Product Expert Harish Srigiriraju Highlights Importance of Personalization in Digital Applications

As the world accelerated the development of products by standardizing various offerings, companies were able to save costs. However, standardization often comes with a downside. The user experience is compromised since it is not personalized enough for each user.

Personalization of content is now widespread with social media and streaming products driving this change. Although technology sector has made progress in this direction specially with AI, there is significant room for improvement. 

Product managers and leaders can thankfully rely on product experts like Harish Srigiriraju, who are pushing personalization of digital products by leveraging new analytical models. Harish obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a Master’s degree in Business Administration – Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University).

Harish is a very well-rounded education and professional experience in product management. He has built several large scale mobile and web applications that have served millions of users. Through his expertise in product management, he has not only transformed products but also created a positive social impact. 

Harish spent the early years of his career developing products for leading technology giants. He then worked at the intersection of technology and social impact where he was able to develop products that helped foundations, investors, philanthropists to make investments in high impact social organizations and startups.

He currently leverages his experience in product development and business administration to create roadmap and strategies for various products at one of the world’s leading telecom companies. He collaborates closely with design, data analytics and engineering teams to make product improvements. Harish often questioned why millions of users were given the same experience even though the features that users care about are different. This is when Harish started developing innovative models for personalization. 

Harish noticed that the ratings on app stores were not very helpful to understand the user and therefore, Harish started using In-App ratings to take user feedback. He was then able to use this feedback to uncover insights on user needs. He took it a step further when he developed a model to personalize the home screen by taking in-app ratings and feature ratings into account. Harish has been actively promoting this innovation in the product and analytics community. He has showcased this work at numerous events and has created an impact beyond his organization on the entire industry. 

Another remarkable innovation is Harish using Network Analysis to develop a pattern in navigation inside the application. He created a visual representation of navigation from users to identify which features were under-utilized and hard to discover. He then developed another model to use feature ratings to change the navigation in the app to promote the highly rated features. Using dynamic design components to alter the home screen and navigation is a noteworthy way to personalize the experience beyond just the content. 

Harish explains that his models can be used for both mobile and web applications. He emphasizes that product managers need to focus on identifying satisfied users through user feedback and create opportunities to increase revenue from them. On the flip side, product managers have to predict users who are likely to churn and offer incentives or promote features to retain them. He recommends the product teams to start with simple rule-based approach and then evolve to using AI for personalization.