Fatima
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Emily: [00:00:00] Welcome to Launch Pod, a product management podcast brought to you by Log Rocket. Today our guest is Fatima, how Vice President of Product Management and CX Design for Fleet Telematics at Azua, a subsidiary of Bridgestone. Before joining Bridgestone, Fatima served in product leadership roles 

at a signer and pro core technologies, However, she didn't always work in software. Fatima started as an analyst in public affairs and transition to software and product through sales development representative role. On today's episode, log rockets, VP of marketing, Jeff Wharton talks to Fatima.

About her strategies for managing by exception, prioritizing customer needs and finding common denominators among different stakeholders, such as drivers, fleet managers, and insurance companies. The discussion also highlights the shift from traditional product management to a more holistic approach involving co creation, risk modeling, and design management.

So here it is our conversation with Fatima [00:01:00] House.

Jeff: All right. Fatima. So excited to have you on. normally we get people who are just 100 percent focused on software, but over at Bridgestone telematics is just such a rich texture of stuff. You have IOT software. you're touching on hardware in trucking cabs. we had a lot to cover. So let's dive on in here.

first, can you just Give us the real quick and dirty on what exactly does your role entail over at Bridgestone Telematics and what do the products look like?

Fatima: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to be here. yeah, so I'm a VP of product management and design over here at Bridgestone Mobility, where I focus mostly on our fleet telematics portfolio, specific to North America, within, a portfolio that spans insurance, fleet management, as well as, a plethora of different vehicles that go underneath that.

so I actually lead product management design as well as product operations, within, Bridgestone Mobility, really focusing on our portfolio that again, spans insurance customers that spans fleet management customers, as well as [00:02:00] fleet drivers, across the horizontal vertical. So we're not necessarily vertical specific, which is really fantastic and an incredible, opportunity.

to kind of service those customers.

Jeff: Nice, yeah, like I said, you're covering a lot. Now I got to put this might be a little cheeky, but

Fatima: That's okay.

Jeff: the metaphor I best can take away from this is it seems like Bridgestone telematics is very similar to almost log rocket in what we do, right? you're pulling underlying telemetry from a complex situation.

You are looking at technical performance. what's actually happening on the human side. You have a video replay of inside the cab. and the comparison just go on and on. Am I way off base or is this a fine mental model for me to kind Very roughly high level understand what's going on at Bridgestone Telematics.

Fatima: No, absolutely not off base. We have a plethora of data sources as we call them right from IOT. and we're agnostic to a lot of the IOT solutions that we provide everything from video telematics to,the vehicle telematics itself and marrying it with [00:03:00] user behavior driver behavior. fleet organizational behavior and trying to bring all of that and centralize it to a data story,and a set of,prioritizations that really target efficiency and productivity as well as sustainability.

and most importantly, that's near and dear to my heart is safety. So absolutely. we look to help. organizations, specifically fleet management organizations to make sense of their data. and they're not necessarily power users and all of these different sources, right? So it's our job to really come alongside of them and partner with them to make it accessible, to make it readable and to make it actionable, which is exactly what you guys, help us do in a lot of ways.

Jeff: in a previous interview you did, you talked about the goal is not to give them just more data. But surface the insights they need to make better decisions and to make the right decisions. but you're working with such a wide group of people here, right?

you have the actual fleet managers, the drivers themselves, in insurance companies, I think. So I guess to start off, how do you [00:04:00] prioritize amongst those? Like, how are you looking at that and building product for something that touches so many people and ensuring that every step along the way is moving you to a better place?

Fatima: Absolutely. I think it's really about co creation with our customers. I think that's the center of all of it. Our customers are running in this complex ecosystem themselves. there are inflection points of collaboration that they have internally,With their drivers, with their insurance partners and with their organizations.

So really what it comes down to, as I like to refer to it managing by exception, like what is not just the rule, but the exception and trying to understand across all of the video data that I get, for example, or across all the vehicles that I have, I may have thousands of vehicles.

How do I prioritize? How do I understand? where is my action ability if I want to be more productive or if I want to be more fuel efficient, or if I want to expose myself to less accidents or be proactive in accident prevention, how do I prioritize that information and then disperse it and create programs and [00:05:00] workflows that I can deploy to my organization, to my drivers, and perhaps even to my insurance companies.

