotiated commercial rates, and completed prototype development.
  • Managed vendor engagement to build an eCommerce portal for a heavy vehicle manufacturer in Asia.
  • Worked with a large media and entertainment client to interview customers about preferences, analyze current products, and recommend new products and offerings.
  • Designed the API banking deployment, testing, and security program for a large private bank.
  • Proposed an integrated, digital customer-engagement program for the CEO and CTO of a large leisure company.
  • Created the RFP, shortlisted vendors, and proposed solutions to develop an employee-performance management system for 50,000 employees of a government bank.
  • Advised on outsourcing and digital transformation program for a large beverage company in the US.

Senior Product Manager

2015 - 2017
Ultimate Kronos Group
  • Led the product management for the multi-cloud, multi-tenant, SaaS platform developed for Kronos.
  • Mentored two product owners and worked with 20 engineers, two scrum masters, a business analyst, and four architects to deliver cloud platform requirements every quarter.
  • Worked on functional areas of cloud security, identity and access management, APIs, software licensing, solution architecture, managed services, and DevOps.

Senior Product Manager

2013 - 2014
Cisco
  • Coordinated with three different services teams and implementation partners to reduce time to go live on Cisco products.
  • Supported transition strategy from on-premise to managed services to SaaS offerings.
  • Identified annual support cost savings of over $250,000 for a product line services team at Cisco.
  • Improved the onboarding experience for B2B customers in Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia in collaboration with the Cisco support team.

Senior Product Manager

2011 - 2012
247.ai
  • Managed cross-functional projects to launch a new CDP platform while tracking progress across different internal and external milestones.
  • Prepared the wireframes, mockups, and specifications for the reporting and management dashboard about visitor engagement and product performance using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in collaboration with UX designers.
  • Created specifications for different product areas such as data security, online performance, browser coverage, mobile browser coverage, performance metrics, data retention policy and methods, visitor privacy policy.
  • Ran customer feedback programs for web products with teams in the US, UK, Australia, and Singapore.
  • Worked with data science teams to predict customer intent, collect data, and identify golden journeys. Deployed the CDP platform on very high-traffic websites during peak sales season.

Project History

Digital Transformation for a Software Vendor in Europe

Set up the agile product management function and created cross-functional program management for the new business.

The client was a software services provider looking to launch their own products in global markets. I consulted on product and business unit management—planning the innovation strategy, creating agile product processes, building a program management office, vendor and partner selection, and supporting research and marketing teams on digital transformation.

Technology Marketplace Launch and Development

Launched the technology marketplace within three days of starting engagement.

The client's website is similar to Gartner Peer Insights, with input from technology analysts, technology buyers, users, and technology vendors. I led the engineering, product management, and technology teams to build the website, evaluate technologies, and add new features.

Microservices Strategy Formulation

Created the microservices strategy, roadmap, development, and deployment plans for a software client.

The client wanted to understand the impact of moving to a fully microservices-based architecture for their next-gen offerings on existing processes and departments. I created a detailed strategy and plan for the introduction and roll-out of different microservices. It included the customer needs, competitive analysis, roadmap, and recommendations for rollout, migration, and support.

CRM Vendor Evaluation

Conducted detailed research and competitive analysis on 40+ CRM vendors globally.

The objective was to identify potential CRM partners for engagement. Using Gartner reports and other industry sources, I created detailed requirements and use cases identified by CRM customers. Features required by different customers (enterprise, SMB, and startups) were then identified. Each vendor was evaluated against multiple criteria, including feature set, quality of support, pricing, and scale of offering. The final shortlist included open-source CRM, full suite CRM, enterprise-scale CRM, SaaS, and on-premise solutions.

TealCloset.com

http://www.tealcloset.com

Created requirements, wireframes, and the Figma prototype. Collaborated with engineering on the development of the eCommerce website, TealCloset.com.

Tealcloset.com is a ladies' fashion website. I worked on the requirements, business strategy, and launch of the website. Facebook and Google Analytics were used to run experiments on user experience and feature usage.

Education

2005 - 2007

Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA)

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad - India

1996 - 2000

Bachelor's Degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering

Gujarat University - India

Certifications

JANUARY 2022 - JANUARY 2025

Cloud Digital Leader

Google

SEPTEMBER 2019 - PRESENT

Agile Certified Coach

ICAgile

SEPTEMBER 2019 - SEPTEMBER 2023

Certified Scrum Master

Scrum Alliance

SEPTEMBER 2019 - SEPTEMBER 2023

Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)

Scrum Alliance

JUNE 2014 - PRESENT

Exploratory Data Analysis

Johns Hopkins University | via Coursera

MAY 2014 - PRESENT

The Analytics Edge

EdX

APRIL 2014 - PRESENT

Gamification

University of Pennsylvania | via Coursera

APRIL 2014 - PRESENT

Data Analysis and Statistical Inference

Duke University | via Coursera

FEBRUARY 2014 - PRESENT

Computing for Data Analysis

Johns Hopkins University | via Coursera

Skills

Tools

Jira, Figma

Paradigms

Agile Product Management, Agile, Scrum, Agile Project Management, Requirements Analysis, Change Management

Platforms

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Other

Cloud Platforms, Functional Requirements, Product Strategy, Competitive Intelligence, Product Owner, Competition Research, Product Roadmaps, Head of Product, Product Management, Program Management, Software as a Service (SaaS), User Experience (UX), Management Consulting, User Personas, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Product Positioning, eCommerce, New Product Development, Product Discovery, Customer Acquisition, Product Launch, Cloud, Product Leadership, Product Operations, SaaS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Technical Product Management, Requirements, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Platforms, Dashboards, Web Product Management, Documentation, System Integration, SaaS Product Management, Software Architecture, CRM Systems, Portfolio Management, Consulting, Business Consulting, Managed Services, IT Services, Web Applications, Data Science, Analytics, Platform as a Service (PaaS), IT Infrastructure, Product Design, Market Fit, Solution Architecture, Stakeholder Management, Vendor Selection, B2B Product Management, Big Data, Backlog Management, Business Models, Market Segmentation, User Validation, Requirements & Specifications, System Requirements, Technical Documentation, Dashboard Design, Dashboard Development, Business Analysis, User Interviews, Digital Product Management, User Requirements, Organizational Design, Training Content, Agile Coaching, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Digital Transformation, Technical Business Analysis, Pricing, Monetization Models, Subscription Pricing, Business Strategy, Monetization, Pricing Models, Data Products, Agile Program Management, Product Ownership, Data Reporting, Business Requirements, Project Management, Go-to-market Strategy, Business Intelligence (BI), Growth Strategy, Market Research, Market Opportunity Analysis, B2B, Data Analytics, Predictive Analytics, APIs, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sales, Salesforce, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Machine Learning, R Programming, Data

Collaboration That Works

How to Work with Toptal

Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.

1

Share your needs

Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2

Choose your talent

Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3

Start your risk-free talent trial

Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.

Top talent is in high demand.

Start hiring