Product Developer - M&S Food

Job description

Job Description:

Reporting into the Head of Product Development your role will be to direct and deliver commercial product development in line with Category Plans and Food Business strategy.

Key accountabilities and measures:

·  Keep up to date with trends in foods and lifestyle, packaging and ingredients (e.g. involving active research, travel, eating out and comparative shopping)
·  Set and deliver the product strategy agreed by the food division, developing products/ranges in line with range values defined by yourself or Head of Product
·  In depth understanding of M&S and competitor product categories and the products within them - covering existing M&S range, the retail competition
·  Understanding and ability to clearly articulate good, better, best tiering where relevant with clear product values against each tier in line with the M&S product strategy
·  Input into category strategy with Trading Manager, Brand Marketing, Technologist and Buyer
·  Identify commercial product development opportunities within own area of responsibility
·  Interpret internal and external sources of data and customer insight to deliver product proposition plans,
·  Clearly articulate product requirements and work in partnership with relevant supply base colleagues to deliver ‘best in class’ innovative products
·  Follow Stage and Gate development process, managing projects to ensure critical path targets are met, communicating with internal and external stakeholders
·  Lead on product quality standards setting the benchmark for the industry, identifying relevant benchmarks and centres of excellence
·  Write packaging design briefs in collaboration with key stakeholders capturing external benchmarks, relevant customer and market insight
·  Continually monitor performance of new product development in the marketplace and agree appropriate action with category team
·  Identifies opportunities to bring on board new suppliers to deliver market leading innovation, ensuring protection for M&S development through relevant legal documents and agreements
·  Continually ensure personal behaviour reflects the vision and values of the business
·  Deliver accurate product and category information relating to product and project requirements in a timely manner to multi-channel teams
·  Proactively uses tools, data and insight to driven actions and decisions – these can include: Campden, Store tastings, Wirral, One Pulse/VYPR, Brand insight, Home evaluation, Customer feedback, CIU, Awards feedback
·  Fully conversant with M&S systems to ensure new products are delivered against the relevant critical paths
·  Ensure continuous personal development and learning, to further develop technical and business competency skills

Key measures/KPIs

·  Focused, innovative and high-quality
product ranges in line with business values
·  Deliver KPI’s for quality and Innovation
·  Sales and market share targets
·  Successful new product development for the category/project
·  Deliver product to meet the “Brand Values” of the category/sub brand

Key relationships and stakeholders

·  Director of product development and innovation
·  Head of Product
·  Head of Trading
·  Head of Technical
·  Trading manager
·  Lead Product Developer
·  Buyer
·  Technologist
·  Suppliers
·  Brand & Marketing

Key skills

·  Active interest in food, culinary trends and food development
·  Ability to apply culinary knowledge and skills to product development
·  Ability to demonstrate commercial acumen
·  Relevant systems
·  Highly organised at managing projects
·  Influencing and communicating
·  Positive and self-motivated mind set
·  Self-starter
·  Ability to analyse and interpret market and customer data

MSFC19

MSFPD19