To really create this kind of culture of safety together. and so we pride ourselves in ensuring that how we prioritize is by focusing on where are the opportunities where every single one of those stakeholders can have a win win situation from the summarization of data. So we employ a lot of tools.

We employ a lot of AI. we have a lot of user experience design that is targeted at that centralization of those stakeholders rather than building for just one. Although there are, advantages to that in certain aspects of our portfolio. we do focus a lot on doing research together with those stakeholders to understand the common denominators.

Kind of that overlap, that we see from all of them. And that's, that becomes the starting point of our priority and everything gets built out. All the value add, if you will, gets built out of those validated aspects. So it's really about, making sure that [00:06:00] we understand the customer needs and how that need, balances off of their stakeholders needs as well.

And so I think that's really the kind of framework by which we look at the world.

Jeff: Makes sense. now, Bridgestone, obviously famous, very well known company started out making tires. I think there's two things that come up here. One is it's just such a validation that the world in general is Becoming run on tech, right? Every company now has to be a tech company.

You have, companies like Bridgestone where it's not just tires anymore. it's IOT. it's understanding the experience, and monitoring this and helping fleet managers manage these huge fleets. you've companies like waste management who operate on a pretty complex data platform at this point.

and it's just this event advancement of all these, companies that have been around for so long and continuing to grow. Succeed because of their adoption technology. I feel like it's not always easily understood outside. How do you know, can you maybe walk us through a little bit how it went from [00:07:00] tires to maybe it was like IOT sensors of tire pressure or something all the way to the platform that we're talking about now?

Like, how did that happen and how did you understand and work with customers or where the inspiration come from?

Fatima: Absolutely. I think, I have to give credit right to our leadership teams. they're just have an incredibly clear vision, that really sets us apart. I think as a Bridgestone, just being such a large company, but also having been in the market for hundreds of years. So it's one of those things that there is a lot of transformation that has happened for Bridgestone, especially for the last, Oh, just 50 years.

Where we went from. Kind of the tire side to tire and retail, to now,the digital space. And I think with that vision came the appetite to really look at the, not just the tire as the product, but really the customer experience as the opportunity. so we can be able to build a more complete solution around those, right?

So through, one of the big differences that I do have to say, and I [00:08:00] know we're going to get this into this later, but,is coming to a non tech focused environment. Is looking through the eyes of the experience itself, right? There is a physical product, which is a tire physical products like a sensor, there's a physical space, like a retail place where you get your tire,redone and you get your sensor implemented, et cetera.

And then there's a digital experience and all these things have to coalesce into a seamless experience. solution, not just a platform that we can build for, which is very different, right? From a traditional, SAS only solution. So it really was that kind of combination of a crisp vision from our, CEO, all the way down to investing in.

In the right aspects of technology and doing it iteratively as well, right? Not going up full on and say, we're now, a digital company, but rather, how do we take the best aspects of Bridgestone and the best inflection points of value, and [00:09:00] then extend that over to a digital experience? experience as well.

And can I make one work for the other? and so that's where we found ourselves investing more and more into these types of platforms where we're, creating risk models and are able to provide driver behavior, coaching and marry that all that up back to how you maintain a vehicle, how you maintain your tire, right?

All these things are really important variables to this, broader goal that our customers have in the market. and I think that kind of that unification of those value propositions really helped us set the right tone and then therefore build with the customer in a very focused way versus just becoming digital for the sake of digital.

Jeff: Yeah, and we've spoken on this show to several people who have undergone I'll be honest, maybe not similar, digital transformations. Cause I think, Bridgestones is fairly unique, but similar in that they went from being very, very physical. like you said, in, reality to, existing in the digital world, Things like, restaurants over the pandemic [00:10:00] moved to being very digital ordering and just take out, things like that. 

Fatima: I will say the one thing I've noticed across all of them is the ones that successful were the ones where leadership had a clear vision and were able to work that down. And there was alignment that was able to be filtered through to everyone.

Jeff: so what I'm curious here is obviously your leadership had a great vision for this. it's taken a long way. but that doesn't go anywhere without kind of that next level down. you know, on your team, how are you all set up to drive this kind of alignment? But, even maybe more interestingly, how do you goal or how do you drive alignment?

do you work on like a jobs to be done framework or their North Star KPIs? Maybe a mix of all those things. What's that build look like?

Fatima: Absolutely. I think you're absolutely correct. vision may tell us, and it's extremely important, but it tells us of what the future could look like once we've realized who we want to be for the customer and for the market. and the mission which is what my team. Had to translate that into, right?

