Director, Global Product Management, Phased Array & Eddy Current Sensors
Wabtec · State College, Pennsylvania, United States
The Director, Global Product Management is a critical leadership role within the Wabtec Inspection Technologies Global Product Management & Marketing (PMM) organization. Reporting to the Global VP PMM for NDT, this role is responsible for leading a team of Product Specialists to sustain and grow the market share of the Phased Array sensors and Eddy Current sensors product lines, while maintaining a long-term vision to meet market needs.
The Director, Global Product Management is accountable for assigned product lines P&L development against targets and key product market share development globally, as well as within regions and targeted market segments. In this effort, this role will coordinate and collaborate very closely within the Product Management team, with Sales Leadership, as well as with Application Engineering teams.
The Director, Global Product Management must work collaboratively with regional Sales Management and Applications Engineering teams to collect market intelligence data (VoC, VoS, win/loss root cause analysis, industry trends, market share, market opportunity in targeted segments, competitor activities/trends). It is critical that the Director, Global Product Management utilizes this market intelligence data to focus our efforts toward Innovation that Matters. The Product Management team must continually refine our development strategies and priorities to create products and solutions based upon what actually matters to our customers.
The Director, Global Product Management is responsible for the development and maintenance of their assigned Product Line Strategies and Product Road Maps (PRM). This activity will be coordinated with Global Working Groups comprised of team members selected by the Director and VP PMM from Global Product Marketing, Sales, Application Engineering, and R&D.
The Director, Global Product Management is responsible for regular collaboration and coordination with R&D to ensure that PRM projects are well executed, and for execution of Product Launch / NPI activities with Winning Go-To-Market strategies and unparalleled Unique Customer Value Propositions. Launch / NPI activities must be well-coordinated with Global and Regional Leaders from Sales, Applications Engineering, and Marketing.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
• Team Management & Talent Development:
- Oversee team of Product Specialists. Where applicable, based on Product Line(s) assigned, oversee a team of Application Specialists and/or Application Scientists.
- Provide timely and complete roll-up of Global Product Management team activities, KPIs, Problem Solving Process documents, and PDCA Action Plan improvement initiatives.
- Responsible to monitor, optimize and achieve product performance within business objectives. Responsible for monthly monitoring and analysis of actual achievement vs KPIs to identify requirements for improvement. Drive global solutions to achieve business goals.
- Delegate key responsibilities for specific products/product lines as appropriate to team members. While maintaining ownership over the complete Business Line KPIs, foster talent development among Product Specialists through delegation of KPI measurement, management, problem solving, PDCA Action Plan improvement initiatives. Ensure that KPIs that are managed by team members are effectively rolled up into Business Line KPIs in a timely manner for reporting purposes.
- Ensure that team members are regularly exposed to a range of activities to foster talent development. This includes responsibility for regularly (daily) product support activities with customers and sales team members, participation in R&D activities, attendance at working group meetings, regular collaboration with the Sales and Application Engineering organizations, and regular travel to meet with customers, support sales, provide training, attend tradeshows/seminars, etc.
• Own Product P&L:
- P&L Business owner/leadership of the assigned product line(s), including all strategic planning through to market launch and product life cycle, as well as third-party strategic partnerships and potential M&A opportunities.
- Coordinating with different teams to ensure optimal product vitality and performance, while maintaining a long-term vision to meet market needs.
- Focus on ensuring that correct market pricing is implemented for all key products in each region to maximize sales volume and revenue. Collaborate with Sales on validation of pricing and implementation.
- Act as the key approver for all assigned product pricing. Work with stakeholders at the global and regional level to ensure efficient pricing implementation processes are in place.
- Monitor key product cost on a monthly basis (or as needed) to ensure that changes are detected and impact to profitability are understood. Collaborate with Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Finance, and other stakeholders to address issues, and to drive initiatives to improve profitability.
- Focus on Service offerings that are related to assigned product lines. Set expectations for product support periods, spares pricing, service contract offerings, etc. Support implementation within regional service organizations.
• Product Roadmap Development and Management:
- Development and maintenance of a detailed Product Road Map (PRM) for the assigned product line(s). Provide clear specifications for development projects as well as clear prioritization of features/functions to direct product development, production, and launch.
- Provide updated Product Road Map documentation for annual planning cycles, taking into account actual project status and impacts.
- Collaborate with R&D leaders and Program Management Office to ensure that PRM plans are regularly updated in Clarity tool. This activity is critical to allow for development prioritization, planning, budgeting, and overall project execution.
- In close collaboration with Global Sales, participate proactively in building relationships with strategic key accounts and opinion leaders who will influence broader market acceptance (such as OEM & Asset Owner who define the to-be testing standards) to drive growth in the long-run, fuel product development efforts and ensure relevance of strategic plans.
• Long-term Product Planning:
- Market Opportunity Identification: Working with Application Engineering & Sales to conduct market analysis to identify opportunities and key market and customer segments, and to gather information on customers and competitors.
- Anticipate market trends and plan the lifecycle of assigned products, including launch, maturity, and sunsetting.
- Close collaboration with Supply Chain and Manufacturing to coordinate the product sunsetting process, ensuring proper part availability for service to EOL, and minimizing extra inventory to be scrapped after sales and service activities end.
• Development of Winning Go-to-Market Strategies and Launch Materials (NPI Packages):
- Lead the New Product Introduction (NPI) process start-to-finish, working with stakeholders to meet launch deadlines. Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, and Application Engineering to develop requirements for global & regional marketing campaigns to ensure successful market introduction and sustainment.
- Value Proposition and Message Definition: Collaborate with Sales, Marketing, and Application Engineering to define the value proposition for new products and support the development of key messages for marketing campaigns.
- Creating content of all detailed documents for product launches, including technical data sheets, user manuals, competitive analysis, and sales support materials.
- Align with Marketing Communications on web and collateral plans for launch.
Minimum Qualifications
- Excellent understanding of targeted markets, customer segments and customer needs for assigned business line.
- Deep understandi