Group Product Manager (Global IoT)

About PanasonicWELL:

Launched in July 2023, PanasonicWELL is building an ecosystem of solutions to enable families to live well. We’re leading with innovation and technology to enhance businesses and products that help people everyday. The ecosystem will serve families through new and existing hardware products with a software-enabled experience, industry-leading Responsible AI with utmost privacy, and human beings serving where technology cannot. PanasonicWELL will incubate new brands and future products focused on health, wellness, and wellbeing, enhance existing businesses by building a unified platform to service customers, and train next-generation employees to learn new technology and solutions.

With leadership from big tech like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and hyper growth startups like Nest, Waymo, TaskRabbit, and Casper, we’re motivated to make the world a happier and healthier place for modern families.

PanasonicWELL is a division of Panasonic Holdings Corporation. Our position within a global Consumer Electronics and Services company makes this opportunity one that is rich with world-class capability and game-changing possibilities. Join us!

About The Role:

Panasonic’s new division, PanasonicWELL, is hiring for an experienced Group Product Manager with a passion for IoT to join our Product team. You will engage with the Engineering, Product Design, UX, Operations, Procurement, Marketing, and Planning teams to shape product and roadmap definition as an advocate for cost & supply chain, while enabling beautiful, feature-rich, best-in-class hardware products. In this role one will focus on product research, suppliers, pricing, purchasing, distribution, logistics, and anything specific to services hardware, at scale. Knowledge of IOT consumer hardware, wellbeing sensor and connected products, and/or lifestyle/ health app industry experience would be helpful. This position requires very strong interpersonal and relationship building skills with the ability to effectively influence peers and management, as well as a solid understanding of consumer electronics architecture, supply chains, and manufacturing cost structures. This role will work closely with Panasonic Corporate to leverage cross-company collaboration on Hardware development. Ideal candidates will have a natural curiosity about how things work and why.

The PanasonicWELL division was created in April 2023 to ideate, incubate, and scale new ventures inside Panasonic while building a comprehensive AI/Data/IoT Platform exposing “everything as a service”. It is a growing team of 250+ employees both in the United States and Japan intent on delivering new growth opportunities in health and wellness for Panasonic.

PanasonicWELL is able to employ individuals who reside in (or that are willing to relocate to) the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

What You’ll Get To Do:

• Define hardware and distribution strategy by focusing on user-centered design, product research, suppliers, pricing, purchasing, distribution, logistics, and warehousing specific to product hardware
• Defines the strategy and executes on the business and financial results for a product portfolio through the leadership of team(s) managing new and existing products by creating a differentiated customer experience utilizing traditional and emerging capabilities in technology, operations, and data analytics
• Drive the execution of all product lifecycle processes for products, including product strategy and roadmap, product research, market research, competitive analysis, planning, positioning, roadmap development, requirements development, and product launch.
• Collaborate closely with development/engineering, production, marketing, and sales teams on the development, QA, and release of products and balance of resources to ensure success for the entire organization.
• Collaborate and Leverage the product expertise and capabilities of Panasonic corporate.
• Identify potential products; conduct market research; determine customers’ needs and desires by specifying the research needed, generate product and application requirements; determine specifications, industrial standards, and certificates; production timetables, pricing, and time-integrated plans for product introduction; developing marketing strategies.
• Manage and perform testing and qualifying procedures in existing and new products with an in-depth understanding of the product. Identify issues and propose improvements in both hardware and software.
• Recommend the nature and scope of present and future product lines by reviewing industrial applications, product specifications, and requirements, appraising new product ideas, and/or product or packaging changes. Introduces and markets new products by developing time-integrated plans with sales, advertising, and production.
• Track, monitor, report, and improve product performance
• Create product requirements for the engineering and support teams to refine, improve, or enhance existing features and quality.
• Identify the key benefits and value of products for marketing decisions and collect product life cycle data
• Assess market competition by comparing the company’s product to competitors’ products Analyzes market and competition data to create products to match and surpass current industry standards. Assess current competitor offerings, seeking opportunities for differentiation.
• With Marketing and Finance, Determine product pricing by utilizing market research data; reviewing production and sales costs; anticipating volume; costing special and customized orders.
• Collect feedback from sales and customers to improve the product
• Understand key consumer electronic technologies to be able to identify cost trade-offs that challenge design, feature, and supply chain constraints
• Other responsibilities for business sustainability per request and/or research
• Hold regular executive forums to review/discuss trending cost vs targets and drive opportunities for cost & design optimization
• Manage product cost to achieve pricing and margin targets; set individual cost targets for each component/module
• Support product integration & feasibility scenarios, ROI analyses, supply chain optimization investigations, environmental implication assessments, etc.

What You’ll Bring:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information technology, or product design.
• 5+ years of product management experience, marketing development, and successful product launches..
• Excellent Communication Skills -including communicating with strictly business-minded people and with strictly technical-minded people, comfortable getting into deep technical discussions with engineers (and users) about the pros and cons of different approaches.
• User-Centric Attitude- must be able to identify the technical aspects that can contribute to the user’s success.
• Ability to translate user-centered concepts and product roadmap into a technical product requirements or product specifications document.
• Systematic Thinker- must have experience determining the best course of action based on the whole picture.
• Strong Business acumen, the ability to understand company strategy and economic drivers.

What We Offer:

The future of work at PanasonicWELL is flexibility. Like many other leading Silicon Valley based businesses, we follow a hybrid workplace model post-pandemic. We believe this model is consistent with our goals of fostering a highly collaborative culture, promoting employee well-being, and developing a workplace that is engaging, equitable, and innovative.

Local (Bay Area) employees are expected to come into the office on Mondays & Wednesdays and optional on the other days of the week. Fully remote (Work From Home) employment may be available for select positions.

This position is eligible for participation in our employee bonus program. Grade level and salary ranges are determined primarily through the scope and complexity of the role along with a review of the applicant’s experience and skills, as well as alignment with geographic market data and equity with other team members.

Employee benefits include:

• Opportunity to join a hyper-growth startup on a mission to make well-being attainable for modern families
• Competitive compensation
• Comprehensive benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA, FSA)
• 401(k) with employer match
• Life & Short Term Disability Insurance
• Supplemental Medical Coverage
• Unlimited PTO
• 12 Company Holidays
• Paid Maternity & Parental Leave
• Paid Caregiver Leave
• Employee Assistance Program
• Group and 1-on-1 Career Coaching
• Pet Insurance
• Casual Dress Code
• Catered Lunch & Snacks
• Discounts on Panasonic products
• Company Social Events

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by law or company policy. All qualified individuals are required to perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. Pre-employment drug testing is required for safety sensitive positions or as may otherwise be required by contract or law. All candidates must have valid authorization to work in the U.S. Thank you for your interest.

PanasonicWELL