Like, how do we translate this company's very crisp vision, but also 10 year forward, [00:11:00] 15 year forward into something that's a product strategy. And there is this kind of in between where we have to describe what's our commitment to that vision, which is what we define internally as a mission. and with that, we've been able to crystallize that commitment into a product.

Product strategy, right? So there's the company strategy, but it has to be complimented, by a product strategy. And sometimes, even in my own career, we've had to like discuss is, what is the difference? Because there is a difference. and I think it became even more clear coming into a more traditional setting, like at Bridgestone, where we really had to lean on that product strategy to translate what we needed to get done.

and so with that,a couple of years ago, I really took the team into a restructure. So after defining a product strategy, kind of pillar,across the opportunities,we wanted to restructure our team, some value streams and definitely what does a value stream can mean many things, right?

We decided that for us, a value stream is going to describe a sub [00:12:00] market problem. It's going to describe a customer. So your customer, if you're in fleet operations, it's going to be different than your customer, if you're in fleet safety. So that way end to end ownership of that customer.

And then with that comes the jobs to be done. So I'm glad you mentioned that because that is something we emphasize a lot here of really describing what are the jobs that these customers and their Organization,have to do, what goals are they trying to accomplish within the organization? Even if they are,in a subset, right?

So that's how we divided,the concerns. I always say separate concerns, into more of a focused way to address those customer problems. And that helped us really realize. Okay. We have the division, we have our commitment,as a company, we now have a product strategy that is defined by our investment areas.

and I think,an inspiration I always go back to is,Gibson, who,led, he was a VP of Netflix. I think back in 2005, 2006, and he has a phenomenal. product strategy [00:13:00] framework, where it really talks about the alignment of here's your investment, here is your tactics, right? that you're going to describe, and here is the metric, the North Star that you're going to measure the impact of those tasks successfully.

Tactics with, and those tactics become your roadmap, items that you can get and prioritize. And I found that to be really,helpful in upskilling teams, and developing product teams to really think a different way than maybe traditionally, they would, Which is more like digital app, 

They start with the app. They start with the design rather than starting with the market, the customer and the jobs to be done.

Jeff: So can you maybe just walk us through on that team? You said it's broken up into kind of value area. what does the team look like? What is the breakdown under you there?

Fatima: Yeah. and across, so we've, it's fairly new for some of these things as well, which is super exciting because we're already seeing results from it. so product management historically was just an extension of engineering. it wasn't a very well defined discipline.

It was more of like product [00:14:00] delivery management than it was about true product strategy. So how we did it is we'd started to divide the world into Product operations, which is going to be all of the infrastructure that supports our proper product management frameworks, our product managers, which we actually have two disciplines, the,growth product management, and as well as the,product management delivery.

So we continued that thread because that is what was familiar. And so then we optimize that. so that one focuses on product market fit. For their domain. And one focuses on growth for their domain. So it allows us to focus on keep the customer engaged,keep retention top of mind, but also where are the expansion opportunities?

what's the workflow look like if we go into this sub market or that sub market? So we're very close to our channels. I go to market channels on that. And then last but not least is our design management. So we do separate design. So that again, cause historically we didn't have design.

And it was embedded in product, so they didn't have a seat at the table. So we've really [00:15:00] created a CX organization, and that is different than I would have done in the past. Because again, like we talked about Bridgestone, there's a lot of complexities. So when we think about CX, we have to think about when somebody opens a package, right?

What does that experience feel like when they get their OBD devices or their cameras? When someone is installing those into the vehicle, what does that look like in conjunction with their mobile onboarding? So it's a very very specific set of skills that we'd have to hire for and so we called it the CX Organization which supports product design as well.

So that's the organization hierarchy And then we organized those different functions into domain expertise. So the domains are described by the revenue of our portfolio. So we have our customers who come in just for GPS. And fleet, fleet operations. They just need to track. and that by itself has a huge amount of sustainability implications, productivity implications, and efficiency implications.

So we have a [00:16:00] set of folks that are just dedicated to those jobs to be done. we have fleet safety, which is everything to do with how do you upscale your safety programming? How do you incorporate everything from your operations and then feed it into a new wave of driver behavior? and last but not least is really making it a complete solution, around platforms such as reporting, AI, machine learning.

