Piyush Priyam
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal member since October 27, 2022
Piyush has 11+ years of experience in product management and founding B2B SaaS startups. He was a strategy consultant at Deloitte, EY, and Accenture. He led end-to-end product delivery for startups in the grocery delivery and CPG distribution spaces and guided enterprise clients in the automotive, telecommunication, and CPG industries. Piyush is an expert in product ideation and leading distributed and cross-functional teams to develop innovative solutions.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Data Analytics
- Early-stage Startups
- Mobile Applications
- Product Management
- Product Owner
- Project Management
- Scrum
Work Experience
Technical Product Owner - North America
PepsiCo Global - PepsiCo IT Services
- Led the product development of Pepsico's Global B2B ordering app for five geographies that 300,000 B2B customers use.
- Led the data migration team that oversaw data load migration for all objects, specifically products, customers, warehouse, sales history, orders, etc., from the old system to the new one.
- Managed a scrum team of eight developers and three QA resources.
Partnerships Manager
Jobber
- Launched five strong product partnerships with industry-leading players including Indeed, WordPress, and Looka.
- Handled the end-to-end responsibility of scouting, evaluating, onboarding, launching, and measuring the success of product partners.
- Created a one-year roadmap of increasing partnership revenue by 150%.
- Conceptualized and launched two high-revenue projects focusing on new user acquisition from different geographies and sub-industries.
Founder and CEO
PEPO
- Founded India's first platform-based ordering system for retailers to book orders from distributors of any product.
- Owned the product vision, overall product strategy, and roadmap for entire product suite. Designed and validated the prototype with a focus on general trade distribution.
- Propelled user acquisition by leveraging insights from the V1 launch (order-booking app for retailers) to drive strategy for V2 (comprehensive app to replace on-ground sales executives), which delivered MoM acquisition growth of 53%.
- Conceptualized and built the subscription-revenue product lines that increased revenue and adoption by more than 45%.
- Launched various growth hacking initiatives and features, such as a reward for order-generation and referral, a forum, etc. This brought in over 0.2 million users within the first nine months.
- Incorporated various features through user feedback (interviews, surveys, and A/B testing) like voice-based ordering, AI-enabled readymade purchase orders, and a forum for interacting with local retailers and distributors.
- Defined MVP iterations, the GTM plan, and owned the execution (backlog, user stories, pilot management, A/B tests).
- Led development of "smart list" that required integrating two AWS AI engines.
- Released an industry-first profile-switching functionality (as buyer or seller) which doubled the utility of PEPO for retailers and distributors. This led to a jump in user adoption by 80%.
- Developed a white-label framework to allow PEPO to be used by other industries (garments, auto-parts, consumer durables).
Co-founder and CEO
EZkirana
- Led a cross-department team of 35 to deliver three product lines, including content, engineering, customer service and analytics. Scrum teams for each product line included back-end and front-end developers, UX, data science, QA, and DevOps resources.
- Defined and launched the strategic product vision for the list-making mobile app concept. Managed all features maximizing acquisition, engagement, and retention.
- Designed India's first pricing engine for food commodities that increased gross margin to 12% (highest in the industry). The pricing algorithm used a combination of historical transactional data, price seasonality, and ongoing product margins.
- Ideated, built, and launched a procurement tool to automate supplier PO creation resulting in a 90% reduction in procurement planning time.
- Spearheaded market research, user discovery, concept testing, and defined MVP scope. Researched and designed product prototypes and worked with stakeholders to develop product roadmaps and user stories.
- Created a data-driven product development framework by spearheading EZkirana's data analytics division. Identified 25 key metrics to measure and track product's performance and progressively align user expectations with product features.
- Used Scrum methodology and developed product backlogs and sprint plans from scratch using Jira.
- Prepared the investor pitch deck and successfully closed a $300,000 seed investment.
- Recognized by Indian government as one of India's upcoming startups at World Food India 2017.
