Overview

• Product / Initiative: Master Data Product Operations

• Role: Product Lead

• Location: Noida, India

• Scale: Top U.S. retailer with nationwide operations and multi-billion-dollar omnichannel business

• Outcome: Improved IT operations efficiency, reduced resolution time by 42%, and achieved 100% customer satisfaction by consistently meeting SLAs

Problem / Opportunity

The master data system was critical to day-to-day retail operations, but the existing support and enhancement processes were:

• Reactive and prone to delays, resulting in extended ticket resolution times

• Impacting business continuity due to frequent recurring defects in master data workflows

• Lacking a unified view of operational health and clear ownership across multiple teams

These challenges directly affected system reliability, store operations, and user satisfaction.

Goals & Success Metrics

• Primary Goal: Increase system stability and responsiveness through operational excellence and structured problem management.

• Target Metrics:

  • ⏳ Reduce MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution) for critical incidents

  • 📈 Achieve 100% SLA adherence for incident and change management

  • 🤝 Improve cross-team collaboration and accountability across 10+ teams

Strategy & Approach

• Established a proactive product operations framework to identify and eliminate recurring system issues.

• Conducted root cause analysis and Pareto analysis to focus on high-impact defect categories.

• Standardized escalation workflows and SLAs across business and technology teams.

• Created a shared operational dashboard to increase visibility of open incidents, priorities, and performance.

• Adopted a managed-services model, optimizing both team structure and knowledge flows for scale.

Solution & Execution

• Led a 30-member cross-functional team managing 20+ enterprise applications with varied tech stacks.

• Enhanced and stabilized master data system through targeted bug fixes, technical debt reduction, and process improvements.

• Implemented structured defect elimination initiatives, focusing on master data workflows, significantly reducing incident recurrence.

• Improved operational agility by aligning with ITIL best practices and enforcing on-time delivery, defect density, and ageing SLAs.

• Collaborated with 10+ business and engineering teams, enabling faster triage and better ownership.

Frameworks Used

• Operational Excellence Framework (OKRs, RCA, Pareto)

• ITIL-aligned Change & Incident Management

• PDCA (Plan–Do–Check–Act) continuous improvement loop

• Telemetry & SLA Dashboards for real-time monitoring

• Experimentation & Automation Pilots to reduce MTTR

• User Research with Operations Teams to surface workflow gaps

My Role & Contributions

• Led master data operations for a multi-billion-dollar omnichannel retailer.

• Implemented PDCA and ITIL frameworks to structure operations and reduce incidents.

• Embedded experimentation pilots for automation to accelerate resolution times.

• Conducted user research with ops teams to identify high-impact pain points.

• Partnered with 10+ teams to reduce MTTR by 42% and achieve 100% SLA adherence.

• Established telemetry-driven visibility and accountability across the ecosystem.

Impact & Results

• ⏱️ Reduced MTTR from 3.8 days to 2.2 days, a 42% improvement in resolution speed.

• 🌟 Achieved 100% customer satisfaction through SLA adherence and faster issue turnaround.

• 🧹 Eliminated key recurring defects in master data, reducing incident volume and operational risk.

• 🤝 Strengthened trust between IT operations and business stakeholders through transparency and delivery predictability.

Retrospective & Learnings

• What worked: A structured operational excellence framework and proactive defect elimination had compounding impact.

• Improvement area: Earlier automation of key workflows could have further reduced resolution time.

• Key learning: Product leadership in operational systems is not just about maintenance — it’s about building resilience, speed, and trust into the product ecosystem.