Interview with a Manager
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Students Name
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Interview with a Manager
A manager plays a significant role to ensure the success of a company. It is all about dedication, teamwork and stepping out to be identified as a leader that makes one a successful manager. A person who is not committed to his work will never make it as a good manager and will lead the company to collapse due to mismanagement of resources as well as the mistrust by the employees. To win the trust of the employees in a company and share a common vision with them requires a lot of dedication and strong leadership skills such as persuasion and persistence. Besides, a manager should make the right decisions as the future of the company lies in his hands. According to the manager I interviewed, keeping the welfare of the employees at heart is the key to the making a successful business as the employs feel a sense of belonging and identity to the company and therefore tend to work and give their best for the benefit of the company.
My manager is experienced in the field of management as he has worked for over ten years running the manufacturing firm by the name Electrica Electronics. The manufacturing firm deals with the manufacture of a wide range of electronics such as televisions and radios as well as their accessories. The manager is one of the heads of the satellite firms of the main company and therefore he takes the role of managing the firm as a sales representative of the authorities from the leading company. The company is one of the top firms in the United States and has branches all over the nation. The company has a large workforce that ranges to about 300,000 employees all over the firm, and therefore it is upon the commitments of the manager to keep the large workforce in shape ensuring that they work towards the achievement of the goals of the company. The company has assets worth more than 500 billion dollars and therefore is one of the largest companies in the United States.
The manager is aware of competition from other firms that deal with the same kind of products. According to the manager, the competition comes from the firms that also specialize in the manufacture and distribution of electronics such as computer monitors and televisions as these are the main products that their company specializes in production. The manager said that the companies specializing in the same product pose a significant threat to their firm in the sense that they sell their products at a lower price and this affects the market. He says that customers find themselves in a dilemma of whether to maintain loyalty to the company or shifting for the products from the other companies that are rivals.
The manager said that the company has various marketing strategies for their products. He said that most of their marketing is done in the media through advertisement in different Television programs and social media. Beside media advertisement, the company uses the 4-Ps of marketing to make sure that they have made a large volume of sales. The four Ps of the marketing mix that the company uses to market their product is the place, price, product and promotion. The manager said that the purpose of coming up with a new product is to satisfy the needs or the demands of the consumers. He said that the product, therefore, should be designed to provide the consumers with what they lack in the other products and that include quality and quantity aspects of the product. He gave an example that he has noticed that most of the customers are interested in large screens with high definition visual quality and therefore the company has to make lots of huge screens and monitors to satisfy the demands of their clients.
The manager could not stop emphasizing on the price of the product as this is the main reason as to why the company is facing stiff competition from their rival firms. He says that “How a product is priced will directly affect how it sells” and this feature is linked to then perceived-value of the product. If the consumers have the perception that the products are not worth the amount of money put on the price tag, then they will no longer get interested in purchasing the product. According to him, the company also uses product promotion such as advertising, allowing special offers to their clients and sales promotion of their electronics through roadshows. The place is another factor that the company considers when they are marketing their product. Product accessibility increases the rate of sales, and therefore, the managers told me that the company has a mechanism of distribution whereby if the consumer orders the product online, they are only required to provide their location and pay a little amount of transportation fee and the product will be ferried on their doorstep.
The biggest issue that the manager has come across while running the business is the issue of managing the employees for the first time that arrived at the company. The employees of the company according to the sales manager were not valued, and therefore they never assumed the company’s activities as part of them, and this had led to significantly reduces sales volume at the time. To improve the sales, ‘I had to make the employees feel as they were part of the company by introducing motivation to them based on their merits on the sales. All sales above a certain limit attracted, and this motivated the employees making them provide their best in the sales”. The sales manager told me that they have various types of customers in their firms. For one, ‘there are potential customers that have never made any purchase from the firm but are willing to try our products’ Most of their customers are potential, and that is the reason as to why the company continue to promote their electronic products to attract potential customers tirelessly. He also said that the company has new customers who visit the premises to purchase their goods for the first time and this is after they have seen the products from other users or they want to try the product for themselves. There are also discounted customers in the company, those who buy in bulk for commercial purposes are eligible to a discounted price rate so that they are also able to make good returns from their sales. The other type of customers that the company have are loyal customers. The loyal customers continue to use the company’s products and even look for other products that the company manufactures as they are happy and satisfied with the quality of the company’s products.
