General Manager - Software Development & Offer Marketing

Software Development & Offer Marketing :

Product development :

- Manages the relationship between the LoB R&D leaders and all cross-functional areas critical to the success of the program as well as customer contacts, while maintaining an understanding of the value of the product under development for representative customers.

- Strong experience in handling Offer Creation Process (PMP, PEP, Agile) for H/w & S/w products.

- Well verse with Stage Gate Planning, Stage Gate Meeting Organization, follow-up with stake holders, stake holder expectation management, preparation for Stage Gate Meeting, reporting to Steering Committee for Stage Gate approval.

- Planning & Monitoring: Directs all planning and monitors the activities of the cross-functional team required to meet project goals.

- Budget, Schedule, & Product Cost: Owns the established performance, schedule, budget and product cost, while managing within the given and dynamic constraints.

- Reporting: Provide periodic reports of program status and progress to management. Provides program interface between Engineering, Marketing, Quality and other key product development functions.

- Project Deliverables & Project Quality: Ensures the quality and integrity of products and program deliverables. Expected to always be questioning/analyzing if any deliverables are missing, and if the scope and content of program deliverables are optimized.

- Process Continuous Improvement: Provides input and supports driving forward the continuous improvement of the policies, process, practices and templates associated with our stage-gate process.

- Promotes Business and Technology Innovation

People Management :

- Experience of leading major project teams

- Upstream marketing-, on the other hand, refer to all the marketing efforts undertaken in the early stage of product development; e.g. segmentation, market research, pricing research etc.

- Ensure that the customer needs are clearly understood by functions (Project Management, R&D, V&V, GHD, Product Managers)

- Define the Unique Value Proposition of a new offer. Accountable of the new offer business plan.

- Understand the trends of the targeted segments.

- Reveal the customers- needs and the customers willingness to pay.

- Choose and price the Unique Value Proposition.

- Responsible of the profitable business plan.

- Define the marketing specification of the new offer.

- Manage the specification's changes and renouncements.

- Report offer development progress to Business R&D Director / VP.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities :

Education :

- Must have a Bachelor's degree in Engineering or a related technical field

- Prefer additionally a Bachelor's degree in Business or an MBA

Experience :

- Minimum 15 years of successful experience in a new product development environment

- Experience in or managing technical and nontechnical teams

- Prefer some experience working in other functions involved in new product development; Service, Mechanical, Electrical, Software, Manufacturing, Test Engineering, Product Marketing, etc.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities :

- Must be thoroughly familiar with aspects of engineering design, product development (stage-gate process), market requirements and functional specifications

- Must be a results- oriented individual capable of influencing others in a collaborative and sometimes virtual environment

- Must be a proven leader who can influence others with a demonstrated ability to communicate effectively to all levels of the organization

- Customer focused with good relationship building and conflict resolution skills.

- Highly motivated and an independent leader comfortable working in a fast paced environment.

- Must possess good written and oral presentation skills and the ability to communicate ideas effectively to senior management.

- Effective time management and organizational skills; ability to manage or be a team player in a number of projects within a fast paced work environment.

- Other languages (German, Italian, Spanish) would be an asset.

Working Conditions / Environment / Special Requirements :

- Availability for typically 20% domestic and international travel

- Availability for up to travel for up to 2-3 weeks at a time

R. Mahesh Kumar
Global Professional Services
Chennai