If you find yourself in this role, you are possibly the least understood executive in your firm with the greatest expectations riding on you. If your firm is not an outright Internet company, you are likely in this position as either a fully empowered missionary who is to evangelize every department in your firm about the need to integrate electronic commerce, internet and intranet solutions into their normal ways of doing things, or you are the largely feared person charged with creating a semiautonomous internet sales, marketing or operational division. In either case, you are a pioneer, a visionary and a diplomat with a tremendous ability to strategically plan and successfully execute solutions that require the aid, knowledge and budgets of multiple departments at your firm, including those that might be made redundant due to the implementation of your internet and e-commerce plans. This is no easy job, but ART's established clients around the world need people like you - some in order to thrive, some in order to survive. The General Manager or Managing Director who may be considered or called the President of a corporate business unit, division, plant or country-level operation.
Autonomy can be great or limited.
This type of General Manager may supervise a report structure including all or parts of Engineering, Manufacturing Operations, Finance, Sales and Marketing and Purchasing. P and L responsibility is typical. The General Manager who is really a Plant Manager, supervising a manufacturing plant . Typically, this person is coming from a manufacturing operations or materials background, but may have had other experiences. Typically, this person does not supervise Sales and Marketing, although there may be local purchasing and IT reports in addition to the traditional manufacturing and quality oversight.