Tonći Jajić
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Tonći is an accomplished project and product manager with over ten years of multi-disciplinary experience. He has helped multiple SME businesses improve their efficiency and maximize their margins. Leveraging his experience, attention to detail, and leadership skills, he has nurtured and managed several large agile teams to timely deliveries of amazing projects and products. Tonći has experience in eCommerce, travel, retail, wholesale, and service industries.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Product Consultant (Technical Account Manager)
Automattic
- Special Projects Team, working to deliver innovative projects for unique people and worthwhile causes.
- Worked on Applied AI tooling (and prompt engineering) and delivered several Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) prototypes to production.
- Delivered solutions in eCommerce, blogging, non-profits, NGOs, community outreach, marketing, and more.
- Consulted on UX and functionality of various companies products and services and delivered dozens of new product prototypes.
- Helping build a better web and spreading the spirit of open source using a wide range of Automattic products and services (WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, Jetpack, DayOne, Akismet, PocketCasts, Longreads, Simplenote, and more).
iCPO (Interim Chief Product Officer)
Index.hr
- Held a short-term fractional/interim CPO role for index.hr, the largest (1 million daily unique visitors, 77 million monthly unique visitors) news site in Croatia.
- Audited the company's product and design processes in depth. Founded the product department. Hired talent for the roles within it.
- Oversaw the launch of one product (a recipe app), the development of another (food guide tasteatlas.com), the reimagining of the 3rd one (classified ads), the ideation of a 4rth one (vegan/superfood app), and improvements of the main one (index.hr).
Director of Operations
Alma Flowers
- Short-lived startup. Moved the company from being stuck in development to making revenue in less than six weeks.
- Changed the company strategy to a thought-out go-to-market plan focusing on lead generation. Personally managed the initial marketing execution with satisfactory results regarding a positive return on ad spend (ROAS).
- Set up processes for operations, logistics, and fulfillment, working with farms, vendors, and suppliers to ensure fresh overnight delivery of each item. Optimized cost structure.
Business Strategy Manager
Quick Parking
- Moved from a product position into a more comprehensive (fractional) business managing one. Ten days before COVID-19 hit.
- Developed and executed successful pivots into SaaS and brokerage that ensured COVID-19 survival of the business (tied to the travel and aviation industry) with continuing operations and development.
- Improved the company's market position by using a dynamic pricing strategy (lead-based bucket pricing) and expanding market offerings from 15 to 80 airports.
- Prepared the company and paved the way. fo US market entry.
Senior Product and Project Manager
Valcon
- Acted as a program/product manager for QuickParking (over $20 million in annual revenue), managing a mobility-as-a-service platform product with four projects, three project managers, and over 20 developers.
- Enabled a 30% increase in sales performance (average order value and conversion rate) through UX testing and conversion rate optimization.
- Ensured a 50% decrease in operational overhead and an order-of-magnitude increase in API integrator onboarding.
- Ideated and led the development of auxiliary web app services and devices that impacted important customer satisfaction metrics, such as wait times and self-help availability, and increased the returning customer rate by 20%.
- Oversaw multiple greenfield MVP projects to fast and successful deliveries as program/project manager and led one MVP development from ideation to MVP user testing in five weeks.
Product and eCommerce Manager
Family
- Led the development of the eCommerce product with a five-month break-even and a 600% three-year ROI from its inception to full market maturity.
- Managed both eCommerce operations and marketing of the entire brand (eCommerce and brick and mortar), resulting in a 30% growth of initial brand revenue, 10% YoY growth in revenue, and an average of 25% YoY growth in eCommerce.
- Started additional services initially used by the brand, such as photo studio and copywriting, which we subsequently offered as a separate service that extended business revenue.
CIO (Chief Information Officer)
Intertekstil Stanic
- Managed the entire ERP stack (sales, BI, accounting, invoicing). Ensured an average 15% yearly profit increase over my tenure by leading the continuous overhead and process optimization.
- Developed ERP to serve the data-driven future of the company, turning it into an off-the-shelf on-premises product and then into a SaaS product.
- Added around 30 new tools, processes, and opportunities that were previously not present or possible in the company's business.
- Enabled workforce mobility by standardizing tools and processes and decreased operational idleness to zero by allowing frictionless software use.
Project History
Quick Parking: Multi-product Software Program (Booking)
https://www.quickparking.comAs program manager, defined and built several products (platform and eCommerce), ensuring over 30% profit margin YoY growth.
Thanks to our software, they were able to support new business ventures and integrate new partners. Our websites ensured the migration was painless, showing a more than 30% improvement in revenue performance over previous solutions. I am currently optimizing the products and adding new features.
I acted as the program manager, agile coach, and product owner on this project. I defined the product vision, immediate and future development plans, and communicated them to all stakeholders. I continue to ensure the team is growing and that processes and flow are creating solid, long-term performance.
Intertekstil Stanić: ERP Software Development (Retail and Wholesale)
http://intertekstil-stanic.hr/pocetna/As product owner, I managed the digital transformation of the company to be data-driven by managing their ERP development.
