Product Specialist at Bridgestone South Africa (Pty) Ltd

Job Purpose

        The purpose of this role is to be a strategic business partner to Consumer and Commercial Sales. The purpose of this role is to provide executional support, data management and market analysis to the Snr Product Planning Manager, LSCM and regional Planning teams

Responsibilities:

• Market Share
• Co-ordinate with Europe HQ on Market Share and reconcile monthly market demand.
• Research monthly Market Performance and provide reasoning.
• Calculate Market Share and report back to the business leaders with reasoning.

Final Market Share submission to head office in Europe

• New Product Planning & Sourcing
• Organise and form relevant project Cross Functional Team and management timeline till project finality to insure successful launch readiness.
• Conduct demand logic study by gathering market data (Carprc by segment, segment growth, price elasticity, Market Fair Share)  to justify for potential volume.
• Compile business plan with the help from Technical Centre, PCM (Product Category Manager) and sourcing plant.
• Liaise with all internal stakeholders from Project Concept till launch ready.
• Prepare accurate content of NPR [New Product Request] including factual back-up data.

Product Communication to internal and external customers

• Issue quarterly B_News newsletter to Sales Team and dealer network.
• Issue Product notifications for all Product and Line-up related news and maintain online notifications depository.

Manage Line-up

• Manage and co-ordinate the line-up by processing new Product introductions through the SAP code creation process.
• Manage quarterly SKU clean up and rationalisation project by identifying products to be discontinued, present to Marketing & Sales and obtain agreement to remove from product line-up.
• Co-ordinate global SKU rationalisation process by receiving SKU’s proposed to be discontinued, report to Sales team for approval to remove and report back to global team.
• Collaborate with LSCM (Logistics and Supply Chain Management) to study and update the Phase-In/Phase Out plan for all new product entrants and discontinuations

Market trend analysis and marketing intelligence

• Competitor volume size change trend.
• Competitor promotional activity.
• Regional pattern performance by size by segment
• Determine volume size changes in % for competitor by Retail Outlet – Opposition
• Determine volume size changes in % for competitor by Retail Outlet
• Analyse by pattern sales growth against budget guidelines / parameters for BSAF and provisional regions.
• Monitor and track 5 most popular sizes and 5 least popular sizes and make recommendations
• Analyse and find competitive products and match them with the company existing product to determine the price.  Must be well verse in doing competitive analysis.

Requirements:

• Minimum 5 years’ experience
• Data analytics
• Competitor analysis and market reviews
• Working with Big Data
• Automotive Industry Knowledge
• Data and platform integration
• High Excel Proficiency
• High SAP Proficiency
• Strong verbal and written communication skills