Senior Research Manager at Oda

Oda is a B2B e-commerce platform that connects merchants of all sizes, from kiosks to supermarkets, with dependable suppliers. The platform simplifies the process of ordering, stocking, and discovering new products, enabling businesses to grow and thrive. Oda is focused on empowering retailers by streamlining supply chain operations and fostering efficient business interactions with trusted vendors. Whether for small-scale businesses or large operations, Oda aims to make commerce seamless and accessible.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Senior Research Manager

Location: Ajah, Lagos
Employment Type: Full-time

Key Responsibilities
Research Framework Design & Standards:

• Objective: Build a structured, repeatable merchant research system.
• Design research frameworks tailored to each product category evaluation when required
• Select and apply appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods
• Develop standard tools: survey tools, interview guides, and field evidence templates
• Define research SOPs, documentation standards, and turnaround timelines
• Set evidence-capture and QA standards to ensure consistency and comparabilit
• Ensure compliance with domestic legislation, data protection requirements, and research ethics.

Merchant & Field Research Delivery:

• Objective: Gather validated, ground-level evidence to inform expansion decisions.
• Lead end-to-end research delivery (scoping, design, fieldwork, analysis, and dissemination)
• Guide and supervise local field teams conducting merchant interviews
• Conduct direct merchant visits when required (e.g., validation, escalation, complex cases)
• Capture and validate key commercial indicators (e.g., product mix, velocity, margin, sourcing behaviour, credit patterns)
• Ensure data integrity, completeness, accuracy, and traceable supporting evidence.

Category Assessment & Recommendation:

• Objective: Translate field findings into clear category decisions.
• Analyse merchant data to identify viable product categories and demand patterns
• Evaluate margin structures, unit economics, and commercial feasibility
• Assess repeat-purchase behaviour and demand consistency
• Prioritise categories based on scalability, operational fit, and execution constraints.

Insights, Reporting & Decision Support:

• Objective: Produce decision-ready outputs for Product and leadership teams
• Convert findings into actionable insights and structured recommendations aligned with business priorities
• Explicitly document risks, constraints, and assumptions
• Quantify potential impact (e.g., margin, GMV, operational implications)
• Present conclusions in clear commercial language for senior stakeholders.

Research Infrastructure & Scalability:

• Objective: Build Oda Academy’s internal research capability.
• Create reusable research templates, playbooks, and lightweight research workflows
• Standardise documentation and repository structure for version control and retrieval
• Recommend tools/systems to improve efficiency and repeatability
• Maintain research risk management, audit trails, and reporting for transparency and accountability

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Objective: Ensure research directly supports product and commercial execution.
• Work closely with Product and Commercial teams to align research priorities to expansion goals
• Support UAT validation from a merchant-behaviour perspective (e.g., usability, adoption barriers, edge cases)
• Provide research-backed inputs into requirements, rollout planning, and trade-offs.

What we are looking for

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Economics, Marketing, Statistics, or related discipline
• 5 – 8+ years experience in market research, product research, category expansion, or commercial analytics
• Proven experience conducting primary, product-focused field research (beyond desk research), including on-the-ground data collection
• Strong capability in research design: surveys, interview guides, sampling approaches, and repeatable research systems
• Experience analysing merchant, retail, FMCG, or distribution data (e.g., product mix, pricing, margins, velocity, payment patterns)
• Demonstrated ability to produce clear research protocols and decision-ready reportstranslating qualitative findings into commercial recommendations
• Ability to operate independently with end-to-end ownership of research workstreams
• Strong field leadership and ability to coach and quality-assure on-ground data collection teams
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to simplify complex findings for non-technical audiences
• Strong commercial judgment — able to balance data with operational realities and business trade-offs

Desirable Experiences:

• Experience in FMCG, distribution, wholesale, or retail ecosystems
• Experience working in Nigeria or similar emerging markets
• Background in credit-linked product research or merchant financing environments
• Exposure to category expansion or portfolio development in a scaling business
• Experience building research functions from scratch.

Application Closing Date
16th March, 2026.