Job Description
Job Description
Hyundai KIA America Technical Center, Inc (HATCI) is looking for a Benchmarking & Research Analyst at our Ann Arbor, MI facility. HATCI, as a research and development organization, supports product-planning initiatives for Hyundai, Genesis, and Kia in the North American market. HATCI's Product Planning group takes on benchmarking activities, a primary responsibility of the Market and Competitive Intelligence (MCI) team. The roll of this MCI engineer will contribute to the organization's understanding of the current market and identify important trends amongst our competition.
We are looking for that special person that can bring good synergy to our already awesome group of people. This person should be hardworking, have a positive-attitude, be forward thinking, and be willing to help shift the culture to integrate benchmarking/trends info as a serious consideration for decision-making. This person should be comfortable with working with cross-functional teams, learning about technical or design advances, attending auto shows, digging for information, and communicating subtle or revolutionary advances in the market. This person needs to be able to make a positive impact even amidst some ambiguity - come in with a figure-it-out attitude.
Responsibilities and opportunities, but not limited to the following:
Maintain relationship with benchmarking providers including Caresoft, A2MAC1, AutoKnowledge, and others
Manage and develop supplier relationship/contacts to have first-knowledge of their offerings, data availability, and costs of offerings
Act as facilitator and awareness-maker within HATCI so functional teams know resources, including data access trainings, special-topic presentations, and visits to suppliers
Arrange for special opportunities for HATCI teams to view/drive new market entries from suppliers when they bring in new competitive models
Learn, be aware, communicate when they may be tearing down HMG models
Manage contracts and funding with suppliers
Collect ‘eye-catching' reports from suppliers and make available to HATCI teams
Enhance Benchmarking Report Structure and Timing Plans as defined by HATCI Product Planning
Arrange for vehicle rental or acquisition and establish internal benchmarking schedule within Product Planning and with functional teams
Work with functional teams to establish property needs and timing needs
Prepare technical reports and present findings to senior management. At a minimum, provide format for summary reporting to functional teams, collect summaries, compile summaries (back-end of report), create overview (front-end of report), and coordinate presenters to senior management
Assist with Auto show attendance and reports
Assist with managing regular meetings using auto-show prep checklist and schedule
Assist in developing reports for Auto shows: Preview report, Debrief Report, Tour Document. Disseminate format for teams to capture trends during auto show attendance, collect and include in debrief report
Assist in auto show logistical requirements: guest credentials, accommodations, conference/meeting rooms and other amenities
Communicate Product Trends via reports or report contribution
Contribute to product trend identification to regular bi-annual Sales reports, bi-monthly Pulse Trends report, Auto Show reports, and as needed within product planning
Create method to identify revolutionary advances amongst competitors (e.g. Tesla mega casting) and develop method/report/alert to communicate to the larger HATCI team or relevant functional team
Utilize primary and secondary sources to collect product knowledge (teardowns, online data from suppliers/sources, secondary research, expert panel)
Investigate media and customer responses to understand 'soft' issues related to Vehicles, Powertrain, Technologies, and Features
Contribute to vision and implementation of integrating benchmarking deeper into organizational discipline
Lead annual visioning workshop for scoping benchmarking initiatives (expanding, contracting, facilitations, etc.)
Continually propose innovative approaches and methods of communication
Assist MCI group with other activities / responsibilities:
Contribute to reports - Sales, Auto Shows, Trends, OEM Summaries, Segment Overviews
Monitor current Economic and Automotive Industry indicators, especially those impacting future product content
Coordinate and contribute to completion of new model debut 1-pagers, media feedback as content to Auto Show reports
Understand HATCI benchmarking needs, timing, and where value could be added by developing close relationships with functional groups
Take proactive approaches to finding/arranging primary experience or secondary research to continuously inform functional teams, as well as Product Planning
Maintain close relationship with Product Planning team to understand benchmarking needs in order provide/coordinate benchmarking inputs to overall PP1 development
Collaborate within HATCI Product Planning teams:
Collaborate with Product Planning teams on Identifying competitive sets, target customers, and possible impacts on current and future vehicles and industry trends
Identifying possible impacts on future Product Strategy & Technology trends
Support Cross-line Planner on wide-ranging studies focused on features/technology/execution strategies across corporate & brand lineups
Data analysis experience/expertise in data manipulation, observations, insights, recommendations:
Handling data sets: mTab, SPSS, excel, pivot tables
Automotive data: AutoPacific, AutoSource, AutoKnowledge, NVCS, IHS, IQS, CR, Edmunds, and other resources
Attend industry conferences & integrate learnings into market/trend reports
Manage long and in-depth projects, alongside quick-hit ad hoc requests
Embrace new projects (areas outside of expertise) with some level of comfort with ambiguity
Willingness to switch focus to assist with team initiatives/deliverables, contribute to group work/reports
Willingness to figure out systems, ask for assistance, ask questions, follow formats
Travel potentially up to 20% of time, domestically and possibly internationally
Experience and Skills
Bachelor's degree in appropriate Engineering, Business, or Data Science field of study
2+ years of experience in Benchmarking, Innovation, Market Research, or Product Planning, ideally in the automotive industry
Some automotive experience, including but not limited to: Vehicle evaluation, component testing or teardown, competitive intelligence, program management, customer research, forecasting, strategic planning, quality, vendor management
Experience with data analysis. Particularly valuable would be experience with: IQS, NVCS, AutoKnowledge, AutoSource, AutoPacific, and secondary research
Moderate+ level of PowerPoint. Comfortable with Excel including pivot tables