Video Product Manager

Position Summary:

Product marketing for Kustom Signals, Inc. (KSI) Video product line and others as assigned. Principal responsibilities are the marketing, planning and execution for assigned KSI products including, product sales growth, profitability, management of product marketing, and assigned phases of development and introduction of new products, liaison among sales, marketing, engineering, operations, and customers. Represent the organization in external discussions and technical forums for assigned products. This position also manages special projects, as required.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Development of assigned product line plans with Video Engineering Manager (Product Road Map), programs, assigned phases of product development, strategies (short and long term), promotion, planning, forecasting (both short and long term), and profit and loss results. Owns the product line and must work with other departments to influence needs for change that are not in direct control, such as costs or sales planning. Responsible for overseeing development projects to come in on specification, on time and on budget.
• Collaborate directly with external development partners and vendors on specifications and resolving any product issues involving suppliers or their processes.
• Manage product pricing policies (including price lists), revenue, margins, and profitability to increase market share.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Design Engineering to develop long term strategies, conduct competitive analysis, feature rankings, SWOT analysis, score carding, value propositions, competitive matrices, price ladders, etc.
• Identify new product opportunities and create financial justification for product development projects. Responsible for defining Product Requirements in conjunction with Design Engineering, Capital Justification, and delivering Board of Directors approval package (PAR).
• Analyze, identify, and aggressively target growth based on input from district sales teams, distributors, end-use customers, authorized service centers, and contractors globally.
• Collaborate with Marketing Manager to conduct market research to identify key accelerators and inhibiters to market growth and end-user demand for assigned KSI products.
• Manage beta testing for new product introduction. Responsible for executing beta test plans, overseeing the customer response, and providing beta test results and feedback.
• Provide Sales with technical support to facilitate sales. Liaison between Sales, Engineering and Operations. Collaborate with Order Entry, Engineering, and Sales to facilitate administrative activities including Special Pricing Requests (SPRs), Special Configuration Requests (SCRs), develop and review bid specifications including competitive specifications, assist in creation of compelling bid responses and write Sole Source product letters.
• Collaborate with Sales to identify required regulatory testing to enable product sales globally and work with Engineering to manage the regulatory testing approval process.
• Collaborate with Marketing Manager to implement/promote/communicate both internally and externally: marketing programs, strategic sales and marketing items, literature, social media, website, press releases, value proposition, advertising, and promotions, etc.
• Develop and deliver product presentations to key customers. Including Tiger Team presentations.
• Develop and deliver Sales training presentations and materials to Sales personnel and distributors.
• Support trade shows with product expertise, product messages, and material as required.
• Project Management duties, as needed, to support the creation and advancement of their product line.
• Lead the collaboration and management of the Back-Office Management System for the Video System solution. The collaboration will be between Video Engineering Management and the Technical Sales Manager on SaaS design, cloud solution architecture and storage design to ensure a complete system solution for customers.
• Manage Expert Testimony Process. Train and manage group of technical experts that deliver court testimony and achieve judicial notice.
• Perform all other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Contract personnel including technical experts for judicial notice hearings, and dotted line responsibilities for technical writers, Engineering Project Managers, and for special project consultants.

Equipment to be Used:

Typical office equipment, including desktop and laptop computers, telephone, calculator, copier, portfolio specific equipment, small hand tools, and basic test equipment.

Typical Mental Demands:

• Stressful project and analytical challenges.
• Must be comfortable multi-tasking and moving quickly throughout the day among important, parallel tasks.
• Ability to read and comprehend instruction, correspondence, and memos.
• Ability to effectively present information to customers and other employees of the organization.
• Being flexible to successfully develop strong working relations with a wide variety of customers whose positions, knowledge, capabilities and expertise greatly vary.
• Maintain a working knowledge of products and services.
• Action oriented, constantly changing environment.
• Track rapidly changing competition and market forces.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with key performance indicator of sales performance.

Skills:

• Knowledge of business planning, determination of customer requirements, and analysis of market demands.
• Excellent communication abilities (oral, presentation and written), phone voice and high etiquette and customer service skills.
• Team builder - ability to work with all areas of the organization to advance the product line through achieving cooperation based on establishing trust/respect.
• Experience and general knowledge of digital video technology, IP networking, and digital data storage technology.
• Management of stressful project(s) and analytical challenges.
• Must be self-motivated, detail-oriented, organized, and have the ability to work with minimal supervision.
• Career orientation toward continuously improving performance, meeting objectives and producing positive results.
• Can persuade, convince or influence others to see Company’s viewpoint or accept a Company-suggested course of action.
• Acts as an arbitrator within the Company by recognizing and responding to customer’s and company’s perspective, situation and needs.
• Collaborative in nature.
• Self-sufficient user of email and Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
• Must be comfortable multi-tasking and moving quickly throughout the day among important, parallel tasks.
• Ability to read and comprehend instruction, correspondence, and memos.
• Ability to effectively present information to customers and other employees of the organization.
• Work with a wide variety of individuals at levels ranging from technical experts to law enforcement executives to end users.
• Maintain a high level of working knowledge of products and services.
• Action oriented in a constantly changing environment.
• Track rapidly changing competition and market forces.
• Develop universal strategy for growing sales with varying sizes of customers
• Develops and builds relationships with select influential customer contacts to potentially use as a new feature barometer
• Understands customer needs and responds promptly and appropriately; seen by the customer as a valued partner.
• Ability to effectively troubleshoot and diagnose problems.
• Projects a confidence in own and Company’s ability to meet challenges and make the right decision(s) toward meeting customer and company needs.
• Can deal positively and effectively with adversity.
• Previous experience using sales automation and/or CRM software.

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business or engineering.
• Five (5) or more years of marketing/sales and/or engineering experience with complex, engineered, configurable products in high-performance matrix organizations that are dynamic and team oriented.
• Product, project and/or program management. Highly desirable in experience with products for the public safety market and experience with products that have significant embedded electronic hardware and software content.

Benefits

• Benefits are available on the first day of employment.
• Company-sponsored life and short-term disability insurance.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Health Savings Account when paired with a high deductible medical plan.
• 401k retirement savings plan with an employer match of up to 4%.
• 100% employee-owned company through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) after meeting eligibility requirements.
• Paid time off, including Vacation, Personal or Discretionary (Sick), and ten (10) paid company holidays.
• Tuition reimbursement for pre-approved courses.
• Climate-controlled work environment.
• Consistent weekday schedules provide exceptional work-life balance.