Product Management Work

Experience in Nutshell
Product Vision, Product Strategy & Business
Strategy
•Product Vision: Empower Payroll admins to manage Payroll in a smooth and effective manner and
enhance employee's experience of accessing and using Payroll related information.

•Product Strategy: To be the lead Payroll Vendor for medium, large and enterprise businesses in India
and be a primary competitor for leading Payroll vendors for enterprise businesses in Rest of the
world[ starting from SEA & MENA].

•Business Strategy: Darwinbox had ARR[Annual Recurring Revenue] of 25 mn USD in 2021 and wanted
to increase its revenues to 100 mn USD by 2025. Each of its product lines are given a target of 10 mn
ARR. HCM, PEPM [Per Employee Per Month] revenues are usually 2$ for India, 5$ for SEA and around
20$ for MEA. So the focus was to capture Global market as much as possible, while strengthening its
position in India.
 Approach to Roadmap

Benchmarking Customer Understanding

Identify Competitors
1. Shortlist 4 to 5 key competitors based on region
2. List alternatives at a feature level resulting in 3 major categories for us
Client Discussions
–Compensation, Payroll & Global Payroll

Hierarchy for comparison • NPS Analysis

1. Sub Module & Metrics Promotors to Detractors
2. Focus Areas • Impact of last NPS exercise
3. Themes / Feature Groups • Highest change (Improvers & Deteriorators)

D box positioning • Ticket Analysis

1. Define At Par, Below or above for each category
• Module Errors
2. What would it take to become at par / above
• Highest percentage of errors & timings.
 Product Discovery and Roadmap prioritization
INDIA Rest of World
Activities Done: Activities Done:
• NPS Analysis • Market Benchmarking
• Support Tickets and Requirement Analysis • Customer Discussions
• Customer Discussions
• Market Benchmarking Themes Evolved:
Themes Evolved: • Component Characteristics – Currency, Frequency & Effective Dating.
• Payroll Error Proofing • UX – Different Headers, Aliasing, Monthly in place of yearly, Number
• Payroll Processing Optimization formatting.
• Low user Adoption • Currency Conversion: Non Dynamic and at the group company level.
• Custom Requirements from clients • Annualization: Custom Annualization for different frequency
components.
Themes Evolved: • Recommended Values: Less employees, no import.
• Payroll Processing Optimization
•
Themes Evolved:
Statutory Requirements
• Currency conversion @ group company level for reporting.
• No emphasis on CTC figure. All components add up
• Employees linked to Payroll runs, with characteristics

Big billing clients/Business

Band width Allocation Quick win [15] Big Bet[45] Statutory [20]
Continuity[20]

Quick win: Capture Quick Win Opportunities & module stabilization to turnaround NPS
Big Bet: Focus on Big Bets that will improve competitive positioning
Big Billing Clients: Address Client Specific Requirements critical for large client go-lives / stabilization
Statutory: Address statutory requirements to ensure table stakes features for the product.
 Roadmap Execution
• Roadmap Execution
• Prepare a 9 month roadmap - 3 months in concrete, next quarter with tentative features & next 3 months with high level vision statement. This is
done based on the high level estimates gathered from engineering, based on high level design.
• Provide UX team a 3 month window for the features which are already designed, to come up with the UX designs. Multiple iterations before we
finalize the final design of the future.
• Provide the feature design Demos with Engineering to have the final estimates and close the 3 month roadmap. Some bandwidth is accounted for
bug fixes and any ad Hoc requests[Typically 20 percent].
• Divide the roadmap into 3 monthly sprints based on the prioritization of the features: according to client requests and other deadlines.
• Demo all the features for the specific month to the entire team before the start of the sprint.
• Ensure high-level architecture design is completed by EM, before the start of the sprint.
• Then divide the monthly sprints into a weekly plan based on the leaves/availability in the week. This will also have any bugs identified over the
course of the week.
• Follow the scrum to understand if there are any blockers/unidentified issues faced for the points and remove them. If there are any clarifications
required, those will be provided as well.
• Demos are taken from the team post QA signoff is provided to have a check on the stories. One level of high level testing is also conducted by me
to ensure that there are no gaps in the feature.
• Documentation
• Release Notes
• Product Manual – Admin & Employee
• Impact Sheet for Account Managers
• Product Webinars
• For Internal stakeholders like customer success managers, Implementation leads, Sales & Marketing teams.
• For External stakeholders like clients
• Feedback Collection
• Bugs based on release features
• Any suggestions on the released features
• Adoption & Usage metrics on features released.
 Team Managed Product KPIs– Metrics used
Number of
Area Count Managed successful
Product 2 PMs Directly Payroll Runs
Dev 10 – 1 EM Indirectly
Zero Input Errors
QA 6 – 1 QA Manager In directly • Personal Information –Address, Marital status
• Attendance –Hours worked, LOPs, Leaves, New
Joinee
• Compensation – CTC changes, Loans, Extra
UX 2 – UX Head In directly Payments, Arrears

Customer 40 – Customer Success In directly

Success Head
Payroll run completion in 30 mins
Implementation 8 – 4 Implementation In directly • Personal Information compilation
Lead •
•
Attendance information compilation
Compensation Information compilation
• Arrears compilation
• Extra Payments & Loans compilation
Presales 2 – Presales Head In directly •
•
Payroll Run time
Salary Register Generation

Sales 8- Sales Head In directly

Marketing 4 – Marketing Head In directly Pay slip Generation in 10 mins
• Pay slip type compilation - mapping
• Pay slip generation

Techstack
Front End: Java script [Anugular]
Backend: Java
Web server: Apache Reports Generation in 10 mins
• Global Reports

DB: AWS • Standard Reports

• Custom Reports

Reporting DB: Redshift

 Impact:
INDIAN CONTEXT REST OF WORLD CONTEXT
• Implement Payroll solution in 10 different countries
• Increased NPS from –18 to 20
• Process 50000 pay slips
• Referenceable clients from 2 to 25
• Generate 1 million USD in ARR
• Increased customer adoption by 20%

Parameter From To Parameter From To

Number of clients 250 300

Number of clients 0 20
Number of Pay slips 750000 1000000
Number of Pay slips 0 50000
Annual Recurring Revenue 2.25 MNUSD 3 MN USD

Referenceable clients 2 25 Annual Recurring Revenue 0 1 MN USD

Net Promoter Score -18 20 Referenceable clients 0 4

Customer Adoption 100 120
Monthly Active Users -Employee 0 20000
Monthly Active Users -Employee 400000 500000
Monthly Active Users -Admin 0 100
Monthly Active Users -Admin 1000 1500
This slide is intentionally kept blank
Product Vision, Product Strategy & Business
Strategy
•Product Vision: Provide HR admins and Payroll admins at all levels of the organization, access to the
necessary & relevant information at the right time in their preferred language & customized to their region.

•Product Strategy:
• Reporting solution which has the current capabilities of the current products in medium to enterprise
business segments.
• Global Reporting solution supporting all the regions & languages
• Democratized solution to support reporting at all levels of the organization.

•Business Strategy: ADP had 300 different products solving similar business problems across 120 different
countries. A) This is difficult to maintain & B) reduces the pace of change.
Idea was to build a single platform which will enable building custom products that can cater to these
different geographies. Reporting solution which is truly global and supports medium and enterprise clients.
 Approach to Roadmap
Market Understanding Customer Understanding

Identify Competitors & existing Products

1. Shortlist 4 to 5 key competitors based on market share
2. List alternatives at a feature level resulting in 4 major categories for us Client Discussions
–Standard/Custom Reports, Global solution, Support Functionalities &
Democratization

Product
Hierarchy for comparison
1. Sub Module & Reports Manager/SMEs Discu
2. Focus Areas
3. Themes / Feature Groups ssions

ADP positioning - existing

1. Define At Par, Below or above for each category
2. What would it take to become at par / above

*Understanding is done with both external & internal products.

