Product Manager

McLaren Automotive Limited; Woking; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday

Enhanced company pension

Discretionary annual bonus

Private medical insurance

Life assurance

Sabbatical opportunity after two years

Job summary

McLaren Automotive Limited is seeking a Product Manager in Woking to define product requirements, drive lifecycle management, and shape go-to-market strategies across vehicle programmes. You will lead trade-off decisions to optimise value and work with pricing, engineering, and finance to refine the business case.

The role demands deep automotive industry knowledge, strong presentation skills, and the ability to influence stakeholders across the business and at external events.

Qualifications

• Qualification (degree or higher) ideally in Engineering, Product Design, Business or Marketing.
• Experience in Product, Strategy, Design, Engineering or Marketing, ideally with an automotive OEM HQ.
• Pan-European or global experience desired.
• Strong commercial acumen and pricing understanding.
• Up-to-date knowledge of automotive legislation and regulation.
• Excellent understanding of sales data analysis and market segmentation.
• Experience pricing, value indexing and options analysis.
• Ability to define and execute formal business processes to reduce risk.

Responsibilities

• Define product requirements and feature assumptions to support positioning and customer needs.
• Lead product lifecycle management including bodystyles, variants, trims and options.
• Coordinate go-to-market launches and develop strategic marketing messages.
• Develop price and take rate assumptions and feed business cases for trims and accessories.
• Present compelling proposals to Senior Leadership and collaborate with Strategy, Engineering and Finance.
• Represent McLaren at routine press and marketing events.

Skills

Product strategy understanding

Presentation skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Degree or higher in Engineering, Product Design, Business or Marketing

Job description

Job TitleProduct ManagerLocationWokingThe Product Team is responsible for product definition and product lifecycle management for all McLaren vehicle programmes. From the long term portfolio and strategic positioning, through to the products we are launching today.As a Product Manager, the role will include the development of product requirements and feature assumptions which support the product positioning and target customer needs, leading the production definition process, incorporating the product go-to-market launch strategy, and the development of key strategic marketing messages and technical product detail.By championing the product vision both within the business and at external events and will be the single source of truth and voice of the customer for all product direction.Success in this area requires a deep understanding of the automotive industry and market (customer, competition, trends, technologies, international legislative frameworks, environmental factors and pricing), a passion for developing outstanding automotive products, the ability to manage and balance competing requirements (customer, financial, technical, legislative) ensuring best overall value to the business, plus the ability to work closely with and develop strong relationships with all parts of the business.**Product Positioning**§ Coordinate market studies and research activities§ Detailed understanding of the core and adjacent competitor offerings.§ Translation of product positioning into key USPs and Why-Buys.§ Support product benchmarking and static/dynamic vehicle evaluations at each stage of the project.**Target customer**§ Identification and in depth understanding of the vehicle target customer.§ Ensure 'Voice of the Customer' is heard in all product development activities, helping to guide the direction, inform trade off decisions and protect the original product strategic intent.**Product definition and lifecycle management**§ Work with the Product Development teams to develop the product attribute/content positioning; managing trade-offs to achieve best product fit for customer / brand / financials.§ Own and develop the product lifecycle to optimise offer, competitiveness and business case contribution; including bodystyles, powertrain strategy, variants and special editions strategy, trim walks, features, options, accessories and colour & trim strategy.§ Lead the change control and documentation of product direction documents.§ Embed Accessories and MSO content strategies to the product.§ Work with Product Pricing, developing price and take rate assumptions to feed the business cases for all Trims, Options & Accessories§ Drive the product direction sign-off through development and delivery of compelling presentations and product proposals to the Senior Leadership team.§ Working closely with the Product Strategy, Engineering and Finance teams to refine the business case for all product programmes, options and accessories, managing unit economic costs, model and market mix, overall programme investment and resultant profit and pay back periods.§ Through continuous monitoring of the vehicle sales performance across all markets, develop MY strategies which enhance and optimise the customer offer throughout the lifecycle, maximising the bottom line.**Product communications and marketing**§ Develop key customer facing strategic product messaging, including target audience specific USPs, Why-Buys and Sales arguments and translate these with the Marketing team into appropriate and compelling marketing assets.§ Develop of Product Guide assets to provide complete product information to the wider business in support of Product launch and go-to-market activities, arming the sales and marketing teams with the knowledge to deliver planned sales targets.§ Own consolidation and communication of product technical detail to internal and external stakeholders.§ Ensure correct representation of the customer offer, product messaging and product technical data in all marketing collateral, across all markets (e.g. Configurator, Brochure, Website, Price Lists, etc).§ Support the Sales and Marketing teams in the development of Retail product training materials development.§ Represent McLaren at routine press and marketing events.**Success in this role requires:**§ A deep understanding and experience of the automotive industry and market (customer, competition, trends, technologies, international legislative frameworks, environmental factors and pricing).§ Tenacious, open and transparent.§ A passion for developing outstanding automotive products.§ The ability to manage and balance competing requirements (customer, financial, technical, legislative) ensuring best overall value to the business.§ The ability to work closely with and develop strong relationships with all parts of the business.§ Ability to articulate with strong presentation skills.**Experience & Qualifications**§ Qualification (degree or higher) ideally in Engineering, Product Design, Business or Marketing.§ Experience in Product, Strategy, Design, Engineering or Marketing, ideally with an automotive OEM HQ.§ Pan-European or global experience desired.§ Proven ability of working cross-functionally as part of an OEM product development programme.§ Experience in new mobility, electrification and circular economies is an advantage.§ Strong commercial acumen.§ A thorough knowledge of market trends and analysis methodology covering both macroeconomics and automotive segments.§ Up-to-date knowledge of automotive legislative and regulatory environment highly desirable.§ An excellent understanding of sales data analysis and market segmentation / target customer methodology.§ An in-depth understanding and experience of product pricing, value indexing and options analysis.§ Must be able to define and execute business processes and understand the importance of formal process to reduce risk and variance.§ Highly numerate and analytical, with a clear view of the big picture and a flair forstrategic thinking.§ Understand that intelligence of presentation is key to deliver convincing proposals to management.We offer a wide - ranging benefits package, which includes:* Structured career development framework* 25 days' holiday, plus bank holiday. Annual buy & sell up to five days* Enhanced company pension scheme* Discretionary annual bonus award* Private medical insurance and health cash plan* Life assurance benefit* Ability to apply for a sabbatical of up to one year after only two years' service* Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping* Generous parental leave policies* A range of wellbeing initiatives, such as employee assistance programme and free financial & mortgage advice