About The Rug Company:
The Rug Company is a well-established British design business specialising in delivering high-end furnishing to retail and trade customers around the globe. Cutting edge design and designer collaborations combined with high-quality, one-off products, has resulted in The Rug Company becoming a UK and US market leader, as well as having a competitive presence in other regions, such as Germany. The client base includes retail customers that want a high quality, handmade product, as well as trade clients (interior designers and architects) designing the interiors of domestic or commercial projects.
The Rug Company has significantly invested in its digital offering so that customers can experience an immersive experience across all touch points. Impressive showrooms around the world connect with localised websites showcasing the finest rugs and wall-hangings on the market, with experienced, knowledgeable staff on hand to provide exceptional customer service, understanding the importance of selecting the right rug for each room and appreciating that this is a process – a narrative – that will take time and cannot be hurried. Creating this seamless and delightful customer experience across all channels will enable the brand’s success.
The Role:
As our Head of Digital Product, you will be responsible for owning the digital experience. Your role is central to us providing the most optimised, user-friendly experience across all our touchpoints. This is a critical role in the growth of the overall business, a key decision maker, and the go to expert for our operations, platforms, and systems architecture.
You will take ownership of the digital roadmap, ensuring seamless and elegant functionality, decide on the backlog prioritisation and take the product vision through design, build, test, iterate phases.
You must be able to balance strategic planning and change, while also driving hands-on delivery and results. So, you must be willing to get your hands dirty from day one; writing user stories, deciding the product roadmap, designing and testing features, plus the day-day operational tasks. You will have strong experience with UI/UX design, and be passionate about creating beautiful, functional products, which match the luxury design quality and aesthetic of our business.
You will form part of the Digital Leadership team, responsible for the overall business success.
Responsibilities:
- Be responsible for planning and implementing the digital roadmap.
- Be the primary contact for our digital operations, regular site updates and trading changes.
- Setting direction and objectives for the development team.
Collaborating with the marketing team to optimise campaigns and the customer journey. - Lead and embed the cultural adoption of digital across the organisation.
- Find new ways to exploit digital capabilities and solutions.
- Turn concepts and tests into business-as-usual operations.
- Build business cases for investment decisions.
- Run the fortnightly sprints and quarterly planning cycle.
- Define the product vision and roadmap aligned to business strategy, plans and priorities. Set the direction in terms of what we will and will not do.
- Decide on backlog prioritisation and take the product vision towards completion.
- Work closely with the development team to make sure we are balancing the need to deliver short term high impact work with more long-term strategic items.
- Line management responsibility (hire a web merchandiser/co-ordinator, future PM function)
Competencies:
- A strong understanding of technology product delivery standards, frameworks, and methodologies.
- A proven track record in product management, luxury experience a bonus.
- A proven track record in delivering both large scale technology changes alongside smaller optimisation programmes.
- Solid commercial and analytical skills, an understanding of the things that most impact conversion and sales, the ability to troubleshoot and problem solve using data.
- A strong collaborative attitude with an instinctive ability to work well with people. Superb communication skills and presentation skills. Be able to win hearts and minds, convince and persuade.
- Demonstrative experience of telling stories, simplifying complex work.
- Strategic digital thinking capability and an instinct for what customers need/want.
- A highly developed curiosity with the determination to find answers to address business challenges
- The ability to constructively challenge and question approaches that do not align to the strategy or business plan
- A willingness to push the boundaries to achieve and exceed industry benchmarks
- Proven ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines with a solid attention to detail
- Well organised, structured approach, and able to work on your own initiative
- You strive for excellence in everything you do. A solution finder, you will be highly personable and pro-active in your approach to work and achieving your goals
- You are customer obsessed, deeply understanding their product and service needs, challenges, and concerns. You not only meet our customers’ expectations, but you exceed them
- You bring the highest level of integrity, honesty, and accountability in all that you do, every day. You are a trusted, organised team player who has an exceptional addition to detail
- You are cool under pressure. You make the complex simple and adapt to change. You empower others to learn, to be curious and ultimately, share your passion for the brand