* In addition to discussions with clients, there has been discussions with Product Managers of various domains &
SMEs within ADP organization.
 Product Discovery and Roadmap prioritization
Activities Done:
• Market Benchmarking – Internal & External
• Data Analysis of existing products usage
• Customer discussions
• Product Manager discussions
Themes Evolved:
• Reporting Democratization – Major Report runs conducted not from headquarters.
• Support Functionalities in Reporting – Scheduling, Field Grabber, compare report runs & Custom Field Reporting are expected phenomenon
• Custom Requirements from clients

Themes Evolved:
• Standard Reports full set
• Max Report runs on custom reports – 90% report runs happen on custom reports made by selecting fields from different domains in catalog
• Globalization – Globalization needs to be internalized in the reporting solution. Language & Region are the important distinctions
Report Support Globalization of Custom
Band width Allocation Catalog creation [30]
Democratization [30] Functionalities [10] solution 20] Requirements[10]
Catalog Creation: Create comprehensive catalog containing information from all the domains in HCM – Core HR, Time & Attendance, Payroll etc. -90%
report runs from here. Hence 30% weightage provided here. Catalog similar to UI – aliasing, fields etc. Standard reports in addition to catalog.
Report Democratization: Report runs are not concentrated only on Head Quarters. About 80% of reporting is run from the branches/enterprise units
rather than the Head Quarters. 80% reporting here. Hence 30% weightage.
Support Functionalities: Provide additional requirements supporting Reporting Solution: a) Scheduling of Reports b) Field Grabber c) Custom Fields
Reporting & d) compare report runs. As only additional requirements, provided only 10% weightage.
Globalization of Solution: Globalization to be internalized in reporting solution. Language & Region to be Key aspects. Enterprise segment demands
this.
Custom Requirements: Address Client Specific Requirements critical for large client go-lives / stabilization. Client specific, so 10%
 Team Managed Product KPIs– Metrics used
Area Count Managed Number of
Product 2 PMs Directly successful Report
Runs
Dev 6– 1 EM Indirectly
QA 4– 1 QA Manager In directly Zero Input Errors
• No issues in the syncing of data
from DB to Redshift
UX 2 – UX Head In directly • Application of scope on the user
running the report

Customer 40 – Customer Success In directly

Success Head
Zero scope related errors
Implementation 8 – 4 Implementation In directly • Scope application on rows &
columns shown in report
Lead • Application of the scope on the
way up and way down

Presales 2 – Presales Head In directly

Sales 8- Sales Head In directly Report Run Timings
• <5000 records -< 30 secs
<10000 records -<1 min
Marketing 4 – Marketing Head In directly <25000 records -<5 mins
>25000 records scheduling

Countries covered in
Report Runs
• Standard Reports
• Catalog creation
• Europe, North America, SEA &
MENA
 Roadmap Execution
• Roadmap Execution
• Prepare a 9 month roadmap - 3 months in concrete, next quarter with tentative features & next 3 months with high level vision statement. This is
done based on the high level estimates gathered from engineering, based on high level design.
• Provide UX team a 3 month window for the features which are already designed, to come up with the UX designs. Multiple iterations before we
finalize the final design of the future.
• Provide the feature design Demos with Engineering to have the final estimates and close the 3 month roadmap. Some bandwidth is accounted for
bug fixes and any ad Hoc requests[Typically 20 percent].
• Divide the roadmap into 3 monthly sprints based on the prioritization of the features: according to client requests and other deadlines.
• Demo all the features for the specific month to the entire team before the start of the sprint.
• Ensure high-level architecture design is completed by EM, before the start of the sprint.
• Then divide the monthly sprints into a weekly plan based on the leaves/availability in the week. This will also have any bugs identified over the
course of the week.
• Follow the scrum to understand if there are any blockers/unidentified issues faced for the points and remove them. If there are any clarifications
required, those will be provided as well.
• Demos are taken from the team post QA signoff is provided to have a check on the stories. One level of high level testing is also conducted by me
to ensure that there are no gaps in the feature.
• Documentation
• Release Notes
• Product Manual – Admin & Employee
• Impact Sheet for Account Managers
• Product Webinars
• For Internal stakeholders like customer success managers, Implementation leads, Sales & Marketing teams.
• For External stakeholders like clients
• Feedback Collection
• Bugs based on release features
• Any suggestions on the released features
 Impact:

• Successful Implementations – 700+

• Referenceable clients from - 50
• NPS – 30 [Highest among reporting products in ADP]
• Countries covered 40
• Report Runs - 200K per month [700 clients * [5
Enterprise units * 50 report runs + 50 report runs @
Headquarters] Parameter From To

Number of clients 0 700

Number of Report runs per month 0 200000

Techstack
Annual Recurring Revenue [700000 0 2 MN USD
Front End: Java script [Anugular] employees* 0.3 USD PEPM]
Backend: Java
Web server: Apache Referenceable clients 0 50
DB: AWS
Reporting DB: Redshift Monthly Active Users -Employee 0 0

Monthly Active Users –Admin [700 clients * 0 10000

[5 Enterprise units * 2 users [1 payroll + 1 HR
admin] + 4 users @ Headquarters]
This slide is intentionally kept blank
Product Vision, Product Strategy & Business
Strategy
•Product Vision: Enable frictionless billing and payments globally through auto-invoice delivery and
self-serve payment portals

•Product Strategy:
• Automated Buyer Onboarding
• Make automated billing in email, customer portal, mail and ap portals
• Support express payments through multiple modes & faster implementation cycles

•Business Strategy: Be the leader in EIPP solution in US & Canadian markets. Capture the market
share of the Invoice to cash solutions in US & Canada for fortune 200 companies.
 Approach to Roadmap
Benchmarking Customer Understanding

Identify Competitors & existing Products

1. Shortlist 4 to 5 key competitors based on market share –Bill Trust, FIS
2. List alternatives at a feature level resulting in 3 major categories for us
Client Discussions
–Express Payments, Invoicing automation & customer portals

