H&G Household Goods

Assistant Brand Manager By Tanya Menon, Leigh Thompson and Evelyn Williams

You are working in marketing for H&G Household Goods, a firm that manufactures household products. Before studying for your MBA you worked for

plan to ensure market share of this new product is vital.

Unibar, known for its innovative new product portfolio. At that company, you did some high profile financial analysis that led the company to launch a fabric deodorizer which established a new market category. In the eight months since you've been at H&G, you've done the financial analysis for another project that has made the company $600,000 dollars already. Through this project you established a strong reputation as a "finance whiz" in the marketing

Your brand manager has a pool of money to allocate to developing new ventures. You have described the project to him/her and have already managed to convince him/her to acquire this technology. Now, you are hoping that s/he will put you in charge of leading the new team that develops this initiative. Convincing the brand manager that you should head up the project You would really like the brand manager to make you project head for this new venture. This would be

department. This experience marked you as an up- and-comer in the organization and you have been

getting a lot of attention. Through your business school relationships, you have once again identified what could be an important opportunity for H&G. Some R&D labs are trying to

develop a technology that could develop into a spray- on laundry detergent that doesn't require the use of

water or a washing machine. According to your financial models, if this idea

a tremendous opportunity for you and a big change in your responsibilities. Furthermore, given that the idea was initially yours, you feel that you deserve the opportunity to lead this project. Granted, you have not managed a team of your peers on an initiative like this before, but you think you can convince the brand manager that you can handle it. After all, you did manage project teams in business school in many of your classes. In addition, you headed a global study trip that took thirty of your peers and faculty members to meet with senior heads

catches on, it could potentially make the company over $10 million in profits per year. The upside is tremendous, but it will require some initial investment and especially skillful marketing to convince consumers to make this kind of dramatic change. There are also considerable risks specifically, the swift and simultaneous entry of competitors with similar innovations. Therefore, the

of state and corporate CEOs in India and Pakistan. Moreover, you have been a strong team contributor in all of the teams you've been a part of at H&G. You've always taken on more responsibility than the norm, helped others when they've needed your support, and generally been on top of your assignments. Bottom line, at some point someone is just going to have to take a chance on you and give you the opportunity to lead.

Project Roles There are other outcomes possible in this negotiation. For instance, the brand manager may decide to appoint him/herself as the project head and retain you as a junior member of the team (Figure 1-A lists typical project roles). In addition to the humiliation of that outcome, this would possibly entail considerable additional work and risk on your part for little real change in your position and responsibilitiesand little potential access to the rewards/positive exposure. If the project is successful the recognition would go to the brand manager who would be the formal project head. Therefore, this outcome has a negative value to you. If you are not selected to be the project head, you will . have to decide if you will stay at the company under the terms offered or pursue different employment alternatives. You are worried about being stuck in a role and in a department reporting to someone who cannot support high potentials and give you the responsibility you deserve. You do not have anything firm in mind, so you would prefer staying in the company but, if turned down, you'd be prepared to investigate better opportunities elsewhere. You have a meeting scheduled with the brand manager today. You will have 10 minutes to persuade him/her about your objectives. After this period, he/she will determine the project team's management structure. Then you have 10 minutes to discuss what was effective and ineffective in your presentation. The brand manager is in charge of keeping track of the time. If you do not have a mutually agreed upon management structure in 30 minutes, you should report that you have no agreement.