So there's a lot going on for us there to help upskill our drivers, upskill our fleet ops, teams and fleet managers so that they have the right data at the right time. 

Jeff: Wow. so basically you're aligning those teams up and through the revenue derived from different product sets within the more macro telematics set. Does that mean you have, you know, you're working with engineers. so your product managers, for instance, are working both with people developing software and UIs, but as well as hardware and stuff like that, too.

Fatima: Yeah. So we have a hardware team, and that's the part of our platform team, as we like to say, because it's a data team. It's not [00:17:00] just the hardware, right? But 100%. we work to create platforms that are specific to creating agnostic approaches to our connecting points. So we work with things like OEMs.

So it's not just we're not just GPS providers, but OEM connections are a really big investment for us. that has found, we found great success in, but also just an incredible experience for our customers. we work with video telematics. So there's a lot of hardware, which in turn has a lot of firmware implications as well.

So that we have expertise that are product managing that alongside of our. and together they really work with the individual domain leaders,to ensure that the latest and greatest technology is available to them to productize for our customers.

Jeff: Now, previous to Bridgestone, I think you were at Procore for a little bit, right? So looking at Procore is I think even some would think maybe not even the completely traditional SAS model. Cause it's on tablets, it's on prem and a lot of, construction sites, but it's still, it's software through and through for the most [00:18:00] part.

how did coming to Bridgestone, differ from some of those past roles where you had just such a wider breadth of kind of things you had to worry about? how has that changed how you act on a day to day basis?

Fatima: Yeah, that's a great question. I had two different approaches to construction as VP with Assignar, which focused on civil engineering, and that was very hyper focused on that vertical and then Procore, which was still a vertical SaaS product, but had a lot of different construction.

stakeholders and available there. So yeah, I think it's really important and it's kind of a mind shift, for me is really the growth that I've had, as a product leader as well, to really shift my understanding of sustainability. Speed versus,velocity. And those are different, right?

Like you can go as fast as possible. when you are in a big company like Bridgestone, cause you have a lot of resources. you have a lot of passion. You have a lot of skill sets. You have a lot of just investment in general. But when it comes to velocity, which is the rate of change, right?

So how do we change and pivot that is [00:19:00] more unique to a place like a pro core, and as well as a sign out, which was even more of a startup, pro core is a little bit more established there, even though we founded a lot of aspects to it as well, but yeah, it's just, it's a different mind shift,

To, adjust to the culture of work, right? So how do you solve problems? How do you make decisions? that's a really critical part that I really believe as product leaders, is an important problem to prioritize is really looking through decision making frameworks within an organization and optimizing your team to align with that.

So that you can expedite those decisions. Cause in order for us to pivot, we have to make that decision to say, okay, what if we did that landing page, And it's just saw what kind of response we would get. yeah, we don't have a product yet, but what if we did that at a Bridgestone, you can't do that.

pre IPR Procore, we could do that. We could experiment. We can have a lot of different ways of, of having conversations with the market that was, that felt a lot more fluid and felt more, like with a lot of velocity. yeah. Versus here, where we have the speed, but we have to be very [00:20:00] methodical about our velocity and our rate of change there.

Jeff: That's interesting. it's a little off topic, but it popped to mind. recently on the show, we ended up talking about MVPs and how they're in a lot of cases going away or people.there's a minimum viable product is maybe a little misunderstood because really nowadays there's just such high expectation digital experiences that what is minimal is really not that minimal anymore.

do you find that being a company kind of the size of Bridgestone that maybe you have to think harder about what you're going to MVP or what that line of minimal kind of looks like? Or, what's your thought on kind of MVPs in general, at this

Fatima: No, I think that's a great question because it goes into this. I think a bigger, broader product question and product leadership question around expansion, right? MVP's are a little bit more defined, if you will, quote unquote, when you are doing greenfield, right? When you're a startup and you're starting from scratch,and it's, there's its own challenges, but it is truly something you can work with.

Whereas within the Bridgestone context, [00:21:00] absolutely. especially within the Zuga, we have a large customer base. How do we ensure that we meet the same standard of quality that a customer would expect from the base product? And I think that's the part where we lose sight is that the base expectations, like you were just saying, change based on their exposure, based on what they're familiar with.

