##### Date: 2024-01-05 ### Notes: ##### Intro TMAY. - Like numbers, engineering - Machinery, mining equipment dealership - 12 years - First half of career - Implemented SAP ERP, CRM Salesforce. Develop core skills - Second half - marketing, sales head, visiting customers, propose new solutions to customers. - Want to solve bigger problems, faster pace. - 2.30min ##### Behaviorals - Tell me about a situation when you failed and you had to pivot. Answer: S - Sales manager, closed deal of 10 machines, didn't specify specs of machine. Machines heated up a lot. A 1. Gathered sales and engineering for discussions to understand problem and solutions. 2. Prioritize solution options to customer. Tradeoffs. 3. Addressed to customer on how to replace the equipment R - Apologized and replaced equipment, customer was happy. L - Handle failure gracefully to keep customers happy 3min - How do you manage conflicts? Can you give an example? Answer: S - Pandemic, sales director wanted better pricing strategy, my opinion: protect margin, other peers: prioritize key customers business instead. A - 1. How much money we could make if we increase margin. 2. Calculate sales compensation increase with increase in margin --> This is weaker point. 3. Highlight weaknesses in alternative proposal R - Convinced majority. Increased margin from 12% to 18% L - When influencing people, give perspective and data backing your How did you grow your relationship with the peers who did not support your proposal? 3.30min - Tell me about a time you led a complex project successfully. Answer: S T A R - Tell me about a time when you had no data to make a decision. How did you handle it? Answer: S - Brazil economic crisis, equipment market crashed x%. Board director asked for updated budget focusing on margins and market share. T - Director asked me to build forecast. A 1. Couldn't rely on historical data. Had 3 ideas. Get big picture from sales execs to get country perspective. 2. Talk to regional managers, get regional perspective. 3. Identify factors that'll address margin and market share aspects. R - Got budget approved L - You won't have all the info, rely on data and specialists, 4min. ##### Product management - What is your favorite Dell product and why? Answer: Dell's PCs, laptop. Great experience so far. Dell Latitude 7440. - Reliable brand, very good build - Configure it with features important to me. Want lightweight device. - We have a Dell laptop targeted towards high school students, how would you go about launching it? Answer: Clarify if product is already created. - Price - WTP of high school students --> Students won't pay, parents will pay for this type of device. Explain price range estimates. - Explain your thinking framework/structure - 4P framework, explain what 4P is. - Placement - - Students: Find place/channel to promote to high school students. Social Media. - Parents: Traditional. Offline retail, Amazon. Promote it to first page of Dell, Amazon --> Dell has so many products, why promote just this? - Promotion - ?? - Analyze risks, tradeoffs - communication to target customer needs to be well done --> this is weak response. - Dell's XPS laptop monthly sales dropped by 10% in 2 months. What analyses you would want to look at? Answer: - Is it units or revenue drop? --> Units - Is it seasonal? --> No - Any specific channel where we observed the drop? --> Offline/retail channel - Any specific XPS model where there was a drop in sales? --> No specific model - Analyze customer segments purchasing via offline channel. - Returns may affect - Retailers are price sensitive and quality sensitive - Customers not interested in product features - 2 key retailers changed distribution for all computers - cost of inventory, units agreement. Didn't cover following, but should consider. - Did Dell change comp structure? - Did Dell and 2 retailers update their agreement? - Did 2 retailers get incentives to - Framework should be internal and external factors, then dive deeper into each bucket. Interviewer may still ask you to analyze both buckets. - 10min+