A Day In The Life Of A Product Development And Retail Strategy Director At DYNACRAFT
Rick's day involves juggling multiple responsibilities, starting with "department check-ins" and "level setting on projects", then shifts to a deep dive into sales performance and forecasting to manage inventory flow, where hundreds of containers land weekly. The role also requires extensive communication with internal teams, retailers, and licensing partners like Disney and Mattel, often involving "ad hoc meetings" to address immediate needs.
Product Development, Retail Strategy, Sales Performance Analysis, Inventory Management, Partner Communication
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DeCarli
Director, Product Development and Retail Strategy
DYNACRAFT BSC INC
Arizona State University (ASU) - W. P. Carey
Industrial, Supply Chain Management
Apparel, Beauty, Retail & Fashion
Business Strategy
Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Greek Life Member
Video Highlights
1. Managing inventory flow of imported goods, including overseeing the arrival of a large number of containers weekly and ensuring optimal stock levels in warehousing.
2. Reviewing sales performance, analyzing year-over-year trends, and collaborating with account managers to understand specific account activities.
3. Communicating and coordinating with internal teams, external retailers, and licensing partners (e.g., Disney, Mattel) to address project updates and ad hoc requests.
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a product development and retail strategy director look like?
What does a day in the life of a product development and retail strategy director look like? Being that I have a number of departments reporting to me and juggle many different tasks, nowadays it's predominantly filled with department check-ins. We level-set on projects and set the team up for what they're going to work on during the week.
From there, reviewing all of our sales performance falls directly under my purview. We look at year-over-year trends and what's happening in retail. I also meet with each of my account managers to see what's happening specific to their accounts.
Forecasting is another big aspect of my role. While I don't forecast for the retailers themselves, I need to control our inventory flow since we import product. This means managing when inbound containers arrive in the US.
We could have anywhere from 10 to 200 containers of goods landing in a week. My responsibility is to manage this flow so that our warehousing isn't too heavy or too light. We need to ensure we're in stock without flooding the doors.
Aside from that, a lot of my time is spent on internal and external communications and projects. I also handle ad hoc meetings and communications with retail and licensing partners. A lot of our products are under umbrellas like Disney or Mattel.
These retail partners are very invested in how their product is doing, so there's a lot of communication and touching base. The same goes for the retailers themselves. You never know what's coming next, but at any point, a merchant or a licensing partner may need you to stop what you're doing and hop on a call.