Retail Project Manager/Extended Reality (Japan)

About ZEISS

The ZEISS Group traces its origins to 1846, when founder Carl Zeiss established a precision mechanics and optics workshop in Jena, Germany. What began as a small workshop has grown into a global leader in optical and optoelectronic technology.

In Japan, ZEISS has been a trusted partner since 1911. Today, Carl Zeiss Co., Ltd. operates with approximately 400 employees across five locations, delivering cutting-edge solutions and dedicated service to customers nationwide.

ZEISS Japan serves as a strategic partner across diverse industries—including semiconductors, automotive, mechanical engineering, biomedical research, and medical technology. We are also a leading manufacturer of eyeglass lenses, camera lenses, and binoculars, bringing precision optics into everyday life.

Role & Responsibilities

The Extended Reality Product & Marketing Manager is responsible for the localization and translation of global XR solutions into a clear market offer, a strong local customer experience, and effective commercial execution in the market. The role connects global XR strategy with local implementation by aligning cross-functional stakeholders, supporting rollout readiness, and driving adoption across online and offline channels.

• Lead or support go-to-market planning, including launch readiness, channel activation, system set-up, marketing coordination, and cross-functional execution.

• Conduct market, customer, competitor, and operational analysis and identify adoption barriers, localization needs, market constraints and operational gaps

• Translate market insights into recommendations for product roadmap, commercialization priorities, and market improvement actions

• Develop and adapt product positioning, messaging, and value propositions for the local market in alignment with the global XR team

• Align cross-functional local stakeholders, including sales, marketing, operations, commercial, customer service, and regulatory

• Local project management for market enablement incl. tracking readiness, launch progress, and execution quality

• Lead coordination of the local rollout of online journey

• Steer offline retail enablement in the market, including ECP selection, onboarding, staff training, and quality audits.

• Create sales enablement tools such as product narratives, training materials, launch toolkits, and competitive guidance for commercial teams.

• Handle customer escalation cases in alignment with local stakeholders, for example customer service, regulatory, and marketing.

• Monitor customer feedback, adoption performance, and business KPIs after launch, and refine local execution accordingly.

• Lead implementation of local improvement initiatives and informs XRX about improvement needs.

• Ensure close alignment with the global team to define support needs

Education / Professional Certification

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Business, Marketing, Digital Commerce, or related field

Experience

• 3+ years of relevant professional experience managing omnichannel retail, product marketing, product management, online / offline retail, omnichannel operations, project management, stakeholder management

• Proven track record in optical or health care industry a plus

• Experience with international rollouts and omnichannel strategies

• Optional: Experience with consumer tech, medical device, optical retail

Knowledge / Skills / Other characteristics

• Proven track record in successfully managing multi-workstream initiatives or roadmap-related programs in a retail or B2B2C context

• Experience managing local rollouts and coordinating cross-functional stakeholders in a matrix organization.

• Strong understanding of product marketing fundamentals, including segmentation, positioning, messaging, launch planning, and go-to-market execution.

• Excellent communication and cross-functional leadership skills; capable of influencing at multiple levels

• Ability to identify operational gaps, localization needs, and market constraints and translate them into practical actions.

• Strong stakeholder management skills across sales, marketing, customer service, regulatory, retail operations, and global teams.

• Analytical mindset with the ability to track readiness, execution quality, launch performance, and customer issues in a structured way.

• Optional: Experience in offline retail enablement, including partner or store onboarding, training coordination, and quality follow-up.

• Commercial orientation, customer focus, and the ability to work effectively in fast-changing and ambiguous environments

• Analytical and commercially minded; able to connect data-driven insights with strategic decision-making

• Entrepreneurial and curious, comfortable navigating ambiguity and building new processes in a corporate environment

• High degree of accountability and ownership – able to own topics end-to-end, make decisions within scope, and deliver results independently

• Comfortable working in fast-changing, ambiguous settings and taking ownership to move topics forward

• Strong verbal and written Japanese & English skills (C1-C2)

Working conditions & Other Attributes.

Hybrid working

Holidays and Leave

Paid Leave: 2–14 days in the first year, increasing to 21–25 days based on years of service

Public Holidays: Approximately 125 days per year, including Saturdays, Sundays, national holidays, and year-end/New Year holidays (December 29–January 4). Additional special leave for celebrations and bereavement.

Working Hours

Standard Hours: 9:00–17:30 (including 1-hour break; 7.5 hours of actual work per day)

Overtime: Required based on business needs; overtime allowance provided

Benefits

Celebration/condolence allowance, retirement benefit plan, defined contribution pension, cafeteria point system

Transportation allowance: Up to ¥50,000/month

Insurance: Employment insurance, workers' compensation insurance, health insurance, group life insurance

Welfare club membership, household medicine discounts, flu vaccination subsidy, eyewear purchase discount

Company club activities

Smoking policy: Smoke-free premises

Contract Period

Permanent (indefinite term)

Probation Period

3 months (may be extended up to 6 months; no change in terms and conditions)

Work Location

Osaka Office or Rinku

Scope of change: Any ZEISS location nationwide

Business Travel

Required

Compensation

Annual Salary: ¥5,500,000–¥7,500,000 (including bonus and allowances; based on skills and experience)

Monthly Salary: ¥400,000–¥520,000

Bonus: Yes

Salary Increase: Yes

Your ZEISS Recruiting Team:

Ami Takeno （竹野 碧海）, Hiroko Okuda （奥田 裕子 - オクダ ヒロコ）, Hisayo Kemmotsu （剱物 ひ沙代）, Maho Hatabayashi （畑林 真帆 - ハタバヤシ マホ）