Professional Practice

Part 8:

Presentation and negotiation skills exercise

Task for the Recruitment Manager

You are the Recruitment Manager at Supafone Mobile Ltd, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) which provides mobile services to business and private customers including phones and phone contracts. Supafone delivers its services online, and also through a chain of 50 UK-based stores.

Supafone has recently acquired a European competitor called Eurofone, which has another 50 stores, 10 located in each of the following five countries; Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland.

The acquired Eurofone stores need to be rebranded urgently, so that they have the same look and feel, and deliver the same products and services as the Supafone Mobile stores.

As the Recruitment Manager, you have been tasked by senior management to find 5 Interim Project Managers who can deliver the rebranding programme.

Each Project Manager will be assigned to rebrand one of the five new territories where Eurofone have stores. Each Project Manager will need:

1) substantial mobile telco industry knowledge.

2) substantial project management expertise.

3) local language capabilities.

You expect to pay between £500 and £600 per day for each Project Manager. You have therefore estimated for senior management a maximum overall staffing budget required for the whole programme at £540,000. You have also agreed to complete the programme in 6 months. If you can deliver this programme on time and within budget, you will raise your profile significantly at Supafone Mobile. If the programme is a failure, you will take a good portion of the blame.

The combination of industry and language expertise required for these roles will make candidates hard to find, so you need to use external, specialist recruitment consultancies.

At present, you do not have a preferred supplier list (PSL) or even a consistent policy in terms of the profit margins of the existing recruitment consultancies who work with the firm. They typically charge between 17% and 30% fees for supplying such resource. This programme may therefore give you the opportunity and the leverage to put a cost-effective service supplier contract in place.

You have also had variable results when using recruitment consultancies before. For example, some recruitment consultancies have promised you the world, but in the end just wasted your time sending CVs of unsuitable applicants. Other consultancies found candidates who looked good on paper and interviewed well, but you had to fire them mid contract because they were not competent, or they left before the end of the projects. All of these issues incurred unbudgeted costs and delays, which you need to avoid on this programme.

You need to decide which (and how many) firms you will invite to tender for the business. You will then invite each of them in for a 30-minute meeting to sound them out.

Map out a negotiating plan for the Recruitment Manager to use in the meetings with potential suppliers.

Task for the Area Managers for Recruitment Firms A, B, C etc

You are an Area Manager at a recruitment consultancy.

Yours is one of a number of recruitment consultancies that have been invited to pitch for the above recruitment assignment at Supafone (i.e. to locate and supply interim project managers to work on the rebranding programme).

The client has instructed you to address the following questions in your 30-minute meeting: How much will you charge for your Project Managers?

What will be your profit margin?

What network/capabilities/experience do you have that demonstrate you will be able to find the required number and quality of Project Managers?

What guarantees can you give that the Project Managers will deliver their respective projects? Do you have any other suggestions as to how to manage the recruitment assignment?

You will also need to consider/address the following challenges in your negotiations:

You do not know the client's budget.

You do not know which other recruitment consultancies are being considered.

If you work at 17% or lower, you will struggle to turn a profit on the work, unless you place more than one project manager.

However, if you are able to contribute to delivering a successful rebranding programme with timeframe and budget, you will establish yourself as a supplier to Supafone Mobile, which is a market leader in a profitable business sector.

Map out your negotiating plan for the meeting and set out the key points in your pitch.

Task 1
a. Make a plan of your assignment
Add the key ideas you will discuss in each paragraph of your assignment.

b. Write the references for 5 of your sources.
Use the London Met Harvard Referencing System below. Press CNTRL click to access

Task 2: Reflective Commentary (250 words)
Reflect on your approach to completing this assignment.
Have you been as effective as you could have been? What issues have you encountered?
If you could start again, what would you do differently?

3. Personal Development Plan

Think about the results of the questionnaire you did and the information from today's lesson. What have you learnt about yourself and your skills? Are you satisfied with your results? Is this an area that could be improved? If so, consider making this topic one of your Development Episodes.
Complete the PDP below by answering the questions fully with specific details.Remember that it is normal for your ideas and PDP to change as the course continues and your priorities alter.

STEP 1: Identify Your Development Needs
A. Why are you seeking development at this time?

B. What are you seeking to develop at this time?

C. Emphasis: What do you need? What is your specific goal?

STEP 2: Identify Your Development Options
D. What steps could you take to developthe new knowledge, skills and behaviours?
E.g. read more about the topic? Watch some videos about the topic? Practise the skill
every day for 30 minutes? Organise the way you learn?

Think about your own learning preferences and adapt the task to suit.

E. Considerations arising from ‘why', ‘what' and ‘how'
Speed: How quickly do you need to develop the knowledge, skills or behaviours identified?

F: Identify Your Development Options

STEP 3: Plan for Development Activities
G. Write down the steps you will take to accomplish your task.
What could go wrong with your plan?
What will you do if your original plan does not work well?
Think of an alternative way to achieve your goal.

STEP 4: Undertake Development Activities
H. List your development activities completed throughout the semester

STEP 5: Apply new knowledge/ skills/ behaviours in the workplace
How do you intend to use this new knowledge/ skills/ behaviour in the workplace?

STEP 6: Review and Repeat
Reflect on how this new knowledge/ skill / behaviour helped in your professional development