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A
major German Manufacturer
The challenge - to find a dynamic, experienced
Managing Director to set up a new operation in Portugal without
alerting the market.
Background
This
manufacturing company is market leader in its sector in Europe,
with 17 production plants and a turnover of nearly 1 billion euros.
The company had decided it was time to set up its own distribution
and sales company in Portugal - existing agents had not been very
dynamic in their activities and were not looking after the brand
as they should. However, it was critical to establish an important
market presence that existing agents - some of whom also represented
major competitors - should not know about the new operation until
it was actually up and running. This meant that we had to carry
out recruitment of the Managing Director in conditions of unusually
high confidentiality. Given that this sector is comparatively
narrow, in a small market where everyone knows everyone else,
this was a tricky challenge.
In
addition, the Director responsible from the German Head Office
had a packed travel schedule and would be able to give us only
very limited support during the recruitment process - all he really
wanted was a final shortlist to interview and little else.
Methodology
and process
Clearly, this called for a very carefully
targeted search process. We knew that we could not operate only
in the specific product sector but extended our search to other
sectors with a similar market structure and customer base.
As
far as our client was concerned, we avoided contacting him unless
it was absolutely essential but made sure that he and his support
staff had full access to the process. With a secure assignment
tracking area on our website for him, he could monitor progress
from a hotel room in Athens or a factory office in Beijing.
Once
our researchers had chosen a target list we had to take special
care in avoiding giving any information which might give a clue
as to the identity or even sector of our client. At the same time
we needed to motivate potential candidates about the challenge
of the new position. This was particularly tricky when dealing
with targets in the sector itself but after some brainstorming
we developed a useful storyline for initial contact.
Only for final interview with our client was the company identity
revealed, under strict request for confidentiality.
The
result
We
had extensive face-to-face interviews with a dozen candidates
and produced a shortlist of four, all of whom the client chose
to interview, based on our full assessment reports.
In
the end, the client selected a senior manager from a competitor's
distributor and he was asked to go about setting up the company
immediately.
We
are pleased to report that the market did, indeed, only find out
about the new operation a few days before final launch and that
the first year's results showed a 40% increase in sales. The client
was more than satisfied with our work:
"I
would personally like to thank you. Not only has your work been
exceptionally professional but extremely helpful without being
pushy. This is hard to find, and this rare combination has made
our co-operation very pleasant."
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