Sr. Product Manager

Digital Control Incorporated (DCI) is the world’s leading supplier of underground locating and steering products for the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) industry. Since the introduction of this revolutionary technology 30 years ago, Digital Control has been at the forefront of trenchless technologies that enable the efficient installation of underground utilities such as fiber optic, telecom, gas, and water lines world-wide. DCI’s products are valued for their durable design, ease of use and uncompromising commitment to customer service.

DCI is seeking a Sr. Product Manager to drive global product strategy, partner with R&D in achieving New Product Development (NPD) and assure market success for products assigned. This highly collaborative role requires an understanding of applicable technology, knowledge of relevant DCI industries and markets, ability to uncover unmet customer needs, and to applying modern practices for sales enablement. Working with a team of product managers, engineering project managers, engineering team architects and leaders in the organization, you'll apply your knowledge of NPD and industrial applications to shape our product ecosystem's strategic product roadmap.

Managing key product lines, you will ensure seamless integration with our broader product suite while delivering customer value and driving requirements that consider the needs across global markets.

This position requires tight partnership with the R&D and (Outbound) Marketing teams.

Perform Industry and Market Research

• New products and businesses:
  Identify new products and/or new business opportunities consistent with the corporate strategy. Research opportunities sufficiently well to justify investments to stakeholders.
• Industry: Become the resident expert on the competitors and competitive offerings for your assigned product area and/or industry or market segment.
• Market:
  Become the resident expert on the customers and customer needs for your product area and/or market segment.
• Visit customers:
  Research will require both paper studies and travel to understand customers and those who have chosen to purchase competitive products.

Create New Product Strategies

• Product Strategy:
  Define a winning product strategy for your assigned product area and/or market segment that also considers other elements of the DCI ecosystem (hardware and software) and aids a winning overall ecosystem. For a winning ecosystem, product managers must align with each other on key decisions, features and requirements.
• Project Portfolio Management:
  Prior to product roadmaps, work with other product managers and the R&D team to propose (for the Leadership Team) an investment plan in new products that accounts for and balances risk/payback, new/old markets, high margin/price-sensitive markets, high growth/low growth markets, etc. Allow this to feed decisions on the product roadmap.
• Product
  
  Roadmap:
  
  Working with other product managers and the R&D team, develop a roadmap proposal (for the Leadership Team) that is financially justifiable as the best use of funds, and accounting for the balance accepted for Project Portfolio Management.
• Acquisition Strategy:
  Consistent with the DCI corporate strategy and your product strategy, propose (to the Leadership Team) acquisition opportunities. Justify them in terms of strategic alignment, synergies and financials.
• Diversification Strategy:
  Consistent with the DCI corporate strategy and aligned with other guidance given by the Leadership Team, propose (to the Leadership Team) diversification opportunities. Justify them in terms of strategic alignment, synergies and financials.
• New product launch Strategy:
  Work with the (Outbound) Marketing team to develop the strategy for launching new products, including key areas on which to focus messaging.

New Product Details and Justification

• Project Financial Valuation:
  At various points in in the New Product Introduction (NPI) process, perform (or refresh) Project Financial Valuation (using approved tools and methods) to justify new product and/or new business opportunities.
• Product Requirements (with R&D):
  During the “fuzzy front end” of the NPI…