So if you're working within a, and we, Ran into this, honestly, within construction as well in Procore, because as we saw the industry change with us rapidly, which was super exciting, we also saw them adopt Slack, right? We saw them adopt Google drive. And all of a sudden their idea of what isn't the minimal does change or speed of search, 

Like little things that may be overlooked, but are really critical in our definition. So I think it's really about going back to value. being able to create a looped value, an end to end value. And where can you do that? you can shoot for the stars,and, create the most incredible,comprehensive product, or you can maybe [00:22:00] create that same value at a smaller scale for a smaller cohort.

and if you are lucky enough, to be part of a large organization or have built up like we did at Procore, a large user base, then the MVP can become something you can test with that cohort, and be able to scope it down. You don't need, you don't have the pressure, right? Of like revenue within eight months, right?

To be able to, experiment a lot more. So I think MVP changes from The skateboard, right? Because people now are in a car. So how can we minimize the amount of materials in that car to just test out the driving steering wheel that we really think is going to be the best thing ever? And it's going to differentiate us.

So I agree. I think a place like Bridgestone and within the telematic space really forces you to do that because the expectations are high and the implications are high. We're dealing with drivers, we're dealing with accidents, we're dealing, with real life impact of our, so it's just, it's a lot of, being very dedicated to quality, [00:23:00] even if you're still, creating, cost constraints, experiments, right?

Jeff: Or,products. That's fair. That kind of popped in my head, halfway as you were answering was that minimal is probably a bit differently defined because when you're actually in the driving experience, you don't want things failing. there's a different failure means a lot worse things, at times. So that's, but it is exactly, it's all in relativity to the experience it's expected, how much they've been exposed to.

So I love that kind of framework of it's a relativistic. way of looking at it and what's minimal somewhere is probably not minimal elsewhere. to go back to the thread that we were on though, the product team now over at, Azuga, are you guys under engineering or is it,is product management its own thing now?

where does that sit?

Fatima: Yeah. So it used to be under engineering. Now it sits right underneath the CEO, of Azuga, which I think has been a really great change. and it has helped, facilitate innovation across engineering and product because we can separate concerns between. The [00:24:00] investment in our platforms and the investment in the technology that is required.

And as you can imagine, when you're dealing with a large organization, there's constraints who are inheriting legacy. And you have to take those in strides. and then, marrying product next to that really allows us to, to have that really healthy conversation. And back to the conversation we were just having earlier of that Chris vision, And creating that. Mission, right? We didn't create it in silo. We were able to create it together. that change really helped us,be a lot more direct and focused in how we do the work and how we organize the operations of the work, because it is different to be an engineer than it is to be in product.

Even though we're attached to the hip as it should be.

Jeff: Exactly. No, that's another thing we've seen just in common across a lot of these organizations undergoing this kind of same digital, transformation is product,used to sit under engineering. It's a very like Kind of spec build run format and now moving into a more holistic kind of,fully actuated product organization.

[00:25:00] but again, it comes back to alignment, right? It doesn't happen without kind of leadership aligned. And oftentimes even the engineering leadership needs to be pushing for it. did you all run into any issues where I know sometimes what happens is engineers start to worry. Oh, they're gonna do more work and it's going to slow down our velocity.

to your point, there's like speed and velocity and they are different. But did you run into any problems where people were worried about that velocity being messed up? Or were people pretty on board with this move?

Fatima: Yes. I think both, right? Some people were, saying, well, our speed as an engineering team is already a difficult to manage with multiple priorities that, we may or may not be able to prioritize. So from a prioritization perspective, and we leaned on that problem first, To say, okay, what is, what are your top common challenges when dealing with the organization? Where are you feeling the pain? Or the lack of representation. So because at the end of the day, at least from my perspective, I see myself as a leader who advocates for the customer and for our development, right?

Because those are the two that need to come together to create really beautiful experiences. [00:26:00] And so we really leaned on the areas that they found challenges with, but you're absolutely right. There was also. we will slow down. There'll be process, right? It's bureaucratic. and those are valid concerns.

And so we really leaned on while we help you solve this prioritization problem. How about we come together, to help each other understand given our level, Of like the size of the team and the size of the investments, et cetera. What kind of, operational.

Governance that we need to put into place to ensure the success of our developers and ensure the success of our customers. So I think when we approached it that way, it really helped us a ton. And I preached us a lot in the transition because org transitions are always really difficult and they're really hard.

Is like our job is to earn your trust. Our job isn't to ask for it. It is to earn your trust. And so I think having that foundational principle, if you will, really helps us with the transition, [00:27:00] even though they were concerns,and they were valid concerns, right?

