Strategy & Planning Manager; Hybrid

Overview

Strategy & Planning Manager (Hybrid) – Join Cisco to develop a global business operational rhythm and drive accountability on product delivery. The role balances onsite and remote work and thrives on cross‑functional collaboration to shape long‑term product vision and strategy.

As a Strategy & Planning Manager, you will align teams, collaborate with cross‑functional partners, and ensure products meet business goals and customer needs. The role requires strong analytical skills, excellent communication, and a strategic mindset about market positioning, pricing, and growth opportunities. You will also champion operational excellence, helping to align processes with the overall product strategy.

• Collaborate with product leaders to develop and maintain the long‑term product vision, roadmap, and actionable plans.
• Understand the company’s operating model and commercial objectives and create bottom‑up SAM/SOM analysis based on customer and market intelligence.
• Leverage industry best practices, policies, procedures, and methodologies to establish excellence and ensure objectives are met.
• Apply familiarity with product development processes to understand capabilities and trade‑offs.
• Act as a central point of contact, working closely with Product Management, Engineering, Product Marketing, COP development, and other teams to ensure alignment and successful execution of strategy.
• Analyze data from user surveys, analytics, focus groups, and other sources to identify patterns, draw conclusions, and support strategic recommendations.
• Compose a formal set of KPIs to enable business stakeholders’ decision‑making.
• Work with Product Marketing to define and shape product positioning—including pricing and distribution strategies—and articulate the core product story to internal and external audiences.
• Build and optimize product‑focused processes to streamline workflows and enhance overall efficiency of the product organization.

• Bachelor’s + 12 years of related experience, or Master’s + 8 years, or PhD + 5 years, or equivalent related work experience.
• Demonstrated experience in product strategy, frameworks, and operations.
• Proficiency in data analysis for extracting actionable insights from complex datasets.
• Familiarity with product development processes, including understanding product capabilities and trade‑offs.
• Experience working on platform strategy, including price packaging and pricing of platform‑type technologies, and a deep understanding of how platforms function.

• Master of Business Administration (MBA).
• Prior experience in management consulting.
• Demonstrated strategic thinking with a broad, long‑term view of the market and product lifecycle.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for articulating complex ideas to diverse audiences.
• Experience with bottom‑up SAM/SOM analysis.
• Proven ability to influence and guide cross‑functional teams toward shared business outcomes.
• Prior experience in product strategy within platform companies.
• Experience with change management and transformation.

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