Assistant Manager – Consumer & Technical Insights

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We are looking to hire an Assistant CTI Manager – Consumer & Technical Insights for our Home Category based in Mumbai:

The Home Care category strives to bring delightful products across fabric cleaning, fabric enhancers and home and hygiene to 1 billion consumers across the world.

Consumer technical Insight (CTI) is a strategic Capability for Unilever Research & Development (R&D). Its main remit is to generate and translate product insights into innovation and growth opportunities for the business across several expertise areas (product qualitative research, product testing/quantitative research, claims and demonstrations, sensory evaluation, laboratory testing)

Job Description:

The R&D Consumer & Technical Insights team is responsible for providing consumer direction and leadership in product design to the R&D teams (New Product Development, Product optimization & Value Engineering, Innovation, Future Formats)

• This global role is based in Mumbai (India), supporting the Home Care business globally. Some of our global brands are (DiG, Comfort, Radiant, Surf, Sunlight, CiF)

• The general purpose of the job is ensuring the delivery of high-quality product evaluation and insights through strategic understanding of consumers and habits to support our global innovation portfolio across our global Home Care brands. The role will involve working in a multi-disciplinary business environment with cross functional teams, providing a critical link between the Global unit and cluster colleagues around the globe

• The role will involve bringing fresh design thinking to the different CTI projects through the entire product innovation cycle. This would include but not limited to:

• Discovering needs of the project and the pain points to be solved for the end consumer through various techniques such as ethnography, immersions, workshops
• Defining the goal of the project and use innovative ideation techniques to scope the ideas to be implemented in the projects
• Designing the solution (creative stimuli) and product experiences that can deliver superiority and cascade to relevant stakeholders
• Testing stimuli with consumers through different stages of innovation cycle e.g., ideation, concept, and product evaluation

• Responsible for (but not limited to)
  • Creating design playbooks for critical moments of consumer preference for e.g., fragrance to guide business for a winning product design experience
  • Creating compelling assets/demos for communicating the consumer benefit that can be used across channels such as E-comm and trade

• Work with external design agencies to craft briefs, guide stimulus development and deliverables in line with design thinking principles

Main Accountabilities

• Understanding business needs at different stages of product innovation cycle and crafting the design thinking objectives, stimuli, and deliverables (such as immersive playbooks, (both digital and offline) to achieve them
• Support in co-ordinating consumer studies from end to end to support project networks. Be proficient in designing the brief, getting proposals from the agency, commissioning the study, monitoring progress, data analysis and interpretation and sharing of the results on time.
• Working with project team, global counterparts, Consumer Market Insight team & agencies to ensure seamless delivery on the project.
• Have a keen interest in consumer behaviour (their habits and attitudes, drivers), category, brands, and competitive environment to generate, develop and support insights for superior mixes
• Help in the analysis of trends, consumer needs, new technology impact on consumers, and consumer/market/product insights to identify new opportunities for the business.
• Working knowledge and some prior experience of using graphic designing tools like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and movie making tools would be additionally desirable

Key interfaces

• Fellow R&D Associates, global teams, Project team, Technical Project Leader, Marketing, CMI, Cluster CTI teams

Relevant Experience

Preferred Level of Education

• Minimum Masters
• Area of Specialization – Master’s in Psychology/Design / Technology/ Statistics/Economics/

OR

• Master’s in Business Administration with Bachelors in Economics/Statistics/Life Science / Psychology/Design/Arts/Humanities
• Any additional certification in Consumer Research/Consumer Behavior will be preferred.

Job-Related Experience

• No of relevant experience – 6 to 8 years (in agency, FMCG, E-commerce)
• Any prior experience or exposure in working on consumer research will be desirable

Key Skills (Functional/General)

• Curious thinker, observer, and dynamic learner
• Creative and versatile
• Design and systems thinking
• Behavioural research
• Content writing
• Ideation and storytelling
• Consumer orientation       
• Good communication skills (verbal/written/presentation)
• Excellent influencing skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a team player
• Proven Project management skills
• Drive, energy to make a real contribution
• Pro-active and enthusiastic approach