Essay Question (Situation, response) 4 page

4 Page Response Essay. No Plagiarism or copying from Internet and changing words around to make it appear original.

Due Saturday 28 June NLT 6pm CST

****(For this exercise – – Describe the approach you will use to select the “right” person for this position.  What do you want to know about these individuals that you do not currently know?  What are the critical issues that will guide your choice?)

You are that Strategic Business Unit executive Dr. Henman describes on pages 166 and 167.  You lead a product division of a major multi-national consumer electronics company.  You report directly to the CEO and have profit and lost (P&L) responsibility for a division that designs, produces and distributes a variety of products in the audio entertainment segment of the worldwide consumer electronics market.  Among your current products are radio receivers of all types, CD players, MP3 players, components for home entertainment systems, car stereo components, boomboxes, amplifiers, speakers and even clock radios.

You have a functional organization of over 10,000 that spans many time zones. Your business unit designs its products in the U.S. and manufactures them in Asia. Your primary markets are in North America and Europe.  Your direct reports include a CFO who leads the Finance organization and VPs for Marketing, Engineering, Supply Chain Management, Operations, Legal & Contracts, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Quality & Performance Excellence.

Your VP of Engineering has been with you for 2 ½ years and was just last month selected by the CEO and Board to become the head of one of the other divisions of the corporation. She will be taking the new assignment in three weeks.  You have to find her replacement and convince the CEO to approve your choice.

You weren’t taken completely by surprise by this move; in fact you recommended your subordinate for this new role.  You have been her mentor of sorts for the last 18 months, put her in the lead position on a critical new product roll-out and coached her on what she needed to learn and do to reach the next level ( in reality you were grooming her for your job … just in case the CEO position came open).

You have narrowed your search for a new VP of Engineering down to three excellent candidates.  They are 1) John Adams, a seasoned leader  within the current Engineering organization,  2) Mark Lawson, the Senior Engineering Manager of the new products development group, and 3) Susan Hernandez, a Senior Engineering Manager at Cre8, your #1 competitor’s product design organization.  You know Adams and Lawson quite well.  You are acquainted with Hernandez through a trade association and are aware of her excellent reputation in the industry.

John Adams has been with the company for 15 years.  He is 55 years of age and has a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering as well as a MS in Engineering Management from Southern Methodist University.  Earlier in his career he was an innovator in packaging design.  In the past few years he has driven process and technology selection that has significantly reduced the production cost of several of the company’s “flywheel” products.

Mark Lawson has been with the company 8 years and he is 46 years of age.  He is an electrical engineer by training and received his MBA from Texas A&M University – Commerce two years ago.  Mark has a reputation as something of a visionary, an inspiring team builder and a team player.  His intuition and insight on product features that Customers will “pay extra” for is in a word, uncanny.  New products his teams have brought to the market in the last three years account for slightly more than half of the division’s current annual sales.

Susan Hernandez has been with your competitor for 4 years and is 38 years of age.  Her educational background is in Software Engineering and she holds a MBA from Stanford University.  Susan has worked for several high-tech firms in Silicon Valley.  With the exception of Cre8 she has not stayed with any of her employers for more than 3 years.  She has been something of a “star performer” for Cre8 and is that rare mix of engineering expertise, artist and unabashed “marketeer”.  In fact, the latest MP3 player her group launched 6 months ago is “kicking your butt” in sales.

“For this exercise – – Describe the approach you will use to select the “right” person for this position.  What do you want to know about these individuals that you do not currently know?  What are the critical issues that will guide your choice?”