Main takeaways: - What is International PM - Best Practices in Launching New Products in New Countries - Personal Lessons Learned - Getting Hired as an International PM

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Intro to International Product Management
by Amazon Web Services Principal PM

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7. Ofir Zigelman
T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R

8. About the speaker
IDF (Unit 8200 - Intelligence technology)
Tel Aviv University (law)
Israeli Government (product technology)
Wharton MBA (management) / Harvard
MPA (public policy)
INSEAD Singapore (exchange)
Amazon Web Services (Expansion
Strategy, Principal Product Manager -
Sub-Saharan Africa & Europe)

9. Agenda
1. What is International Product Management?
2. What does an International Product Mgr. do?
3. Best practices/lessons learned in launching new
products in new countries
4. Getting hired as International Product Mgr.
5. Q&A

10. What is International Product Management
● Working definition:
○ “Successfully launching and growing
products in foreign markets accounting
for the unique characteristics of local
customers and the local ecosystem”
● Mostly for existing products (launched in the
USA/Canada, taken global)

11. What is International Product Management
● But also new products designed
specifically for a new market

12. What’s so different about international markets?
External (challenges/opportunities)
● Language
● Currency/ payment instruments
● Culture/ customer behaviour
● Laws/ regulations / government
● Financials/ cost structure
● Competition
● Infrastructure (basic, Internet)
● Brand awareness
● Partnerships

13. What’s so different about international markets?
External (challenges/opportunities)
● Language
● Currency/ payment instruments
● Culture/ customer behaviour
● Laws/ regulations / government
● Financials/ cost structure
● Competition
● Infrastructure (basic, Internet)
● Brand awareness
● Partnerships
Internal (considerations)
● Hiring
● Time zones
● Cross-cultural communication
● Standardization vs. local
experimentation and knowledge
● Getting organized/aligned (HQ &
local teams)

14. What’s so different about international markets?
External (challenges/opportunities)
● Language
● Currency/ payment instruments
● Culture/ customer behaviour
● Laws/ regulations / government
● Financials/ cost structure
● Competition
● Infrastructure (basic, Internet)
● Brand awareness
● Partnerships
Internal (considerations)
● Hiring
● Time zones
● Cross-cultural communication
● Standardization vs. local
experimentation and knowledge
● Getting organized/aligned (HQ &
local teams)
IPM develops a thoughtful strategy and makes decisions to address these factors to
ensure product successful launch and growth

15. Opportunity
The world’s 500 Global largest companies (represented by 34 countries) generated $32.7
trillion in revenues and $2.15 trillion in profits in 2018.

16. The opportunity ahead - taking digital products globally
By 2024 (projections):
● Worldwide E-Commerce spending to reach $3 trillion
● Worldwide E-Services (delivery, events) spending to reach $280 billion
● Worldwide Digital Media spending to reach $183 billion
● Worldwide Digital Advertising spending to reach $155 billion
● Worldwide Enterprise IT spending to reach $4.1 trillion
There will be plenty of work for International PMs…
Source: Gartner, Statista

17. Especially
launching in
Asia, Africa,
MENA & East
Europe

18. What does an IPM do?
1. Prioritizing new markets (decision matrix)
- Market size (determine the
addressable opportunity)
- Current momentum (revenues, users,
adoption, customer anecdotes)
- Ability to operate challenges / risks Country X Country Y Country Z
Addressable
opportunity
Current
business/
momentum
Regulatory
landscape
Risks /
challenges
Time to market

19. What does an IPM do?
2. Country diligence / business case (Go/No Go decision)
- P&L
- Revenue - factor macro-trends (economic,
technology adoption, regulatory/political)
and WW benchmarks
- Cost - WW and local costs per business type
- Unique customer requirements (customer
interviews)

20. What does an IPM do?

21. What does an IPM do?
3. Localization vs. internationalization vs.
customization
- Internationalization (dates-coding, right-left
fonts)
- Localization (translating documentation,
website, marketing, local-language support)
- Customization (UX and features,
payment/billing)
4. Local pricing
- Understand local customers, local cost
structure, competition

22. What does an IPM do?
5. Product Launch & growth
- Work with local and HQ stakeholders to develop
market entry, product launch and sales growth
go-forward plans
6. Regulations & public policy
- Develop plan to remove local barriers or take
country-specific initiatives (e.g., compliance
programs)

23. Good example (Netflix)
● 1997 - Est. in CA, USA (online DVD
Rental)
● 2007 - streaming platform launch
(US), 7M subscribers
● 2019 - 167M worldwide
subscribers (60M in US)
● Strong localization (content,
subtitles, dubbing) and quality
control
● UI design (pseudo localization, 25+
languages support)

24. Good example (Slack)
● 2012 - Est. in USA (team communication app)
● 2019 - 12M daily active users (over 85K organization users);
● Over half of users in 100+ countries outside the US.
● The top five: UK, Japan, Germany, France & India
Slack’s official blog, “Localization builds
trust with our customers in a language that
they understand, with cultural references
that are familiar to them.”

25. Personal lessons learned
- Cross-cultural influence & communication
- Remote communication challenging (listening skills)
- Amazon Narratives helpful
- QBRs/in-person conferences (quarterly/annually)
- Cross-team goals & strategic planning
- Goals across business units (HQ vs. Field team)
- Mechanism (e.g. Monthly Steering Committee)
- Think Big & organizational sponsorship
- Initiatives that take several years to deliver and are
strategic enablers (e.g., education, partnerships)

26. Getting hired as International PM
- Product vs. Operational vs. Strategy experience
- MBA
- Geo/language experience (e.g., China/Mandarin)
- Finding IPM jobs - what to look for:
- Expansion Strategy
- Regional Product Management
- Global Strategy & Operations
- Preparing for interviews
- Showing ability to think through external
barriers and go-forward initiatives for a
particular country (e.g., India) vs. just on a
new product

27. Q&A
ozig@amazon.com

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