- Scaled business to become the 7th largest food-service distributor in South India, serving the largest kitchen in India.
Analyst
Accenture Management Consulting
- Advised clients across a variety of industries (CPG, beverage, agro-chemicals, automobile and logistics) on topics ranging from strategy, sales growth, supply chain transformation, and cost reduction.
- Build a 3-year strategic roadmap and comprehensive business plan for one of the largest beverage companies in India identifying future strategic direction, profit pools, and cost-reduction opportunities.
- Served as product owner of web-based interactive dashboards for leadership of the beverage company to view and analyze supply-chain metrics like SKU-level inventory-position, stock-in-flow, dispatch analytics, and wastage.
- Led service-related initiatives for the largest automobile company in India to increase revenue in South India by 15%. Decreased service turnaround time by over 25% by creating a centralized, one-stop web portal for service requests.
- Led product development of an Android-based application for on-ground sales executives that improved salesforce productivity by 8% and specialty fertilizer sale by 12% of one of the largest fertilizer companies in India.
- Collaborated with the CEO, head of sales and other executives of the fertilizer company to align product vision with organizational strategic direction. Led discovery workshops, backlog grooming, and sprint planning sessions.
- Cooperated with the internal (Accenture engineering team) and external (client leadership, sales team, R&D team, and users) stakeholders for user research, product feedback, and launch.
Consultant
EY
- Set up an analytics practice in EY and led a 12-member team for audit support analytics. Hired and trained the team that completed 60+ analytics projects in nine months.
- Led the centralized Revenue Analytics team of seven overlooking the post-paid billing system for one of the largest telecommunication companies in India.
- Served as product owner of an analytics tool developed using ACL for journal entry analytics.
Analyst
Deloitte
- Collaborated with onshore and offshore stakeholders to design a SAS-based analytics tool for performing routine analytics on journal entry data.
- Provided exploratory data analysis solutions to Fortune 500 companies to identify anomalies in journal entry transactions for financial reporting.
- Managed over 30 different analytics projects on using sophisticated data analysis techniques using SAS, SQL, and ACL.
Project History
P2P Purchase Order-sharing App for CPG Distribution
Led the design and development of an industry-first app that reduced the distribution cost of CPG companies and was used by 0.2 million retailers and distributors.
I designed a single app where retailers can order and manage products and get delivery from all CPG companies. This reduced the salary cost of companies by up to 30%, saved retailers' time, and eased the distribution process.
As the company's founder, I brought the product idea to life through market analysis and user research, defining product vision and strategy, and creating the product roadmap. I also hired and managed a team of 25 comprising development, UX, QA, and DevOps resources.
The app was hosted on AWS and developed using Python (Flask framework). Google voice assistant and AWS forecast and prediction AI engines were used for purchase list functionalities.
Wholesale Food Ordering App for Restaurants
Co-founded and led product development of the mobile app, raised seed investment, and scaled the business to achieve 55% YoY revenue growth.
I ideated and designed a 'collaborative list-making app' to simplify this. The app included features like smart lists, draft lists, approval of lists, voice-based search, volume-dependent rates, and historical rate trends. I hired and led a team of 35 to build mobile apps for customer and sales executives.
Using the app, restaurant managers could reduce time spent on order planning by 75% and save 5% on food-cost.
Pricing Engine for Food Commodities
Achieved an industry-best gross margin of 12% and decreased working capital at EZkirana by designing a price engine algorithm that helped in stocking less and reducing wastage.
To solve this problem, I designed a product-level price engine to predict wholesale rates a week in advance. This enabled us to quote competitive rates on the EZkirana website. We also had the freedom to buy and hold stock when prices were low.
I created an Excel model initially to incorporate the algorithm. Later, I worked with the tech team to develop the pricing engine that fed rates to the user-facing website and mobile app, and designed an ordering system that guided our purchase timing and quantity based on inputs from the engine. This also reduced EZkirana's procurement planning time by 90%.
