Senior Manager - NPD, Studded

The role is based at Mumbai and reporting to the Lead NPD Category.

Business Context and Opportunities

A global conglomerate, the Aditya Birla Group is in the League of Fortune 500. Anchored by an extraordinary force of over 140,000 employees belonging to 100 nationalities, the Group is built on a strong foundation of stakeholder value creation. With over seven decades of responsible business practices, our businesses have grown into global powerhouses in a wide range of sectors – metals, pulp and fibre, chemicals, textiles, carbon black, telecom, cement, financial services, fashion retail and renewable energy. Today, over 50% of Group revenues flow from overseas operations that span 36 countries in North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

The Group would like to expand its Retail Footprint and leverage the trust and synergy built over the years in luxury retail by launching a Jewellery Business in India. India's gems and jewellery market contributed around 7% to GDP and 14% to India's total merchandize export in February'21 with a market size was at US$ 78.50 billion in FY21. The jewellery industry in India is largely driven by individual family owned small to medium size businesses. Thus, the Group anticipates that there is scope of development of large retailers / brand in jewellery industry in near future. The venture will benefit from the retail experience, knowhow and trust build over the years with various ABG Luxury Retail Brands. It will also be able to harness the people, technical and operational capabilities from Group's retail arms. The range will be developed as a proof of concept for an integrated offering and may be diversified with multiple brands post establishment of a commercially viable business model.

The Group launched its Jewellery brand Indriya housed in the company Novel Jewels, in June 2024. Indriya had a very good start and all the stores launched by November have been doing exceedingly well in terms of customer response and sales.

The business has successfully launched 89 stores by July 26 under the brand name Indriya with plans to ramp up multiple folds in coming year. The initial customer response has been very encouraging.

Position Purpose and Summary

The purpose of the role is to execute the new product prototyping and development in line with the strategic objectives of the brand. To ensure the new products are delivered as per the Product Calendar with the defined specifications (Quality, Quantity and Timelines).

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Handle Proto development for specifical region/category for new collections/capsules along with the requirements of Design team in a manner that best translates design into live product.
• Review the technical evaluation of the design concept brief to ensure that its feasible for production.
• Review the CAM model/Silver/Ghat of loaded designs for its alignment to the requirements and ensure that recommendations are incorporated for proceeding further.
• Review the Final Prototype and garner required approvals and ensure that the product is fully quality compliance and put into stock post Final approvals.
• Design through newer settings/workmanship/look/ stone cuts etc. utilize them in new collections and collaborate with Design team to use in future collections
• Find new ways to make products at as low cost as possible, challenge and reduce timelines of development to improve process efficiency while maintaining quality.
• Network with existing vendors/manufacturing sources/ technology sources.
• Support in providing technical guidance to the vendors to build new capabilities and upgrades in their existing process to match our requirements so to scale up as per the business requirements

Operations Management:

Design Operations

• Ensure execution to the Product Calendar for the year – maintaining the required quantity, quality and timelines at optimal cost.
• Study the new collection requirements and Design directions and prepare for the same from sampling/ manufacturing perspective.
• Be updated with evolving Consumer, Market, Product, global & Indian trends (across categories and not just jewellery) to be ahead of the game and constantly see how the same can be applied in business in collaboration with Design team.
• Responsible for end-to-end specified allocated vendor management.
• Work closely with the NPD-QC Team by timely update and involving in the interim milestone stages to bring error free and best in class Prototypes Products.
• Support Lead NPD in the development of alternate solutions which are cost efficient and new to existing problems based on benchmarks and competitor analysis.
• Cascade the quality culture in production through building awareness among team members and product review at each stage.
• Re-engineering of some products for quality & optimal pricing improvement/Process improvement.
• Allocate the design concept to the right vendors based on the capability of the vendor and evaluate the samples based on the inputs from various stakeholders.
• Ensure that the recommendations from the stakeholders are incorporated for the freezing of the design concept post the requisite approvals.
• Liaison with the vendors in the development of representative samples for market testing and incorporate iterations for design concept finalization.
• Ensuring the quality parameters are met in sync with our NPD-QC team & repeat order QA teams.

Critical Competencies for Success:

• Expert understanding of Design & Product Prototyping and Development.
• Critical thinking skills.
• Strong Business Acumen with a drive to achieve and collaborate.
• Expert Negotiation and Influencing skills to manage the external as well as internal stakeholders.
• Collaboration (Expert)
• Excellent at Vendor Management

Person Profile

Candidate should have at least 6-10 years of experience in new product development in the Jewellery industry. Specifically, the candidate should have good exposure to all the aspects and functions of jewellery manufacturing, prototyping and development.

Educational Qualification: Bachelor of Design / Degree in design (jewellery)