Associate Product Specialist

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Continually research the applications in which our products are used to maintain a superior level of expertise.
• Identify market trends and needs through cultivation of consumer insight and market research.
• Solicit regular feedback from our distributors, contractors, and dealers to help guide internal decisions.
• Collect industry data and sales statistics, develop and maintain competitive analysis of products.
• Research competitive pricing, value propositions and product positioning strategies.
• Improve engagement of internal feedback channels to regularly harvest information from field sales reps.
• Cook up and coordinate individual and cross-functional research excursions.

Product Development and Lifecycle Management

• Understand and support management of your products’ entire lifecycle, from concept to commercialization, maturity and decline.
• Leverage stage gate development philosophy to keep detailed and thorough records of activities.
• Support new product commercialization and national product promotional activity.
• Support product rationalization activities through data analytics and consideration of portfolio evolution activity.
• Continuous improvement - updating and evolution of existing processes, procedures, tools, etc.

Project Management

• Build and maintain relationships with cross-functional team members.
• Develop and maintain project gantt charts to methodically track a project through phases to completion.
• Responsible for providing routine project status updates.

Inventory Management

• Frequent monitoring and identification of inventory challenges.
• Collaborate with departments to improve product line turns and maintain appropriate inventory levels.
• Support execution of inventory reduction initiatives.

Product Strategy

• Propose and develop category strategies.
• Convert market and category knowledge into quantifiable business cases for consideration.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Education and Experience: Bachelor’s degree in business-related concentration
• Specialized Skills and Experience: 1-3 years product marketing experience. Experience in building or industrial products field a plus. Knowledge of construction materials and techniques a strong plus. Hands-on work style. Cannot be afraid to occasionally get dirty!
• Excellent communications & presentation skills. Strong analytical data acumen. Strong presentation and written skills.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Programs (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project).
• Physical strength to lift and carry minimum of 25 pounds.
• Fluent in English. Second language a plus.
• Team cooperation - maintain a positive, cooperative attitude with all employees of LATICRETE and all customers.
• Dedication, commitment, and flexibility: ability to manage through change and challenges.
• Travel requirement: Up to 20%, domestic and international. Must have or be able to obtain a passport.