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13 Jan 2022
In the most recent Centili Elevate webinar , our CEO Zoran Vasiljev had an inspiring chat with David Nguyen, VP Product Design at our sister company Infobip. He has led some of the most demanding digital projects for billion-dollar companies in the United States and Europe. This time, he shared his expert views on top opportunities in building digital products.
Add as many perspectives as possible, research, but don’t ignore intuition
"No matter if you are a newly organised firm or an established enterprise – a collaboration between departments is likely to be the most difficult thing", David started. People are usually concerned with delivering as fast as they can in the product space, but, according to him, that is the antithesis of a good cross-department collaboration.
"This applies to both individuals and organisations. It is not about how fast you are, but rather about having the time to process different perspectives. Start-ups are often guided by their investors and a single vision, while big enterprises have many product teams. Many times it can be daunting to reach out to another team and see their perspective on things", he explained.
"I think the challenge is in the fact that we confuse hurrying with being fast, and we confuse focusing on quality with being slow. We should think about our work in terms of the outcome, and not output. When we start to do that, we will become faster and more influential", David explained.
"For us to create a better output to get a better outcome, we had to add as many perspectives as possible. We have research, but we can’t ignore intuition. At Infobip we have strong user research capability, to understand how our products are used. But we need to augment that with the question of the overall value that our platform has added to your daily experience", he said.
It takes two to tango – Research and collaboration are the big powerhouses
Talking about collaboration in larger organisations, David thinks that growth through acquisitions is more likely to be successful if you acquire teams and organisations that complement your product, that can expand it and give it a fresh boost.
"It is important to get research savvy. Don’t just rely on your users, grab the info from other departments, be proactive and ask for a fresh perspective", he advised.
Coming from design consultancy, David shared he often saw companies turning to design agencies when they wanted to produce something new. And, according to him, that is rightfully so – agencies work across the market, they see the everchanging landscape, and therefore can bring in a relevant perspective.
"You should always consider outside help when you build, evolve, or expand your current product because perspective is everything. The more you work on your product you get narrower in your vision. And you need the opposite, you need to open up your vision", he concluded.
This was the last one of our Centili Elevate webinar series in 2021. We also invite you to have a look at our previous webinar "Disruption in Digital Content" on the Centili Youtube channel. Dina Janevski Farčić, Centili CMO, hosted Sam Barker, Head of Research and Forecasting at Juniper Research agency.
Centili Elevate webinar is a series of events created during pandemic times to connect us and provide online learning opportunities. We discuss fintech industry topics and help our colleagues, partners, and clients navigate the evolving fintech ecosystem. We are looking forward to more educational socializing online events this year!