Hierarchy for comparison Sales & Marketing

1. Sub Module & Reports
2. Focus Areas discussions
3. Themes / Feature Groups

Highradius positioning - existing

1. Define At Par, Below or above for each category
2. What would it take to become at par / above
 Product Discovery and Roadmap prioritization
Activities Done:
• Market Benchmarking – External
• AR research
• Customer discussions
• Sales, Marketing & Implementation team discussions
Themes Evolved:
• Scheduled Payments
• Recurring Payments
• Bulk Payments
• Partial Payments – Disputes,
• Payments at line item level. Disputes at line item level. Hierarchical customers Payments
• Faster Implementations – ECI development, Configuration screens.
• Statements – All remaining invoices, payment history, correspondence history-status, dispute status.
Themes Evolved:
• Interchange Fees reduction with 3rd level data integration with the clients ERP.
• Surcharge & Convenience Fees passing on to the customers of the clients.
• Simplified buyer onboarding
• Payable Links to buyers
Correspondence – Buyer & Portal Implementation internal Custom
Band width Allocation Payments[20]
Invoices [20] enhancements[20] stakeholders-[30] Requirements[10]
Payments: Work on newer modes of payments, types of payments and support of newer payment methods. Statutory compliance included.
Correspondence: Different types of correspondence like Invoices, statements, group invoices, payment receipts, dispute summary etc
Buyer & Portal enhancements: Simplified buyer onboarding. Linkage of buyer across multiple clients. Separate accounts for buyers.
Faster Implementation: ECI solution implementation & standardisation of inbound/outbound files. Slimfast configuration screens, account cloning etc.
Custom Requirements: Address Client Specific Requirements critical for large client go-lives / stabilization. Client specific, so 10%
 Roadmap Execution
• Roadmap Execution
• Prepare a 9 month roadmap - 3 months in concrete, next quarter with tentative features & next 3 months with high level vision statement. This is
done based on the high level estimates gathered from engineering, based on high level design.
• Provide UX team a 3 month window for the features which are already designed, to come up with the UX designs. Multiple iterations before we
finalize the final design of the future.
• Provide the feature design Demos with Engineering to have the final estimates and close the 3 month roadmap. Some bandwidth is accounted for
bug fixes and any ad Hoc requests[Typically 20 percent].
• Divide the roadmap into 3 monthly sprints based on the prioritization of the features: according to client requests and other deadlines.
• Demo all the features for the specific month to the entire team before the start of the sprint.
• Ensure high-level architecture design is completed by EM, before the start of the sprint.
• Then divide the monthly sprints into a weekly plan based on the leaves/availability in the week. This will also have any bugs identified over the
course of the week.
• Follow the scrum to understand if there are any blockers/unidentified issues faced for the points and remove them. If there are any clarifications
required, those will be provided as well.
• Demos are taken from the team post QA signoff is provided to have a check on the stories. One level of high level testing is also conducted by me
to ensure that there are no gaps in the feature.
• Documentation
• Release Notes
• Product Manual – Admin & Employee
• Impact Sheet for Account Managers
• Product Webinars
• For Internal stakeholders like customer success managers, Implementation leads, Sales & Marketing teams.
• For External stakeholders like clients
• Feedback Collection
• Bugs based on release features
• Any suggestions on the released features
 Team Managed Product KPIs– Metrics used
Area Count Managed Key Performance Indicator Trend
Number of invoices presented electronically Increase
Product 2 APM Directly
Number of invoices sent in postal mail Decrease
Dev 10 – 1 EM Indirectly % invoices paid electronically thru EIPP Increase
Number of payments made thru EIPP Increase
QA 6– 1 QA Manager In directly
Number of transactions for which L3 data was
UX 2 – UX Head In directly sent (if applicable) Increase
% invoices paid by check (will require CAA
Customer 40 – Customer Success In directly data?) Decrease
Success Head % in-scope buyers registered on portal Increase

Implementation 8 – 4 Implementation In directly Number of automated buyer correspondence Increase

Lead Number of buyer campaign emails Increase
# avg buyer support queries Decrease
Presales 2 – Presales Head In directly
Avg time taken to resolve buyer support
queries Decrease
Sales 8- Sales Head In directly
# Avg buyer actions thru the portal (payment,
Marketing 4 – Marketing Head In directly view invoices, disputes, etc) Increase

* Yellow ones are not the ones on the latest KPIs.

Techstack
Front End: Java script [Anugular]
Backend: Java
Web server: Apache
DB: AWS
Reporting DB: Redshift
Payments Volume:

•
Impact:
Number of clients * Number of Buyers * Number of
Invoices * Avg dollar value
• [200*1000*500*20] = 2 BN USD
Correspondence Volume:
• Number of clients * Number of buyers * Number of Parameter From To
Invoices
• [200*1000*500] = 100 mn Invoices
Number of clients 0 200
Disputes:
20% of all Invoices = 20 mn Disputes[Includes disputes on
line items. 10% total Invoice disputes Invoices Correspondence 0 100 mn
Transactions:
Average 5 Invoices will be paid in one transaction. Annual Payments processed through EIPP 0 2 BN USD Annually
Invoices/5
[Number of Invoices – Disputed Invoices]/5
=19mn/5 ~4mn Annual Recurring Revenue 0 15 MN USD Annually
Revenue Recognition:
Payments: Referenceable clients 0 40
Dollar Value for transaction = 3
Avg dollar value = 100. So 3% on transactions. Monthly Active Users -SMBs 0 200000
Total revenue = 4mn*3$ = 12mn ARR
Correspondence:
Monthly Active Users -Admin 0 400
Correspondence =10 c.
Number of Invoices * value = 100 mn*0.08 = 8mn ARR
Portal maintenance:
1mn ARR
*Even though 100 mn Invoices are presented online, only around 20 mn Invoices are paid from
Implementation Revenue:
EIPP, as not all buyers sign up and some make payments outside EIPP.
50 Implementations * 40000 = 2mn
Total = 12mn + 8mn+ 1mn = 15 mn ARR
Implementation = 2mn ARR.
 Artificial Intelligence work
ADP
• Dashboard

• Dashboard for Payroll Costs

• Payroll Costs by Geography
• Payroll Costs by Department
• Payroll Costs by different organizational units – can be Business Unit, Sub Department etc.
• Payroll Cost by Employee type – Regular, Contractual etc.
• Average cost at employee level.

• Dashboard by Cost Categories

• Costs by Salary
• Cost by Extra Payments
• Cost by Perquisites
• Cost by Benefits
• Overtime cost

Personal and Educational Information:

• .
• Built a global reporting solution for ADP's next generation product handling over 200 thousand report runs per month across 9 countries
• Worked on an existing HCM Payroll product and increasing its ARR by 75% by focusing on expansion to new geographies.

Why am I here:
• My wife got transferred to Netherlands and we moved to Netherlands last year.
• So I am looking for relevant product roles and that is when I came to know about this role with Backbase, which is very similar to the kind of work
I did in my product career. I had been working in Agile development and execution and worked with multiple external stakeholders like banks and
payment gateways and like that line of work.
BEHAVIOURAL
QUESTIONS
 Important attributes of a Product Manager

Good listening skills:

People from various backgrounds discuss with PM and they usually do not mention the exact problem faced by the end user. They talk about changes
in the product, rather than the actual problem the customer is facing.
Need to have the capacity to cut out a lot of noise and focus on the actual user problems.

Example:
A) At Highradius, there was request to increase the selection of invoices from 50 to 500 from UI to make the payment.

B) At Darwinbox, there was a request to smoothen the upload process of extra payments during the payroll run. In fact, the requirement was to
reduce the number of errors in the entry of extra payments during the payroll run. Solved by providing the UI option of adding the extra payments
during Payroll.

Attention to detail:

Attention to detail in design will help in the customer delight.

Date Ranges to take of February month in the monthly installments [Extra Payments or Scheduling Payments or Reports]
Annualization values taking different conversion factors to annual values.

Getting Things Done

All said and done, unless execution is top class, the entire thing gets out.

Data driven Product Management:

Product discovery process:
Both qualitative and quantitative : Customer Discussions, NPS analysis, Ticketing Analysis
Highradius: Understanding the payment trends, Darwinbox: payroll timing – moving to Monolithic.
Working with Engineering
•Your ability to prioritize and focus
• Using good product discovery practices – Customer Discussions and Market Benchmarking. Buy-in from higher
management on the roadmap and taking it forward.
• Provide enough band width for business continuity to ensure that other important areas are also given priority.
•Your ability to ship
• Enough clarity on the items to pick up.
• Ensuring that the roadmap is clearly laid out. Product execution – 3 month solid fixed roadmap, features for the
next 3 months & only vision from them on.
•Your ability to put out fires
• Initial stages of Darwinbox
•Your ability to shield the team
• Ability to build the ECI type solution for Highradius.
•Your ability to motivate and grow the team
• Fire and team – initial stages of Darwinbox
 Like being a Product Manager

Customer Problem Solving.

• You get to invent and build stuff, which is exceptionally satisfying and gratifying. Moreover, you get to see millions of people using what you
built.
• You work across the stack - from vision and strategy, through high-level and detailed planning, and all the way to daily crafted execution.
• It's unique in terms of skills required and applied in role - packaging together hard technical skills, creative design skills, analytical skills, quick
learning skills, as well as many soft skills - leadership, communication, presentation, people skills - across a varied set of stakeholders.

