Careers

Group Manager - Product Strategy & Industrial Design

Location

Leicestershire

Role context and purpose

• Global Product Planning and Strategy’ leads the creation and approval of global product strategies and plans. Our team defines and shapes future vehicle and powertrain portfolios for Royal Enfield globally. Working with Sales, Marketing, Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, and Finance, we aim to create product plans that engage our customers, deliver strong financial returns, and meet or exceed all regulatory requirements. We provide the necessary analysis and support to make key strategic decisions in the area of long-term vehicle forecasting in all regions of the globe. Our team conducts market research to instil a deep customer understanding into Royal Enfield’s brand and product development activities. We work on defining segmentation and overall marketing strategy

Key Responsibilities

• Your key responsibilities ​will include, but not limited to:
• Reporting to the head of Global Product Strategy, you will be responsible for product managing a product (or family of products) within Royal Enfield’s range, delivering the strategic product objectives for vehicle development; including feature requirements, pricing and volumes. Identifying brand and customer requirements, you will work to translate these requirements into deliverable engineering metrics to ensure successful product developments. Your contents and features will be innovative, competitive and ensure maximised profit on the vehicle. You will ensure that during its lifecycle the product will have maximised volume and profit potentials ensuring sustainable business growth and continued success.
• As a Product Manager, you will be considered as the ‘owner’ or ‘champion’ of the product and will be responsible for the strategy, roadmap, and feature definition for that product or product family. In this role you will analyse market and competitive conditions and lay out a product vision that is differentiated and delivers unique value based on customer demands. Your role will span many activities from strategic to tactical and provides cross-functional communication, bridging gaps within the company between different functions; most notably between engineering-oriented teams, sales and marketing, and support.
• You will be the voice of the consumer inside the business. First and foremost you must be passionate about motorcycles and fully immersed in the user experience. You will need to be out there testing the product, talking to users and getting feedback first hand. As a Product Manager focused on maximising business value you should be obsessed with optimising your products to achieve the business goals while maximising return on investment.
• In setting a product vision and strategy you will be able to clearly articulate the business value to the product development team so they understand the intent behind the new product or product release. You should be the lead resource for the rest of the organisation when product and consumer expertise is required. This includes collaborating closely with all departments that work directly with customers (marketing, sales and support). You will collect, curate, and promote the most relevant ideas into product attributes and features; specifically those ideas that will fulfil the value proposition for the product line and business.
• You will need to carry out extensive research into the market, your customer, their desires and their problems which you’re trying to solve. Working directly with the market specific analysts within the team you will need to assimilate huge amounts of information – feedback from clients, quantitative data, research reports, market trends and statistics – you need to know everything about your markets and your consumers, and then blend all that information with your own insight and experience to help to define a vision for the product. The ability to write design briefs, QFD documents and feature prioritisation is a must.
• As well defining the features and requirements necessary for articulating the ‘what’, you will work closely with product development, sales, marketing and finance to determine the ‘when.’ Whilst you will not be engineering or designing the product, understanding the technology stack and most importantly understanding the level of effort involved is crucial to making the right decisions. A comprehensive understanding of the NPI process is vital. During the development process you will be one of the projects ‘stage gate’ keepers; clearing the project to proceed to the next stage or requesting that it go through another development loop to achieve the stated goals and objectives as formalised in the design briefing documentation.
• Once you have a vision, you have to spread the word across all departments in the business. Be enthusiastic, dogmatic and passionate about your product. Your success, and that of your product, relies on every stakeholder from sales to engineering understanding that vision and being passionate about it as well. You will build actionable plans to reach that vision. You will follow a formalised design briefing methodology which will be up issued at each stage of the concept phase of the design process.
• You will be detail oriented as you work day in, day out with the development team as a product owner; defining and iterating the product as you go, solving problems as they arise and closely managing scope so you can ensure that the product is out in the market on time. Once the product is in the market you will analyse data looking at how customers use the product, go out and talk to them about the motorcycle and generally eating, sleeping and breathing the product. You will need to answer questions such as: Did we solve the right problem? Do our users ‘get’ the product? Will they pay for the product?
• Finally you make proposals for when the product should be refreshed or replaced altogether. Then you will do it all over again. You’ll be doing this for a number of products or features at any one time, switching from strategy to tactics and back again.

