Shabari was delighted when she was promoted as the Regional Sales controller of a leading chemical producer,
Question:
Shabari was delighted when she was promoted as the Regional Sales controller of a leading chemical producer, where she had been employed for the last 3 years. It was a big boost in responsibility and would enable her to participate in the incentive compensation program. Now that she was facing her first end-of-the quarter Sales report, however, she wondered what she had got herself into. A major customer has placed a large order just one week before the end of the quarter, but they don’t want delivery till the middle of the next quarter. The Sales Director of Shabari’s group wants to recognise the revenue now, thereby ensuring the maximum bonus for his group for the quarter. This means processing the order, shipping the product to a warehouse and bearing costs until shipment to the customer. Shabari feels pressure from all sides. When she used to sit in the accounting organisations, she saw the cost of such revenue recognition problems- it involved the cost of sending messages to all levels of the organisation that its ok to gain the system; the loss of information and distortion in the expectation that jeopardize effective decision making; the cost of cleaning up of the records when the distortion eventually came to light and so on. She still reports to her old team and she knows that they are counting on her to make the right decisions on this kind of thing. On the other hand, she wants the sales director and her new units General manager to consider her as one of the team. She wants to earn their trust and respect. What should she say, to whom, when and how?
Questions-
- What type of value conflict is Shabari facing? What is at stake for the various groups who want him to do different things?
- What steps do you think Shabari could have taken or should take to normalize his response to this kind of value conflict? What can he do to help him deal with situations like this that come up in the future?
Business Law Text and Cases
ISBN: 978-1111929954
12th Edition
Authors: Kenneth W. Clarkson, Roger LeRoy Miller, Frank B. Cross