OPPO

Ng Zi Chuan

Product Manager

Ng Zi Chuan works as Product Manager at Jie Business Sdn Bhd (formerly known as Oppo Electronics Sdn Bhd).

How did you decide your career path?

As a technology enthusiast, I've always wanted to start my career in this industry. When OPPO first entered the Malaysian market in 2014, I did some research on the company, and was immediately attracted by their trendsetting products and the way they use technology to benefit their customers. So, I decided to take the leap and apply for a position in the OPPO product department. Not long after, I received good news; that I would be part of the very first batch of OPPO-ers in Malaysia!

How did you get the job?

Thankfully, the first interview was casual and not too intense. In the second interview, the Product Manager talked about OPPO’s company culture, and we had a general discussion about smartphones and technologies to gauge my passion and industry knowledge. The interview felt like I was chatting with a friend, and I was allowed to share my opinions freely. Of course, I did a lot of homework about OPPO’s products beforehand but I felt the preparation wasn’t needed as much as a good attitude and outlook.

What are your day to day tasks in this role?

As a Product Manager, I am fully responsible for managing a full product lifecycle, which includes market research, sales, marketing and inventory management.

Before any product launch, the first step is to undertake a lot of market research, so that we can understand consumers’ needs, our market opportunities and also what our competitors are doing. After the upper management decided to launch the product, we would work on a sales proposal to target potential business partners.

After this came marketing strategy and planning, to make sure that the product could effectively reach out to our target audience. In this part of my role, I have to monitor and take control of the day-to-day management sales and marketing within the product’s lifecycle, to ensure that we achieve our target monthly performance.

In your line of work, what are the most important soft skills and hard skills to acquire?

Soft skills:

Problem-solving
Project management
Data analysis
Presentation skills
Internal/Team Communication

Hard skills:

SPSS
Microsoft Office suite (especially Excel)

How did you adjust your lifestyle from being a student to a working adult?

The beginning of my career was the most challenging transition of my life! However, I made it through by always remembering my mantras:

Always be passionate about what you love and pursue it with energy. Passion is what drives you from the inside. Without passion, there is nothing to fuel you to go further.
Connect with people, not devices. Communication is important, and building networks will help complete your work much better.
Embrace trial and error, and learn from failure. Of course, you will make a lot of mistakes during learning, but all of these mistakes build up valuable experiences.