NPD Commercialization Manager at a Market Leader in Fruit Juices, Fruit Drinks, Yoghurts and Snacks - Truss Ugavi Limited

Truss Ugavi Limited - Our client, a market leader in fruit juices, fruit drinks, yoghurts and snacks in Nigeria, is recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: NPD Commercialization Manager

Location: Lagos
Employment Type: Full-time

Job Description

• The primary focus is managing all NPD (innovation & renovation) projects from conception to in-market launch by coordinating the NPD Stages & Gates process and drives adherence to the process by all stakeholders -Gatekeepers and cross-functional project teams.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Responsible for coordinating and ensuring the smooth running of the NPD process, ensuring that all approved innovation and renovation projects are launched on time and in full in line within the NPD process guidelines.
• Use strong project management & stage-gate principles to deliver innovation and renovation projects on time, in full, and on budget.
• Plan, organize, run, and manage NPD Gate meetings. Capture current status and required actions, share meeting minutes, and follow-up with all stakeholders on agreed actions for all innovation/renovation projects.
• Support delivery of accelerated volume, revenue, profit, share, and weekly consumption growth over annual business plan.
• Understand the external environment (consumers, category, and economic), interrogate data to identify future business levers, identify new sources of opportunity, balance facts with intuition to distil complex opportunities to develop compelling business cases for implementation.
• Conduct regular business reviews using various data sources, make sense of trends, and proffer solutions for business growth.
• Work closely with the brand team to identify opportunity spaces to innovate into.
• Work with the knowledge & insights team to evaluate feasibility of new concepts, products, packaging, or brand extensions.
• Support renovation projects as mandated by the business to deliver improved profitability on current portfolio.
• Provide support on or manage key strategic business initiatives or adhoc projects as they arise or as assigned.
• Ensure compliance with brand guidelines and local regulatory requirements on all project parameters.
• Work closely with other departments – R&D, Regulatory, Procurement, Finance, Business Planning, Quality Assurance, Logistics, Supply Chain, Sales, to drive excellence in commercial execution of NPD projects.
• Ensure continuous improvement by capturing multi-faceted learnings from projects. Ensure post launch reviews are done on all launched projects, and document learnings for future business actions – success factors, limitations to success, optimizing processes, improving efficiency/effectiveness, reducing go-to-market lead times.
• Pursue innovation and change with a mind-set of continuous improvement.

Qualifications and Skills Requirements

• Bachelor of Science (BSc. Hons) Degree in Business Management, Marketing, or other relevant Science or Social Science course from a reputable higher institution.
• An MBA or Master’s degree in a related field would be an advantage.
• 5-7 years working experience in a brand management, project management, or business planning role in an FMCG company.
• Good Verbal & Written Communication – Ability to communicate clearly and without ambiguity. Demonstrate exceptional command of the English Language.
• Problem Solving – Develop innovative solutions to address business, brand, or company issues. Innovate and/or create new opportunities to ensure future company success.
• Business Knowledge – Ability to understand key elements of the company's value chain; understand all areas of the business with a view to being able to make decisions that positively impact on the company's bottom line.
• Displays confidence in addressing business challenges.
• Drives innovative business improvements and delivers business results.
• Determines financial impact of planned innovation/renovation projects.
• Self-motivated and confident. Takes full accountability for his/her own performance.
• Translates deliverables into personal objectives and focuses on what matters.

Work Experience:

• Excellent project planning and management skills.
• High business acumen with ability to prioritize between strategic and tactical business objectives to ensure optimum delivery of brand volume, revenue, and profit targets.
• Proven experience in prioritizing immediate, short-term, and long-term business requests, ensuring full delivery on all project deliverables on time and in full with no delays.
• Ability to engage, work with, and manage multiple internal and external stakeholders with a view to achieving business results.
• Ability to build effective and collaborative working relationships, work well in teams and with individuals, and be a team player.
• Ability to work in a matrix environment with multiple stakeholders at different levels of seniority.
• Ability to develop initiatives and work independently but collaboratively in teams, with a supportive “can do” attitude.
• Ability to lead and work with cross-functional teams (internal & external) to deliver business results, while being able to build strong internal & external networks quickly.
• Experience preparing project documentation and process mappings.
• Experience running cross-functional project meetings with individuals of varying seniority levels.

Application Closing Date
17th October, 2024.