Product design question
How would you improve adoption of the Bing search engine in India?
- Microsoft
- Product design
- Hard
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What this question tests
Market-specific product strategy, understanding why a product underperforms in a market dominated by a competitor.
How to approach it
- Clarify the goal, are we optimizing for search share, revenue, or a strategic foothold against Google in India.
- Identify why adoption is low today, Google's default status on Android devices and deep habit formation among Indian users.
- Segment the market, urban English-speaking users who default to Google versus regional language and first-time internet users who are less locked in.
- Identify a wedge, e.g. superior regional language support, data-light search for low bandwidth users, or integration with Microsoft 365 for work users.
- Propose a go to market, bundle Bing with Windows and Office in India, and partner with budget Android OEMs for default placement.
- Define success metrics, search market share in the target segment and daily active searchers among the wedge audience.
What a strong answer includes
- Picks a specific underserved wedge, e.g. regional language or low-bandwidth search, instead of trying to out-Google Google broadly.
- Leverages Microsoft's actual assets, Windows and Office distribution, rather than proposing generic marketing.
- Names the real competitive barrier, default search status and habit, and proposes a distribution-based counter, not just a better product claim.
- Sets a realistic, segment-specific metric, e.g. share of search among Windows PC users in India, marked as an assumption.
Common mistakes
- Proposing to compete head-on with Google's core search quality broadly.
- Ignoring Microsoft's existing distribution advantages, like Windows and Office.
- Not segmenting the Indian market, treating it as one homogeneous user base.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you convince OEMs to set Bing as default.
- What wedge segment would you prioritize first.
- How would you measure whether the strategy is working after six months.
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop