Retail Product Strategy Lead

POSITION SUMMARY

The Retail Segment is a fast-growing channel for Guardian. We allow consumers to shop, quote, enroll, and pay for non-medical health benefits directly from us online, through partnerships with brokers and aggregators, and through the government exchanges. Growth in this channel has been accelerated by healthcare reform, evolving consumer preferences, growth of retirees and gig/part-time workforce which has resulted in an influx of new individuals shopping and purchasing their benefits online and through government exchanges.

In this role, you will be responsible for working with our internal & external partners to design innovative & market-leading ancillary benefits and well-being solutions for Guardian’s Retail segment. This is a hands-on, highly visible & creative role where you will need to keep abreast of consumer and macro trends and competitive actions to ensure that our retail product set is evolving to keep up with the industry and with market demand. You will partner with the Group Product team to design new products & evolve existing products. You will partner with the Retail Product Delivery and technology teams to determine the execution plan and appropriate prioritization of new and existing product initiatives.

• Retail product lead will play a key role in the development of our product strategy for Guardian’s ancillary benefits and broader health, protection, and financial well-being solutions for the retail market
• This position is responsible for formulating, preparing, and implementing product strategies and action plans as well as monitoring and managing the performance of assigned products throughout the product life cycle
• These responsibilities include active review of the retail product profitability and strong partnership with product, pricing, legal, compliance, underwriting, operations and claims organizations to influence all aspects of the product. 
• Additionally, this individual will help identify & prioritize the design of new products or enhancements in support of market demand and our aggressive growth goals; this will include collaboration with Guardian’s Group Benefits and Individual Markets business lines to build out a robust suite of offerings across health, protection, wealth accumulation, and wellness
• This position will be responsible for partnering with marketing to help define the overall marketing strategy, key messages and differentiation points
• In the future, this position may also be involved in the management of new & existing strategic product partnerships, to the extent that part of the product strategy involves offering non-Guardian manufactured Retail offerings and solutions

You Will:

Product Strategy

• Assess key market factors, including competitive landscape, consumer and policyholder insights, and unmet customer needs to identify areas of opportunity for differentiated product or service enhancements to meet customer expectations and achieve growth for Guardian
  • Identify primary and secondary market research needs to support the development of product strategy work
  • Work with market research team to define research needs and shape research studies
  • Oversee and work to finalize analysis and interpretation of research to provide product direction and guidance
• Translate consumer insights into actionable strategies and initiatives as part of business, marketing and product development plans.

Business Leadership on Product Initiatives

• Drive and champion the development of new products and enhancements of existing products from market assessment through post-product launch
• Execute retail product development projects, providing business leadership to large, complex and cross-functional initiatives, ensuring business objectives are realized
• Collaborate with the Group Benefits product area and other business functions to define business requirements for product, contracts, claims, online and technological capabilities and service
• Support Go-to-Market & partnership strategy working with other members of the Retail Segment team, including working closely with the distribution and technology teams

Product Management / SME

• In partnership with underwriting & pricing evaluate the effectiveness of product performance and leverage insights for influencing or driving product improvement initiatives to positively impact financial outcome of product set, as needed
  • Use data to develop better products and processes as well as influence competitive pricing, compensation and service strategies to meet product objectives
  • Manage activities relating to the maintenance of the assigned product set
• Troubleshoot service, systems