McCormick & Company, Inc., a world leader in the spice, flavor and seasonings industry, is seeking a full time Product Manager I or Product Manager II supporting the Innovation team. This new hire will work in our Global Headquarters located in Hunt Valley, MD. The Product Manager II will report to a Marketing Director.

With more than $5 billion in annual sales, the Company manufactures markets and distributes spices, seasoning mixes, condiments and other flavorful products to the entire food industry – retail outlets, food manufacturers and foodservice businesses. We create differentiating flavors consumers prefer with unmatched quality, science, innovation and service. Every day, no matter where or what you eat, you can enjoy food flavored by McCormick. McCormick makes every moment and meal better™

As a company recognized for exceptional commitment to employees, McCormick offers a wide variety of benefits, programs and services. Benefits include, but are not limited to, tuition assistance, medical, dental, vision, disability, group life insurance, 401(k), profit sharing, paid holidays and vacations.

POSITION OVERVIEW

Product Manager (equivalent of industry Senior Associate Brand Manager) will manage upstream strategic funnel and pipeline development, working in partnership with base business & marketing managers of the US Branded Foodservice business within Flavor Solutions Division. Scope includes insights and positioning, brand experience choices and communications recommendations.

The successful candidate will collaborate with business managers to identify, develop and ready commercialization of capability-building and portfolio diversification opportunities that align with business and operating plans. In addition, partner with cross-functional partners; and North American, Canadian and Global as it relates to new product development. This colleague will drive continual improvement and adoption of process and framework improvements to drive more impactful innovation.

This colleague is also responsible for quarterly portfolio reporting and analysis as it relates to Portfolio Management Review (PMR), S&OP / IBP new product performance, Annual Planning and Long-Term Planning. Scope includes on-going trend mining and assessments to enable ideation around opportunity spaces, flavor and macro trends.

RESPONSIBILITIES

DISCOVERY: Identification of category & brand opportunities that expand our portfolio
•Diversify portfolio through thoughtful consumer, operator & patron insights, thorough competitive and market analyses and deep understanding of emerging trends
•Influence evolution of brand pipeline and funnel within company’s strategic priorities with a brand lens. Build brand equity with clear behavior objectives; e.g. – retain, recruit, etc.
•Uncovering business opportunities: underdeveloped categories and formats; and new item opportunities. Ascertain & size business opportunities
•Consider macro benefits, attitudinal & outside category interactions and substitutions; assess course of action to pursue. Utilize instincts, observations and experience.
•Mine secondary landscape & consumer category segmentation to identify insights, need state, occasions, etc.

DEFINE PROPOSITION: Identify assumptions and needs to build profitable propositions
•Develop & shape business platform propositions to enable delivery of annual budget and strat plan
•Influence and assess funnel and pipeline health
•Create robust multi-faceted iterative learning plans to validate, assess and prepare platform projects for commercialization in partnership with functional experts and cross-division partners. Establishes action standards and associated hurdles. Partners with consumer & market insights to manage all external / internal consumer & operator-based market research activities
•Lead category and business case development. Analyze data and information from a wide variety of sources to develop effective business building plans; including trade promotional analysis and competitive analysis
•Inspire and lead cross-functional teams; works closely with other departments such as Research & Development, Operations, Finance, Sales, Consumer Insights, Manufacturing and Supply Chain
•Generate breakthrough, disruptive ideas that inspire to enable technical advantages and insulate us from competition; exceeding our consumers’ and operators’ wants & needs, and winning their hearts & minds

CREATE GROWTH: Bring platforms forward into commercialization
•Build, shape & deliver complex new platform propositions; characterized by expanding existing or establishing new organizational capabilities. Partner with respective functional experts: ?R&D: Develop product and package structure
Sales: Support customer trade plan and sell-in strategy development
Operations and Manufacturing: Enable effective supply chain to deliver outstanding customer service
Brand Marketing and Creative Services: Create packaging graphics that build and enhance brand equity
Finance: Identify key assumptions to bring profitable, margin accretive opportunities forward

•Utilize Innovate 2 Win stage-gating commercialization process to ready platforms for commercialization and launch. Depending on complexity, transition project management to Base Marketing prior to commercialization. Drive continual improvement & adoption of process improvement to drive more impactful innovation.
•Develop and recommend launch and on-going A&P, trade plans, distribution assumptions and goals in partnership with Brand & Sales

In addition to the responsibilities above, the Product Manager II will assume responsibility for an extended list of projects with greater complexity and will manage with more autonomy. Minimum of 4 to 6+ years of relevant brand marketing experience; experience managing cross-functional teams, running a brand P&L business and scope of responsibilities influencing portfolio.