Products & Research Officer

Old Mutual Zimbabwe

Sep. 27, 2023

Job Description

The empowered lead role within the Old Mutual Fintech, The Products and Research officer is responsible for conducting product related research that will assist the product management team to come up with products and services that can influence the commercial outcome for the fintech business.

The ideal Products and Research officer is generally a business-facing person, empowered to fill the role. It is important that they understand the payments, lending and Insurtech space, product, business, and any constraints involved.

By conducting research and communicating the product evolution path, the Products and Research officer focuses their efforts on delivering the best possible customer value. Working closely with product management teams, platform and marketing teams, they provide the key insights for the team to best meet consumer and business goals.

Duties and Responsibilities

To achieve this, the Products and Research officer must have deep customer knowledge and understand product research & development and the delivery model best suited from a digital platform perspective
Conducts in-depth product research in the Fintech space and recommends new products to develop.
Examines existing and new products for deficiencies and recommends changes and enhancements.
Participates in the development of Products & Services, Process Improvements on New and existing products, including preparation of BRDs
Follows up with platform team in the scoping of Functional specification document.
Coordinates and participates in conducting product UAT’s and submits feedback report to the Product Manager
Prioritizes feature requirements and defects based on key metrics and impact analysis.
Monitors that the product development Lifecycle of any given project is completed within agreed time.
Evaluates product release performance against success metrics and customer feedback and use this information to provide recommendations for further feature improvement.
Identifies strategies to attain cost efficiencies within various product and process designs and submits to line manager.
Liaises with marketing for product launch, review, initiatives for low performing products and for increased product adoption.
Conducts product enhancements through customer survey to improve product user experience for customers, channels and internal users
Supports development of product deployment checklists and schedules the activities in line with best practices.
Identifies process improvements to ensure product quality and productivity.
Participates in functional specifications development including use cases, process/workflow, error messages and interface specifications.
Interacts with system vendor and third-party system developers to integrate with fintech in conjunction with Technical developments.
Ensures quality and completeness of the finished product by applying best practices to user acceptance testing and using product expertise to influence test cases.
Works with third party development and internal teams to complete the assigned project within allotted budget and timelines.
Identifies risk and risk mitigation strategies, resolution, and communications to teams and stakeholders as directed by line manager.
Identifies functional production issues for new features, from identification and prioritization through to resolution.
Drives resolution on escalated issues.
Communicates quality of product delivery throughout development lifecycle to different internal and external stakeholder groups as guided by line manager
Participates & tracks all partner & stakeholder contracts and SLA’s for the .
Supports quarterly third-party vendor SLAs and Contract reviews
Conducts regular Service Level review process with Service Provider which covers review of outstanding actions from previous reviews
Underpins agreements as necessary, agrees with appropriate actions to maintain / improve Service Levels.
Respond to contract queries and negotiates new contracts, working with the Head Compliance & Int Policy, to ensure risks are adequately protected

Qualifications and Experience

Bachelor of Commerce Honours (BCom Hons): Operations Research And Information Systems (Required).

Skills: Process Design, Process Improvements, Product Delivery, Product Development, Product Development Lifecycle, Production Deployments, Product Launches, Product Release, Service Levels, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Taking Initiative, Team Management.