Regional Product Development

Titan Company; Chennai District; On-site; INR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Titan Company in Chennai is seeking a senior merchandising professional to manage regional product planning and vendor partnerships. The role focuses on identifying gaps, coordinating range planning, and driving the launch of region-specific collections with cross-functional teams.

You will engage with retailers, NPD and design teams to ensure timely releases, track product performance, and optimize the regional assortment based on market insights.

Qualifications

• Experience in merchandising and product lifecycle management.
• Strong collaboration with cross-functional teams.
• Vendor onboarding and performance evaluation skills.
• Market and competition tracking capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Plan regional product range with gaps identified from customer and competitive insights.
• Coordinate with regional vendors to develop products meeting gaps.
• Collaborate with Responsible Sourcing to onboard vendor partners.
• Review product performance and decide on continuations or discontinuations.
• Engage retail stores for range expansion and assortment planning.
• Launch region-specific collections with clear briefs and timelines.
• Coordinate with NPD/Design teams for concept to release, and drive code creation.

Job description

Role & responsibilities

Merchandising: Planning for Regional Products

1. Mapping the current universe of regional products

2. Range-planning for regional products: Identifying the gaps in the current universe, based on customer, community understanding as well as competitive indexing. Accordingly, planning for product introduction for ensuring that these product gaps are filled

3. Collaborating with the regional vendors to ensure the development of products to fill the product gap happens on a regular & timely basis.

4. Wherever required, work closely with the Responsible Sourcing teams for the timely onboarding on relevant and capable vendor partners

5. Review of product performance and decision making on product continuation

6. Engaging closely with the Retail stores for driving decisions on range expansion/discontinuation

Developing a Robust vendor ecosystem for regional products

1. Evaluating the current vendor ecosystem for regional products both in terms of expertise & cost

2. Periodic visits to the vendors to understand their capability as well to get inputs from vendors on regional products.

3. Conduct existing vendor performance evaluations based on product performance and evaluate new vendors based on the skill set planning.

4. On boarding the right new vendors in terms of expertise & cost as per the gap observed in the current regional vendor eco-system

Periodic Competition Indexing

1. Monthly visits to regional competition to benchmark the regional products offered, weight bands, making charge ...etc.

2. Synthesis of actionable insights and incorporation into the Range plan

Product Management: Product Portfolio Management

1. Manage the entire product lifecycle from inception to product retiral for regional products.

2. Achieve Category Top Line Targets as per planned Cat-PB sales shares of regional products.

3. Provide inputs on the model stock recommendations for assortment planning.

4. Ensure the effective cascade of the newly launched regional products with all the internal teams including Retail, VM, Marketing etc.

5. Identify poor performing products and propose measures for ensuring their liquidation.

6. Identify the best possible offers based on the seasonality in the region & the profitability of the product.

Merchandising: Launch Region specific Collections

1. Create the new collection brief for the regional collection with clear deliverables on the product category, cluster, net weight & LC

2. Liaison with the NPD team, Design team to ensure the concept presentation as per the timeline.

3. Approve/ select the designs created by the design studio.

4. Approve the final PDIS release; Coordinate with NPI team for code creation.

5. Coordinate with the NPD & NPIM team to ensure that the first set of proto are received as per the design approved if not ensuring that the feedback is given for correction.

6. Support the NPD to conduct regional NPIM for the collection.

7. Conduct periodic canvassing with L3s for indent enhancement, seasonal up stocking etc. to improve new product penetration. 8. Collaborate with marketing for ad-variant planning

Preferred candidate profile

To introduce the right regional products by generating an in-depth understanding of cultural, ritualistic and community specific requirements for jewelry and by undertaking extensive indexing of relevant competition. On this basis to work closely with the Cluster management and the regional teams for determining the appropriate sales plan and the supporting assortment plans. This role will also be responsible for identifying regionally relevant products or categories that can be imbued with Tanishqs signature and promoted as such. As a part of the WiMI programme, this role will also work closely with the regional DEC and the Cluster management teams on the development of regionally relevant, marketed collections aligned to regional marketing calendar.