Journal response. In Weeks 3-7 you were directed to keep a professional work journal (Please refer to Week 2 for a review of instructions). Now you will review your work journal entries and arrange some of them into an essay. The essay will reflect upon those five weeks of experiences recorded in your journal and what you have learned.  Include how they may have furthered your career or caused you to rethink your career goals.  Your essay should include your experiences, observations, and the key concepts based on the internship and business course experience. The CLA1 assignment will be a Turnitin paper of 4 to 6 pages. 

Your paper should be formatted in APA style. Include at least two (2) peer-reviewed sources related to course material taken in your academic program.  

Reminder About Journaling: Whether you want to be able to look back at where you started, set a future course for yourself and seek a new path, or just deal with present issues, journaling helps you do that in a reflective way. You need not write every day. Journaling gives you a place to better understand yourself, to plan your goals, and to follow-up on goals. One pitfall of journaling is that it can become part of a log of your feelings for any one day and you want to avoid these types of emotional responses. 

The job description is follows:

Members of the Product Management Team are responsible for driving profitable growth in the assigned Farmers’ line of business. Partnerships with other departments will help to ensure each state performs at the highest possible level. Industry knowledge, prior experience, instinct and business acumen combine to drive decisions in each individual state. Day to day responsibilities include:

• Analyzing product rate levels, segmentation and underwriting practices to maintain profitability
• Evaluating the competition: How does our product compare to others in the marketplace?
• Using knowledge of state regulatory guidelines and constraints to assure product compliance
• Maximizing product marketability by assessing product features, customer friendliness and agent quoting behavior
• Collaborating with departments outside of product management, including pricing, distribution, claims, and government affairs

Role of the Product Analyst

The Product Analyst role is to support the Product Management Team through obtaining, analyzing and communicating information that provides insight to the revenue growth and profitability for the line of business. The successful Analyst will:

• Conduct complex analysis to support business decisions on the assigned product.
• Provide thoughtful recommendations to the Product Management Team on pricing and other strategic decisions.
• Analyze competitor information to uncover industry trends.
• Query databases to conduct ad-hoc analysis on specified or varied metrics.
• Build tools to create efficiencies in every aspect of work and especially in analyzing metrics
• Prepare presentations in support of rate changes and other strategic decisions
• Communicate with other departments as-needed to optimize the team’s success

A day in the life of a Product Analyst will include use of Business Intelligence or Database (SAS/SQL) tools to extract and manipulate data. Through careful analysis, the Analyst will use the data to gain a deeper understanding of the behavior of the business. Reporting/presenting findings to managers and others will be key to success and advancement, especially when insights are leveraged to recommend product modifications which positively affect the bottom line. The Analyst would also track and evaluate the performance of the modifications. Special projects and other advanced opportunities will be presented to Analysts who demonstrate potential through outstanding execution of day-to-day tasks.