Because we did slow down in certain areas and we had to make that transparent because some of the things needed to be slowed down in order for us to meet the quality standards. Of our customers.

Jeff: Yeah, that makes total sense. and we've now gone through and the team's broken up into kind of value driving areas. and there's quite a few. So I guess within that, how are you managing that, constant communication with stakeholders for each one, right? say, fleet managers, for instance.

How does that team gather feedback? How do they work with people? those stakeholders and how are they prioritizing that feedback and understanding, what prioritizes a new roadmap area versus what is, you need to take it in and understand it and maybeyou've, you put it away for another quarter.

Fatima: Yeah, no, that's a great question. So I think the communication, I'll take that in two fold, right? Communication versus prioritization. I'll start with prioritization and then to communication. We have two,parallel paths of prioritization. There is roadmap prioritization. And then there's [00:28:00] opportunity prioritization.

And those two are distinct opportunity. Prioritizations allow us to expand. They allow us to take some risk. they allow us to be looking at market research and maybe some of our customers that may give us a signal of some inflection workflow that we would like to invest in. and those become more of strategic discussions of goes, no goes,is the potential revenue there?

How do we test a potential pricing model for this possible idea? So there's a lot of that, and we go through that, I would say,twice a year, right? So we don't do those as often because it's very disruptive To be looking at those massive investments all the time. And they really do demand additional resources in a lot of ways or redirection.

On the other side of prioritization, we try to keep it very simple, given just the scale of our team and the global scale of our team into a rice methodology. So we look at Within the opportunities we're already invested in. What is a strategy [00:29:00] of growing, retaining, Customers acquiring new customers, expanding into different areas within that opportunity.

And so for there, we look at our reach. We look at our impact. We look at our confidence and effort, et cetera. So that allows us to really be prioritizing on a quarterly basis. So all that coalesces to a communication strategy, which our product ops team is incredible. They do a lot of work to help us really facilitate these, which, we try to keep it simple in terms of.

We have our quarterly product strategy, which is reviewed by our CEO, our VPs, our revenue VPs, right? So it's truly an executive stakeholder discussion.and then twice within that quarter, we have roadmap reviews. So this is more with the product council, which is representatives of individual functions, like CSMs, sales engineers, as well as our executives to say here in the detail of our roadmap, here's what we're looking to do historically.

it depends on the culture of the company. I think it's really [00:30:00] important to go to that level of detail when you're teaching a company about product management. because it allows them to see how they're part of the journey of validation, of pivoting, maybe taking a tactic out, putting a new one in, why we're doing it, the opportunity costs we have to wrestle with.

So it's a way for us to really help educate while doing our jobs. so that people are informed, but they're also getting trained on how to think, which is the big. goal and objective of product leadership is really teaching the organization and specifically the product teams how to think better to serve our customers in our market.

Jeff: Yeah. No, that makes total sense. it's interesting. we work in a similar way where even here, we're not a product team,I lead our marketing org, but. In many ways, product thinking has permeated,so many other pieces of the business, right? Like when we look at how we're going to run, we set an annual roadmap of kind of the big things that we need to accomplish.

And we break it down by quarter of, what are the ways we need to get there? And [00:31:00] then within the month it's, what are we going to do? and we do it publicly. So it makes people look at trade offs and we can do this or that, but we can't do both.

let's understand why we're doing them and how they're going to get us to. Big picture. It's an important exercise. It takes time. And some people think, maybe it slows down,speed and velocity, but it's been interesting consistently when people come on, you see them pushing back and saying, why are we spending time doing this?

Why are we slowing ourselves down? And a year later, you consistently hear I've gotten more done in the past year and it had more impact than in three years at my previous company. so I think bureaucracy is important at some level, right?

Fatima: It is. And it's only bureaucracy if it stops you from making a

Jeff: Yeah, that's good. Bureaucracy is the wrong word.

Fatima: yeah. no, it's okay. But it is seen and perceived as such, which is, I think, a valid criticism of it, right? If the process of communication and the process of describing your exact tactics of how it's, you're going to realize it's a grand 10 year vision allows you to say, I don't have to go through 50 different ways to make this decision.

I already [00:32:00] have everybody aligned and understanding what I'm trying to do. And that's my biggest goal as a leader is to ensure that my team is autonomous and decision making at the right levels. Of course. and so it allowed us to do that. And we've, we've seen the results of that and it's been fantastic to see the team also embrace it.

