Senior Product Manager I

Senior Product Manager I, Decision Science & AI Capabilities Elsevier Operations is seeking a Senior Product Manager of AI Solutions. This is a unique opportunity to join an exciting team, aiming to deliver best-in-class AI solutions.

Organizational Context

Reports to: Director – Decision Science & AI Capabilities

Direct reports: 0

Internal: Operations business leads, Operations management team, Technology, Product teams (in both Operations and Business), Data Science, CX/EX specialist, Project managers, Product owners, Strategic supplier managers, Technical architects, Global procurement, Finance

External: SaaS partners, service providers

Budget responsibility: N/A

Purpose of the Job

As the Senior Product Manager I, you will play a pivotal role in the development, implementation, and optimization of AI-driven products and solutions that align with the company's strategic goals. This role combines the responsibilities of product management and business analysis to ensure the delivery of high-quality, impactful AI products. As part of this role, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and external partners to drive AI-enabled innovation, measure ROI, and deliver tangible value to the organization. You will be working closely with technology, data science, CX/EX specialists and innovation managers, project managers, product owners, strategic supplier managers, technical architects.

Strategy & Vision:

• Support in developing and communicating the AI product vision, strategy, roadmap, and benefits.
• Ensure success criteria (metrics and KPIs) are defined and evaluated for key AI programs and products.
• Support in establishing metrics and tracking mechanism for product-level measurement of ROI and product-level budget.
• Write or contribute product expertise to the development and submission of business cases.
• Support prioritization of AI use cases based on user, customer, and business needs
• In close partnership with tech teams,
• Keep a close eye on changes in the technological landscape and keep stakeholders informed.
• Work closely with technology partners in developing strategy and roadmap for enterprise-wide AI solutions.

Ideation and Innovation:

• Conduct regular brainstorming sessions to identify potential AI opportunities within the organization.
• Organize ideation workshops, hackathons, and process deep dives to foster cross-functional collaboration and generate innovative ideas.
• Facilitate knowledge-sharing sessions to explore emerging trends and technologies in the AI space.

Product Development and Roadmap:

• Define product features and functionalities in alignment with business goals.
• Support product owners in defining and articulating business requirements.
• Work with the Technology group to deliver on the roadmap in line with business expectations.
• Ensure all delivery milestones and product decisions are data-driven and have clear success criteria.
• Analyze risks and issues hindering product scope, develop mitigation plans, and escalate as needed.
• Ensure ownership of deliverables is clearly defined, documented, and communicated.
• Develop hypothesis-driven product evaluation strategies, such as AB testing, and assess the expected efficacy of each.

Stakeholder Engagement and Collaboration:

• Collaborate with stakeholders, technology teams, procurement, operations, data science teams, key business leaders, and strategic supplier services to validate projected benefits and track progress towards value delivery goals.
• Facilitate demos and trainings for relevant groups across the company.

Performance Monitoring and Data-Driven Decisions:

• Continuously monitor performance and establish new KPIs where required.
• Use concrete facts, including A/B testing, to support decision-making.
• Ensure all processes are adequately documented.

Market Insights and Research:

• Conduct regular market research to stay informed about the latest AI capabilities and adoption strategies in the industry.
• Engage with industry experts and attend conferences/webinars/demos to gain insights into emerging trends and best practices.
• In close partnership, with tech collaborate with data science teams and strategic suppliers to leverage external expertise and align internal strategies with industry benchmarks.

Functional and technical Competencies

Customer Focus

• Has the confidence and skill to conduct customer insight activities with minimal support.
• Speaks as the voice of the customer internally
• Able to segment markets and analyze differing needs of those sub-segments
• Able to sense the direction of the market based on multiple considerations and to provide input on product strategy
• Capable of applying insight of competitor and regulatory environment when making product decisions

Data-Driven Decision-Making & Analysis

• Is proficient at pulling and accessing data from multiple sources, managing through data ambiguity and potentially conflicting data sets
• Is proficient in taking an analytical, data-driven approach for situations where rigorous data sets are unavailable
• Able to lead teams in identifying and testing hypotheses.

Go to Market & Product Marketing Lifecycle

• Able to independently support GTM strategy by communicating customer value propositions, requirements and timelines to stakeholders
• Is proficient in answering questions from sales and customers regarding feature function, pricing, packaging, value proposition and competitive position
• Is skilled in participating in market & product messaging of desired outcomes and deliverables

Product Delivery & Development Lifecycle

• Applies knowledge of the broader product experience to develop comprehensive prototypes
• Able to drive solutions for complicated design challenges.
• Able to use data-driven decision making to prioritize features and products
• Can weigh internal and external impacts when making product or feature decisions

Strategy & Commercial Acumen

• Able to make connections between product strategy, business strategy and personal goals to drive commercial success
• Able to understand how their role contributes to success of product and business strategy and goals
• Able to understand target markets and customers, seeking insights from other subject matter experts when needed
• Able to understand buy, build or partner trade-off
• Able to understand revenue and commercial performance

Technical Skills

• Able to apply expertise in the product domain in serving as a technical resource for other groups
• Is knowledgeable about new emerging technologies and those of our competitors
• Able to understand technology trade-offs made in the product, at a high level
• Is knowledgeable of the relationship between the company platform and technology

Behavioral Competencies

Practices Self-Development​

• Takes ownership of own development and career​.
• Understands what is required by the business to be successful and maps development plan accordingly​.
• Looks to build challenges into current assignments​.
• Initiates regular conversations with manager, coach or mentor regarding self-development​.
• Learns from success and failures​.
• Utilizes formal and informal networks effectively.

Solves Problems and Analyzes Issues​

• Is able to ask effective questions and collect facts from multiple sources in order to solve problems​.
• Is able to effectively identify and analyze problems and propose solutions​.
• Effectively manages day-today issues and problems without intervention.

Innovates

• Develops new ideas to improve process or product and is able to prepare implementation plans.
• Integrates and builds on new ideas from others.
• Creates new opportunities by applying different perspectives and challenging the status-quo.
• Is recognized as an innovative thinker.

Inspires & Motivates Others to High Performance

• Ensures that personal style encourages a positive environment​.
• Creates an environment that enables individuals to be motivated.
• Is able to employ different motivational strategies for different people and situations.
• Energizes people to achieve high levels of Inspires and sustains engagement through a shared purpose and vision performance.
• Inspires others around the organization​.
• Demonstrates a win-win mindset during negotiations or group decisions​.
• Tailors job assignments so that they are intrinsically linked to an individual's potential and motivations

Drives for Results​