Job Board

Product Manager Fish Diets - Europe

INVE Aquaculture is looking for a product manager for its fish diets.

Job purpose

• Set the product portfolio strategy in alignment with the company vision and strategy for the concerned market segment and oversee the products in that portfolio from their conception to their end of life.
• Play a leading role in the process of generating, developing, and curating new ideas for the portfolio and steers innovators and other stakeholders toward a successful launch of new products.
• Lead the products in the segment and manage the products’ life by regularly processing feedback from customers and concerned in-house stakeholders. Decide on a product’s end-of-life and/or consolidation of SKUs to rationalize the portfolio.

Key responsibilities

• Product portfolio strategy and management
  • Set a product portfolio vision and strategy in the context of INVE’s strategy and other portfolios in INVE, and regarding markets, customers, and the competitive environment.
  • Own the roadmap for the allocated product portfolio (new developments, launches of new entries and/or upgrades, end-of-life).
  • Recommend price setting and monitor sales revenues of the product portfolio
  • Direct product development and prioritize roadmap objectives to achieve strategic goals and priorities.
  • Lead, direct and breathe the product portfolio.
• Product development and launch
  • Ideation
    • Source potential customer needs, collect feedback from the commercial department and other sources, through market visits (end users) and market intel (MI); process MI on competitive offerings.
    • Act customer-centric: translate inputs on customer needs into identified openings in the market and plot strategies to fill those voids to take through the ideation process.
    • Compose a business case by clearly articulating the business value, the intent behind the new product and the contribution to strategic goals and priorities.
    • Liaise with the commercial department for inputs on the competitive landscape, positioning and agreement with the proposed business case.
    • Give direction to and collaborate with the innovations team members and functional experts on the idea incubation regarding technical, biological and economic feasibility and definition of product specifications in the function of desired features.
  • Product development to go-to-market
    • Oversee the various development workstreams.
    • Give direction and play an active role in the core team with the innovations lead during the R&D phase until the R&D release.
    • Lead the market testing (MOT) for new/adjusted product(s) and report in tollgate and status meetings. Arrange technical release, if applicable.
    • Consolidate the delivery of technical information in the function of product registration.
    • Coordinate product launch and local product launches, especially with marketing, customer support, regional/local sales, supply chain, operations and finance, regulatory affairs.
• Product management in-life and end-of-life
  • Engage with customers and with commercial/ technical teams on gathering market feedback on the products and portfolio; be the expert on the business requirements for the product.
  • Stay up to date with and address competitor products in the space via input from the commercial department and other sources.
  • Act as Single Point of Contact for product performance matters and coordinate feedback to internal stakeholders.
  • Build a plan together with the customer success director and provide product-technical support to internal stakeholders accordingly. Prepare updates on training materials for seminars/webinars.
  • Process inputs and review the need for possible new product requirements, possibly turning them into feature requests or completely new products.
  • Monitor the products’ cost structure, pricing and margins. Process data and actively steer corrective actions as required.
  • Coordinate follow-up on inputs from the regulatory affairs team on applicable regulations to ensure continuous portfolio compliance in the applicable countries/regions.
  • Advise on product aspects within the operational environment: on non-conformities and possible corrective/preventive actions, on quality and lab issues, on possible (alternative) suppliers and/or toll manufacturers.
  • Determine service requests (SR) for product corrections/improvements/additional argumentation/new features as required and justified in terms of contribution to the business.
  • Decide on required certification schemes at the manufacturing plants.
  • Gather input from MI, analyze that information and process to ultimately determine on end of life or on consolidation of SKUs to rationalize the portfolio.
  • Coordinate withdrawal of products from the portfolio with related stakeholders.

Qualifications and experience

• Master’s or PhD degree in the scientific field or product discipline.
• At least 5-10 years of experience in product development/product management on various industry platforms as well as sufficient experience in project management.
• Experience in an international technical-commercial environment.
• Experience in the aquaculture industry in general and the specific market segment specifically.
• Demonstrated business acumen/commercial awareness.
• Ability to process market intel.
• Understand marketing and product launch activities.
• Affinity with manufacturing, raw materials and procurement aspects, formulation, QA/QC, laboratory techniques, quality systems and related certifications, and principles of continuous improvement.
• A general understanding of local/regional product regulatory aspects and product registrations and labeling.
• Good knowledge of MS Office, especially Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

Personal attributes/characteristics

• A fascination for keeping up to date with new technologies and product development in the space.
• Understand business needs, and ability to build business cases for new projects.
• Team player with strong communication and negotiation skills and proven ability to build consensus among cross-functional stakeholders; stimulating team spirit.
• Own your decisions and communicate these clearly, consistently and persuasively across audiences.
• Ability to lead without organizational authority.
• Customer-focused and scientific-oriented: ability to always keep the customer in mind first, to serve as the customer’s internal advocate.
• Willing to overlook the process beyond own content expertise.
• Excellent English verbal and written communication skills.
• Solid organizational skills.
• Dynamic personality and a good listener.
• Passion for products.
• Intellectual curiosity.
• Analytical mind, skilled in synthesizing.
• Target driven.
• Degree of tenacity.

Job location is Europe with frequent international travel. For more information and to apply, contact HRM@inveaquaculture.com. Apply by June 17, 2023.