Description

Position Mission:

The Product Manager role is critical to deliver business value to drive sales, improve efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction through the production of quality products and to ensure that our customers have the right parts available at the right time. The role will lead product development of products that will expand product assortment at NAPA while delivering maximum value to stakeholders across the value chain.

The successful candidate will possess strong leadership characteristics with a demonstrated ability to drive collaboration across different stakeholder groups. In addition, the candidate should be a results-oriented, self-starter with an understanding of or willing to learn the automotive aftermarket value chain.

 Position Performance Measures:

• NPI roadmap including pipeline, driving sales dollars.
• NPI vitality
• NPI process documentation and improvements

Responsibilities:

• Work with cross-functional teams and various stakeholders including category management, independent store owners, field management, user community, sales/marketing and executive leadership.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop product roadmap and drive product setup from concept to
• Represent “voice of the customer/stakeholder” by collecting pertinent data and field input.
• Turn insights into actionable, value-add enhancements and a thorough understanding of customer / stakeholder needs.
• Analyze opportunities for new products, develop business cases, prioritize and get cross functional buy-in.
• Partner with Category Management and suppliers to develop and execute vehicle application strategy and execution cadence.
• Make NPI proposals to Category Management including recommended financials, competitive advantages and marketing claims / messaging.
• Continuously review business needs, refine priorities, outline deliverables, and manage.
• Identify goals, metrics, and analytics to determine product value; continually making recommendations and refinements to the product backlog based on learnings.
• Lead cross functional team to develop products in line with brand strategy, category goals and maximizing business value.
• Develop and execute communication strategies that educate stakeholders on the feature benefits to maximize adoption.
• Develop and maintain appropriate tracking and reporting to ensure desired outcome(s) are.

Opportunity Assessment – 30%

• Manage stakeholder engagement for key stakeholders including HQ and field management, store managers, users, installers (indirect customers) and jobbers (direct customers)
• Function as SME and represent “Voice of the Customer”
• Translate Voice of Customer to product requirements while developing differentiated competitive advantages for the brand and organization
• Proactively reach out to key stakeholders to identify opportunities for new products
• Capture insights and translate into actionable, value-add enhancements
• Quantify value add and partner with development team to build business case
• Prioritize opportunities based on strategic fit, customer needs and financials
• Lead SKU rationalization identifying opportunities for sunsetting or replacement

Product development – 50%

• Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop roadmap, key feature definition and define key milestones
• Define launch scope and associated backlog items
• Prioritize backlog based on value-add to business and alignment with strategic
• Provide pertinent product information to cross functional teams to ensure accurate part setup.
• Lead cross functional product development team to bring products to market managing NPI project requirements, schedule and risks meeting objectives for quality, cost and delivery
• Collaborate across functions to develop marketing collaterals in support of new product launches.
• Operate within department budget to balance and manage NPI expenses. Provide input to budgetary requirements on an on-going basis.
• Lead monthly Product Development Council meeting to inform all key stakeholders and leadership on NPI initiatives
• Coordinate communication of NPI launches to sales, marketing and other key stakeholders to drive adoption and incremental revenue

Process Improvement – 20%

• Partner with users and key stakeholders to develop best practices to produce desired outcome(s).
• Document NPI process flow identifying and implementing opportunities for improvements.
• Create change management plans including stakeholder communication strategies and training content creation.
• Regularly monitor results to ensure desired outcome is

Experience Requirements:

Requirements include but may not be limited to the following:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work MBA or advanced degree a plus
• 3+ years’ experience in a Product Development role
• 1-3 years of business analysis / product management experience
• 1-3 years automotive aftermarket experience (strongly desired)
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with capacity to tailor style to the audience
• Experience facilitating conversation across a diverse set of stakeholders.
• Political savvy necessary to influence decisions and gain support for critical initiatives in a large

GPC conducts its business without regard to sex, race, creed, color, religion, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, age, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, military status, status as a veteran, or any other protected characteristic. GPC's policy is to recruit, hire, train, promote, assign, transfer and terminate employees based on their own ability, achievement, experience and conduct and other legitimate business reasons.