Network Product Specialist

Products and Services Management

• Manage & optimize the global Protolabs Network offer performance within existing capabilities or operational improvements (i.e. material, process, capability optimization).

• Represent product management in project meetings & discussions with Business Analysts to support Product and the overall goals of the Protolabs Network business, optimizing margin dollars and customer experience. Work with Network Global Product Manager to collaborate on critical priorities, decision-making, risk management, and help needed for projects.

• Represent product management in website quality testing; develop and refine a suite of necessary scenarios to test for different user experiences ahead of launch. Work with Global Product Manager to determine the severity of any issues found.

• First level triage of offer questions; work with Global Product Manager to solve problems for customers, sales team and/or other stakeholders with other internal stakeholders in GTS, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Finance, and Sourcing.

• Understand & document competitive position in the global marketplace

Strategic & Planning Support

• Support the Global Network strategy development by collecting data as required by the Global Product Manager to enable product line growth above market rate. This could include data generated from Domo, Looker, web searches, collation of survey results, etc. Create Excel or Domo graphical or data summaries and outputs to support the global service line strategies/roadmaps/stage-gate deliverables

• In tandem with Customer Experience team, design and execute impactful market research studies; drive to conclusions and actionable recommendations for the business

• Work with Customer Experience team to understand customer, partner, and internal stakeholder needs and key value drivers. Work with Global Product Manager to create research guides & plans, eventually developing key underlying themes from the VOC. Support the Global Product Manager in the development of an actionable segmentation model and the creation of a differentiated value proposition for a new customer offer. Understand and define how this offer should complement and align with our exiting Factory offers across services.

Pricing

• Work with Pricing Team to monitor impacts of our pricing strategies. Understand pricing gaps, risks, and opportunities for optimization of global offer pricing to meet business requirements for pricing goals as well as optimize margin for Protolabs Network; jointly present opportunities to Global Product Manager for action

• Work with Pricing and Sourcing team to closely montior performance of our pricing inputs, recommending any actions or analysis needed for counterbids, margins, or partner feedback.

• Work closely with Sourcing, Sales,Pricing Team and Product Manager to develop a production pricing and large deal approval process.

Program & Project Management

• Collects, synthesizes, analyzes and reports measurement data; supports reviews of marketing and Go-To-Market activities

• Run recurring reports to understand success & progression of offer(s) for reporting to management helping in facilitating financial forecasting and quantifying offer return on investments

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or business (economics, statistics, finance) or data science.

• Having a demonstrable track record of technical understanding and working with strong technical organizations required for non-technical majors.

• Successfully completed an internship or at least 3 years of experience in an organization related to business-to-business (B2B). Direct experience with Network-based third-party partner fulfillment business model is strongly preferred.

• Demonstrable experience with data analysis techniques and creating useful summaries of information with sources clearly identified.

• Flexibility and active interaction in working with global projects and cross-functional teams that successfully achieve milestones and complete deliverables.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Ethical, collaborative team player looking to grow the Protolabs Network business while keeping company-level goals paramount

• Demonstrated Microsoft Excel dataset simplification and presentation

• Ability to use Microsoft Powerpoint and Microsoft Word effectively

• Excellent, respectful communication skills in the written form and in dialogue with coworkers

• Creative and resourceful self-starter who will make a first draft of the effort on their own, then refine the work together with the product management team to get results in optimized form

• Research-oriented mindset, looking for patterns, “why’s”, and numerical models and explanations for reality

• Familiarity/experience with development within dashboarding software desired; examples are Domo/Looker/PowerBI/Tableau. Familiarity with project management tools, such as Asanda, is preferred as well.