Like you said, a year later, looking back and they go, Oh, wow, I have a lot to show and excited to, to present and, advocate for myself and the team, right.

Jeff: I always joke my team, we need, as little process as possible and not an inch less, but you also need as much process as you need to get it done and not an iota more, right? There's a very fine line where you kind of have chaos, real good execution, and you're then into the world of bureaucracy, right?

Fatima: a fine tightrope.

yes, exactly. And it's about the protection too, of the role, right? Cause very quickly product. And honestly, a lot of different roles could become all encompassing, right. Versus, the process allows us to really contribute where we can and where our skill sets meets the need of the customer and the organization.

[00:33:00] Yeah.

Jeff: Nice. I want to make sure we have time to hit this. You are dealing with, externally, a lot of different groups that, maybe operate closely or maybe more distantly, but are still related very importantly, between, you know, you have the actual drivers, you have fleet management, you have insurance, they're all tied together and the value of them being able to operate,cohesively is vital to you.

a lot of cases, these are things like shipping that drives our country. So it's hugely vital to operate well, but there's still kind of places where maybe they're at odds or there's a push pull relationship. How do you look at enhancements to one area that maybe the other might see as a detriment?

Or how do you do trade offs between those three groups

or other groups too? Sorry.

Fatima: Yeah, no, it's a great question. And we start with those groups cause that's our core customer base, if you will, our core market ecosystem. but yeah, I think, one of the things that really did help us in the portfolio side,when I was first looking at, all of the different aspects and how do we organize this and how do we make sense of it?

is [00:34:00] separating,the right level of,communication between stakeholders, right? And we learned this, I did a ton of this at Procore as well, because we had stakeholders, we had an owner who is paying for the project. We have a general contractor who may or may not want to disclose certain elements of information,to the owner and we have subcontractors, et cetera, et cetera, right?

So there's shared goals, but there's also shared tension points that are natural to being in that ecosystem. So similarly, we have that same thing. and it was really important to not try to have one product or solution,be everything for everyone. To really take an approach of,what problem is the insurance companies solving that can help reduce exposure and therefore give benefits to the fleet management companies and what problems are fleet management company is going to want to solve in order for them to reduce the exposure of their driver being in any way, shape, or form 

In [00:35:00] a not great spot or in, not the right coach abilities. And then what can the driver benefit from coaching and knowing how to drive better and knowing, where their behavior is risky for their lives. So when we started to look at these things as distinct, places where we can find win jobs that they're all doing jobs to be done, right.

Like that they're all doing. We started to realize. The exposure, like that is where there is a win and a safety culture where the insurance companies want less accidents. They don't want more, right? the driver wants less accidents, right? That's a natural thing. the fleet admins want less. So it's, and we would have those conversations with the insurance companies, with the fleet management and the drivers in the same room.

So that was another way. That we validated these things is to have that strategic conversation with a, a fleet manager that was saying, Hey, I have a pretty good relationship with my insurance company. I'd love to have a conversation on [00:36:00] how we can use this data. and then we said, let's bring your drivers and let's, Figure out, where is that value proposition where we are winning and we're creating a better place For the work right and it's above just revenue and it's just above like costs and stuff So that was actually a really phenomenal kind of place to be as a product leader, because we realize we can, there's a real mission, right?

In the sense that we're all in this together. And then that coalesced into,two platforms, one that's very specific to an insurance company that allows them to do the work that they need to do, and one that's very specific to fleet managers and an app that's specific to drivers, but in each one of those things, we're not building three times, right?

Like we're really just using the data in a way. that exposes the right level of insight, for the jobs that they're looking to do.

Jeff: that's the best way to do it, is right, bring together these seemingly disparate groups, find out where they have shared, needs or shared desires, figure out how to serve that [00:37:00] all. And, I love that you are basically using the Probably to way oversimplify, but a shared backend that is then differently exposed through slightly different front ends as the people need, but you're able to get so much efficiency by having these three related groups and serving them specifically.

And yet you're not having to build three distinct product lines and hardware sets and software sets and sensors and everything.

Fatima: Absolutely.

Jeff: all right, I want to take like a full stop on this topic because,one thing, I've always found interesting. And I asked this a lot in, job interviews,we're interviewing SDRs right now and, I always ask everyone like, why are you going into B2B tech sales?

