Sr. Technical Product Specialist

About the position

This is an exciting opportunity to join Hirose, an organization that for almost a hundred years has been pioneering thousands of new connectors and defining industry standards in consumer electronics, industrial automation, high speed backbone computer infrastructure, automotive, and medical applications. A compact company of smart people, Hirose uses the talents of every employee to bring innovation to put big technology in small packages. Reporting into the Assistant VP of Product Management, this position is an individual contributor with primary responsibility for managing the product life cycle and influencing roadmaps for assigned product group(s) to accelerate product success today and tomorrow.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for assigned product groups, their product life cycle management, and helping grow their revenue through indirect and direct means, which includes customer visits.
• Provide an annual and five-year revenue outlook for assigned product groups.
• Responsible for achieving annual Key Performance Indicator (KPI) targets.
• Accelerate New Product Introduction (NPI) design-in through initiatives, programs, and/or visiting target customers with a salesperson.
• Develop product strategy, which means knowledge and implementation of the 4P’s, market analysis, competitive analysis, and then executing accordingly adjusting if/when needed.
• Create and deliver customized product presentations both internally and externally that highlight Hirose’s competitive advantage, value proposition(s), and why we win summaries.
• Collaborate with adjacent Hirose Americas teams (Segment, Marketing, Sales, Distribution, Engineering), Japan (Product Marketing, Sales Promotion, Segment), and on occasion with global teams if needed (e.g. Hirose Europe).
• Comply with established Hirose policies, pricing guidelines and best practices.
• Join technical standards committee(s) that best align to assigned product group.
• Obtain voice-of-customer feedback from target customers on existing products and new product ideas. Travel to customer sites is required in most cases.
• Collaborate with Hirose Americas Sales team, Segment team, and Hirose Japan teams to qualify both Americas and global-derived new product ideas.
• Utilize the stage-gate process to qualify new ideas based on their product definition and revenue potential.
• Help influence the roadmap of assigned product group.
• Continually demonstrate Hirose’s philosophy of 'connecting wisdom' and 'always taking the lead, pursuing the cutting edge, achieving differentiation, and being the first to obtain consumer’s approval'.
• Build close relationships with Hirose Japan personnel and assist with periodic customer visits by Japanese engineers and other Hirose personnel.
• Create a collaborative team environment within the HRS support groups.
• Complete tasks per ISO9001-2008 requirements, when applicable.
• Prepare and submit sales activity reports on a timely basis including the rolling 12-month sales forecast for domestic and international, Manager’s report, Regional Program Updates (RPU’s), Distributor Quarterly Business Reports (QBR’s), Private Show updates and information pertaining to the development of Hirose’s CRM database.
• Complete all required reports, presentations in a timely fashion.

Requirements

• BS degree in technical field required.
• 10+ years total in a technical role or combination of technical roles including outside sales, product marketing, and/or product management experience.
• Must possess technical knowledge or aptitude to be able to fully comprehend the customer’s connector and connector solution requirements and take corresponding action to enable Hirose’s success.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent project management skills.
• Organizational skills must be above average. Ability to manage multiple assignments while meeting deadlines and quality standards.
• Possess excellent communication skills (oral and written) to work with both external and internal customers. Able to clearly and concisely communicate across different cultures.
• Excellent presentation skills including creating PowerPoint presentations.
• Ability to resolve issues and escalate in a timely fashion and to the customer’s needs.
• Computer literate and proficient in MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Self-motivated & positive attitude with great energy.
• Must be able to travel up to 25% of the time (most likely will be 25%-50%). Travel includes the territory of Hirose Americas, sometimes to Hirose Japan HQ’s once or twice per year if needed.
• Must be authorized to work for the US without visa sponsorship now or in the future.