‘Education at Apeejay School of Management prepared us for the global job market’ 

An avid believer of ”technology for good” Mohit Bhargava completed his Bachelors in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Lingayas Institute of Management and Technology, Faridabad. In 2006, he enrolled for a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) in Marketing at the Apeejay School of Management (ASM), New Delhi. Today, Bhargava is Deputy General Manager, Product Marketing for the Digital Financial Solutions portfolio at Comviva Technologies Limited, a top-notch global company specialising in telecom value added services. In an interview, Mohit talks about his research interests and key takeaways from his time at ASM. Edited excerpts:

Please share your professional journey with us 

During the campus recruitment at Apeejay, I was selected by Evalueserve, a knowledge processing outsourcing company where I worked as Senior Business Analyst. My key role was to provide business research and analysis services in the telecom domain to companies such as Wireless Intelligence and Nokia Siemens Network. I gained a lot of knowledge on the telecom landscape of various countries, learned about the company profiling of telecom operators including their product, financial and operational metrics as well as strategic initiatives. I also got an understanding on various technologies and best practice studies in the telecom market. 

My experience in telecom research helped me to get my next job at Comviva in 2011. I joined its marketing team as a marketing researcher. However gradually, I evolved into the role of product marketing and worked for their flagship product line digital financial solutions. At present, my core responsibilities primarily include converting Comviva’s digital financial products and their impact on transforming the financial landscape globally. 

I am responsible for building product positioning, marketing strategy, brand leadership for four products – mobiquity® Pay, mobiquity® Banking Suite, PreTUPS™ and payPLUS. These together serve over a billion consumers and process transactions valuing more than US$160 billion annually. 

You have more than 13 years of experience in product marketing and research in digital financial services and telecom domains. Did you always want to be in this field when you started your career?

The professional world is very dynamic and is evolving at a fast pace. I believe sometimes it becomes tough to make that decision as to what role one wants to take up or where he/she wishes to see himself/herself after 10 or 15 years. But we can surely decide the direction we want to go with. I was not sure I wanted to be a Product Marketer. However, while I was pursuing my PGDBM, I was sure that I did not want to be on the sales side. Rather, I aspired to take up brand marketing or marketing research. Among the subjects, I was also good in Market Research. So when companies came for recruitment, I chose the one that offered research-related roles. Moreover, once you are in a job, more avenues open up and based on your interest you can decide where you want to go. So I evolved from a research role to product marketing role.

Why did you choose to pursue management education? 

While doing engineering I realised that apart from my interest in technology, I was also good at presenting the work. Hence in engineering projects, I was always chosen amongst the group to present the project or write the report. It became a strength for me and I realised that a management degree will help enhance my presentation skills and complement my engineering degree. Hence, I decided to pursue management education.

How was your experience at Apeejay School of Management and what are the life lessons, which you picked up at the institute? 

Apeejay focused not just on learning marketing theories, but also implementing them in real-life scenarios. We used to have lots of projects, role plays and case studies where we implemented what we learned in the class. Also, our examinations were designed not to test how perfectly we remember marketing concepts and theories, but how well we can implement them in real life. For example, I still remember questions like ‘how would you increase the ridership of Delhi metro’ or ‘would you change the age old tagline of Maggi ketchup – It’s different’. Such questions made us think and implement what we learned in class. This made us ready for the global job market where practical thinking is valued more than bookish concepts. I topped the Marketing section at ASM and was awarded a Silver Medal.

Another thing which was focused at Apeejay was to read more – from magazines like Harvard Business Review to daily business dailies. Reading is the first step to the cycle of read-think-analyse–execute. The more you read, the more you think and analyse as well as bring better solutions to the table to solve a problem. This becomes very important to grow as a professional. 

I have written extensively on how digital financial services are positively impacting various focus areas including financial inclusion, financial services for women and gender gap, UN Sustainable Development Goals, etc. I am also the co-author of ‘The PAYTECH Book’, the first crowdsourced book on payment technologies and new business models in the global payment sector.

How do you see the future of product marketing as a career option?

With a growing product start-up ecosystem, product management and product marketing has become an important role in many organisations, especially in the tech companies.

A product manager is like a CEO of a product who works together with multiple functions such as engineering, business development and sales to grow and develop the product. They do everything from shaping the current product to defining the roadmap, whereas Product Marketing complements Product Management by helping promote the product. It involves creation and execution of marketing strategy for the product. Also, it includes defining product value propositions, market research, competitive intelligence, market communication, managing events, analyst relations, creating collaterals, curating thought leadership content and publishing of the same. So people who have passion for these things can look at it as a career option. 

Which one do you think is better: an MBA after graduation or an MBA after work experience?  

While I did my PGDBM after graduation, I believe a couple of years of work experience before an MBA surely helps understand the subjects and business functions better.