DESCRIPTION

• We are pleased to announce the vacancy for Senior Manager- Market Analysis, Research and Planning within Research Planning and Design Department within CEO’s Office.  In keeping in line with our current business needs, we are looking for a person who meets the criteria below.

Brief Description

• Reporting to the COE HOD – Research, planning and design, the role holder will be responsible for;
•  Leading and provide market research and customer insights expertise within the Research & Customer Insights team.
• Being a critical player in terms of input to brand/products ensure brand/product decisions are driven by consumer insights in an effort to maximize effectiveness and profitability.
• Being champion of ‘consumer focus’ and ‘customer insights’ within the business.
• Leading long term opportunity development for innovation projects and their fit with business strategy for portfolio and Safaricom brand development.
• Leading Marketing Research and Customer insights policy in decision making.
• Leading, guiding and responsible for problematic/special projects.
• Overall leadership for the various research needs to develop, commercialize, and evaluate to life Innovations projects.
• Actively shaping the future pipeline, size the opportunities, and develop a clear and robust 5Ws for every Innovation project.
• Creating focus and ownership for shaping business’ future ambitions.
• Ensuring Granular understanding of consumption and purchase behavior by occasion, channel and outlet type – Who is consuming, what, Where, When and Why as well as providing Motivation and other drivers of behavior by occasion & brand, e.g. equity, brand associations.
• Proactively participating in squads, tribes or set-ups that explore new growth areas by helping provide facts that build business cases, implement, and sustain growth areas.

Key Responsibilities

Identify opportunities for growth.

• Embed and drive the understanding of consumer motivation and identification of opportunities that will unlock growth for the business.

Driving consumer-led brand/product building

• Champion and drive world class consumer understanding and insights that will drive growth using a variety of best practice and processes.
• Putting the consumers at the heart of everything, actively inspire and influence Research and product teams to ensure they ingrain consumer feedback/insights in the brand/product strategy and marketing activities to maximize effectiveness and profitability.
• Push planning, insights as opposed to data management.
• Global & Kenya liaison for Research and customer insights
• Develop and manage research budget for the department.

Driving learning into action from measurement and evaluation (M&E)

• Understand the value of M&E to the research agenda and to the brand/products’ performance and it’s fit into the brand/product planning process. Identify and address any barriers to the implementation of M&E, ensure learning and experiences are shared and applied after each activity to drive growth.
• Champion the search and spin of knowledge, information and ideas that will make M&E a creative process that appeals to brand/product teams.
• Drive customer centric culture both with internal and external customers
• Continually challenge the processes and procedures for current supply service levels/ challenging convention

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree.
• Master’s degree preferable.
• 8 years research experience, preferably in FMCG environment or lead role in Research Agency providing consulting / Specialist Support, establishing Strategic direction For Specialist Area, pursuing Innovation and managing the research portfolio.