Product Assistant London, England
Job description
Key Accountabilities
This is not just any job this is a M&S Product Assistant job! Your role will be to assist the product development team in formulating, directing and delivering commercial product development for customers in line with category and project plans and business strategy.Key Capabilities
What’s in it for you
Being a part of M&S is exactly that – becoming a part and playing your part. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and always evolving business built on core values.
Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special…
- 20% Colleague discount on most things from furniture, fashion and food.
- A first-class welcome to M&S with a tailored induction and a wide range of training schemes to help with your learning and development. Having options to progress is something we’re proud of at M&S.
- Attractive annual bonus, based on company performance and personal objectives.
- Competitive holidays!
- Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices website. Including GymSave – that offers up to 25% off Gym Memberships and the option to become an M&S Shareholder using our ShareSave & ShareBuy Schemes
- Charity Volunteer Day – A paid day away from work to support your chosen charity.
- A very generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance
Every colleague at M&S has access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support – this includes access to our 24/7 Virtual GP, PAM Assist to support you & your family & free access to the UnMind App as well as many other schemes
What you’ll do
Your key accountabilities will include
- Examine the marketplace and competition to keep up to date with trends in foods, lifestyle, packaging and ingredients that influence the customer, market and potential product direction supported with regular reporting to the team
- Understanding of M&S and competitor product categories and the products within them - covering existing M&S range and the retail competition
- Assist in delivering the stage gate process, managing all product samples, both incoming and outgoing, product information for photographic shoots, quality benchmarking, supplier meetings, press requests, travel tests and product sampling
- Collate product information, samples and build product displays to support all internal events, including category reviews and product forums, and all external events, including conferences and press shows.
- Support the team in creating and coordinating presentations, accurate and timely management information, range planning documents and competitor & directional insight.
- Handle, coordinate and report accurate management information for internal and external benchmarking, tried and tested, press coverage and awards. Maintain up to date information for Trading area and present findings every quarter.
- Deliver accurate product and category information relating to product and project requirements in a timely manner to multi-channel teams.
- Co-ordinate product nominations for all food awards, Press and Marketing opportunities across the Trading area
- Fully conversant with M&S systems to ensure new products are delivered against the relevant critical paths.
- Continue to develop a direct and positive relationship with partners, working collaboratively to deliver results
Who you are
Your skills and experience will include
- You will be highly organised at handling sources of information, systems and processes.
- You will have good IT skills in PowerPoint, Excel and Word.
- You are able to use automated NPD systems. You have a positive, proactive and motivated mindset.
Everyone’s welcome
M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the retail industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact.
We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working.
If you consider yourself to require reasonable adjustments to any part of our recruitment process, we invite you to share those requirements with us when completing your application. We will make every effort to ensure your needs are met to provide a fair and transparent process of assessment.
