Role Summary
Product and Business Development is a highly selective department responsible for developing financial products and services -- organically or via partnerships. The department coordinates product development efforts with select members of the Volkswagen and Audi brands to ensure optimal success. This role will facilitate the development of financial product studies, analysis, and marketing deployments that are customer driven, value focused and profit/growth oriented.
This position will be primarily responsible for supporting the attainment of the Ancillary Product yearly revenue and sales targets through the launch of new products and the enhancement of existing marketing efforts on current products.
To accomplish this objective, the ideal candidate will
- analyze and understand demand for our Affinity product programs including our Extended Service and GAP products, Personal Lines Insurance Products and other new product opportunities
- work closely with the Manager, Product and Business Development and various functional teams within VCI, Volkswagen and Audi to ensure successful market and product analyses are conducted, summarized and presented to management
- be responsible for the development and execution of marketing initiatives relating to the launch of new products and the maintenance of existing products. This includes demand building communications, product literature production, coordination of sales events/activities, development of product training programs and materials and other related marketing efforts
- regularly report on existing products and/or departmental activities for audiences that include: Internal VCI Senior Management, Field Personnel, Dealers, Customers, Finance Department personnel, Board members and Affinity Partners.
- handle project management duties relating to new product launches and other departmental initiatives.

Role Responsibilities
• Support the attainment of the ancillary product yearly revenue and sales targets through the launch of new products and the enhancement of existing marketing efforts on current products.
• Work with product management to define the service/feature/solution positioning and messaging required to develop sales collateral, customer communications, and PR communications strategy for all stakeholders and customers
• Represent product marketing across the organization to help facilitate effective campaigns within dealerships, field offices, service centers, vehicle brands and direct to consumer
• Create sales, partner and customer facing collateral
• Support the updates of VCI, VoA and AoA websites (internal/external).
• Diligently review trade publications, to keep abreast of industry and competitive activities, as well as financial services trends, and assess how the team should respond.
• Select and maintain relationships with all advertising agencies, printing companies, press agencies, etc.
• Develop sales kits including whitepapers and messaging documents to be used for collateral pieces, presentations and product demonstrations
• Create and deliver product training to the sales organization for new products and features
• Generate supplementary materials for Sales/Marketing/Support departments to ensure consistency in messaging for product features, responses for common questions from potential customers, and provide up-to-date information on competitors
• Gather, distribute and manage industry information research data and perform analysis on assigned topics including information on markets, products, industry best practices, typical costs, issues, benchmarks, metrics and other information required to support the objectives of the requests.
• Upkeep project management system and files, manage cultivated research relationships and create/manage research library
• Coordination, retrieval, analysis and interpretation of financial, operational and customer data.
• Design queries/databases to develop customized reports to meet business requirements.
• Analyze dealership/customer engagement in our programs and identify opportunities to increase participation.
• Develop and conduct outbound telephone surveys and online surveys as appropriate to dealership personnel, BDMs, customers and other relevant parties to evaluate behaviors, gain insights on customer feedback, and solicit best practices, suggestions for improvement, and identify challenges that exist within our products and programs.
• Provide operational support for dealers and VCI field staff for our ancillary products This responsibility includes troubleshooting on all issues, responding to phone, email and other types of inquiries that require resolution, and development and maintenance of reporting for VCI field and dealership review.
• Manage projects as assigned using appropriate project management tools (e.g., scope, timelines and deliverables, etc.)


Required Qualifications

Formal Education
• Required: Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Marketing or related major

Years of experience
• 3+ years of Financial Services Product Marketing Experience in the financial services and/or automotive industry strongly preferred
• 3+ years of marketing communications, product, and/or project management experience in leading cross-functional teams in delivery of major new products or systems.
• 2+ years of solid data research and analysis in the automotive or financial services sector


Required skills
• Able to demonstrate an effective balance of business, marketing and technical skills.
• Highly organized, process-oriented and self-motivated / leadership potential
• Ability to thrive within a complex, fast-paced and dynamic environment; to embrace tight deadlines, changing priorities, aggressive budgets; to provide thought leadership and yet be participative and hands-on.
• Strong background in research, analysis and automotive finance and/or automotive industry (may include Financial institution, lending or banking knowledge)
• Experience in developing analysis and reports as requested
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills; statistical, mathematical, writing, and data analysis skills,
• Exceptional proficiency in MS Office (especially excel); thorough understanding of word processing, spreadsheets, database report writer and presentation software and computer skills involving relational databases
• Ability to be creative and innovative
• Must be able to establish a high level of credibility with all levels of internal operations and external clients, technical and non-technical
• Ability to communicate with all levels of employees from technical to non-technical clients; strong written, verbal, analytical and presentation skills
• Demonstrated project management skills

Basic skills
• Strong communications skills (both verbal and written), interpersonal relations and negotiations
• Excellent listening skills
• Excellent problem solving abilities
• Ability to break down complex information and place in a documented format such as a process flow or outline
• A good understanding of the automotive and financial services industry

Desired Qualification
Formal Education
Master’s Degree in Business