Lenovo

Director of Product Management is responsible for the Server business’s product planning and execution all through the lifecycle of the business.

This is inclusive of gathering and prioritizing requirements for the product, defining the vision for the product, and collaborating with other teams from the engineering, sales, procurement and operations departments in order to ensure that the financial and customer satisfaction goals are met. In addition to this, the Director of Product Management also ensures that that the company’s overall strategy and goals are supported by those of the product; that the product goals and strategy do not deviate from that of the business. This role is within the ThinkSystem Server Product Management organization. A capable candidate must demonstrate strong collaboration skills, keen understanding of server technologies, a broad understanding of the enterprise market, and the ability to use these skills to gather customer / market requirements to build business cases for server and option products. Ultimately, the candidate will be responsible for delivering a roadmap of new capabilities and features for the ThinkSystem Server portfolio that will drive top line profitable growth for Lenovo.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the product management team in which you motivate and achieve steady improvements in your area
• Sales and profit and loss responsibility for the server and options (Memory, SSD, HDD, NICs, CPU etc.) business
• Work close with options vendors to understand their roadmaps, drive Lenovo requirements, and collaborate on go-to-market activities
• Drives the development and communications of server product requirements for the ThinkSystem portfolio.
• Develops specific marketing and communications plans and activities for specific product(s) or product line(s) to establish, enhance or distinguish product placement within the competitive arena.
• Oversees market research and conducts competitive analysis to determine appropriate positioning and product messaging.
• Evaluates in-depth market analysis and leads the development of business cases for the optimization of existing products/solutions and/or to create the next generation of new products.
• Applies broad knowledge of company’s product/service capabilities and competitive environment to identify new growth areas, new technologies, and emerging product/service opportunities.
• Oversees the analysis and evaluation of key market statistics and customer requirements to define product strategies and identify product opportunities to expand market share.
• Develops business plans, marketing strategy, and forecasts for server products.
• Maintains current status of customer requirements for existing and future products.
• Ability to prioritize conflicting requests for limited resources through data based decision making
• Supports product launch and provide sustaining efforts to enable quoting, validation, pricing, order entry, and fulfillment of products under management via internal sales tool and external web stores.
• Works with demand, supply, and pricing teams to ensure accurate forecasting, lead-time estimating, and pricing for products under management.
• Manages product launches to ensure sales force readiness and optimize P&L impact of product transitions with focus on minimizing E&O.
• Identifies, evaluates, and recommends marketing opportunities consistent with product line and solution objectives. 
• Manages product portfolio roadmap and works to scope opportunities and obtain appropriate funding for new programs.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree
• At least 10 years of relevant experience managing enterprise products
• Great people skills paired with a high level of assertiveness
• Prior management experience required
• Strong knowledge of IT industry technologies, future trends, and direction
• Strong presentation skills to audiences including senior executives, customers, industry analysts
• Must be fully knowledgeable in classic marketing skills (i.e. Product, Positioning, Pricing, and Promotion)
• Solid grasp of financial management concepts, including ROI analysis
• Strong analytical skills
• Good organization skills, including the ability to form cross-functional project teams effectively

Preferred Requirements

• Direct experience managing Enterprise Server products
• MBA 
• Previous experience managing global teams