A typical day would involve trying to map what the economic landscape is from different regions, followed by reviews with senior management about new product development and usually with a few investigations about how competitive our products are in the market (from price to actual performance!)
What are the main tasks and responsibilities?
I'm responsible for mapping the competitive landscape, influencing R&D and Marketing in aspects related to the competition and customer perception. I'm also responsible for mapping out business strategies for new business plans in the big emerging markets.
What are the main challenges?
Constant business trends, recent macro-economic changes & environment, how different the environments and customer attitudes are in Ireland compared to the US or China and Brazil! Taking all those little (or major) differences in to account make system understanding far more challenging.
What's cool?
Always looking for the “next big” event: Either new product development, new market trend, next big competitor move. My role is to make sure I’m “ahead of the curve” to give guidance to other teams.
What's not so cool?
Because is a world-wide role, I might have conferences at crazy hours of the night for long periods or very early (before 7am)...thus ensuring all geographies are covered.
What particular skills do you bring to your workplace?
Have a systemic understanding of developing products for a global market, this means understanding of: Key market indicators, current business performance, production & operations principles, R&D and technology knowledge, regional understanding, etc. Hence you need a bit of everything: statistical analysis, CAD & 3D modelling, and even Press Management and great presentation skills!
