Innovation Manager - Mumbai

Job description

**Business** Cement HO **Unit** Birla White **Location** Birla Centurion, Mumbai **Function** Sales & Marketing **Department** Marketing **Position Title** Innovation Manager **Key Result Areas** **Supporting Actions** Drive the Product Innovation Strategy - Perform periodic product and market reviews to identify gaps and areas of opportunity for the product & category. Conduct frequent in-sighting exercise with current field team, applicators to identify areas if opportunity. Also, engage with industry experts, and have discussions with Internal R&D to identify new market trends in the industry. - Shortlist the range of categories/products that Birla White can enter in the future in line with company strategy by continuously monitoring newer products in the building and construction chemicals Industry. - Based on research, develop new products with R&D and work towards launching the product. - Continuously Track and provide leadership with key product insights & recommendations based on innovation metrics. New product ideation and managing the product pipeline - Finalize the product pipeline for every financial year and manage the pipeline ensuring regular new product launches. - Formulate product strategy aligning with business strategy. - Design & detail product roadmap for short as well as long term. - Provide guidance on designing product packaging with agencies, test the products in the market, define consumers, communications and prepare GTM plan. Product Development & Manufacturing (cross functional coordination), Market assessment - Coordinate with the plant R&D team for the lab development of the product, provide them with product benchmarks, and set requirements for the product according to market standards. - Guide the plant production teams by providing them with new product target volume projections for 3 years, and new SKUs which is to be produced at the plant. Evaluate if additional Capex is to be provided for manufacturing of new product. - Conduct market trials before launch- benchmark the application of the new products vs the competition. - Provide feedback to R&D / Production based on Market trial output Market estimation, Pricing & Business Modelling - Map Birla White’s potential in the new category we aim to enter by forecasting the volume estimations based on the market size and segmentations of the category. - Define the variants and the type of SKUs to be launched of the product according to the consumer needs and market standards. - Create the pricing of the product based on the RM costs, variable costs & fixed costs, schemes and discounts, retailer/stockist margins, and Birla White margin. - Conduct the financial analysis of the product by working out the P&L of the products and assessing revenue generated by the product. - Incorporate all above inputs in final business model for the product and align the same with senior management for launch. Proposal drafting for approvals - Prepare final proposal for approval to launch / re-introduction of new Product / Category