This incident gave me the chance to react under tremendous pressure with life changing consequences. It has given me more courage and motivation to face bigger challenges in my life and career. In a sense, this accident still affects me today by giving me affirmation that no matter what the challenge is, I can rise to the occasion. I have a deep faith in the basic instincts that helped me through that emergency – leadership, composure and the ability to make decisions under pressure - to allow me to succeed in all aspects of my future life.
b. Describe a work situation in which your goal was not achieved. How did you deal with it? What was the outcome? (350 words)
While working as a market development manager for Hewlett-Packard, my department failed to reach its revenue target for fiscal year 1998. The main problem was with the sales of our large format media (LFM) products, which had been trending downward early in the year. We missed our revenue target in the first quarter and I was receiving enormous pressure from our regional marketing center. I was determined to investigate the situation and find a solution.
Through a thorough and market and distribution channel investigation, I found that the sell-through of our three wholesalers was very low while their inventory level was too high. My research showed that the main problems were intense market competition and a failure to sell products appropriate to our target market. The key factors causing the problem were: 1) the price of Hewlett-Packard LFM was much higher than competing domestic OEM brands and many local manufacturers had entered the business; 2) our products were very high quality, but also higher priced, which allowed lower quality, lower priced competitors to take our market share; 3) many counterfeit HP products were being sold in the market, and; 4) our company lacked products such as backlit media to appeal to the commercial advertising segment, which is one of the largest potential markets for LFM in China.