Product Manager

This position can be located in Elon, NC or Allentown, PA or Ball Ground, GA.

The Product Manageris responsible for bringing OPW CES product vision to life for new product development by translating customer needs into prioritized innovation roadmaps and bringing the products to market. This role is intended to be an onsite role located at our Elon, NC site reporting to the Director of Product Management. In order to ensure success, the Product Manager must possess the following attributes: strategic thinker, bias for action, process-oriented, analytical, willing to go the extra distance to meet customer expectations, communicating succinctly with customers/senior leaders, and be able to contribute to a dynamic fast paced environment.

What You'll Do

• Manage P&L including strategic planning, annual strategy deployment and budget
• Actively manage financial performance of product lines across all market segments, including bookings and gross profitability results. Understand and manage the impacts of product line and geographic mix.
• Establish leadership in cross-functional New Product Development (NPD) core teams and ensure adherence to market and product requirements from pre-concept tollgate and through product development cycle.
• Gather and represent the voice of customer and voice of business on NPD core teams and lead market discussions at monthly Product Planning Group (PPG) meetings to assess and manage risk and tradeoffs.
• Lead the development as a customer champion to identify customer pain points, user needs and ensure our products solve valuable problems in attractive segments.
• Perform market and customer insight research to deeply understand customer problems and needs and challenges and translate these together with a cross-functional team into diagnostic solutions.
• Represent the company by visiting customers to solicit feedback on company products and services.
• Analyze competitive landscape including product offerings, performance claims, overall market positioning and selling strategies to develop and maintain action plans, drive product portfolio growth and gain market share.
• Improve product marketability and profitability by defining detailed value proposition through research, identification and capitalization on competitive differentiators
• Identify new business opportunities for new and existing products and develop selling tools to help commercial representatives in targeting the right customers and applications as well as responding to customer needs and overcoming objections and competitive threats.
• Develop and present business cases for NPD by developing the file and driving process, defining market requirements and writing product definitions.
• Contribute to rationalized roadmap creation and maintenance, Incremental Pipeline Value (IPV) and metrics aligned with Strategic Plan
• Execute Product Life Cycle Management and SKU rationalization and obsolescence processes
• Actively manage all commercial aspects of the OPW CES portfolio including brand, pricing, promotion and service levels.
• Develop, execute and maintain pricing strategies that maximize profitability, support market competitiveness and align with Product Life Cycle goals
• Support development and execution of Marketing plans, including product launches, tools, and customer and industry communication.
• Maintain effective communication and interaction with the customers and internally with Commercial, R&D, Operations and other key functional groups within the company.

What You'll Bring

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, Communications, Engineering or Business required.
• MBA or graduate degree in related field a plus.
• Five years progressively responsible product management experience.
• Operating in a continuous improvement environment and process orientation.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work with people from various functional disciplines including sales, marketing, R&D, engineering, manufacturing, legal, and finance.
• Must have the ability to actively manage multiple projects and priorities concurrently.
• Ability to translate market, customer and application requirements into clear and concrete product design characteristics as well as marketing, sales and pricing strategies.
• Good knowledge of Cryogenic and industrial gas markets
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite; Salesforce.com and Adobe product knowledge.
• Proven ability to manage databases, as well as Product or Project Management software proficiency (Smartsheet a plus).
• Proficient in MRP/ERP; Infor XA a plus.
• Up to 30% travel, mainly domestic possible international occasionally

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