------ Appendix

This is what I think is great, unique, and appealing about being a PM:
• That junction where technology, design, users, and business meet is an exceptionally fascinating one. You are a people's person? There is
something here for you. Love technology? You will love it. Excited about business challenges? There are many for you here. Fascinated by
human behavior, and product design? You are in the right place. Product Management brings together the complexity, challenges, and
fast paced progress of all these exciting and complementary domains.
• It's unique in terms of skills required and applied in role - packaging together hard technical skills, creative design skills, analytical skills,
quick learning skills, as well as many soft skills - leadership, communication, presentation, people skills - across a varied set of
stakeholders.
• It's a ridiculously multi-disciplinary role - you get to work closely with engineers, designers, researchers, execs, users, lawyers, PR,
operations, …
• You get to invent and build stuff, which is exceptionally satisfying and gratifying. Moreover, you get to see millions of people using what
you built.
• You work across the stack - from vision and strategy, through high-level and detailed planning, and all the way to daily crafted execution.
• No two days look alike, and progress happens at warp speed. The industry constantly change, technology advances, new fierce players
emerge, users constantly chase the new and shiny. You must run as fast as you can just to stay in place.
• It's a great leadership role. Product leadership in your industry. People leadership in your team. And all flavors of leadership with execs,
users, clients, partners, and the many other stakeholders.
 Out of your comfort zone – creative solution
• Initial career as PM, faced a problem. Sudden huge demand for EIPP and needed about 8 implementations per quarter. Current speed was 3 Implementations. Heavy
lifting from Engineering team in consuming input files.
• Engineering cannot support with current team & increasing strength also does not help as training takes time. --- Situation
• Needed to step in to remove the bottle neck as these Implementations are vital to get into new industry. - Why you need to step in .
• Understood that files are usually same [AR & Customer Master], but input format is different. ---- How you jumped in and saved the day.
• Same problem for other products as well. Looked at other alternatives as creating an application to consume files.
• Checked with higher management after developing a HLD of the application & getting estimates from Eng team.
• Explained the impact of this development & asked for 3 senior resources in developing the solution.
• Implementation team is asked to convince clients in sending files in CSV format & their team to convert for clients who are not supportive. Asked them to postpone
the implementation by a month. Released the application & able to use this for implementations.
• Provided massive bandwidth for the team & saved many man hours[20% engineering bandwidth for EIPP] across the organization for future Implementations. - Impact.

During my initial career as Product Manager at Highradius, we faced with a situation where there was huge demand for our product and we are asked to support 8
Implementations per quarter. Our current velocity was around 3 Implementations. Our engineering team was also supporting Implementation teams in running some scripts to
configure some functionalities for our clients. The bottleneck was the bandwidth of our Engineering team in accomplishing this. There were high heated arguments between the
Engineering and the Implementation team leads over this deadlock.
I was mostly an Individual contributor till that time in the capacity of Product Manager and was not much into resolving conflicts in Program Management. But I understood that
to resolve this conflict, I needed to step in and close this.

I listened to the Implementation lead and understood that these Implementations will help the topline of our product and open us to new industries and geographies and help
our product in the long term. Delaying the projects had a risk of losing some of these clients to our competitors.
I listened to Engineering lead and the team is not in a position to deliver these Implementations due to the bandwidth crunch. Addition of resources also will not help as it will
take time to ramp up the resources to a level where they can deliver in the current quarter.
I looked at the work in detail to understand the tasks from Engineering which will help in Implementation. There are some scripts which needs to be written which will help in
the file uploads from the customers. These files are common to multiple products in Highradius and all these files are uploaded in the same manner. I researched we can build an
application which helps us to automate this process. I found that we can create such application [Electronic cloud interface] in case we always have the input files in
specific format. I checked with the Implementation team lead in case we can convince all our clients to provide the files in this format as that would help us set the standard
going forward at the company level. To much persuasion, he agreed that we can convince the clients to follow this format. I discussed this with the top management to have 3
senior resources work on this application in this quarter, by explaining the positive impact which will have not only on our product, but on the whole company.
So, I worked with the Implementation lead to discuss the timelines in which this new feature will get built and the timeline in which the Implementations can be scheduled and
finalize them. I worked back with the Engineering team to reprioritize some of the items in the quarter and fit this application on the roadmap.
We were able to complete the application, which was used by all the products of Highradius and were also able to close all the Implementations in the revised timeline. This
helped us increase into new industries and geographies which eventually made 40% of our timeline in the later years.
Failed or made a mistake

During my first quarter at ADP, we were planning the roadmap.

Discussed sizing of the features and the team velocity from Engineering team.
Based on the velocity provided, planned the roadmap & published to multiple teams about the upcoming roadmap.

As quarter unfolded, not able to deliver the features as the team velocity is less. Even though the team stretched, we were not able to deliver.
This lead to burn out of some teams mates. And needed to communicate the delay to the team.

Analysed the cause and found that the velocity was atleast 20% less than stated.

Experience made me learn to validate all the numbers, rather than taking them at face value. Led me to do due diligence down to last detail &
validate the data again.
During my first quarter as Product Manager at ADP, we were planning the roadmap for the next couple of quarters. I did my feature specifications and was working
with my engineering lead on sizing them and also to plan the quarters. I asked for the team velocity to determine the amount of features which can be planned for the
quarters. Based on the velocity mentioned by the engineering lead, we went ahead and planned the quarters. This plan is being published across the company to
various Implementation and Support teams.

As the first quarter unfolded, we were not able to deliver all the features planned for in the quarter, due to the team velocity. Even though the team stretched to
realize the plan, we were not able to deliver the items. This lead to burnout of some of the team mates as well. We needed to communicate the delay in the features to
all the teams including our customers. This had an impact on our next quarters as well.

As part of the port mortem of our quarter debacle, I looked at the velocity of the team across the previous quarters. I found that the velocity was at least 20% less than
stated by the Engineering lead.

This experience made me learn to validate the numbers by myself rather than taking them at face value, even though they come from concerned members. This led
me to do the complete due diligence down to the last detail and validate these numbers with the concerned members.
How did you put out some fires. Motivation for team

During my initial days at Darwinbox, there was a huge uproar on the Payroll stability. There are many issues coming up with the payroll out put. Clients
were not happy and sometimes, we had to provide some fines to some clients. - Situation

I worked on the Product vision and strategy with the higher leadership and had a clear understanding on the direction we wanted to take. I looked at the
NPS analysis, REQ and ticket analysis. I talked to about 25 clients to understand the real issues. Found that Payroll error proofing is one of the major
necessities.

Broken down the module into multiple sub domains and have categorized the product tickets into these sub-modules. Have provided the test acceptance
criteria for different scenarios to these subdomains. Requested the QA to further drill down on multiple scenarios.

Motivation: Team is not happy with the image provided for the team. And the amount of time spent on the issues rather than actual development. Urged
them to focus on the cleaning of product in two sprints as that would help us to reduce the amount of time spent on issues in the upcoming sprints.
During the 2 sprints time, shown them the results on a weekly basis, by showing them the reduction in tickets from various areas compared to the
previous years. Included them in a couple of visits with the customers on how their view changed on our product.

Providing the data on the NPS, tickets and team's motivation, I worked with the higher management to provide 2 sprints for us to do a top down testing.
Payroll Error Proofing: Understood that the inputs of arrears & extra payments are causing the maximum number of errors. Arrears are automated.
Extra Payments are for less number, so provided option from UI rather from import. This will help us increase NPS - which is the major important need for
us to maintain leadership position in Indian market.

. - What you did

Based on this we were able to turn the tide. Team was able to see the real changes. NPS increased from –18 to 20. Team was happy as the number of
tickets reduced and they could focus on the stories rather than focusing on bugs. Automation has led to less work for the related teams as well.- Impact
Got a group of people to work together as a team. Did you encounter any issues? What was the end result?

