Reference no: EM132167517
Decision-making Case Study
Craig Simmons, The Director of Sales at Cover Smart, a small company that manufactures and distributes phone covers, calls his meeting to order. In attendance are his boss, Tony Johnson (V.P, of Operations), the Director of Marketing (Shane Stevens), and the Director of Human Resources (Kerry Hondon).
Craig Simmons (Director of Sales) opens the meeting, “I just wanted to update everybody on last month’s sales. We had the best result ever! The advertising up-spend of $100,000 generated a ton of leads. Inquiries were coming in from our digital ads and the phones were ringing off the hook! This is the first time that we ever ran a national campaign and I think that we are really starting to hit our stride. I don’t want to lose momentum and I want us to authorize another $100,000 spend for this month. I know it is three times our normal budget. But we are really making progress and I need your support.”
Craig looks around the room and notices that he didn’t receive the unanimous consensus he hoped for and each person at the meeting takes turns presenting their views.
Shane Stevens (Director of Marketing) offers, “Craig, I’m happy to hear that things went so well, but you have to remember all of our advertising works together---one thing impacts the other. I’m worried that if we continue spending our entire budget on generating these short-term leads, we will be sacrificing building our brand for future growth.”
Kerry Hondon (Director of Human Resources) then explains, “Craig, I’m also happy about the results from last month, but you have to keep in mind the toll that this new program has taken on the staff. Because this is a national campaign, we have to keep staff members here very late at night to handle the West coast lead flow. I’m getting a lot of complaints. We’ve always taken great pride in being sensitive to the needs of our employees, so wouldn't it be smart to study this a little more before we do it a second time?
Tony Johnson, Vice President of Operations, is the last to speak, “Thanks for sharing all of your thoughts everyone, and Craig, you are to be commended for achieving this initial great result. I do think, however, that we need to study the results before we pull the trigger again on another campaign. I’m not saying that we should have a big delay, but I can’t accept that we received ‘a ton’ of leads or that the phones are ‘ringing off the hook.’ I need you to be more specific. How many leads or calls came in, what was the cost per inquiry, how well did we convert these expressions of interest into actual sales? Also, are we sure that the West Coast volume and conversion is high enough to support straining our staff the way that we are? I also hear you, Shane, but you need to be more specific as well. In what way is this sales campaign taking ‘away from the brand?’ What do you mean by that? Also, why do you call these leads, ‘short-term’? What do you mean by that? So let’s get the data and necessary answers. We can circle back on Friday to make a decision. Thanks everyone.