Product Research and Development Officer (Pretoria) at AVBOB South Africa

RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:

Product Research

• Understanding of project scope and execute system requirements (electronic documentation)
• Developing and executing innovation and research roadmaps incorporating current developments to improve existing products and study the potential of new products.
• Identifying researching goals and establishing methods for product research.
• Understanding of customer experience, digital and gamification trends, and innovations in this field to use knowledge gained in guiding new product or feature experience to achieve strategic outcomes as provided by the manager
• Developing research methodologies to collect data and offer recommendations on evaluating products.
• Conducting research and document all phases of the research and development process and submitting to manager.
• Conducting market research to identify customer needs and preferences to develop product specifications to be reviewed by manager
• Collecting and record data to provide insights on the current and/or new product requirements, process flows, etc.
• Conducting desktop research, using books, journal articles, newspaper sources, questionnaires, surveys, polls, and interviews to gather data on the need for new insurance products to present to the manager.
• Providing an informed opinion on advanced methods to design new insurance products or enhance processes for production capacity and capabilities to committees, management and team members
• Evaluating outcomes of new products and processes to deliver improved business results.
• Assisting in product brief execution according to project scope requirements (Trials, product samples, and product analysis

Product Development

• Planning, and implementing the development of new products according to the need as identified by the sales team and approved by the Product committee. 
• Understanding customer expectations of existing products to recommend proposed new developments.
• Evaluating new and existing products to measure the performance to be discussed with manger and the sales team to determine success or failure of the changes

Stakeholder engagement

• Assisting in coordinating multi-disciplinary teams including relevant internal and selected external stakeholders for pre-trial meetings and briefs
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams such as marketing, Actuarial Product Pricing Specialist, Brand and Advertising etc to gain insight into the need of the clients
• Stay up-to-date of industry trends, customer needs, and competitor products to identify opportunities for new products or product improvements to ensure that the Society remains competitive and expand our client base.
• Communicate effectively with cross-functional teams, senior management, and external partners to ensure stakeholder alignment to project goals and timelines.
• Drive improvements in conceptualization of ideas to attract new markets.
• Work with existing brand guidelines and make recommendations for improvements where necessary to products

Budget Management

• Determine provisional budgets for the research and product development processes to be approved by the manager product development

Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree in research of marketing
• At least 3 years’ experience in research and development in the financial markets, preferable an insurance company
• Experience in both qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Sound understanding of research methodologies
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft packages and relevant research methodology package
• Decision making and judgement
• Report writing
• Planning and organizing
• Fluent in Excel and PowerPoint presentations
• Good communication skills and must be able to interact with senior management
• A strong interest in new technology and advances in insurance to deliver innovative and competitive solutions.
• Must be a strategic and creative thinker who shows excellent problem solving and communication skills, and is able to network effectively.
• An intuitive eye for customer needs beyond the obvious
• Excellent attention to detail
• Ability to collaborate with cross-functional team members
• Creative problem-solving skills