Strategy and Insights Manager at Danone

Purpose of the Job:

• This role will be responsible for influencing strategy for Danone company portfolio as well as identifying growth opportunities for the business and individual brands. This role will assist with cross category functions, category management, planning and trade marketing to understand how to best activate consumer marketing programs to drive category lifts and leverage all data sources available to assist with development of pricing, assortment, shelving and merchandising decisions.
• Strategic role for the product development working with R&I and co-leading on UX function for superior, competitive products that follow Danone guidelines
• Lead S&I Function for DSA CBU:
• EDP focusing on EDN (with a focus on Kids), Indulgence, Functionals and Drinkables

Principal Accountabilities:

• Own all custom consumer and shopper research for EDP
• Use syndicated and/or retailer specific data to develop, prepare and present information and recommendations in support of customer teams, category management and brand teams and key retail sales initiatives (such as retailer performance, trends & opportunities, pricing effectiveness, promotion effectiveness, category space expansion opportunities, etc.)
• Manage on a daily bases, implement and optimize the use and added value of syndicated research. Challenge research agencies to guarantee high quality standards on outputs delivered in a timely manner
• Ensure attainment of high standards of technical competence regarding research supplier selection, questionnaire design and analysis.
• Organize filing and access of all data (internal and external) relevant to the organization. Establish systems to facilitate the storage and efficient retrieval of research data esp. for product tests in line with R&D sensory panel manager.
• Working on the UX key success criteria for all the categories of the CBU and working closely with the R&D and factory to ensure the standard are implemented
• Providing insights support for all phases of the product development cycle, from white space identification and concept testing to in-market tracking and competitive benchmarking
• Ability to identify optimization opportunities based on Brand Health Tracker and Copy Testing
• Managing vendor relationships and research budget and identifying opportunities of optimization
• Supporting the Marketing Team to help deliver growth-driving consumer insights around the trends, ideas, concepts, products, advertising and packaging which will best meet the needs of our consumers. 
• Handling the usage and attitudes and up coming trends and segmenting the market to help the marketing understand and identify the key target audience
• Leadership: Leading and steering the relationship and work flow with the different agencies with hand-on experience on establishing strong partnerships, ensuring the ideal methodologies, generating reliable data at the best and right cost with continuous work on cost minimization measures. Leading several cross-functional teams in the areas of testing new Products/ideas qualification, product quality improvement, and cost chase measures.
• Innovations: Working closely with the marketing team on the insights and the potential ideas generation and eventually qualifications with the consumers.

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities “Competencies”:

• Attention to detail: thorough in analysis, but also able to see the big picture and be creative
• Numerate and articulate: must be confident both with numbers and words
• Reliable: consistently delivers projects to high quality standards and on time
• Curious: passionate about understanding what makes consumer and shopper tick, plus how we can translate this into winning brand and business strategies
• Organized: able to priorities with a natural pragmatic drive for efficiency
• Personable: excellent interpersonal skills - a real team player

Academic and Trade Qualification

• 3-year Marketing or Business-related degree
• Honours or post-graduate qualification in marketing is an advantage