Product Developer - M&S Food (12 month fixed term contract)

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.

This is a 12 month fixed term role.

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