Geetika Bhatia is currently a product manager (business loans group) at ICICI Bank. She graduated from H.R. College of Commerce and Economics with a degree in BMS in the year 2019. She plans on doing her MBA in the next two years after gaining some work experience so as to be sure about her specialization.
How did you get this job? Can you tell me about the selection procedure?
ICICI Bank usually visits all tier 1 and tier 2 schools but in that particular year (2019) they launched a new programme “ICICI Bank Ascend” to attract young graduates from across the country. This programme aims to shape these young professionals to take on leadership responsibilities. They visited the top 5 schools in 5 cities out of which they selected about 300 people.
Their selection procedure had two steps. The first was a group discussion out of which they shortlisted people who felt like the right fit for the bank. The next stage was the interview round which consisted of some personal behavioural questions which were situation based. Out of around 50 applicants, they selected 10 from our college.
During the first 6 months, it was mandatory for us to take up the role of wealth management for which training was given in Bangalore to get us equipped with how banks function and help us gain a broader understanding of what they expect from us. After the training, I came back to Mumbai and dealt with wealth management customers which helped me improve my communication and interpersonal skills. After the initial 6 months, everyone was selected for a specific role and that’s how I got the role of a product manager for business loans. Other stints included HR, Compliance and Relationship Management.
What are your daily tasks as a Product Manager?
Our main focus is to develop products and processes. ICICI Bank mainly believes in digitalization rather than doing work manually as it becomes time-consuming to go through every application manually. We are currently pushing customers and the sales team to onboard the customers online which is beneficial for the bank. As a Product Manager, I focus on the business aspect of deals. We currently have about 20 products and look after loans of MSME’s up to 20 crores.
Everyone handles different products, my segment is to secure products that are collateral-based. We get in contact with the clients indirectly through the sales team. We make the sales team aware of our products, their advantages, how it is beneficial for the customers and how does it benefit the company which sources the products. Making reports is essential for knowing the stage the product has reached and making sure everything is going as per the schedule.
We coordinate with the policy and business intelligence teams as well in order to consult them in case we want to enhance any product or come up with a more efficient way of producing a product. There are regular internal meetings with internal stakeholders and once we reach a mutual decision we go ahead with the process. I also look after an app called the ‘Business Companion’ for the relationship management members of my team which entails all the information about the products and processes. It is updated every time any features are added or any changes are made.
Were there any challenges that you faced? How did you overcome them?
Initially, when I applied for this role, I just do the interview and decided to explore the banking space. When I joined wealth management, I wasn’t very interested in doing sales for about six months but it enhanced my communication skills and expanded my knowledge horizon to a great extent as I got to interact with the top executives of various companies.
The first challenge I faced was the fear of rejection as we were given about 20-30 leads on a daily basis and we had to contact those customers to give them update knowledge about wealth management and give them assistance if they needed help with anything.
The challenge was communicating with people having different personalities, some being calm and some being aggressive. I didn’t have the experience of conversing with customers since it was my first month but gradually I built a lot of confidence and spoke to customers on a daily basis.
We all faced rejections at some point but that’s the first thing they taught us about this particular field. We learnt how to assist customers, understand what they require, changing our pitch depending on the customer as they all have different backgrounds. I also faced problems initially coping up with excel as the way it is implemented practically is much more different than what we learn in colleges.
What advice would you give to undergraduates?
According to me, one is never sure of what you exactly want to do unless you experience it. Personally, I still haven’t figured out the exact role that I want. My advice would be to explore various fields, figure out your interests and not have a rigid mindset, basically keep your options open. It not only helps you figure out what you want to do but also what you definitely don’t want to do. When I did a business development internship that was sales-related even though I was good at it, I was sure it wasn’t something I would want to do in a long term.
Every internship was a great learning experience. We should focus on a mix of academics, internships, and extracurriculars to diversify our options.