Reference no: EM133039826

HBR: Silvio Napoli at Schindler India (A)

Silvio Napoli is beginning his first general management assignment.  He is facing a series of strategic and organizational challenges as the new country manager setting up a greenfield subsidiary in India for the Swiss elevator company, Schindler.  Napoli is concerned with three important decisions he must soon make; one involving a challenge to his Indian strategy by local management, another relating to unexpected changes to internal transfer prices from Schindler's European operations, and a third involving impediments to his plan to source locally most of the components for the elevators he plans to sell in India. Each of these decisions is cast against Schindler's worldwide strategy and organization.  And through all of this runs the cross-cultural challenge facing an Italian manager working for a Swiss company in an Indian start-up.  We will focus largely on the organizational resistance that Silvio faces within his growing organization and how he will face the decision about how firmly to adhere to the move towards more standardized elevators. This is distinct strategic change for the firm (and the industry) and we will discuss how to evaluate whether this idea makes sense and is feasible for the organization at this time. 

Discussion Questions

1. Was Silvio the right choice for general manager of Schindler's India operation?
2. As Luc Bonnard how would you evaluate Silvio's first seven months as general manager of the Indian company?  What advice would you offer?
3. What advice would you give to Silvio regarding his decision on the nonstandard glass wall elevator that has been ordered?
4. How would he deal with the challenges he is facing over transfer prices and limited technical cooperation from the European plants?
5. How hard should he push for his vision of standardized elevator product?  How should he deal with the organizational resistance he faces? Be clear in your thinking about the criteria that should guide the decision-making and what decision-making process would make the most sense (consensus, pure command and control-top down decisions, etc.)