Posted by
Posted in
SCM & Operations
Job Code
1703547
Senior Manager - New Product Development - Purplle.com
(Experience : 10-15 years)
About the role:
We are hiring a dedicated Product Lead for each of our owned beauty & personal care brands at Purplle. The brand team writes the brief - this person runs the network to land the product on shelf as fast as humanly possible.
You are the execution engine behind every launch. Once a brief lands, you decide where to build it (in-house R&D or third party), drive every node of the network in parallel - R&D, packaging dev, procurement, QA, supply - and compress calendar time wherever it can be compressed. Post-launch you own reorders, inventory health, and quality for the brand's SKU base.
If you live and breathe BPC - if you know why the cushion foundation category exploded, why K-beauty actives are rewriting the skincare aisle, and why a 30ml serum sells 10x better than a 50ml one - this is a role where your obsession translates directly into speed-to-market. Speed is the product.
What you will own:
1. Run the launch - brief to shelf:
- Take the brief from the brand team (benefit, format, actives, claims, shade architecture, price point, MRP) and convert it into an executable launch plan with a named target shelf date.
- Run every NPD phase at speed: feasibility - sampling - BOM finalisation - PPS - artwork - KLD - first dispatch. Own the critical path and remove blockers the moment they appear.
- Run the network in parallel, not in series. R&D, packaging dev, procurement, regulatory, QA - all working the brief at the same time wherever the sequence allows it.
- Typically 25-40 SKUs live across stages at any time per brand. You are the single throat to choke on timelines.
- Drive a crisp weekly cross-functional standup with R&D, Packaging Dev, Procurement, Regulatory, Brand, Supply Chain, and Quick Commerce Ops. Publish ETAs, hold owners accountable, escalate early.
2. Shop & deploy - in-house R&D or third-party:
- Make the build-vs-buy call for every SKU - either deploy a formulation from the Purplle in-house R&D team or shop it from a qualified third-party manufacturer.
- Scout, shortlist, and onboard third-party manufacturers across formulation and filling. Evaluate on tech capability, MOQ, pricing, lead time, and compliance.
- Negotiate commercial terms - per-unit cost, mould ownership / IP, exclusivity clauses, MOQs, payment terms, and capacity lock-ins.
- Manage development timelines with vendors. Zero tolerance for launches slipping because of avoidable back-and-forth on samples, shades, or artworks.
3. Reorder & inventory health:
- Own reorder planning for the brand's full SKU base - forecast demand at SKU x channel level, place POs, and track inbound against promised ETAs.
- Keep inventory days-on-hand inside agreed bands. Attack stock-outs on hero SKUs and aged / slow-moving stock with equal intensity.
- Partner with Quick Commerce Ops (dark stores), marketplace, and D2C web teams to make sure the right SKUs sit at the right nodes.
- Build the monthly S&OP view for the brand - demand, supply, inventory, launches, promos - and drive the review with leadership.
4. Quality - non-negotiable:
- Be the brand's quality conscience. Every batch that leaves a vendor warehouse or in-house line for a Purplle customer reflects on you.
- Set and enforce incoming QC, in-process, and finished-goods quality standards with vendors. Drive CAPA on any consumer complaint, return, or shelf-life issue.
- Own packaging quality - carton integrity, leak tests, drop tests, colour match on tubes / bottles / secondary packs.
- Work with Regulatory to keep every SKU compliant on labelling, claims, and ingredient declarations.
What we are looking for
Experience & background:
- 3 - 7 years of total experience - in NPD, sourcing, or category management.
- Education from a top-tier B-School (IIM A/B/C/L/K, IIM Mumbai (NITIE), ISB, XLRI, FMS, MDI, SPJIMR) or an IIT / BITS undergraduate programme. We are explicitly looking for pedigree here.
- Bonus if you have worked at a digital-first brand, or run your own D2C product brand.
The non-negotiable - you have to be crazy about BPC:
- You should be the person who notices the new launches before the brand's own email hits your inbox.
- You should have strong instincts on formats (stick vs liquid, cushion vs compact), actives (niacinamide vs alpha arbutin), and what is genuinely hard vs easy to execute in BPC.
- You should know the vendor ecosystem - or be hungry to learn it fast. Who can do what, where, at what MOQ, and in what lead time.
- Appetite to learn the full product stack is more important than already knowing everything. If you are hungry, we will teach.
Hard skills:
- Comfort with BOM / COGS / MRP maths, margin stacks, and landed-cost calculations.
- Strong vendor negotiation - commercials, timelines, exclusivity.
- Inventory and S&OP basics - reorder points, DoH, forecast accuracy.
- Working fluency in Excel / Sheets; comfortable reading a P&L.
- Ability to read a stability report, a CoA, and a regulatory label without needing a translator.
Ways of working
- High ownership. This role has no hiding place - if the brand's product engine misfires, it is on you.
- Operator mindset. You are equally at home in a vendor factory in Baddi, on a call with R&D, or in a review with the founder.
- Fast iteration. We ship, learn, and course-correct - we do not wait for perfect.
Why Purplle
- One of India's largest beauty platforms (online and offline), building a genuine portfolio of owned brands with category-defining intent.
- You own a brand's product engine end-to-end from day one - this is not a role where you wait three years for the real work to start.
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Posted by
Posted in
SCM & Operations
Job Code
1703547