During my initial days at Darwinbox, I was looking at the backlog of the requested features to prioritize them for the upcoming quarters roadmap. I found
that almost all the requests have been categorized by the requestors as important. There was no structure to the way in which the requests are being
made to determine what is the value add that the feature will bring on to the product.

There are requests from different Implementation teams [across different regions] and customer success teams [different regions] and all the requests
are categorized as Important as that will help them appease their respective clients. Another important aspect is that none of the request stated what is
the value add it brings to the table. - Situation

I worked on the Product vision and strategy with the higher leadership and had a clear understanding on the direction we wanted to take. I created some
working sessions with this group to explain Product's direction and also how we are evaluating each client request. I made all the feature requestors to
work together in discussing their features and come up with a prioritized list, based on the objective valuation [certain score for each parameter [ Better
UX – 2 points, Better Productivity – 1.5 point etc]. Initially, there is much resistance to this activity. But as we completed a couple of sessions, they are
able to appreciate the work which is being taken up, as we were able to discard about 40% of the requests which are no longer making sense to our
product direction. And also there is more transparency on when certain features will be taken up. - What you did

Based on this structured framework, we were able to come up with a prioritized list of features and also a transparency on when these features will be
taken up by the product team. And the requestors are also able to communicate better to the clients on why certain features will not be taken up and also
when the features will be coming up. - Impact
Tell me about a time when you had to jump in to solve a problem

I worked in High radius for 4 years, where I led the Product Management team for Global E-Invoicing and Payment Software. During my
customer interactions, there was a common request to increase the selection of Invoices from UI for more than 500 Invoices and that their
payments are getting struck sometimes. - Situation

Went back & looked at the Payments data. Found that many invoices are being paid either at the end of the month or at the middle of the
month. As we are in B2B space, the payment terms are usually T+45, T+60 and the Invoice dates are usually at the start of the month. Hence lot
of payments are made at these times which led to huge traffic.

To mitigate this, I have come up with the approach of recurring auto payment, where customers can decide on the date at which they want the
payments to be made. A filter option is provided to remove the limitation on search criteria. Sorting of the Invoices in case of the amount limit is
also provided based on a) highest amount invoices b) oldest invoices c) invoices with highest discount etc.

A cron will be used to run the payments at the specified time in a sequence grouped by customer and scheduled payment creation date. This led
to reduction in UX traffic as well.- What you did

The number of total payments increased by 30% by the usage of this feature. - Impact
Tell me about the time your organization assigned you a task, but you lacked the necessary skills to complete it.

Darwinbox wanted to expand to new geographies to increase the ARR. Asked to expand Payroll solution as well. Never worked on these geographies.

IMPACT
Activities Done:
• Market Benchmarking
• Implement Payroll solution in 10 different countries
• Customer Discussions
• Process 50000 pay slips
Themes Evolved: • Generate 1 million USD in ARR
• Component Characteristics – Currency, Frequency & Effective Dating.
• UX – Different Headers, Aliasing, Monthly in place of yearly, Number Parameter To
formatting.
• Currency Conversion: Non Dynamic and at the group company level. Number of clients 20
• Annualization: Custom Annualization for different frequency
components.
• Recommended Values: Less employees, no import. Number of Pay slips 50000

Themes Evolved: Annual Recurring Revenue 1 MN USD

• Currency conversion @ group company level for reporting.
• No emphasis on CTC figure. All components add up Referenceable clients 4
• Employees linked to Payroll runs, with characteristics
Monthly Active Users -Employee 60000

Monthly Active Users -Admin 100

Scrapped any idea from MVP / Agile way of working

Rather than releasing a full-fledged Payroll solution, we went ahead with releasing a MVP solution
We created prototypes of our solution. Created the base version & released it.
Provided a lot of Demos to our clients to understand if it catered to their needs.

Understood a lot of differences

Component characteristics – Currency, Frequency & Effective dating

UX – Monthly not required, Aliasing, Number Format, Not showing annual salary always.
Currency Conversion – Needed at the group company level and non-dynamic conversion
Custom Annualization values
Recommended values – which can be copied and used.
No direct access to change the salary changes by super admin. Rather changes to always follow workflow
 How did you develop cross domain product/expertise.

By asking questions during various interactions with the various stakeholders

• Talking with various team on understanding the items requested in the roadmap – Going a bit further in
understanding the need for the solution. What are the industries/ type of companies looking for this solution
• Engineering team on bandwidth – Nudging the team on why a certain estimate is provided for any particular
feature.
• Customers – Discussing the released features during the quarterly webinar
• Product Discovery – Discussing the problems faced by the end customers in using the solution, any new
features requested and how it is going to solve their problems
• Working with Implementation team on expediting the Implementations
• Discussing with customer success teams on where the maximum number of issues are occuring and what can
help us to increase the customer adoption.
APPENDIX
 Any Questions for me

What can I expect in the interview process ?

What are the critical success factors for this role ?
What is the career path in this organization.

What are the characteristics of successful product managers in your organization?

What is the career path in this organization.

What does it take to be successful in this role at *****?

What is it that you like being a PM at *****
What is it that you don’t like being a PM at ****
------------------------------
What are the critical success factors for this role ?
What is it that you like being a PM at *****?
What is it that you don't like being a PM at *****?
------------
• What’s the relationship like between the product team and other departments, especially Engineering?
• Can you please tell me how involved the engineering team is in the product discovery process?
• Are there teams from India/off shore who work with the product team here ?
 Benchmarking Roadmap & Discovery

India: Quick wins[15]: A new field in Reports, Payslip design changes, Stop
Compensation SAP Success Factors, Oracle HCM recurring extra payments etc
Payroll: GreytHR, Zing HR, People Strong Big Bets[45]: Payroll Error Proofing, Payroll Processing time reduction,
Global Compensation
Statutory[20]: Taxation module, Statutory deductions, bonus, LWF etc
Global:
Custom-Big clients[20]: - Compensation change approval flow, Tax sheet in
Compensation: SAP Success Factors, Oracle HCM
Payslip,
Payroll: Sunfish, RAMCO
Payroll Error Proofing: Understood that the inputs of arrears & extra payments
Submodule: are causing the maximum number of errors. Arrears are automated. Extra
Payroll: Income tax declaration, Payroll Processing, Payroll Payments are for less number, so provided option from UI rather from import.
support inputs, Reports, Pay slips Payroll Processing Time: Whole product architecture is monolithic and is
Compensation: Salary Structure, Currency conversion, taking a lot of time. Payroll usually happens at the end of the month & it is
Advances, Deductions. difficult to increase the disk space for all the code. So we decided to move
Payroll to microservices & found that the Payroll run time for a client of size 3k
Impact has reduced from 12 hours to 3 hours.
Customer Adoption: Simplified workflows for the employees. Provided direct
India: option to download the current month pay slip on landing Payroll page.
PEPM = 30c | Total Revenue = 3mn | 3mn/[3.6] ~ 1000000 Provided guides using Pendo. Modified notifications with redirection links.
Simplified the Payroll processing workflow by automating Arrear inputs &
ROW moving extra payments inputs to UI. Analysis from tickets and Pendo workflows
ME – PEPM= 3$ |Total Revenue = 1mn|1mn/36=28000 helped.
SEA – PEPM = 1$| Total Revenue = 1mn| 1mn/12 = 83000 Global Compensation: Made new screens of Pay package and compensation
Combination = 60000 proration using feedback. Created revise CTC screen with recommendations.
Tax– Info types Benefits– Info types
Subsequent Posting
Cod Information Code Information
e
0167 Health Plans After payroll processing is completed, a
0207 Residence Tax Area
set of activities generally must occur,
0168 Insurance Plans
0208 Work tax Area frequently referred to as subsequent
0169 Savings Plans processing. The key activities that make
0209 Unemployment state
up subsequent processing include finance
0170 Flexible spending accounts postings, third-party remittances, and
0210 Withholding Tax
[W4] electronic funds transfers, including
Garnishment– Info types DME.
Code Information

