Product management is not about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions, especially when you're working across markets and teams.
Jai Mansukhani brings a rare perspective to product management in India and beyond. From managing OYO’s hotel manager booking systems to leading the driver app at Careem in Dubai, his journey unpacks the realities of building products that serve complex, multi-stakeholder ecosystems.
The actual job is not just shipping features. It is about understanding the operational nuances of your users — be it hotel managers in India or drivers in the UAE — and building tools that truly solve their problems. This is product management in practice, beyond frameworks and templates.
The challenge of managing products across markets
Jai’s move from OYO India to Careem UAE highlights a fundamental truth: product problems do not translate directly across geographies.
User behavior, regulatory environments, and partner expectations vary widely. What worked for hotel managers in India’s tier-1 and tier-2 cities required a different approach than what drivers in Dubai demand.
This is why contextual empathy is a non-negotiable skill. You cannot ship a one-size-fits-all solution and expect adoption.
For example, at OYO, Jai managed a tab-based booking management system used daily by hotel staff who often work with limited digital literacy and unreliable internet. The product had to be simple, fast, and forgiving of offline scenarios.
At Careem, the driver app is mission-critical in a regulated market with different payment and compliance requirements. The stakes are higher, and the user base more diverse.
This kind of ground-level understanding is what separates PMs who make noise from those who make impact.
From feature ownership to product leadership
In his early days at OYO, Jai focused on specific features — booking management tabs, workflow optimizations, and incremental improvements. Over time, the scope expanded.
The trap is to think product management is about feature delivery. Jai points out that moving from feature ownership to owning the entire product experience requires a mindset shift.
You must think about:
- End-to-end user journeys rather than isolated screens.
- Operational metrics like booking completion rates, error rates, and customer support tickets.
- Cross-team coordination between engineering, design, operations, and customer success.
This transition often coincides with company growth. At startups, PMs may wear many hats and focus narrowly. At scale, the PM must become the glue that holds the product ecosystem together.
Navigating stakeholder complexity in Indian and Gulf markets
Jai’s experience reveals how stakeholder dynamics differ sharply between Indian startups and Gulf-based platforms.
In India, stakeholders often include multiple layers — from local business owners to regional managers to centralized product teams. Each has different priorities, and managing expectations requires patience and clarity.
In the UAE, regulatory compliance, government partnerships, and driver unions add new layers of complexity. The PM’s role extends beyond product to include policy awareness and negotiation skills.
This complexity is a reality for many Indian PMs who transition to multinational roles or work with cross-border teams.
The importance of data-driven decision making
Across markets and products, Jai stresses the need for data over opinion.
At OYO, he recalls how customer support tickets and booking failure rates drove prioritization. At Careem, real-time telemetry from the driver app informs rapid iteration.
The trap is to act on assumptions or stakeholder pressure without evidence. Jai’s advice is to build the habit of seeking data — even imperfect data — as the basis for prioritization.
This aligns with the Pragmatic Leaders philosophy: practice first, theory second. Data is the language that earns trust in diverse teams.
Handling operational constraints and tech debt
Jai candidly shares that managing legacy systems and operational constraints is part of the PM’s daily grind.
At OYO, the hotel manager tab was built on legacy codebases and had to support spotty network connectivity. At Careem, scaling the driver app while maintaining uptime is critical.
This is what week one looks like for most PMs who inherit existing products. The job is not glamorous — it is about incremental improvements, technical debt reduction, and keeping the engine running.
Many candidates fail to appreciate this reality during interviews. The honest truth about product management is that shipping new features is only a small fraction of the work.
Preparing for senior product roles: lessons from Jai
Jai’s career path offers valuable lessons for PMs aspiring to senior roles:
- Develop cross-functional empathy: understand engineering constraints, design workflows, and business goals.
- Own the full product lifecycle: from discovery to delivery to iteration.
- Learn to manage up and sideways: communicate clearly with leadership and partners.
- Build domain expertise: whether hospitality or ride-hailing, deep knowledge unlocks better decisions.
- Embrace ambiguity and complexity: senior PMs thrive not despite uncertainty but because of it.
These lessons resonate with the PG Diploma in Product Management’s goal: preparing you for roles where you lead and innovate with confidence.
Test yourself: Managing product priorities under pressure
You are the PM for a driver app at a ride-hailing startup in Dubai. A sudden regulatory change requires adding a new compliance flow that will delay onboarding by 3 days. Your engineering lead says this will push back a planned feature that improves driver earnings visibility. The CEO wants the feature shipped this quarter to boost metrics. You have 4 weeks until the quarter ends.
The call: How do you prioritize compliance versus earnings visibility? How do you communicate this trade-off to the CEO and your engineering team?
Your reasoning:
Where to go next
- If you want to deepen your understanding of stakeholder management: Stakeholder Management Essentials
- If you want to master product discovery in complex markets: User Research Methods
- If you want to build skills for senior product leadership: The PM Career Ladder
- If you want to improve your prioritization judgment: Prioritization Frameworks
- If you want to practice product decisions in real scenarios: Product Management Case Studies
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