Part 2: Case Study (Disclaimer: Fictitious case study. Any coincidences are purely coincidences).

Tututemon sells clothing in the active sportswear segment. They have womens, mens and kids business units. The company itself has over 10,000 employees. It is a global company with retail stores in Europe, Asia, North America and South America. It also has branch offices in each of the continents. The headquarters is based in Vancouver, Canada.

John is a marketing manager of 2 direct reports at the Menswear category at Tututemon. He is of Maori ethnicity. He joined the company about a 1 month ago. His job is to manage the marketing functions and branding functions of the Mens category. His direct reports include Fraser, a graphic designer. His other direct report is Susan, a social media marketing specialist. They both report to John. At first, everything started out well. His team worked well with him and everything was smooth. Now, after 1 month at the job, he noticed some very obvious and some very subtle issues at the Menswear category department. His boss is in charge of the entire Menswear category: marketing, finance, accounting, sales and human resources. His boss, Stacey, is the Director of Menswear at Tututemon. She always seems to be super busy. In fact, she has a lot on her plate. She used to do 1-on-1 meetings with John twice a week. Now, after one month at the job, the 1-on-1 meetings are now changed to once a month.

Also, Stacey has been giving more work to John to do. In fact, John has so much work to do that he isnt able to conduct his own 1-on-1s with his direct reports: Fraser and Susan. Usually, he would do daily 1-on-1s. Now, he can only do it once a week. Its hard to talk with his team due to the increased work pressures. This is affecting the performance of the 2 direct-reports.

Also, the new hires in the marketing department were mostly women. All of they were younger than 30 years old. A few of Johns coworkers were recently promoted from managers to Senior Managers. Out of a pool of 20 possible managers, they were 80% consisting of women, younger than 30 years old, 50% minorities, and 50% Caucasian. Tracey, Bianca, Lisa and Jenny were all promoted to Senior Managers. John found this strange. All 4 promoted managers were Caucasian and younger than 30 years old. Out of the 20 possible managers available to promote, the performance level for all of them were not vastly different. They were all competent. Stacey, the Director of Menswear makes these decisions on promotions and hiring.

The marketing department is the marketing headquarters for all of Tututemons global marketing strategies. However, Tututemon is sold globally in many different countries. John found it interesting that marketing decisions were broad-based and not customized to each specific country. Tututemon certainly has enough employees to make decisions specifically customized for each global country, but this is not done. John could see that sales in the global countries were decreasing year over year. Clearly, the marketing efforts are not improving sales in the expansion countries.

More exasperating is the fact that Stacey has been demanding that John follow her directives. John found that one such directive was ethically wrong. Stacey wanted John to flout specific marketing laws in China in order to promote a new Mens running pants. This decision is illegal in China but legal in Canada. Yet, the marketing strategy will be executed in China. John is at a lost on how to proceed on Staceys demand. Stacey reports to Steve, the Vice President of Menswear. Maybe, John could talk to Steve about this.

John does not know what the objectives are for the marketing department. He was hired to lead the marketing function of the menswear category. But, he hasnt been given clear goals. It seems that he might have to make his own goals. On the other hand, it is hard to get in touch with Stacey who is now becoming super busy. It is hard to get a hold of her. John is afraid that his marketing goals he might conflict with Staceys goals.

In marketing, Tututemon partnered with Plastic Tank, a company that focuses on recycling plastic bottles to make into shoes. Recycled shoes are all the rage these days and customers are buying shoes that are made out of recycled plastic. Tututemon does not make shoes. It makes clothing in the active sports category. John found it strange that Tututemon partnered with a company that is not in the clothing sector. Yet, plastic shoes is a trendy marketing thing going on in the marketplace nowadays. Customers are buying recycled shoes but it is unclear if recycled shoes is related to menswear clothing.

The CEO of Tututemon is Solomon. John has never met Solomon and the only communication from Solomon is weekly emails sent to everyone in the company. The emails usually dont make sense and waste time for people that read them. There is no value in reading the emails. Solomon works in the same building in Vancouver as John. John is totally out of the loop of what the high-level objectives of Tututemon are.

Lastly, there is one big immediate problem with Joe. He is the Finance Manager from the accounting department. John is trying to get money and funding to support the marketing functions of the Menswear category. Unfortunately, Joe frequently misses meetings with John. In meetings that are attended, Joe is very rude who swears constantly with total disregard to what people think. There were frequent emotional outbursts exhibited by Joe. Johns requests for funding has still not been approved by Joe. The funding is very important to ensuring that John does well at his marketing manager job.

There are so many issues in the new marketing job that John is doing at Tututemon and it has only been 1 month! John should identify the issues and find ways to solve them.

Please do the following:

12-

Find 8 specific management-related problems at Tututemon. Use the textbook chapters to help you. Use specific frameworks or definitions from the textbook.

Guideline: < 1 page (yes, up to 1 page). 16 marks.

13-

For the 8 specific problems, name 2 possible solutions to each problem. Please be specific. These solutions do not necessarily need to use frameworks or definitions from the textbook. However, the solutions must be specific. For example, a solution could be: Talk to Joes boss to find out if Joe has some personal issues or morale issues.

Guideline: < 2 pages (yes, up to 2 pages). 20 marks