0194 Garnishment Document

Finance Posting: As payroll is processed, results are stored based on the cost elements
0195 Garnishment Order for an employee. After payroll is completed, these results will be posted to the financial
system to update the general ledger for payroll. *See Integrations.
0216 Garnishment Adjustment
3rd party remittance: 3rd party remittance (also sometimes referred to as a third-party
process or 3PR) is the process to create payment requests with corresponding financial
Wage Types postings for vendor payments due from payroll deductions. The four primary types are
Categories: Primary/Secondary taxes, benefits, garnishments, and “other.” This standard process reads the payroll
Attributes: Deduction type, Amount/Number results, posts the data to SAP ERP Financials or SAP S/4HANA Finance, and generates
New wage type: Never use the wage type provided by SAP. the bank transfer and check payment requests due to third parties.
Documentation & Numbering: Use logical numbers to wage Electronic Funds Transfers, Including Data Medium Exchange : The SAP process to
types. create checks or ACH payments after payroll is run is DME. Pre notifiation to validate
payments are done with a token payment. Then a final payment will be made.
Info Types: In Darwin box, all this information is displayed in various profile screens
Schemas & Rules of portal. This information is stored in tables.
Schemas & Rules: Schema is nothing but the ABAP program, where the entire logic lies in. This is not supposed to be changed. Rules, however are the ones
which can be used to make customized changes. In cant but scenarios, schemas can also be changed. This is similar to configurations in DB.
 Components Payroll Process
System Data Process Stakeholder

On-site Personal Run Employee

Premise Compensation Collect Bank

Regulatory Bank Insurnace

Time Report Collector

Finance

Data:
Personal: Name, Address, Hours supposed to work, Type of
Contract, Location, Organizational chart fit Personal Data – Info types Compensation Data – Info
Compensation: Contracted rate, Bonuses, Benefits. Types
Regulatory: Unemployment tax from employer, Income tax based Cod Information Cod Information
on location [ Federal and State tax ]. e e
Time: Regular hours worked, Overtime hours worked, Extra 0000 Actions[Status, Organization] 0003 Payroll Status[1st pay date etc]
Overtime hours worked [Ex: 13 hours -> 8 hours regular -> 4
hours overtime -> 1 hour extra overtime]. Implications on 0001 Organization Assignment 0007 Planned working time
compensation.
Finance: Cost centers where the payment needs to be made. Some 0002 Personal Data[Name, SSN, etc] 0008 Basic Pay
liabilities can be directly attributed to the finance department. ->
0006 Address [Permanent/Temporary] 0009 Bank Details
This has implications on the setup of the components in salary
structure. Some components can be earnings, some deductions and Info Types: In SAP Payroll, data is created in info types. New info types can be
some by a different naming convention. created as well. Above are some of standard info types
Effective Dating: Each information is maintained with a start and end date. When new data is added for the same information, a new record is being added,
with the ending of the old record. Old record's end date is updated as new record's start date –1.
System Setup and Configurations
System Setup
Setting up data in the Payroll setup:
Personal Information : Fields needed for the client.
Employment Info: Type of employee, Contract etc, T&C.
Job Info: Role for the employee, Job description etc.
Corporate Info: Legal entity, Job classification, Paygroup,
Frequency etc.
Country specific information: Payscale area, Payscale group
etc.
Other: Webservices, APIs, etc
Communication:
Configuration Email Templates, Msg templates etc.
Setting up configurations for the client:
Roles: Administrative roles, employee roles [Default
Permissions]
Payroll Configuration: Countries, Direct Paystatement, Form
16, Superannuation [Based on country]
Payroll Calendar
Configuration Info: Attendance cycle, Payroll cycle, cutoff
- Payroll
etc.
Setting up configurations for the client:
Payroll Areas: For taxation.
Employee groups – sub groups.
Bank Details, Payroll Organization data,
Basic Pay, Recurring Payments/Deductions[calen], Additional
Pay
Communications: Phone Number, Email ID, Default mode etc.
Actions: Hire, Rehire, Termination etc.
Pay Statements: Template selection, minor modifications on
them
Concurrent Employment: Different WAGs, Same taxation
Integrations
General Integrations
APIs used for Integration with other Enterprise providers like SAP[pure payroll pay]
& with others like RAMCO[Payroll Integration for other countries].
Exports supported from Reports. Imports from the UX.
API to capture information from Kronos, Workday [AI integration with app clockins
–geo tagging].
API to capture information from Benefits providers – employee submits info in their
portal – capture that information & used for deductions in Payroll.
Finance data – Data sent using APIs to standard Enterprises [pure payroll pay]. API –
excel file containing information at employee level – Basic Pay, Taxes, Social
Insurance etc – these are linked to Payable accounts in SAP general ledger. [Posting
Data]*
Master data Integrations
Organizational Data: Cost Center, Company Code & Place of work – flows from
Core HR data – this is by default.Pure Payroll play[PPP] obtained from Enterprise –
APIs
Wage types – Salary structure information. PPP- from Enterprise – APIs.
Master Data Replication– >Payroll. Daily Job to move data at an enterprise level
onboarding. From UI, it can be triggered [At an employee level].
Master data Replications
Main Data Categories : Pay Data and Non Pay Data.
Pay Data -Compensation data, Pay group, wage type, bank info, payment info,
Recurring Pay/Deduction,
Non Pay Data - Personnel Numbers, Job Info – Employment cycle, Organizational
elements, WAGs Working hours, Location, Biographical info, Personal Info,
National ID, Address, Email address, Work Permit, Temporary Assignment,
Dependents
Events & related Triggers- Hire, Terminate, Rehire, Notice Period, Global
Assignment, No show etc.
Payroll Control Center[PCC]
*Can be viewed as cockpit of the plane.
Employees whose salary is greater than a certain limit can be a KPI.
Capabilities offered by PCC. KPIs are hyperlinks which when clicked, provides the list of all the items in that KPI. An option is
• Validation capabilities – also provided to give solutions for that KPI.
• Key Performance Indicators These validations can be setup as alerts to the different Payroll admins, who can validate the alert
• Alerts and either resolve them [saying it’s a false alarm] or complete them by making a change in the
• Solution for Errors system [providing solution to the alert]. Alert is linked to an entity & that shows up to the user who
is looking at the alert.
• Collaboration capabilities
Solution for Errors:
This contains all the solutions which are configured for each alert [validation rule]. This is present in
Processes Supported: the alert itself, which can be used by Payroll admin.
• Monitoring processes Validation Ex: If an employee does not have a National Identifier, redirect user to the National Identification
• Team monitoring processes Capabilities addition page against the employee in UI. Soln might contain both variables[run time –empl ID] &
• Productive Payroll Processes parameters[design time-emp profile link]. Meaning exact employee's profile page can be opened
• Other Processes with soln.
• Planned off-cycle payroll processes Running Payroll Analytics Charts/Analytics
• Planned off-cycle other processes Analytics charts helps the user to validate payroll related issues at Payroll group
• Ad hoc off-cycle processes. level. Ex: Number of employees last period v/s current. Payroll Costs last
period/current period. Average Payroll cost/employee last period v/s current period
etc.
Validation Rules supported by default: [Few mentioned below] Collaboration:
Gross Pay over a preset amount – Salary Information Manage teams option provide the option to assign users to the Payroll admin roles.
Living area different from work area – Personal Information Once teams are created, then the alerts can be redirected to the Payroll admins by the Payroll
Gross Pay current period > 20% Gross Pay previous period – Sal manager.
Bank Details missing - Sal Processes done:
CTC missing - Sal --------------------------------------------------------------
National Identification Number missing – Personal Payroll Simulation:
*Custom validation rule can be created at an account level. Running the Payroll simulation to validate any errors present for employees in current payroll period.
Payroll Processing:
KPIs & Alerts On-cycle Payroll run: This is done to ensure that payroll is periodically processed for all the
employees. Can be done for all employees in the organization or for certain set.
These are the key performance indicators setup. Off-cycle Payroll run: Single employee or a customized set. For example, F&F, employees who
For example, all the validation rules which are not met can be were late in submitting their time sheet.
Payroll Control Center[PCC]
Sample Payroll Processing:
*Performing Payroll Processing:
Open Payroll -> Run Payroll -> Generate Payroll Results ->
Monitoring these results -> Exit Payroll.
**** Once Payroll is completed, Payroll Manager needs to
confirm that the payroll run is successful and proceed to next
steps, namely Payslip generation and posting of payroll results [a)
financial posting and b) 3rd party posting].