Success metrics of the role

• Be the translator and diplomat unifying all people in the company vested in the product. Different people within an organisation, with their own unique goals, will have different desires for how the product will develop. You may encounter communication problems between different departments, e.g. sales and engineering; your job as Product Manager is to be the glue that connects and unifies these departments as well as all interested parties.
• Represent the customer. The Product Manager must be the company's expert on how people interact with their product (e.g. through user testing, surveys, analytics) and apply this knowledge in defining the product roadmap.
• Define and represent the product roadmap. The Product Manager owns the master list of possible changes to the product, and is responsible for representing the rationale behind prioritisation.
• Along with product designers and engineers you play a key role in the product development process to ensure the right product is in the market at the right time.
• Communicate product positioning, features and benefits to internal and external audiences such as our marketing and sales teams, creative agencies, media, dealers and consumers.
• Develop business cases and volume assessments for your product using rigorous research and analytics in the automotive and motorcycle industries.
• Develop business cases and volume assessments for your product using rigorous research and analytics in the automotive and motorcycle industries.
• Execute the marketing deliverables as part of Royal Enfield’s New Product Development Stage/Gate process.
• Develop and maintain a Competitive Product database.
• Develop Project Definitions, defining project targets, scope and timelines.
• Evaluate engineering prototypes at various stages of development.
• Work with marketing to coordinate product launch plans including timing, pricing, product materials, talking points, training, etc.
• Lead the product team in discovery, design, implementation and measurement of new product features.
• Write user stories with detailed requirements and clear acceptance criteria.
• Be responsible for the assigned model(s), cradle to grave, and all lifecycle planning actions - from advanced planning (full model changes) to launch of each model year.
• Lead and ensure implementation of "buildable" product configurations during the planning phase of each new vehicle. Ensure the final consistency & correctness of the product specifications prior to the launch phase of the vehicle.
• Determine, implement and communicate model year change points, including sales configurations, throughout the lifecycle of the vehicle.
• Determine build-out strategies for each model year and end of the model’s lifecycle.

Scope and Impact

• You will be measured on OTIF delivery on various goals and performance indicators. These will depend on the focus area for the year. Overall success of your role will depend on the following measures but not limited to:
• Timely Product launches from GCO perspective.
• Liaise with PMO for the same.
• Calendar for consumer interactions/observations to be prepared and adhered to.
• Expedite various Product Strategy initiatives.

Network and stakeholders

• Management Team
• Brand Strategy
• Sales & Marketing
• PD, Sourcing, Plant

What are we looking for?

• Excellent university degree in economics or industrial engineering with a strong focus on marketing or product management.
• 12 – 15 years of Product Management or Development experience in a product driven company with a global customer base.
• Experience of developing and managing product/feature business cases, including volume and pricing assessment.
• Proven success in all phases of the product lifecycle; identification of need, development of product requirements, product design, quality and production hand-off, launch and ongoing product management.
• An in-depth knowledge of the automotive or motorcycle market. Passion for motorcycles and motorcycle license.
• Fluency in English (additional languages would also be advantageous).
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills.
• Confident and effective negotiator; able to consistently reach positive outcomes whilst building positive internal and external relationships.
• Self-initiative and an independent working attitude, as well as flexibility and determination.
• Excellent strategic and analytical skills.
• Drive, determination and a willingness to take on responsibility.
• A customer-focused and quality-oriented mind-set.
• Ability to work across borders in a complex environment with multiple internal and external stakeholders
• Willingness to travel and work unsociable hours.

What will it be like to work for Royal Enfield?

• As the oldest motorcycle company in continuous production, Royal Enfield made its first motorcycle in 1901. The team is growing consistently, competitively and profitably over a decade now, actively chasing its aim to be the #1 global mid-size motorcycle company and be the #1 Brand in product and service excellence.
• At Royal Enfield, we don’t simply on focus on what we do, but how we do it is also very important to us. We do not follow the industry conventions, or take the well-trodden path. We create our own path and that has led us to this outstanding success in the past. Our values and the brand remains at the core of all our activities, as we work towards transforming Royal Enfield into a complete experiential brand.
• To that effect, we are adding quality and diversity to the existing team by bringing in new people from different industries providing us with a wide range of thoughts and ideas; people from different parts of the world to help us learn about the markets we intend to serve in the future.

About Royal Enfield?

• The oldest motorcycle company in continuous production, Royal Enfield made its first motorcycle in 1901. A division of Eicher Motors Limited, Royal Enfield has created the mid-size motorcycle segment in India with its unique and distinctive modern classic bikes. With its new manufacturing base in Chennai, India, Royal Enfield is able to grow its production rapidly against a surge in demand for its motorcycles. With 50% growth every year for the last 3 years, Royal Enfield is fast becoming a very important player in the global mid-size motorcycle market and is working towards re-inventing this space with motorcycles that are evocative and engaging and great fun to ride.
• Royal Enfield’s product line-up includes the Bullet, Classic and Thunderbird models in both 350 and 500cc displacements; and the recently introduced Continental GT 535cc café racer. Royal Enfield operates through 11 company-operated stores and 250 dealers in all major cities and towns in India, and exports to over 40 countries across the world including the USA, Japan, UK, several European and Latin American countries, as well as the Middle East and South Asia.
• Royal Enfield also organises and supports many motorcycling events and rides , more prominently the Rider Mania – an annual gathering of Royal Enfield riders from all over India to the lovely beaches of Goa, and the Himalayan Odyssey, the most arduous motorcycle ride over some of the toughest roads and highest mountain passes in the Himalayas. Royal Enfield also conducts the popular ‘One Ride’ where people around the world ride out on their motorcycles on the first Sunday of April.
• Read more about us: ​ www.royalenfield.com
• Catch-up on all the latest openings: ​ https://royalenfield.com/aboutus/careers/

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