Sr. Product Manager

Company / Location Information

A.O. Smith is a global leader applying innovative technologies and energy-efficient solutions to products manufactured and marketed worldwide. The company is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of residential and commercial water heating equipment and boilers, as well as a manufacturer of water treatment products for residential and light commercial applications. A. O. Smith is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with approximately 12,000 employees at operations in the United States, Canada, China, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

Primary Function

As a Senior Product Manager at AO Smith, you will bring cross-functional leadership and strategic thinking to our product management team, driving product innovation, market expansion, customer satisfaction, and ensuring growth by delivering P&L requirements. This role offers a unique opportunity to influence the company's growth trajectory and shape the future of water heating solutions while playing a strategic leadership role in setting the vision for a specific product platform in the segments. This role will report to the Segment Development Leader. Duties including but are not limited to gathering and prioritizing product and customer opportunities, defining the product vision, and working closely with engineering, sales, marketing and support teams to ensure revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction goals are met.

Job Responsibilities

Product Owner

• Perform product life cycle management to maximize product line profitability. Create detailed business, marketing and product requirements and maintain the product plan for all channels served by the product line.
• Develop and present business cases for new products, plan and implement product launches.
• Drive specifications and solutions across cross-functional development teams through to implementation.
• Perform qualitative and quantitative research with existing and prospective customers, assimilate customer and market requirements
• Provide in-depth market, industry and competitive analysis and positioning. Identify and document competitive threats, industry innovations and other industry related information.
• Monitor market and technological developments and incorporate information into the overall corporate product portfolio strategy.
• Monitor and document field issues and recommend product modifications.
• Create, develop and maintain product sales & service support materials.

 

Innovator

• Identify and terminate products that are no longer needed
• Develop new products opportunities
• Identify the need for and conduct research to determine future products or services

 

Business Partner

• Serve as the primary product expert for the corporation
• Provide day to day supervision of the product management team.
• Serve as core team member on new product development projects.
• With Finance, develop business case for products including sales forecasts, target pricing, and cost targets
• Help profitably grow market share by providing Sales with extensive product information, competitive information and appropriate training
• Other responsibilities may be assigned as needed.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from four-year college or university preferably in Business, Engineering or a technical field
• 7+ years of related work experience, 5+ years leadership experience​​​​​​
• Prior experience in plumbing, HVAC, or a related field, in retail and/or wholesale channels
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to read and understand technical documentation such a blueprints, electrical schematics, and product specifications.
• Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions form large and diverse audiences to include: top management, groups of managers, clients, customers, and the general public.
• Proven ability to lead other product managers and/or development team members on pro