--- Reports used by Payroll Manager to validate Payroll results 3 types of processes a) Upcoming b) Active & c) Completed. Can view previous
a) Payroll Journal Report – Totals of Processed Payroll by payroll processes and also upcoming processes. A payroll manager opens upcoming
wage type at Cost Center level. - Provides summary info. Payroll process of March on 6th[early] March & starts it. He/she looks at the alerts
[Mota Moti Payroll Manager can say that data is & assigns them to different payroll admins so that they can resolve them. This
legitimate].If data seems bad at this level, can drill down to resolution process gets completed by 23rd March & he/she can start Payroll
validate numbers across period for different elements in processing
Configuringthen.
Payroll Control Center[PCC]
reconciliation.
b) Payroll Reconciliation Report - Produces a YTD amount for
each selected wage type, across chosen periods, for easy
review. These periodic totals can be extremely helpful for
reconciling taxes when submitting files to the federal
government or a state/local tax jurisdiction.
c) Pay results report – Run report at an employee level.
Contains information at wage level for that period. Can even
drill down to the wage levels across multiple periods.
---- These reports can be used for on-cycle & off-cycle as well.

Post-payroll processing:
1. Ensuring money reaches employee
2. Complete accounting for the money that was paid.
3. Sending details about benefits etc to 3rd party agencies.
Payroll Control Center configuration steps
Configuration needs to be directly applied to Policy, Processes and
the entities that make them up.
Details of each entity in ERD are listed in the book[table 10.1].
Standard Roles & their access to different parts of
application[10.2]
Need to configure the following :
• Validation rules – Standard rules present: Can add custom as
well. Rule Logic also provided, which can be modified for
custom.
• Solutions – Use existing solutions or create new ones.
Solns has body & variables[which also are customizable].
• Analytics charts – Charts to validate information at group
level.
• Analytics - Groups of analytics charts.
• Process Step Templates – Steps of Processes. Start Payroll etc.
• Policy Types – Can be done from UI.
• Process Types. - Can be done from UI.
-----* De clustering to prepare tables for Payroll Processing.
Authorization for Payroll Control Center [410]. Standard roles
which are supported by SAP. Roles like policy creator, payroll
admin, payroll manager etc. Can add new custom roles as well.
Audit trail – Containing the audit trail of all the payroll processes
completed. Take a pic from Darwinbox.
Pay Statements:
Pay slip, Off-cycle pay slip, Annual Tax sheet, Form 16 B.
These slips are customizable. Multiple Pay slip options are provided. --- can be
fetched from chatbot, notifications to be sent to mail/phone.
Login/User Authentication:
a) Payroll & Core HR b) Payroll & no Core HR c) No Payroll & Core HR
- Case a) Managed through DB level user authentication & roles.
- Case b) Payroll uses DB level user authentication.
- Case c) Same as Case a). For this client, Payroll screens will not be shown.
Data Movement to Payroll
As soon as the employee is onboarded, data moves on to payroll. Any changes to
employee information, pertaining to Payroll, a trigger will be made to ensure that
data moves on to Payroll. These procedures are synchronous.
Client Movement to Payroll – Testing Part
Client movement to Payroll usually requires
a) unit testing – testing each feature separately
b) Integration testing – looking at info from other modules like attendance/HR
information from other companies
c) User Acceptance testing & most importantly
d) Payroll Comparision Testing – multiple payroll comparisons with the legacy
systems.
US Paycheck Simplified
Category Item Value Paid by Taxable Pre/Post tax
Earnings Net Income = Total Earnings[992] – Pre Tax
Hours 400 Employer Yes NA Deductions[65] – Taxes[130] – Post Tax
Overtime 30 Employer Yes NA Deductions[72] = 725
Holiday 80 Employer Yes NA
Vacation 120 Employer Yes NA Taxable Salary = Taxable Earnings[930] - Pre Tax
Bonus 300 930 Employer Yes NA Deductions[65] =865
Tuition 50 Employer No NA
Mileage 12 992 Employer No NA
Deduction
Long Term Disability Insurance 11 Employee NA Pre
401(K) 14 Employee NA Pre
Dental insurance 30 Employee NA Pre
Vision Insurance 5 Employee NA Pre
Group Life Insurance 5 65 Employee NA Pre
Tax
Federal Income Tax [Federal] 55 Employee NA NA
Social Security Tax [Federal]6.2 55 Employee NA NA
Medicare Tax [Federal]1.45 15 Employee NA NA
State Tax [State] 10 Employee NA NA
Local Tax [Local] 5 130 Employee NA NA
Deduction
Garnishment 60 Employee NA Post
Roth 401 (K) 12 72 Employee NA Post
Employer Contributes some taxes on behalf of the
Employer Contribution
employee. This is not shown in the offer to the
Social Security[OADSI]6.2 55 Employer employee, but it is cost to the company.
Total Cost to the company = Total Earings[992] +
Medicare[Health Insurance]1.45 15 Employer
Employer contributions [Social Security(55)+
Federal Unemployment Tax Act 60 Employer
Medicare(15)+ Federal Unemployment Tax(60)+State
State Unemployment Tax Act 60 Employer Unemployment Tax(60)+Worker Comp(10)][200] =
Worker Compensation Insurance 10 200 Employer 1192
India Paycheck Simplified
Category Item Value Paid by Taxable Pre/Post tax
Earnings
Hours 400 Employer Yes NA
Net Income = Total Earnings[992] – Pre Tax
Overtime 30 Employer Yes NA
Holiday 80 510 Employer Yes NA Deductions[30] – Taxes[65] – Post Tax Deductions[62]
LTA 120 Employer Partially NA = 835
Meal Coupons 300 Employer No NA
480
HRA 50 Employer Partially NA
Medical 12 992 Employer Partially NA In India some of the items in salary are partially taxable
Deduction [For example HRA, medical, LTA]
Provident Fund 11 Employee NA Pre
Employee State Insurance[ESI] 14 Employee NA Pre
Group Life Insurance 5 30 Employee NA Pre
Tax
Federal Income Tax [Federal] 55 Employee NA NA
Professional Tax[State] 10 65 Employee NA NA
Deduction
Loans 62 62 Employee NA Post
Employer Contribution
Provident Fund 55 Employer
Gratuity 15 70 Employer

Employer Contributes some taxes on behalf of the

employee. This is not shown in the offer to the
employee, but it is cost to the company.
Total Cost to the company = Total Earings[992] +
Employer contributions [Provident Fund(55)+
Gratuity(15)] [70]=1062
UK Paycheck Simplified
Category Item Value Paid by Taxable Pre/Post tax
Earnings
Gross Pay 200 Employer Yes NA Net Income = Gross Pay[200] – Pre Tax
Deductions[15] – Taxes[55] – Post Tax Deductions[20]
= 110
Deduction
Pension* 15 Employee NA Pre
Employee NA Pre In UK, there are thresholds for Taxes, Pension and
15 Employee NA Pre National Insurance as well and that needs to be
Tax
PAYE** 55 Employee NA NA considered in the calculation of the taxes.