During the interview, the manager told me that he uses both authoritarian and democratic styles of leadership. These styles of leadership have worked and proved to be worth all through his tenure as a sales manager. He uses authoritarian leadership at times when he sees that asking for opinions or consulting from fellow managers won’t help a thing and therefore he is compelled to use his instinct to make decisions. He says that most of the decisions he has made by himself have proved to be worthy and that there have been fewer repercussions from the decisions and therefore the rest of the employees and managers trusts his decisions. Beside the authoritarian leadership style, the manager also incorporates a different style, and that is a democratic style. For him, this is the best style in that all the decisions made are as a result of consultation from the relevant parties and therefore, the welfare of the parties are represented in decision making. Also through the democratic style, the manager can gather views from the employees and the customers, and he is able to integrate the views to make a decision that is favorable to all the parties involved.
The company deals with the ethical concerns of trust and integrity. According to the sales manager, ‘When the customers perceive that the company show unwavering commitment to promoting ethical business practices, a high level of trust can develop between the customers and the business’. Another ethical issue that of fairness and honesty in business. The employees need to be treated fairly without discrimination and so that they are able to deliver their best to the company. The manager said that to ensure that all the employees are treated in a fair manner, they are all subjected to the same work conditions and assigned almost similar activities all to which target to achieving the company’s goals and objectives. Honesty is another thing that is deemed to build trust between the management and the employees as well as between the company and the customers. The company does not hide its activities from the employees as the company runs in a transparent manner to ensure that there is not distrust between the employees and the management. The manager continues to say that the company has been known to produce quality products and therefore it is their responsibility to ensure that the quality has been maintained throughout the production process. The sales manager says that most of the companies after making a good image to the public goes ahead and lowers the quality of their products leading to customer complaints and the eventual distrust in the company’s products.
The manager told me that he is in the business to make an impact on the market to make more sales of the products and build the company’s image. He says that it is through dedication and use of his leadership skills that he will be able to make a reputation for the company especially on his side of marketing, convincing the employees that is through hard work that something good is achieved. Technology has played a significant proportion to the promotion and building the image of the company. The manager’s claims that technology is vital in all stages of production in the company as most of the products they specialize in require the aid of machines to make the work a success. Robotics is part of technology, and they help in fixing some parts of our electronics through automation, and this helps the manufacturing process to be simple. The managers also say that technology has improved the company to advertise their products through social media and therefore online marketing has been made successful due to the presence of technology.
In case there arises a need for consultation, the manager said that he always consult from the head office where other managers provide their views concerning the matter at hand. The managers say that running a business is not an individual’s effort alone and that the perspectives of the other stakeholders do matter in decision making. A failure to consult may lead to a deception that the company is doing better while in contrast, the progress may really be negative. ‘It is always good to seek opinions regardless of whether the business is doing great or worse so that changes and improvements are made possible’. ‘The future of the electronic business for the company is not at stake, and despite facing a lot of competition from rival firms, the company is going to excel and reach more customers and am sure that we shall run global soon’. The manager is optimistic about the company’s future, and he sees an opportunity rather than challenges in developing a business and turning it in a multibillion-dollar firm.
From the interview, I have learnt a lot of things and among them is that a business requires a lot of dedication to run, so that is it successful. Various leadership skills need to be put in place, and managers should not restrict themselves to one style. Accommodating the views of others is essential to the running of the business. The use of ethical values in business such as honesty and integrity plays a significant role in building the trust between the employees and the customers in relation to the firm. I also noted that various marketing strategies need to be used to reach various customers from different regions and that include the 4-Ps of the marketing mix that include price, place, product and promotion as this will increase the sales by the company.