Based on the existing ERP solution, we've worked closely with the vendor to re-engineer the entire product to suit the company's needs. This included:
- Product catalog module.
- Warehousing, retail, import, coupon, and discount module.
- Business and remote locations module.
Family.hr: eCommerce site (B2C/Retail)
https://www.family.hrLed both the development and the operations of a state-of-the-art eCommerce site, ensuring performance above expectations.
Prior to building a web shop, we did an extensive rebranding, and along with building the web shop, started to invest significantly in digital marketing.
The web shop was built and designed by an external agency and the shop itself proved to be a hit, especially when compared to its brick and mortar counterparts.
Alma Flowers: Shopify eCommerce site (B2C/Retail)
As a director of operations, acted as a project manager in ensuring that a small team delivers highly converting eCommerce site built on Shopify platform.
The shop was launched within five weeks and, coupled with other business operations, started performing and making revenue fast.
Bleiff: Platform and Portal MVP (fintech HR)
Delivered an under-budgeted and over-scoped MVP on time and on budget, while managing the scope closely with the client.
Quick Parking: eCommerce site (Booking)
https://www.quickparking.comLed the development of an eCommerce site with 30% better revenue performance compared to the previous solution.
They've migrated from a network of smaller, regional (airport-specific) sites to a single site serving all markets.
Our website ensured that the migration was painless, showing a more than 30% improvement in revenue performance over previous solutions. I am currently optimizing the product and adding new features.
I acted as the program manager, agile coach, and product owner on this project. I defined the product vision, immediate and future development plans, and communicated them to all stakeholders. I continue to ensure the team is growing and that processes and flow are creating solid, long-term performance.
Green Parking: eCommerce site (Booking)
https://greenparkingschiphol.nl/Acted as a product owner for the booking eCommerce website built by an external agency.
Quick Parking: Administration Web Apps
Led the development of UX-oriented BackOffice and CMS web apps to support the client's administration staff.
For their administration, operations, finance, and customer care staff, I've managed (as both product owner and project manager) development of a back office and CMS web apps.
Apps were built to highest UX standards, guaranteeing the best possible information flow and shortest user paths to key platform operations.
Intertekstil Stanić: Strategy Companion Analyzer Integration and Migration
Transformed the way the company thinks about data and business analysis.
Quick Parking: Android App for Shuttle Bus Drivers
Sped up operations by leading the development of a new, fast, and properly designed Android app for shuttle drivers.
To make shuttle bus drivers day-to-day life easier (and to support operations), we're built a bespoke Android app to be used on tablet devices on each bus. Drivers can use these devices for route information, customer information, and booking management.
Family.hr: Retail Chain Standardization
Enabled frictionless human resource movement.
Typeqast: Support Service Implementation using Jira Service Desk
Successfully managed the setup of the 24/7 support service, including the team, processes, tools, sales, and operations.
- Developed internal processes to support all types of clients and projects.
- Set up multiple instances of Jira service desks and connected them to various tools. Automatized the process (including automatic SLA and automation rules).
- Tested operations, processes, and tools with a large client.
- Scaled and refined them to cover the entire client base.
After the initial setup was complete, I delegated the direct management to a customer service manager (my direct report) and only consulted on Jira-related issues.
Quick Parking: Embedded Windows Terminal Devices
Ensured smoother customer flow on the parking locations by managing the development of the Windows embedded software.
Using those terminals (with an internet connection, touch screen, license plate recognition, camera feeds, and customer care intercom link) customers can easily drive in, out and pay for their parking.
Quick Parking: Operations Planning Tool
Enabled cost-effective operations planning by overseeing the development of a bespoke built planning tool.
To better manage the resources (both human and vehicular) needed for each shift/day/location, we've built them a special tool to manage the ideal and most cost-effective scheduling.
Weerman: Business Management Platform
Rescued a doomed year-long project, managing to secure delivery in just three months.
For Weerman, we built a platform that was able to integrate with Floral Holland's EasyFlor ERP API and provide data for a range of owned internal and white-label solutions.
Our solutions included a Debtor Registration API, white-label administration, Laravel shop options, among others.
Weerman: Magento eCommerce site (B2B/Wholesale)
Rescued a year-old project and secured MVP delivery in three months.
We built a Magento web shop for them that could handle tens of thousands of articles added to the system daily.
Intertekstil Stanić: Embedded Warehouse Devices
Sped up operations and logistics by managing the warehouse workflow and developing purpose-built Windows embedded devices.
To support their growing needs and logistics complexity, I managed (as product manager) a complete overhaul of their warehousing workflows while simultaneously digitalizing it.
Quick Parking: Booking and Business Management Platform
https://www.quickparking.comOversaw the multi-year development of a new bespoke platform and ensured smooth migration from the old system to the new one.
Thanks to our software, they were able to support new business ventures and integrate new partners.
I acted as the program manager, agile coach, and product owner on this project. I defined the product vision, immediate and future development plans, and communicated them to all stakeholders. I continue to ensure the team is growing and that processes and flow are creating solid, long-term performance.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in IT Systems Management
Minerva Business School - Dugopolje, Croatia
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