Product Manager

Full-Time Anywhere

DriSteem Corporation, a division of Research Products Corporation designs and manufactures humidification systems to meet the unique requirements of health care, industrial, process-critical, commercial and residential applications worldwide.  We are currently seeking a Product Manager to join our team in Eden Prairie, MN.  This position will reside with the Marketing team and report to the Director of Marketing.

The progressive work environment leads to an engaging and fun atmosphere where team successes are celebrated and individuals are positioned and mentored to thrive.  We offer a flexible work schedule, generous health benefits, quarterly profit sharing, PTO, wellness opportunities (in-house yoga and strength training, company walks), volunteer and community involvement options, training, Popcorn Tuesday, and many more team building and employee-centric benefits.

We are looking for someone who can see opportunities and wants to make a difference as part of a growing team.

Position Summary:

The Product Manager is responsible for supporting product market share growth, and the strategy, roadmap, planning, marketing and execution required to achieve it throughout the product life cycle. The Product Manager continuously analyzes market and competitive conditions and identifies points of product differentiation and unique value based on customer demands. This hands-on role spans strategic to tactical activities and provides cross-functional coordination—bridging between engineering, business systems, sales and marketing.

The Product Manager’s role includes ensuring that the product supports the company’s overall strategy and that revenue and customer satisfaction goals are met.  Product managers will possess solid business insight and exhibit strong cross-functional coordination skills.

Key Responsibilities

Support and document market share performance and long term strategy behind assigned products along with their competitive positioning, roadmaps and forecasting.

Promote the voice of the customer inside the business championing testing the product, talking to users and getting user experience feedback first hand from reps, engineers, contractors, and end-users.

Essential Functions/Duties/Responsibilities:

Research and Analysis

  • Research and analyze market conditions, share, competitors and customer trends.
  • Be an expert on the market and the competition and define how to position products for success.  Understand and monitor market pricing conditions.
  • Articulate market requirements and product growth opportunities.
  • Perform market research and intelligence gathering to determine customer requirements and business opportunity relative to product enhancements, product line extensions and/or new markets and applications.

Product Planning & Management

  • Execute product vision and strategy and champion products within the organization from the highest levels of executive leadership to development and implementation teams.
  • Document and communicate product roadmaps to ensure long-term industry leadership through the continuous flow of product innovation and improvement within the framework of the company’s long-term strategic direction.
  • Develop product plans for assigned products that document positioning strategies (i.e. price, education, advertising, promotion), financial performance, market forecast and product life cycle.
  • Manage in-life product performance: sales, margin, and P&L performance, conducting extensive numerical analysis using company data to drive ongoing improvement in sales and profitability.
  • Assist with/guide value engineering efforts
  • Ensure field communication of all product modifications, application issues, or product problems by working closely with technical support, sales and engineering.

Product Marketing

  • Define product positioning, key benefits, and target customer; acting as an internal and external evangelist for your product offering.
  • Provide the sales team with tools and technical expertise to enable them to sell the product. This includes printed and electronic promotional material, product training, & relevant technical papers.
  • Review product data to ensure that the field force is kept up to date on new developments regarding the company’s or competitors’ products.
  • Work with marketing communications to develop and execute product communication plans and promotional campaigns to generate product awareness and demand.
  • Prepare and present technology and product training materials for internal and external product training seminars, conference, trade shows, articles, discussion groups, and online forums.

Product Development

  • Assist in investigation, definition and documentation of product requirements and business cases.
  • Assure development projects are properly scoped, customer requirements are clearly defined, and that results will meet specifications of the market and DriSteem manufacturing environment.
  • Support execution of product development plans coordinating approval, beta release, training, and communication of product changes and their impact on associated customers and internal operations, systems, and processes.

 

Product Support

  • Act as the lead resource for the rest of the organization when deep product expertise is required.
  • Manage product-related feedback and inquiries from users and ensure that key feedback and requests are seamlessly integrated into ongoing product planning and development.
  • Work with tech support on escalated field cases, working cross-functionally to achieve resolution.
  • Advise the management team of significant field issues and/or product issues.
  • Support continual compliance with ISO 9001 standards and procedures.
  • Perform related work as apparent or assigned.

 Qualifications:

  • Desire & ability to deeply understand DriSteem products, and HVAC systems they operate within.
  • Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing or Engineering. Master’s degree advantageous.
  • Minimum 5 years relevant product management/marketing experience in the industrial, commercial or institutional HVAC field.
  • Strong business, strategic thinking, planning & financial analysis skills
  • Self-motivated with positive attitude, proven leadership and teamwork skills to work cross-functionally to achieve targeted business results
  • Sufficient technical experience to deal effectively with basic thermodynamics and psychometrics.
  • Excellent presentation, written and verbal communications skills.
  • Strong analysis/synthesis, organizational and creative problem solving skills.
  • Maintains professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops; reviewing professional publications; establishing personal networks; participating in professional societies.

In addition to a progressive work environment, DriSteem offers a 401(k) plan with company match, comprehensive medical, dental, life, STD/LTD plans, EAP, as well as generous paid time off benefits and tuition reimbursement.