The Vertical Market Insights Specialist generates the market, application, customer and competitor insights that enable Timken to develop robust growth strategies for its strategic vertical markets. The Insights Specialist performs primary and secondary research and applies proprietary frameworks to identify and prioritize growth opportunities and help cross-functional teams make confident where-to-play and how-to-win choices.
Key Responsibilities: Develop market and application maps
- Map strategic verticals by market, application, product, customer segment, and geography.
- Build application maps that show where Timken solutions create value, where demand is concentrated, and where growth opportunities may exist.
- Help the data team size opportunity spaces using primary research, secondary research, and clearly stated assumptions.
Build customer and segment insight
- Conduct customer discovery to understand jobs to be done, unmet needs, desired outcomes, sources of value, and decision criteria.
- Support customer segmentation by identifying meaningful differences in applications, needs, economics, behaviors, and buying dynamics.
- Translate customer insights into segment profiles that inform targeting, value proposition, and market activation choices.
Map buying process dynamics
- Investigate how customers recognize problems, define requirements, build consensus, evaluate alternatives, justify investment, and make supplier decisions.
- Identify key stakeholders, decision roles, and buying barriers and drivers.
- Translate buying process insights into implications for messaging, sales engagement, proof points, and enablement
Assess competitors and alternatives
- Analyze competitors, substitutes, internal customer workarounds, and status quo alternatives that shape customer decisions.
- Clarify where Timken is advantaged, where it must improve, and what evidence is needed to strengthen its competitive position.
- Incorporate competitive insights into opportunity assessment, value proposition development, and activation planning.
Identify, size, and prioritize growth opportunities
- Identify growth opportunities at the intersection of attractive markets, high-value customer needs, Timken capabilities, and competitive advantage.
- Apply frameworks and scoring criteria to assess attractiveness and ability to win.
- Support prioritization of opportunities for validation, activation planning, investment, or strategy development.
Inform value proposition development
- Use customer, application, and competitive insights to clarify the business outcomes Timken can enable.
- Support development of value propositions tailored to priority applications, segments, stakeholders, and buying barriers.
- Identify proof points, evidence requirements, and message themes needed to make value propositions compelling and actionable
Frame strategic options and support market activation planning
- Synthesize insights into clear strategic options that help cross-functional teams evaluate where to play, how to win, and what must be true.
- Contribute to market activation plans that define target segments, priority applications, value propositions, channel approaches, sales motions, proof points, and validation needs.
- Create concise artifacts such as application maps, segment profiles, buying process maps, opportunity briefs, activation hypotheses, and prioritization views.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Economics, Engineering, Marketing, or related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
- 4+ years of experience in B2B market research, strategy, marketing, product management, business development, consulting, or a related commercial role; industrial market experience preferred.
- Strong curiosity and learning agility, with the ability to quickly learn new markets, applications, technologies, methods, and frameworks.
- Experience applying structured frameworks, methodologies, or playbooks to identify opportunities, develop insights, and support growth decisions.
- Demonstrated ability to conduct research, synthesize insights, and translate findings into clear business implications.
- Strong analytical, storytelling, communication, and collaboration skills; able to create concise, executive-ready materials and work effectively across functions.
- Proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint; experience with Power BI, survey tools, CRM data, or other analytical platforms preferred.
- Ability and willingness to travel for customer interviews, field research, and internal working sessions.
Timken is a global technology leader in engineered bearings and industrial motion. Our expanding portfolio of next-generation solutions helps customers around the world improve efficiency, solve their toughest challenges, and push the boundaries of performance. We employ 19,000 people globally, operate from 45 countries, and posted $4.6 billion in sales in 2025.
We have been recognized as one of America's Most Responsible Companies 6x by Newsweek and one of the World's Most Ethical Companies® 15x by Ethisphere.
Why Choose Timken? - Over a century of knowledge and innovation
- A culture of top performance
- A global, diverse environment
- Products that contribute to a sustainable world
- A conviction to improve communities around us
- Competitive salary and benefits
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