Jack Cumberland was the Managing Director of IndoMedia, a leading advertising agency in

[the fictional Southeast-Asian country] Indoland.

IndoMedia was formed as a joint venture between EuroMedia from the UK and a local entrepreneur.

Jack, born in Scotland in 1975, joined Procter &

Gamble as a junior brand manager after graduating from London University Business School in 1998.

Six years later he was recruited by EuroMedia. He was attached to a client group in London for five years, then moved to Spain for four years and finally was named Managing Director of IndoMedia.

IndoMedia had a good reputation in Indoland as a very creative agency that was well connected to the media. It also had the reputation of being reliable in a country where media charges could be discounted by up to 60 per cent from the ‘official’

rate. Most agencies charged the ‘official’ rate to their clients and pocketed the discount for themselves.

IndoMedia charged only a 20 per cent commission on top of the discounted rate, giving them a competitive advantage over other agencies despite the fact that its artwork charge was higher. For printing jobs, quotations were requested from at least three competitors in order to obtain the best price.

A few months after his appointment, Jack was approached by Eddy, a representative of a big printing company in Indoland. Eddy was very upset because he saw the volume of his business with IndoMedia declining although his work was of the highest price/quality ratio. He mentioned that IndoMedia’s manager in charge of buying print jobs, Omar, was asking that the quotation include ‘not only the usual 10 per cent, but then it was 15 per cent and recently 25 per cent’ to be paid as soon as the printer received the money from the agency.

Jack asked Eddy if he was ready to repeat his allegations in front of Omar. The answer was immediate:

‘No way, It would kill my business’, Eddy replied, and walked away.

Later Jack talked to Andreas, the Finance Director, a man of experience and wisdom. Jack became angrier as he was talking. But Andreas was smiling and finally, when Jack stopped talking, Andreas asked him: ‘Haven’t you realized that you work in Indoland?’

Questions:

1 What options does Jack have in this situation?

2 What do you think that he should do?