Deduction
National Insurance 10
Student Loans 10 20 Employee NA Post
Employer Contribution
National Insurance 15 Employer
Pension 15 30 Employer

*Pension: In UK, there are two types of Pensions , One is known as Net Pay
Arrangement, which means that the deduction happens before taxation. Other is relief at
source, which means that the deduction happens post tax. For this example, we are
Employer Contributes some taxes on behalf of the
considering Net Pay Arrangement. Pension has also some thresholds.
**PAYE: This is calculated post the personal allowance of 12750. This is equivalent to employee. This is not shown in the offer to the
the tax slabs in the Indian context. This is similar case for the US also. Minimum tax % employee, but it is cost to the company.
is 20% Total Cost to the company = Total Earings[200] +
*** Similar to PAYE, National Insurance is also based on the thresholds. % is 12% Employer contributions [National Insurance(15)+
Pension(15)] [30]=230
Adjustments made in the Payroll engine to accommodate the Payrolls for other countries
UX adjustments: A) Aliases – Ex CTC - Statement of Earnings. B) Custom Payslips for the countries. C) Number Formatting
Quick calculation: This is created to ensure that Full and Final settlement can be run at any point in time, as it is mandated by law in USA to clear the dues of any outgoing employee on the day
he/she is let go.

Demarcation of the pay elements into following

a) Earnings – Taxable Earnings and Non Taxable Earnings. [Ex: Mileage(Transport Allowance) and Tuition are non-taxable earnings in US context.] This is added to the Payroll engine to make it
more generic.
b) Deductions – Demarcation of deductions into Pretax deductions and post tax deductions. Only loans Garnishments – Child support, bankruptcy, student loans etc are examples of
garnishments. For garnishments, disposable income is calculated post the taxes. And it needs to be kept in mind that there are certain laws regarding the % of the disposable income that can be
taken as the garnishments from the employee.
c) Taxes: The concept of having taxes at both at federal and state is alien in the indian context. Only professional tax is present in Indian context which is 200.
d) There is no integration with the benefit providers. But in the context of US, we have the information coming up from the benefit module about the deductions from the employee.
e) Reports: Creation of multiple Payroll reports for statutory purposes especially in the US context – helpful in 3rd party payments and filing. [payments by SAP HANA & filing by reports]
Payroll run:
Some of the items to be taken up : A) Excluded from payroll B) Bank details C) Missing pan card missing D) CTC not present E) Salary structure not present F) Other Errors
Differences from previous payroll: Earning differences, extra payments, deduction differences, tax differences etc
Alerts: Gross Pay 20% more from prev month, Gross Pay over a preset amount – Salary Information, Living area different from work area – Personal Information, Gross Pay current period >
20%, Gross Pay previous period – Sal, Bank Details missing – Sal, CTC missing – Sal, National Identification Number missing – Personal, Minimum wages breached.
------ Input Validations and Modifications: a) Arrears – Loss of Pay, New Joinee, Incremental, Extra Payments, Loans and Deductions, Other Inputs. These values can be verifies and option
provided to change them. There is an option to include/exclude some employees in Payroll at this point as well.
Once the payroll is completed, the payroll journal – wages at group level at element level, salary register, variance reports are created to be validated by Payroll admin. Payslips can then be
generated at the employee level and then validated.
Payroll Reports: Multiple payroll reports are generated post the successful completion of Payroll run which can be provided to Payroll managers [Pay by earnings, deductions, etc].
Subsequent Posting
Finance Posting: As payroll is processed, results are stored based on the cost elements for an employee. After payroll is completed, these results will be posted to the financial system to update
the general ledger for payroll. *See Integrations.
3rd party remittance: 3rd party remittance (also sometimes referred to as a third-party process or 3PR) is the process to create payment requests with corresponding financial postings for
vendor payments due from payroll deductions. The four primary types are taxes, benefits, garnishments, and “other.” This standard process reads the payroll results, posts the data to SAP
ERP Financials or SAP S/4HANA Finance, and generates the bank transfer and check payment requests due to third parties.
Electronic Funds Transfers, Including Data Medium Exchange : The SAP process to create checks or ACH payments after payroll is run is DME. Pre notification to validate payments are
done with a token payment. Then a final payment will be made.
Do you have any questions for me ?
Why do you want to join remote ?
Tell me about yourself ?
Details on Prouct Management – All areas of Product Management
Why was US part of the payroll engine and UK done by integration with Mercans ?
One design question – Look at any video.
Best Product – which you like any why
Behavioural questions

Do you have any questions for me ?

•What are the critical success factors for this role?
•What is career progression in this role?
•What do you enjoy about being a Product Manager at Remote?
•What do you find challenging about being a Product Manager at Remote?

Why do you want to join ABC?

• I deeply resonate with ABC's mission of enabling organizations to employ anyone, anywhere, compliantly, and I'm eager to contribute to this mission.
• I have a strong affinity for the payroll domain, which I cultivated during my previous role at Darwinbox. Encountering this opportunity has ignited my
excitement.
• Currently, I'm seeking a remote role to accommodate my personal priorities. I have a three-year-old child, and this opportunity would enable me to spend
more quality time with her

• I am looking for challenging opportunities in Fintech domain. And this opportunity has ignited by excitement.
• I have a strong affinity for the enterprise tech products, during my previous product roles at Highradius, Darwinbox and ADP.
• Currently, I'm seeking a hybrid role to accommodate my personal priorities. I have a three-year-old child, and this opportunity would enable me to
spend more quality time with her
Tell me about yourself ?

Hi Richard,
Good noon. Thanks for shortlisting me and providing this opportunity.
I'm Prudhvi, holding a Bachelor's in Electronics and Communication Engineering from NIT Warangal and a Master's in Business Administration from
IIM Lucknow. With a decade of experience, I bring 6.5 years in Product Management and 3.5 years in Business Analysis to the table.
My Product Management journey encompasses all aspects, from discovery through to strategy, roadmap creation, and execution. I've had the privilege of
working in diverse environments, ranging from startups like Highradius and Darwinbox to industry giants like ADP.
Some career highlights include:
• Pioneering a Fintech product from inception, now processing $2 billion in annual transactions with an ARR of $15 million.
• Crafting a reporting solution managing 2 million report runs across 30 countries and 15 languages.
• Expanding Payroll operations into 10 different countries, including the US.
I'm enthusiastic about the opportunity to contribute my skills and experience to a new challenge
Last year, my family and I relocated to the Netherlands. During that time, I needed to prioritize my children's health, which required multiple trips to
India for their medical care. Now that they are stable and on the path to recovery, I've made the decision to rejoin the workforce

Details on Product Management

I have about 7years of B2B Tech Product Management experience, with 4 years of experience in Fintech and 3 years in HR Tech. I was part of the
unicorn journeys of Darwinbox and Highradius and big companies like ADP.
During my Product Management journey, I had the opportunity of working across different facets of Product Management like Product Strategy, Product
Discovery, Product roadmap planning and Product execution.

I helped build a Fintech product handling 2 BN USD in annual transactions and generating 15 million ARR.
I helped create a reporting solution handling 2 million report runs across 30 different countries.
I helped expand Payroll product into 10 new countries across 3 continents by building enhancing the Payroll engine and integrating with Payroll Vendors
like Mercans and Ramco.
Product Discovery:
I use two activities for Product Discovery. A) Customer Understanding and B) Market Benchmarking
Customer understanding: This is done both qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitatively by having customer discussions, client interview and shadowing users.
Quantitatively by looking at the NPS scores, tickets and requests raised by them.
Market Benchmarking: Dividing the product into sub product areas. And focusing on the competitor products we want to compete with in that specific product area.
Categorizing if we are at par, below par or above par with them in those areas. Understanding what we are doing good and where we are not up to the standards.

Product Strategy: Based on the discussions with higher management and Product discovery
Product roadmapping and execution : See earlier slides.