Surbhi Marwah, Principal Product Manager in Connected Retail, has been working at Zalando for over 2 years. The openness of Zalando’s culture, the exciting challenges of working in Connected Retail, and the strong sense of community are some of the things that make Surbhi enthusiastic about working at Zalando.
Surbhi, let’s start at the very beginning: how did you become a Product Manager?
I spent almost 21 years of my life in India. I loved it there, and I never intended to leave. After my BA in Computer Science, I got hired by Vodafone as an engineer. I was doing a lot of Java development, but I’ve always had a knack for data analysis, and I always wanted to study it. I started looking for programs that would combine MBA and engineering topics. India had options, but I didn’t find them particularly appealing. I decided to go to Singapore. While studying at the Singapore Management University, I interned with a company where I reported into a Product Manager. Afterwards, I moved to Zalora where, after an eight-month stint with a marketing team and quite bored (with all due respect to people in marketing, it’s just not for me!), I switched to a product team. The person who helped me make this transition supported me in understanding what I was good at: she said that my biggest strengths were customer focus and focus on data.
And how did you start working at Zalando?
I’ve been working at Zalando for 1 year and 4 months (this interview was conducted in June 2020). Before, I lived in Singapore, and it was my husband who received an offer to move to Finland (he is one who loves cold weather). From my work in e-commerce in Singapore, I knew a lot of people from Zalando, which partly motivated me to apply for a job here. However, the next day after I applied I got a rejection email. A bit bluffed, I reached out to the recruiter saying: “It’s totally fine you’ve rejected me, but could you give me some feedback on why I was rejected?” Surprisingly, she replied. Apparently, the rejection was just a bug in the app and they would actually like to have a chat with me. [Laughs] That’s how my journey here started.
What are the projects you work on here?
The product I work on is exciting. Connected Retail is an innovative tech product enabling our customer fulfillment proposition. Via Connected Retail, our partners can connect stock from their offline stores with our online platform. Orders can then be shipped directly from the partners’ stores to customers. Connected Retail has driven store productivity for retailers and it has tangible sustainability benefits, as the distance a parcel travels is dramatically reduced.
During the COVID crisis, Connected Retail became an essential part of the company’s plan to help retailers. How has it affected your work?
It was probably the busiest time ever. When the COVID crisis started, we didn’t know what we’d do exactly, but we knew that Connected Retail had a huge potential for helping our partners. In the end, we created almost a buffer balance between customer-and-partner promises by launching a #supporthestores initiative. It is something I’m very proud of.
What do you enjoy about working at Zalando?
My job at Zalando is about solving business cases — and I love it! I feel like my job makes an impact, I feel heard. One of the fears I had as I was joining the company was: how would I make myself heard? Well, I didn’t need to worry about that! Another thing I appreciate is the teamwork, sitting down together with the team, and figuring out solutions to the problems we are confronted with. I find the positivity in the team inspiring — we all work together to reach a collective goal.
And what are the challenges you face here?
It is challenging how big the company is. Previously, Connected Retail was more inward-looking, it focused on building experiences for our partner stores and retailers. Now, it is more outward-looking, as we are building experiences for the end customer. Because of that, you need to collaborate with a number of teams. Finding your way through might feel challenging, but I also enjoy it a lot.
How would you describe Zalando’s culture?
There is a lot of freedom at Zalando. It’s irrelevant what your work process is as long as you achieve your goals. I also appreciate the attitude to feedback within the company. In Connected Retail, we follow the principle — “don’t worry about making a mistake, just be open about it and trust your team”. The sense of community is strong. We regularly have talks and events. I myself have given a few presentations, and it is so great to have conversations with other Product Managers and understand what they are doing. Whenever I travel to our other locations, I reach out to people within the company whom I don’t personally know, but have come across — like, in an email thread — and invite them for a coffee. So far, there has never been a person who wouldn’t be up for it.
