New Product Development Manager-Merchandising (Jewellery)

Job Requirements

Role Purpose

Key process owner for New Product introduction from the merchandising side .

This role works closely with various key stakeholders - Design, NPI, Regional Sourcing, Manufacturing and category teams to ensure on time delivery of New product protos .

Key Responsibilities

• New Product calendarization , New product process management and New product profitability adherence
• Coordination with the category team for creation of the NPD calendar
• On time adherence of brief creation by the category team and relaying the same forward to other stakeholders like Design /Sourcing.
• Maintenance of the New product launched dashboard by vendor & need state and alert category in case of excess or starvation as per the planned New product number
• Ensuring through his/her team the timely release of PDIS for the new products selected by the category team within a day .
• Ensuring that Benchmark GC ( BMCG) and AMC-LC is validated for all new products before the PDIS is released
• Ensuring that the fill rate against brief is at least 95% for all briefs released to the NPD team
• Maintain a stage gate process chart for all critical new product development projects initiated by the merchandising team
• Lead the periodic meetings between Design / NPI and merchandising to ensure adherence of time for the new products selected.
• Flag of any deviations / delays in timeline for protos in advance with specific call out of the stage where the delay is occurring.
• Planning & execution of NPIM for both L1|L2 and L3 channels
• Managing the NPD team to ensure that the NPIMs ( both Offline & Online) are scheduled & completed on time and the hit rates are shared with the respective stakeholders – Category , NPI & Design
• Coordinate with the L3 team to ensure that the L3 indents at the NPIM are processed within 3 days
• Take end to end responsibility & Ownership of the protos brought for the NPIM till the return is completed without any damage or loss.
• Ensure RSO & Franchisee satisfaction during the NPIM process in terms of boarding , lodging , transportation as well as the indenting process.
• Ensuring that the Quality walk through with the QA team happens post each NPIM.
• Driving Operational excellence & Lead time reduction
• Owner of the New Product development portal ( BSID) portal and ensure that the critical responsibility of ensuring that the key stakeholders have visibility on the stage & the time elapsed since selection of the design.
• Coordinating with the IT team to integrate all new product developments ( DEC designed) into the New Product development portal
• Coordinating with the IT team to ensure that all stages of proto development right from the first stage (selection of proto) to the final stage ( bulk indent) is visible on the portal
• Drive the lead time goal of selection to inwarding of selected protos ( In Tanishq quality ) in 7 days for all protos using the portal effectively.
• Ensuring proto bin liquidation through periodic nudges & interaction with the category team.
• Evangelizing and Driving the adoption of Bottom up feedback portal ( Design instigator) by the store teams and ensuring that any product gap feedback is captured only though the Design Instigator portal
• New Product insights , development of new skillsets and new vendor onboarding
• Ensuring New vendor onboarding on the basis of the new requirement ( through Instigator portal) and the current skill set gaps in workmanship & Innovation
• Coordinating the participation in various trade shows ( IIJS / Jaipur Jewellery show ..etc)
• Collation of new trends seen across vendors as an input to the category team
• Ensuring that the new product briefs are released to the vendors with the right skillset thereby ensuring that the briefs for products with lower complexity are with cost effective partners ( KP/KC)
• People Management
• Responsibility of allocation of the various deliverables to the right team member
• Grooming of the team to ensure that they take on higher order responsibilities
• Periodic reviews & appraisal of the team’s work

Work Experience

Internal & External Interfaces

• Internal: Design, NPI, Category, Sourcing, ISCM, IT, Regional Merchandiser & sales team
• External: Vendors, Franchisee partners, Hospitality & setup partners

Required Qualifications / Experience / Behavioural Skills

• Graduate or MBA for a reputed college or university.
• 7–10 years of experience in Jewellery business with a strong understanding of the product development process.
• Ability to coordinate with multiple stakeholders and work on tight timelines
• Ability to manage a team
• Experience in Oracle will help.