Designing Systems of Work
A product management director who sees AI as a reason to rethink workflows — and teams as strong because of shared goals, not shared locations
With a belief that a team’s strength lies not in where its members are located, but in how effectively they work towards a shared goal, Mr. Viswanathan Puthukode currently serves as the Director of Product Management at Freshworks. He highlights the importance of building trust, encouraging independent decision-making, and facilitating a strong sense of ownership.
He believes that high-performing teams are built on shared goals, clear accountability, mutual trust, and the freedom to make independent decisions.
Mr. Viswanathan Puthukode is recognized as one of the 10 Most Inspiring Product Leaders in India 2026. He shares his insights on how product leaders can prepare for an AI-driven future by redesigning workflows in an exclusive conversation with Corporate TrendZ:
“Product leaders need to learn how to design systems of work, not just systems of features. Enterprise software has traditionally been built around humans executing tasks. AI is changing that model. Software can increasingly understand context, reason about problems, make decisions, take actions and learn from outcomes. That means AI transformation is not simply about adding AI to an existing product. It requires rethinking workflows, operating models, success metrics and ultimately the role humans play in the system. Product leaders need to understand AI capabilities, agentic systems, context, evaluation, trust and governance. They do not need to become AI engineers, but they need to understand what becomes possible when software can act rather than simply respond. They also need to unlearn the assumption that every workflow needs a human-facing interface or another feature. The bigger question increasingly becomes: What work should no longer have to be done manually at all?”
🏆 10 Most Inspiring Product Leaders in India 2026 — Mr. Viswanathan Puthukode, Director of Product Management at Freshworks. ✨