Innovation in Product Management: Insights from JD POP Platform Senior Technical Product Manager Zhou Yinhua

JD POP’s weekly interview series "牛人说" features senior technical product manager Zhou Yinhua, a key figure in JD’s research and development team.

Part One: Innovation

Innovation is defined as the creation or improvement of ideas, methods, or products that differ from conventional thinking, using existing knowledge and resources to meet idealistic or societal needs, resulting in beneficial outcomes.

The article discusses the critical role of innovation in stabilizing teams and improving performance, citing a 2013 sales scenario where KPI shortfalls were addressed through financial support for team members and the launch of the FBP cooperation model, ultimately maintaining a KPI compliance rate above 100%.

Part Two: Commonality of Innovation

Innovation applies not only to sales but also to technical products. The POP merchant consulting platform, launched in 2016, exemplifies this principle.

Project Background

As POP’s business grew, the number of merchants increased dramatically, overwhelming operation staff who struggled to respond to inquiries via QQ, phone, or email, leading to inefficiencies and high labor costs.

Business Expectations

1. Consolidate multiple offline consultation channels into a unified online interface. 2. Enable cross‑department communication and provide a traceable, monitorable, one‑stop problem‑handling platform for merchants.

Implementation

1. The merchant consulting platform offers searchable knowledge‑base answers and escalates unresolved issues to human agents. 2. Agents intervene when the system cannot answer, delivering solutions within a defined timeframe. 3. Merchants can track the status of their inquiry tickets and rate the response effectiveness.

Since its launch in March, the platform processes approximately 14,000 tickets per month, maintaining an average resolution time of two working days.

Part Three: Innovation and Product Relationship

Innovation is not only the outcome of product design but also the activity of designing products to achieve ideal results, encompassing methods and methodologies. In e‑commerce product design, inheritance and borrowing are means, while innovation is the goal.

Conclusion

After seven years at JD and nearly two years in the mall R&D system, Zhou reflects on the importance of continuous innovation in product management, thanking the "牛人说" program and wishing it continued success.

Recommended Reading

• "京东数据化运营" – a guide for POP merchants on JD’s operational practices. • "京东平台运营案例精解" – a practical case study book for POP merchants.