Junior Product Manager
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The Junior Product Manager is generally responsible for researching, understanding, and finally communicating the needs of the consumers to the product manager and eventually throughout the entire business. This communication finds its importance especially with the product engineering team who will use it to enhance and improve the product.
The Junior Product Manager works with Product Engineers as well as other Product Managers in order to produce well-written recommendations, preferably in narrative form. Working with product teams, the Junior Product Manager develops an intimate understanding of the consumer base and what is important to them. He then uses this knowledge to identify opportunities for the business’s product.
Objectives and Responsibilities of Junior Product Manager
Product Analysis: The junior Product Manager is responsible for analyzing market trends and sales performance in order to avail informed recommendations for the product. The Junior Product Manager also analyses competitor activity in order to provide the business’s product with a competitive edge over competition. In this capacity, the Junior Product Manager also develops product stories and points of sale for the product.
Strategic Roadmap Contribution: The Junior Product Manager works to define product enhancements and strategies. He is also responsible for reporting on the product’s roadmap to senior product management.
Collaboration: The Junior Product Manager also has an obligation to collaborate with senior product managers in maintaining plan integration and ensuring the overall achievement of product objectives. The Junior Product Manager works within the product management team as well as other product teams in determining product vision, positioning, and direction.
Product Lifecycle Management: The Junior Product Manager is responsible for the identification of new opportunities, service improvements, and cost reductions. In addition, the Junior Product Manager contributes to the determination of pricing and profitability of the product, inclusive of the approval of special pricing where necessary.
Supports Sales and Marketing Activities: The Junior Product Manager aligns product launch activities with marketing activities. This is achieved through the furnishing of the sales team with competitor analysis, market analysis, business performance analysis, and other research information. In this capacity, he also ensures that the product literature is accurate and relevant.
Other Duties: Being answerable to the senior product manager, the Junior Product adopts other roles as assigned by his seniors or any other Employer representative.
Required Qualifications of Junior Product Manager
There are tons of product management skills you need to develop.
Education: An ideal candidate will hold a degree in a technical field; for example, Marketing, Accounting, Finance, Economics, or Business Administration or the equivalent in experience.
Experience: A Junior Product Manager is preferably a person who has experience in information gathering and the creation of product stories and acceptance criteria. He will also have concrete experience in business analysis positions, preferably in an eCommerce or B2C environments. Also, the ideal Junior Product Manager will have experience in financial analysis and budget tracking.
As an additional bonus, the Junior Product Manager will have experience in the completion of a product project form beginning to end.
Organizational Skills: An ideal candidate will have previous marketing or product management experience within a B2C/FMCG environment. A strong analytical capability with the ability to meet deadlines is a quality necessary for proper execution of the duties in this position.
The Junior Product Manager must also posses an ability to construct clear-cut product requirements and technical documentations on short notice as required by his seniors. Additionally, the Junior Product Manager must be a person who is able to effectively work on several simultaneous projects in a fast paced environment.
Communication Skills: The position is one that demands constant interaction with senior product management personnel, other product team personnel, and consumers. Because of this, the Junior Product Manager must possess excellent communication skills in order to be positioned to effectively make regular presentations to these individuals as required.
People Skills: For a role that is focused on researching consumers’ needs, the Junior Product Manager must possess great people skills in order to be able to effectively interact with the consumers and, hence, execute the purpose of the role. Note, that excellent people skills are also important for the facilitation of smooth interactions in internal business collaborations.
Analytical Skills: The Junior product Manager must also demonstrate exceptional analytical skills in the performance of his duties. These analytical skills coupled with strong technical abilities and a genuine passion for new technologies and analytical tools, are a quality an ideal Junior Product Manager will possess.
Creativity/Innovation/Pro Active: The Junior Product Manager is creative and innovative in problem solving and the formulation of solutions. Additionally, a Junior Product Manager should demonstrate great initiative and motivation in approaching their workload as well as in learning new interpersonal and analytical skills.
