Business School Essays That Made a Difference by Princeton Review

Author:Princeton Review [Review, The Princeton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-2581-9
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2015-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

Option 2: Bribe the Dictatorship

Actions: Pay the military to crush the protests

Results: Potentially improved profits (provided that new profits exceed bribe).

Real problem still exists, but exacerbated by force.

Dangerous precedent of graft.

Option 3: Negotiate w/ local gov’t

Actions: Taxes aren’t progressive, offer them a 1-time cut of profits above 50 mil. This would be in exchange for an up-front payment to community for water, along with a percentage of the taxes going to the community for water.

Do some goodwill PR w/ the community (not related to the water). Keep the local government identified as the source of the clean water to avoid setting the precedent of having to pay for municipal improvements.

Results: If local govt and community play along, protests subside, and after-tax profits increase. Run the risk associated w/ the precedent of paying a higher tax rate.

What’s an ex-pat GM to do?

Looking back, there was so much I didn’t know at the time. Yes, of course I knew our business, and I earned my promotion. I was even fairly well versed in a pseudo-expatriate lifestyle. Still, it was a situation that required a good deal of metered guesswork, instinct if you will.

I was busy fighting my way up the chain of command in the States, and I ran into an obstacle. Nepotism can be a bitch. When you lose the opportunity for up, out starts to look pretty good. I started to fish around for opportunities elsewhere, and the board caught wind of my new direction. They slapped together this package for me, what I now refer to as the Heart of Darkness deal, and sent me on my way. Jumping to General Manager created a world of new challenges, and removed any permanent obstacles to internal ascension. The expatriate element of the deal even sounded sexy at the time.

I was on a plane with my family before I could research the new locale. I was told that my predecessor had left for personal reasons, and needed to be replaced immediately. I later determined that he had been too closely tied to the country’s military dictatorship, and the board wanted him out. When I grabbed the reins, my division was finishing up Q3 and getting ready to head into the home stretch. They were on path to hit the $50 million minimum level for their bonus plan, but they had been working like dogs to get there.

Local communities had been peacefully protesting for the bulk of the year. Those protests reduced the number of able-bodied workers that we had in the mines, and restricted the daily flow of material. It was clear from the start that the division had been running at 110% of their normal efficiency in order to hit 85% of their financial goal (the minimum target for bonuses). If I would last as their GM, I would have to sweeten the pot—to reflect the work that they had been doing.

When I first analyzed the situation, I came to the following conclusions: On the positive side of the table

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