General Summary and Responsibilities:

The Product Line Manager (PLM) is for the creation, implementation and communication of category-leading products in the assigned product categories. The PLM manages the entire lifecycle for each product, “from cradle to grave.”

Cascade Designs is a family of six leading outdoor brands and over a dozen diverse product categories. We operate in domestic and international Outdoor, Military and Medical sales channels. The specific product categories and channels the PLM will manage will depend on qualifications, prior experience and interest.

Position Responsibilities:

• Product Strategy: Translate consumer insights and market analysis into a long-term strategic plan for the brand and product lines, inclusive of product development plans, product roadmaps, technology roadmaps, and multi-year/season visual line plans.
• Consumer Insights: Conduct both qualitative and quantitative research to develop a deep understanding of our consumers, their needs, and opportunities for product development. Participate in the actives of our users and get intimate, first-hand experience with equipment from our brands and those of our competitors.
• Market Trends: Be an authority for the organization on current and future trends in the market. Work closely with the Sales organization to gather intelligence from retail partners. Stay on top of market trends within the outdoor industry and consumer durable goods space. Benchmark competitive product performance, pricing, distribution, technology, and quality.
• Product Development: Lead and collaborate with cross-functional project team members in Product Development, Manufacturing and Supply Chain. Develop product briefs that guide product development projects. Champion the voice of the consumer/customer (VOC) in the product development process, ensuring that the needs of the user are a central consideration in product design. Benchmark against competitive products in the marketplace, establishing features and performance criteria for new products, ensuring their viability, competitiveness, and reason for being. Achieve consensus on key decisions that assure on time product delivery.
• Stage-Gate Presentations: Build business case, conduct financial analysis, compile cross-functional documentation, and present to the leadership team on the behalf of the project team for all stage-gate project review meetings.
• Product Lifecycle Management: Identify year-over-year product adds and drops to/from the product line. Coordinate end-of-life planning and execution across the global sales, supply chain, manufacturing, and finance teams, ensuring smooth operational and financial transitions out of products.
• Sales, Marketing & Service Partnerships: Support the global sales team in presenting and placing new products and product assortments with key retail partners and distributors. Participate in tradeshows, regional rep shows, and consumer events domestically and internationally. Work with the Sales team to vet product strategies, establish pricing for new and existing products, and refine brand and product positioning within the marketplace.
• Product Training: Lead regular product training sessions for outside rep groups, international distributors, and internal customer support and sales staff.
• Costing, Pricing and Profitability: Set financial targets for all new product development projects, including costing, wholesale pricing, retail pricing, and gross margin. Work closely with product design, manufacturing, and supply chain to ensure that projects come in on-target. Review pricing strategy and profitability across the entire product line on an annual basis.
• Go-To-Market Planning: Work intimately with the Marketing organization to establish product positioning, product naming, and aid in the development of packaging, marketing content, point-of-sales materials, and collateral. Collaborate to develop product claims and instructions for use. Ensure technical accuracy of copy, images and product positioning. Collaborate with other Product Line Managers and Marketing to maintain consistent brand integrity. Coordinate development and production of all product sales samples throughout the creation process.
• Project Management: Share in project management responsibilities with other cross-functional members of product development teams. Collaborate with leadership to assign appropriate timeline to projects and prioritize appropriate projects given available resources. Request additional resources when necessary. Drive projects to successful on-time completion. Report status of projects through appropriate communication channels. Ensure product data and attributes are populated into appropriate systems.
• Quality: Ensure appropriate quality assurance is applied throughout product creation. Monitor product quality control reports and identify challenged product to receive remediation. Ensure resolution of product quality issues through appropriate cross functional teams via root cause analysis, solution finding, validation of changes, and approval back into product offering.
• Regulatory Compliance: Maintain knowledge of regulations that govern the design, functionality, or use of the products and translate that to product development teams. Coordinate with Quality and Legal to ensure all products meet applicable regulatory standards. Assure (along with QA and Legal) that appropriate licenses and permits are obtained and maintained for the sale of products. When possible, represent CD on relevant regulatory boards or professional agencies (e.g. ASTM, CSA, EN/CE).
• Atypical Product Development: Collaborate with appropriate partners for projects such as military contracts, special make ups for retail partners, etc.
• Perform other tasks as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications and Desired Characteristics:

• Minimum 4-year BA/BS degree in Business, Marketing, Merchandising, Design, or Engineering or 6 years equivalent experience required
• 4 years of relevant Product Line Management work experience
• 2 years of experience in the outdoor products industry
• Passionate and active outdoor participants are highly preferred
• Strong strategic and financial planning ability
• Strong analytical ability; a data-based decision maker
• Strong interpersonal and oral presentation skills
• Ability to lead a cross-functional team to deliver a successful program—on-time, on-budget, on-spec
• Strong project management capabilities
• Professional level of experience in Microsoft applications required (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• This position is based at our headquarters and factory is in Reno, Nevada.

Working Conditions

Work is performed in an office environment, with periodic assignments in the lab, shop floor, and in the field with our sales reps and retail partners. Occasional domestic and international travel is required.

This is intended to describe the general nature and level of work done by people assigned to this job. It is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of the duties or requirements.