Conexiom Voices: Look Forward to the Partner Portal Release

As a resident of scenic Vancouver, Conor Lees enjoys taking advantage of the beautiful landscape by hiking, cycling, or playing soccer. And as an employee of Conexiom for 5 years, newly engaged Conor has seen the company evolve from the ground up.

In this Q&A, Conor dives into the release of Partner Portal, which delivers a new user experience and significant feature updates.

How long have you been working in product management?

I’ve been working in product management for about 4 years, but I’ve been at Conexiom for just over 5 years. My first role at Conexiom was Marketing Lead Qualification Specialist.

How has the company changed over time?

As teams have grown, and more people have been brought into the company, the drive for collaboration has been at the forefront. Also, as Conexiom has grown, the speed in we are delivering innovation for our customers is remarkable. For me personally, the amount of work we’re tackling as a team is exponentially larger than when I first started.

How would you describe the culture at Conexiom?

The people at Conexiom go above and beyond to help each other, regardless of whether doing so directly applies to their role. No matter who you talk to, they’re always willing to help you with whatever you’re working on. So you’re never isolated in trying to solve an issue. There are always resources, and it makes your day just that much more enjoyable, but also more efficient. What I like best about this is we have the same mentality for how we support and collaborate with our customers.

Describe your role as product manager.

I spend my days focused on three main objectives. First, I work with the development team to stay current on what they’re working on, helping guide those feature sets and deliver on them.

I also work with the product and design teams, scheduling out what we want to tackle in the near future, whether it be later in a specific release or later in the year.

Finally, I spend time with our different user groups. That’s either connecting with internal employees or our customers to help identify different requirements or features that they want to see built into the product.

How does your role impact customers?

Product managers are responsible for scheduling and delivering new features within the product. I work directly with customers, trying to understand what problems they need the product to solve. At Conexiom, we truly want to understand the business outcomes that customers are driving toward. What problems are they looking to Conexiom to solve? From there, we work with the development team to build those features, including their requirements, and deliver them to the customer.

“At Conexiom, we truly want to understand the business outcomes that customers are driving toward. From there, we work with the development team to build those features, including their requirements, and deliver them to the customer.”

Is there a specific product feature that you’re particularly fond of?

I’ve had an opportunity to work on a lot of different Conexiom offerings. The one that immediately jumps to mind is the new Partner Portal, because we’re rolling it out now. It’s an exciting time, and the new interface has my primary attention. I’m excited to see that get in the hands of our customers, because the portal is how they interact with Conexiom.

The new Partner Portal is scheduled for Q1 2021, right?

The development team just recently wrapped up its minimal viable product (MVP) release. So in Q1, we’re rolling out the portal to select customers to gather their experience with the product. We’re also enabling new customers on Partner Portal so they can experience it. By the end of Q1, the new Partner Portal will have a widespread release, with new feature capabilities and a new user interface.

Primarily, there’s a more robust dashboard, where users can select customizable widgets and view productivity in a visual manner.

Customers can also track touchless orders (order processing with no human interaction), manage document exceptions, and view order volume. They can also easily create and edit reports and communicate with the Conexiom team.

“[In Partner Portal] There’s a robust dashboard, where users can select customizable widgets and view productivity in a visual manner. Customers can also track touchless orders, manage document exceptions, and view order volume. They can also easily create and edit reports and communicate with the Conexiom team.”

What other exciting initiatives do you see for Conexiom in the near future?

The Base Automation solution. Base Automation is an extension of our automation platform that allows customers to onboard trading partners faster and start processing orders immediately.

Another initiative is Conexiom’s machine learning (ML) capability. We’re continuously innovating to improve ML’s accuracy and performance.

If you could automate anything in your personal life, what would you automate?

Taking out the garbage is high on my list of household chores to automate. If it’s raining, I have to walk through the weather to put out the trash, which is miserable. So that’s probably the first thing I’d automate. Maybe I can add that as a project to be included on the next interim release for Conexiom.