Product Owner (F&R)Product Management at DunelmWho you are:Dunelm is an equal opportunities employer: in London

Product Owner

Dunelm is the UK’s #1 homewares retailer with more than 5 million visitors to store and online weekly, revenues over £1.3billion and profit over £150million. We have over nine thousand colleagues supporting 170+ stores and a website which now accounts for over 20% of sales. It all started on a market stall in Leicester in 1979 and we have been growing ever since!

We are on a mission to help create the joy of truly feeling at home, now and for generations to come.  We will do this by transforming the homeware market, bringing outstanding products and services to our customers in increasingly sustainable ways, seamlessly across online and stores, in a way that feels truly localised and expert. We want you to help us make that happen.

The Product Management team are on a journey to transform the way that we think about putting the customer first whilst not costing the earth, and how we drive value and impact through best practices and processes to help accelerate our delivery of the company mission and purpose. You will be joining a talented, rapidly expanding team of Product people that look after different aspects of our customer journey and proposition delivering real value through technology.

We have an exciting road ahead of us, so we need amazing people to help us get there. That’s where you come in!

Your Role:

Buying and Merchandising is at the heart of Dunelm, without it we cannot buy new stock, manage our existing stock effectively or merchandise efficiently.  These activities are a critical part of helping Dunelm continue its growth and success story.  We are on a journey in this area to transform our processes, practices and tools in order to take our business to the next level. This is likely to be a combination of buy and build.  As a result, have kicked off our Commercial Makeover Programme and we need an experienced Product Owner to come and support the refactoring and continuous improvement of our buying and merchandising capabilities, in strong partnership with our Commercial teams to step change this space.

We have grouped our efforts to focus on: product data management, forecasting and replenishment, our planning capabilities and improving our vendor engagement through a dedicated supplier ecosystem. Stakeholders will be across multiple business units, our internal colleague base as well as our third-party vendors.

We need a passionate, experienced Product Owner to generate momentum and drive real progress, someone keen to absorb all different aspects within our business and get stuck in. It will be essential to be flexible, to be able to adapt and respond to the evolving needs in this space over the next few years.

This role is about:

• Owning and shaping the product roadmap, driving communication of the overarching vision for their domain
• Defining outcomes which deliver business value in line with the wider Programme objectives
• Prioritising the product backlog, determining the sequence of epics & features, driving earliest route to value
• Capturing requirements, writing user stories, defining acceptance criteria, collaborating on UI / UX design
• Working closely with in-house and third-party technology teams to drive the product delivery forward
• Contributing to all sprint ceremonies, including backlog refinement, sprint planning and showcases
• Working closely with Tech teams, vendors and implementation partners to deliver E2E integrated solutions
• Building and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders across Dunelm and wider supply base
• Communicating roadmaps, outlining business value and product impact to a wide range of audiences
• Combining third party capabilities (buy-in) with innovation and bespoke solutions (build) to solve problems

• Championing a value driven product approach and driving adoption across the business
• Working closely with Agile Delivery Leads, Product and Tech colleagues across workstreams / domains to mitigate risks, issues and dependencies on the Programme and ensure key milestones are being met
• Collaborating with Change Management and Learning & Development to ensure business readiness is on track, enabling successful user adoption across our internal colleague base and external vendors, as required

You will play a critical role in the delivering the overarching objectives of the Commercial Makeover Programme within Dunelm.  We need an experienced product person, with deep data expertise, to come in and help shape your product area, roll your sleeves up and get stuck into the problem space.  We need someone up for the challenge ahead and a candidate who is excited about the ability to truly shape capabilities within a high growth, omnichannel retailer.

Who you are is just as important.  For this role you will be / have:

Key personal capabilities:

• Obsessed with providing outstanding value and experience
• A problem solver and collaborator who loves a good challenge 
• Self-motivated with uncompromising attention to detail
• Great communication and listening skills
• Able to strike the right balance between the needs of the team, stakeholders and the customer
• Comfortable with ambiguity and change – this is a high-profile business transformation programme, after all!

Skills, Experience and Expertise:

• Experienced Product Owner with a background of working on retail solutions within an Agile framework
• Strong track record of delivering Supply Chain / Forecasting / Replenishment products & features at a fast pace
• Background implementing products within multi-faceted business transformation programmes, is desirable

• Good knowledge of demand forecasting, ordering, allocation and replenishment technology solutions, as well as supply chain and stock management processes within stores and distribution centres, would be ideal
• Analytically inclined with experience of working on data governance, data cleansing and migration activities
• Demonstrable ability to coherently define product vision and roadmaps including delivery timelines & impact
• A working knowledge of / experience in retail buying infrastructure, tools, processes and best practices
• Demonstrable experience of business analysis, documenting requirements and shaping product backlogs
• Strong stakeholder communication skills, especially around tech teams, peer groups and senior management
• Effectively communicate complex technical development into clear outcomes delivering business value
• Natural collaborator and team-player, evidencing a “stronger-together” approach with a positive attitude
• Comfortable with liaising and working with 3rd party providers as well as in-house engineering teams
• Knowledge of supply chain solutions e.g. Blue Yonder, O9, Relex, SAP, AI / Machine Learning - highly desirable
• Understanding of UX/UI and experimentation methods
• Familiar with Jira, Confluence, Slack, Miro, MS Teams and other common frameworks, tools and software used in Agile development

Dunelm is committed to becoming a fully inclusive business that is representative of our customers and locations.
We recognise the value in diversity and welcome applications from all candidates regardless of sex, age, race, religion, ability, gender or sexual identity, socio-economic background or education. We are committed to making Dunelm a place where everyone can enjoy a successful career and have systems in place to support all our staff.