Product Manager Europe

As member of the European marketing team, the role contributes to the development and delivery of the Human Expression business agenda. In partnership with Group Insights and Innovation, Group HQ Sales teams and country Marketing & Sales teams across Europe, the Europe HE Marketing manager contributes to translate the category long-term marketing strategy into regional plans, to identify and build relevant and scalable marketing projects across Europe and to support countries in their plan’s implementation. Key expectations for this role will be:

1/ EU PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Manage EU portfolio on the Writing categories (Ball pen, Gel Pen, Writing Felt pens, Fountain Pen, Graphite, Mechanical pencils); including:

o Performance analysis:

§ Internal data: sales / GP/ ansp evolution

§ Market data: sell out analysis on a quarterly basis (including competition)

o INI process follow up: ratio recommendation, switch management, coordination with countries & RGM to reach the group KPI’s (sku count; sku performance)

o Product development: identify white spaces in the current portfolio and lead development projects (stream 4 only) including sku creation, packaging and artwork development; pricing fixing aligned with RGM recommendation; assets development (content, POS) and lead the stream 4 process;

o New product recommendation: Influence Global innovation team for stream 3 and below to integrate relevant innovation for the EU region.

2/ INNOVATION / BRAND EXPERT FOR EU:

Support Innovation & brand development team in delivering the innovation growth agenda:

o Deliver relevant business case with a deep analysis of the full marketing mix & competition per market for the leading countries on Innovations,

o Provide the right support all along the innovation process (boscard, charter, contract, launch; program meetings, market testing): deliver recommendation and proper analysis, coordinate with the relevant stakeholders (RGM, Legal, ecomm, category management, countries);

o Coordinate the process to deliver innovation in the market:

§ Operational: range design (integrating channel complexity: ecomm, discount, mass, B2B); sku creation, artwork development, forecast with the relevant teams

§ Brand: coordination on assets development with Brand team; digital team for content; packaging team for POS material;

§ Consumers /shoppers/ communication surveys:

· Recommend the relevant surveys to execute a proper launch in countries being not covered by GI&I (turf, shopper, pre & post test, omnibus….) and lead the development with MCI;

· Support MCI team in collecting relevant data for EU market;

o Track results in sell in & sell out;

3/ COUNTRIES SUPPORT:

- Provide the right support to the countries /channels:

o Deliver OTIF support on the group initiatives (tool kit with Innovation team, selling story with category management, in store visibility material, sampling)

o Provide relevant inputs to challenge, question marketing plans execution by a deep analysis of market data, countries benchmark or market benchmark, including media strategy in alignment with Ahmed;

o Build with channel leaders (ecomm, discount, office); the relevant marketing plans;

o Share best practices;

o Actively prepare and coordinate monthly meetings with countries;

o Follow up daily requests

o For UK, Nordics, Germany (UNIDACH), BNL, Italy & Grrece: provide specific recommendation on HE growth; fuel and challenge the local team’s strategy, identify missing products in the portfolio;

4/ TRANSVERSAL TASK

- Manage EU marketing budget;

- Manage with the other EU brand manager a junior brand manager;

Qualifications

· Embraces the Bic values, Core Competencies and embodies these attributes as part of the Europe Marketing community.

· Minimum 5-years successful experience within Marketing / Commercial / Category Management / Business Development, with exposure to several markets.

· Strong listening skills, to collect both formal data (panels, research, sell-in, P&Ls) and informal data (collective knowledge of the Bic organization across countries).

· Highly analytical. Able to triangulate data, to make sense of Europe country and channel complexity, and to spot the priority growth opportunities and projects.

· Highly articulate, able to synthesize information in strongly convincing messages, both verbally and in a written form. Has strong financial acumen to determine ROI of projects even with incomplete data.

· Strong interpersonal and communication skills. Ability to ‘sell’ your analyses and projects vision at all levels within the organization.

· Ability to be strategic and operational. Strong bias for action.

· Highly pragmatic and results-oriented. Operational mindset, decisive in tackling issues, flexible to adapt to quickly changing environments.

· High energy and resilience

· Fluent business English. Command of more languages is a plus.

BIC World is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We strongly commit to hiring people with different backgrounds and experiences to help us build better products, make better decisions, and better serve our customers. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, veteran status, disability status, or similar characteristics. All employment is decided based on qualifications, merit, and business need.

BIC World is not seeking assistance or accepting unsolicited resumes from search firms for this employment opportunity. Regardless of past practice, all resumes submitted by search firms to any team member at BIC via email, or directly to a BIC team member in any form without a valid written search agreement in place for that position will be deemed the sole property of BIC, and no fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired by BIC as a result of the referral or through other means.