IIM Lucknow & Wiley’s WileyNXT flagship program in ‘Data Driven Product Management’ is committed to fulfilling India’s demand for future-ready Product Managers

New Delhi: Wiley’s innovative bridge learning solution, WileyNXT in collaboration with IIM Lucknow, one of India’s top business and management schools is successfully running its flagship program of Data Driven Product Management. It is the only Executive Education Program which converges Product, Marketing, Development and Scale Up Strategy across product lifecycle with Data Analytics and Design Thinking. Spread across a total of four batches, the program has already produced over 1000 job-ready product managers till present day. This significant milestone is aligned with WileyNXT’s overall vision of building an ‘Atmanirbhar’ talent and workforce of the future.

India lags behind US widely in terms of availability of skilled Product Managers. An article reported that 1.8 million people in US are in Product Management roles and the demand for a Product Manager role in the US market is growing at a whopping 32% rate. Comparatively, only 20,000 Product Managers are found in India. LinkedIn search is also reflective of the numerous positions unfilled for just base-level Product Managers. This accounts for the widening skill gap in the workforce.

Curated for a diverse target audience, either already involved in developing and managing products or aspiring to transit to similar roles, the flagship program by Wiley’s WileyNXT & IIM Lucknow offers a joint certification from the two prestigious brands along with Executive Alumni Status to the learners. The seven month long intensive experiential learning is meant to provide learners with job readiness from day 1.

More than 9 in 10 companies in India are merging roles and looking to fill open roles internally, according to a credible industry report. Top 3 functions with the highest internal mobility rate in India, in 2020, included Product Management, Consulting, and Program & Project Management. The average salary of product managers in India is estimated to be INR 16.8 lakhs per annum, which is expected to go up to 30 lakhs per year with experience and added skills.

“As advanced product innovation and customer experiences become the fulcrum of success in the current corporate ecosystem, India’s IT industry faces a fundamental challenge – the dearth of product managers. This has fuelled the demand for skilled product managers in India who are able to build innovative business models and drive technology innovation for competitive gain. Wiley’s innovative bridge learning solution, WileyNXT aims to make managers of today and leaders of Industry 4.1. With this collaboration, we hope to bridge the gap between morphing workplace needs and workforce skilling”, said Mr. Vikas Gupta, Managing Director, Wiley, WileyNXT & mthree in India.

“About 40% of all new products fail in the marketplace representing a waste of over a half trillion dollars or more worldwide. It is because the same mistakes are made over and over again. This particular Data-Driven Product Management Program is designed to teach what it takes to have product success. I am proud to have the program based on my framework in my Wiley published book “Successful Product Design and Management Toolkit” and advice as the WileyNXT Program Architect. This core framework for the program builds on my over 50 years of experience with hundreds of products and services for BtoB and BtoC”, said David Fradin, a renowned Product Management Expert, Wiley Author & top faculty at Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.

Professor Rajeev Kumra, Faculty, IIM Lucknow, and Program Director of the IIML– Wiley Executive Program in Data Driven Product Management said, “At IIM Lucknow, our goal is to make managers of today, future ready leaders and we share this vision with WileyNXT. The data driven product management program deals with a whole gamut of product marketing strategies driven by qualitative research, design thinking and analytical skills. In the post-covid world, digital is going to be a game changer, we need to acquire skills right from how to win a consumer to market segmentation to consumer positioning and this will be only possible through data driven strategy. The learners will be skilled to do analysis, be adept to design thinking and cultivate growth mindset, all of which is critical for the success of a product.”

Commenting on the program’s utility, Sangeet Aggarwal, Operations Manager, GG Industries, and one of the certified learners in IIM Lucknow – Wiley Executive Program in Data Driven Product Management said, “The programme aims to help product managers harness the multiple skill competencies that are needed for developing and managing successful products in a post-covid world, along with skills for mining data for effective decision making and design thinking for complex problem solving, leading to better innovations and product success. The course also sets the foundations for machine learning and how it can be applied for product success.”

Aditya Mishra, Senior Software Engineer, Precisely and another certified leaner from IIM Lucknow – Wiley Executive Program in Data Driven Product Management, batch of 2020 added, “The program is very well laid out. It helps an individual to learn and connect to the real industry scenarios. The widely discussed case studies with every topic lets one grasp the concepts effectively. With candidates from diverse industries and varied experience level, it gives a lot of opportunity to learn from each other as well. This program will definitely give an individual a huge amount of exposure which could help him/her to sharpen the product management skills and learning.”

Building on the success of the program and its four consecutive batches, Wiley’s WileyNXT and IIM Lucknow are geared to launch the fifth batch of the program in September 2021. For more information, visit https://www.wileynxt.com/.