That's not what you want to be when you were five. but like. Tires you know, let's even ignore it when you were five, but the beginning of your career, did you ever look at it and go, I'm going to work in tires?

Fatima: No, I, I cannot, I can't, I can't say that I, I ever, I've said this to my folks,over here at Azuga, as well as Bertrand, wow, I have So much [00:38:00] more knowledge of tires than I ever thought I would. And I'm so grateful for it. I feel like I need to start some community campaign on that.

Here's why tires are so important for your driving. It was not in the plan if there was one at all. It's not in the plan. I think, product management I love it cause it's such a dynamic and complex space. space, right?

And the ways by which you enter into it is not already written, right? And there's no syllabus to getting you here. and I find that really matched my curiosity as a person, right? Like I'm somebody who really enjoys facilitation Of solutions, uh, in general, I, I enjoy dynamic problems and tires are a massively dynamic problem, but I used to get that same feedback on construction.

Like why construction, how did you get here? because it's true. And I found that in my career,as I really focused on empathizing, like truly empathizing with the customers. And it really started with public affairs, where I would partner this before I even went into tech, I would partner with fortune 500 [00:39:00] companies who wanted to understand their communities better.

And so my job was to analyze the community dynamics and figure out what are some of the challenges that they're facing every day, et cetera. And in building that empathy, you naturally Start to go down this curiosity spiral of like, well, but why, but why, but why?

So if we think about, safety, for example, you ask enough, why is you'll find that the vehicle and the way a tire is inflated or overinflated. and when you drive it at which velocity and acceleration at the wrong thing, it can be a problem or it can be really efficient for your fuel, right?

There's these elements that become really clear. But aren't really our customers jobs to figure out that's not where they're making their money. That's not where they're sustaining their teams or their employees. so I find real joy in finding kind of those nuggets of curiosities and then chasing them.

And then I find myself a tire. So it's a good question.

Jeff: Yeah, no, this is the scenario. I'm always curious about people because I've come to the [00:40:00] conclusion,that almost anything is really interesting as you get deeper into it. if you go deep enough, almost anything, my career was I was going to go into the music industry and then I touched on government for a little bit.

And then somehow accidentally ended up in, software and technical software selling analytics and,tools that really operate a deep technical computer level that was never the plan, but I find it ridiculously interesting now. if you're curious, I feel like if you have that kind of curiosity streak, 

You can go deep enough in anything and find joy in it, which is I think a great kind of cross section. I see across product people, the great marketers, almost anyone who's really good at what they do. They find joy in being curious.

Fatima: absolutely. And I do always recommend to product cause I coach a lot of product managers have actually,had a stunt in consulting with founders as well. So really looking at the kind of product strategy from the founder's perspective. And one of the things that I go back to time and time again, that I remember.

Being deliberate about earlier in my career, which is how can we chase the boring problem, right? Like the thing that [00:41:00] seems boring and is overwhelming and is just another task to a company or customer market. Is where we can find a lot of success and where we can find a lot of joy, solving that for that customer and taking it off their plate, right?

Like they don't want to have to think about the X, Y, and Z. They just want to go and do the job that they're really good at. And I think that's a really important way to navigate careers in general. It's like, how can we go towards where there is pain? And with that, maybe sometimes comes a little bit of a problem that isn't sexy, right?

Or that isn't, the trendy. So it's very much a joy for me, for sure.

Jeff: Yeah. No, I hear my wife always jokes that I work in unsexy tech. and I love it because there's so much you can do, in this area. my last question is going to be what tips do you have for people going into PM, but you accidentally answered it there.

and I do want to make sure, that you're getting back and we're not stealing too much time from you. Yeah. last off, if people want to follow up, if you'll have questions for you, where, what's a good place to reach you, can they reach on LinkedIn or where's a good spot?

Fatima: Yeah, absolutely. [00:42:00] LinkedIn, is a great resource. I have my email there as well. I always love to connect with people in different Slack communities and, and recommend, uh, different Slack communities, especially, and, we are hiring for products. So if there's anybody who's listening, and is a product manager, isn't interested, let us know.

Cause we're hiring

Jeff: you go. Awesome. Fatima, thank you so much for joining. it was a real pleasure having you on. I loved, talking about tires today, it turns out. but great time. I really appreciate it. Hope to talk again soon.

Fatima: Absolutely. Thank you folks so much.