CASE: BE TRUE TO THYSELF, CHANNELMASTER As a true channelmaster, you firmly believe in being truthful to your distributors even when the news is not favorable. But recently, your company an old-line, prestigious manufacturer of office equipment has experienced a number of internal problems that are beginning to raise some serious questions about your corporation's overall management capability. For starters, product quality has declined, as a result of improperly administered manufacturing cost-cutting measures. Late product deliveries have caused your distributors to miss customer shipment deadlines and, as a result, to lose profit. Because of the high turnover of sales and marketing managers, inaccurate and not entirely truthful information has flowed to your channel of distribution. It's no wonder distributors are beginning to suspect that your company's management just doesn't care about its distributor sales organization. Worst of all, just last week, two of your top twenty distributors signed with your "death wish category" of competition -a first in your channel. "Death wish category" refers to those of your field opponents who pose the most serious threat to your business future. Under what circumstances could you trust a distributor who also carries a "death wish" competitor? It's just too compromising. It's your job to change this negative course. Explain how you will do so, using all of your formal and informal channel communications and management abilities. Case interpretational points: Can this channel relationship be saved? If so, how? Be specific. What communication strategies should be created and implemented ? What do you think your competitor is doing? How should you combat their channel moves? What's the real problem?