Education
Master of Business Administration Degree (MBA) in Strategy
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad - Ahmedabad, India
Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering
Birla Institute of Technology - Ranchi, India
Certifications
Product Management for AI and ML
ELVTR
Advanced Product Management
Udemy
Skills
Tools
Asana, Jira, Slack, Zoom, Google Analytics, SAS, Figma
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Agile Product Management, Key Performance Metrics, Agile Project Management, Agile Software Development, Requirements Analysis, Agile Business Analysis, Change Management, Kanban, Acceptance Testing, Data Product Management, Azure DevOps
Industry Expertise
Product Ideation, Automotive
Other
Aha!, Excel 365, Microsoft PowerPoint, Business Strategy, Project Management, Stakeholder Management, Market Research & Analysis, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Go-to-market Optimization, Microsoft Excel, Cross-functional Collaboration, Industry Analysis, Partnerships, Competition Research, Product Planning, Product Management, App Product Management, B2B Product Management, Product Owner, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Product Leadership, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Remote Team Leadership, Product Growth, App Growth, Growth Strategy, Growth Hacking, Early-stage Startups, Startup Growth Strategy Development, Product Strategy, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Monetization, Roadmaps, Feature Roadmaps, Product Roadmaps, SaaS Product Management, Startups, Sprints, Go-to-market Strategy, Prototyping, Backlog Management, Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Customer Journeys, User Research, Mobile Apps, Mobile Applications, eCommerce, Agile Product Delivery, Team Leadership, Growth, Sales Growth, Startup Funding, Early-stage Funding, Web, Business Unit Strategy, Cost Reduction & Optimization (Cost-down), Supply Chain Optimization, Supply Chain Management (SCM), Consulting, Business Consulting, Business Plan Consulting, Data Analytics, Product Strategy Consultant, Hiring, Training & Training Content Development, Employee Training, Training, Analytics, Audit Command Language (ACL), Excel Modeling, A/B Testing, Product Vision, User Stories, Competitive Analysis, Customer Development, Customer Interviews, Feature Prioritization, User Metrics, Metrics, Backlog Grooming, Forecasting, Product Development, Business Analysis, Product Ownership, Collaboration, Negotiation, Sales, Operations, Sales Enablement, Workflow, Operations Improvement, Supply Chain, Data Analysis, Subscriptions, SaaS, Modeling, Subscription Pricing, Project Planning, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Data-driven Dashboards, HVAC, Field Service Management, Technical Business Analysis, New Product Development, Technical Product Management, Pitch Decks, Product Launch, Small & Medium-sized Enterprises (SME), Market Research, Mentorship, Market Fit, Inventory Management, Analysis, Scrum Master, Stakeholder Engagement, Requirements, Implementation, Requirements & Specifications, Discovery, Software as a Service (SaaS), Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Sprint Planning, Digital Product Management, Project Scoping, Software Project Management, Technical Hiring, AI Product Management, Business Requirements, Workshops, Business Acceptance Testing, Web & Mobile Applications, Client Delivery Management, Client Management, Client Presentations, Project Timelines, Status Updates, Storytelling, Technical Project Management, Reporting, BI Reporting, Business Intelligence (BI), Product requirement document, Functional Requirements, Business Process Flow (BPF), Flowcharts, Communication, Leadership, Program Management, Trello, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Business to Consumer (B2C), Sales Operations, Software, WordPress, Integration, Kickstarter, Algorithms, Manufacturing, Miro, API Documentation, API Integration, APIs, ChatGPT, Cross-platform App Development, SQL, Two-sided Communities, Digital Platform Development, Business to Business (B2B), Feature Planning, Data Migration, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Large Language Models (LLMs), Heuristic Evaluation, Data Labeling, Data Augmentation, Supervised Learning, Unsupervised Learning, Neural Networks, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Transformers, Google Publisher Tag (GPT), Responsible AI, Prompt Engineering, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), AI Product Proposal, Python, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
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