Anna Kuriakose, Chief Product Officer at UK payments group SumUp, has been at the forefront of product technology and consumer behavior since she started working for a new Indian mobile network in Kerala in the mid-1990s.
“I kind of have a ringside view of that because of where I started in my career,” says Kuriakose, who started working at Escotel shortly after graduating in English language and literature.
“I realized that there was a piece of software that I knew nothing about at the time and that determines the experience the customer has and the chance of success that the company has. So I really fell in love with that idea of the software and that’s how I ended up in product management.”
Kuriakose leads SumUp’s development of financial solutions at the payment acceptance company, with its small business (SMB)-focused approach serving 4 million customers in 36 markets.
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She previously led product innovation at Meta (META), where she was product director for Messenger, Skype, JustGiving and TotallyMoney before joining SumUp in 2023.
Kuriakose saw first-hand the rise of smartphone technology at the 2013 London Marathon, an event that saw mobile traffic to JustGiving’s website take over the desktop for the first time. Donations via mobile also totaled a reported £300,000 on the day.
From the concept of ‘social giving’ she experienced at JustGiving, Kuriakose is now developing SumUp’s product portfolio to meet the needs of the SMEs the company serves.
“It means understanding what is important to them, understanding that they don’t always have the best tools and deep pockets that large companies and enterprises need to get tailor-made solutions, or to be presented with the best solutions” , she told Yahoo Finance UK on the sidelines of last month’s Web Summit in Lisbon.
“So they’re always looking for something that gives them the advantage, especially the solutions and the products that they need to work for them. It’s really important to make sure it really works well for them, so the vision of working for small businesses and the deep understanding of that is really important.”
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In a highly competitive field of payment acceptance products, Kuriakose says the key for SumUp is focusing on the needs of SMEs against the latest technological breakthroughs.
“We have launched a number of different products and grown them over the years, but each of these products requires constant work as we serve different categories of businesses,” she added.
“If you are a small business with one or two restaurants, a table management type restaurant, your needs are very different from those of a retail store, a self-service cafe or a health and beauty business.”
SumUp’s product suite includes card readers, payment solutions and billing software that support merchants. While card readers have no fixed contracts or monthly fees, SumUp One multi-product subscribers will no longer pay transaction fees for payments of £10 or less.
Since its founding in 2012, the global fintech has grown into an integrated ‘super app’ that includes payments, free business accounts and advanced business management software. It recently surpassed 1 billion annual transactions.
“The term super app is defined very differently by people,” says Kuriakose. “There is the Asian market concept of what a super app is, but in our case we talk about it as the only app that brings together these multiple needs of sellers and allows them to consume different products within that.
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“So in our case, they can manage their online store and send their invoices, manage POS systems and inventory, as well as their business account and receive payments. So that’s what we mean by bringing all these different tools together into essentially one super Swiss Army Knife app.
“Each category of business has subtly different needs. That’s why we continually develop our products to meet more and more of these needs. I don’t think we’re done yet because these needs, categories and markets are so diverse.”
SumUp CPO Anna Kuriakose is leadership…
A fascinating take on leadership that has really influenced me over the years is a Lean Manufacturing quote: “Lead like you have no power.”
A good team can become a great team with the right leadership. Once I understood the true power of leadership, I realized that this is what it means. It is not about position, title or anything externally perceived. It’s about working with people who can actually deliver even more.
How to be an effective CPO
Many people talk about CPO as a new role, but this role has probably been emerging for fifteen to twenty years. Technology has become so important and building products underlies a lot of the success, so I think CPO as a role, or product management as a function, has become very important.
If you look at mobile customers today, they may not speak the language of design, user experience and modern technology, but their understanding of what makes a good experience has evolved so much because they all use great apps on their phones. They know what is right, and their level of what is acceptable has risen.
As a CPO, you need to be aware of the technological shifts and how consumer behavior is being shaped as a result. And then you have to be aware of how that results in new business models and the new opportunities that arise. So it’s not so much about purely cultural shifts, but about all these things coming together and impacting your product.
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