Planning & Merchandising Manager

PlayStation Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd.; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading global gaming company in the UK seeks an Experience Planning & Merchandising Manager to optimize user experiences for PlayStation Plus. The role involves managing merchandising strategies, driving the quarterly planning process, and collaborating with various teams to enhance subscriber engagement. Candidates should have over 5 years of experience in a similar role, strong project management skills, and a deep understanding of digital commerce. This position offers a hybrid working model and a range of benefits.

Benefits

Discretionary bonus opportunity

Hybrid Working (within Flexmodes)

Private Medical Insurance

Dental Scheme

25 days holiday per year

On Site Gym

Subsidised Cafe

Free soft drinks

On site bar

Access to cycle garage and showers

Training Provided

Regular team and company events

Flexible working

Free Gym or Gym Subsidy

Private Medical/Dental healthcare

Bonus/Reward Scheme

Cycle to work scheme

Game Jams

Qualifications

• 5+ years in a similar role with organizational & planning responsibilities.
• Proven experience of delivering short and long-range plans.
• Strong project management skills to juggle competing priorities.
• Experience with project management tools like Wrike.

Responsibilities

• Lead the creation and maintenance of a Merchandising and Experimentation plan.
• Drive the quarterly planning process for the Experience team.
• Act as the liaison between Content, Engagement, and Marketing teams.
• Collaborate with teams to ensure merchandising priorities are met.

Skills

Project management

Organizational skills

Interpersonal skills

Analytical skills

Presentation skills

Tools

Wrike

Tableau

DOMO

Job description

Overview

Our team operates within the wider 'Services Commercial' group who are dedicated to growing PlayStation's subscription services. This wider group strives to maximise new subscriber acquisition and retention and provide a compelling reason for people to return to the service year after year. Our product, PlayStation Plus, is critically important to PlayStation's vision and strategy. PlayStation Plus is subscribed to by the majority of PlayStation users and has seen dynamic growth since re-launching with a multi-tiered proposition in 2022. You will be joining the 'Experience' team - whose mission is to craft best-in-class customer experiences that foster an informed, engaged, and excited group of subscribers. What does that mean? Anywhere you find PlayStation Plus on a PlayStation console, or the PlayStation App, our team is determining what our customers see - the latest, the greatest, and the most relevant messages for each customer. We are responsible for both subscriber and non-subscriber experiences - maximising subscription purchases, tier upgrades, and engagement with service benefits. We optimize user experiences through continuous test and learn activity and bring the 'moments-that-matter' to life through innovative merchandising. As the Experience Planning & Merchandising Manager , your primary responsibility will be to bring organization, structure, and a calm head to our planning process. We work closely with a wide array of collaborators who have a variety of priorities - you will build bridges between the cross-functional teams at PlayStation, owning both the long-term and monthly merchandising plans - helping us to prioritise the right activities and efforts. We can target messages to specific groups of customers - which can become complex quickly - if you see this as an enjoyable challenge to manage - you're the right person for us! You will harness a deep expertise in digital, merchandising and commerce to understand and communicate the highest priorities across the teams as you balance alignment between our core merchandising activity and our ongoing calendar of experimentation.

Responsibilities

• Lead the creation and maintenance of a clear, visually structured Merchandising, Editorial, and Experimentation plan that integrates the diverse priorities of cross-functional teams
• Drive the quarterly planning process for the Experience team - leading alignment sessions internally and ensuring that all activity is briefed into our team's dashboard
• Act as the liaison between the Content, Engagement, Marketing, and other cross-functional teams to ensure that merchandising priorities are properly planned for
• Develop playbooks and automated processes to streamline planning and execution of our most common type of support and merchandising activity, Own Experience team weekly stand-ups - working internally to track progress on key initiatives within our calendar, track team actions, coordinate read outs, etc.
• Collaborate closely with 'Services Optimization' and delivery teams to project manage our merchandising activity through to execution - complete with proper testing
• Integrate findings and recommendations from experimentation into our day-to-day business-as-usual efforts
• Drive parity in how we implement our Experience Strategy across all owned channels including PS4, PS5, PS App, other related channels
• Performance, accountability, and continuous improvement
• Collaborate on Experience performance reports - working with other Experience team members on regular team and Executive reporting
• Perform post-mortem evaluations of plans - Working with relevant teams to evaluate activity results, identify operational friction points, and recommend process improvements
• Foster cross-functional collaboration within Services and related teams - achieving visibility and buy-in for the Experience plan at all stages of calendar development and maintenance
• Stay abreast of trends and best standards in digital commerce, merchandising and editorial - highlighting emerging industry trends to bring innovative ideas to the business

Qualifications

• 5+ years in a similar role with in-depth organizational & planning responsibilities and demonstrable experience of prioritizing activities to drive growth.
• Proven record of delivering and building short and long-range plans, and ensuring stakeholder buy in.
• Experience developing and delivering complex programmes in a scaled business.
• Strong project management skills with the ability to juggle competing programs/priorities.
• Experience working with project management tools, ideally Wrike (or similar).
• Passionate about delivering the best for our customers and creating exciting and impactful experiences for the communities they represent.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to work collaboratively in global environment.
• Experience working cross-functionally across business, creative, and operational teams.
• Ability to communicate and lead across multiple levels in an organisation.
• A systematic, disciplined and logical approach to problem solving.
• Comfort in using self-serve analytics tools (such as Tableau, DOMO, and others).
• Strong presentation skills and fluency in PowerPoint.
• Management consulting experience is a plus.

Benefits

• Discretionary bonus opportunity
• Hybrid Working (within Flexmodes)
• Private Medical Insurance
• Dental Scheme
• 25 days holiday per year
• On Site Gym
• Subsidised Cafe
• Free soft drinks
• On site bar
• Access to cycle garage and showers
• Training Provided
• Regular team and company events
• Free drinks, fruit or food
• Flexible working
• Free Gym or Gym Subsidy
• Private Medical/Dental healthcare
• Bonus/Reward Scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Game Jams

PlayStation isn't just the Best Place to Play - it's also the Best Place to Work. Today, we're recognized as a global leader in entertainment producing The PlayStation family of products and services including PlayStationreg;5, PlayStationreg;4, PlayStationreg;VR, PlayStationreg;Plus, acclaimed PlayStation software titles from PlayStation Studios, and more. PlayStation also strives to create an inclusive environment that empowers employees and embraces diversity. We welcome and encourage everyone who has a passion and curiosity for innovation, technology, and play to explore our open positions and join our growing global team. The PlayStation brand falls under Sony Interactive Entertainment, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation.

Please note, Sony Interactive Entertainment conducts background checks at the offer stage for all new employees (which may include criminal background checks for some roles) and will need to process personal information to support these checks.