Question

Explain some of the challenges faced by the channel manager in attempting to exercise leadership to motivate channel members in the interorganizational setting of the marketing channel?  You are expected to fully address the question fully.

Answer 1

While attempting to exercise leadership to motivate channel members in the inter-organizational setting of the marketing channel the first challenge faced by the channel manager is the ability to exercise control. Exercise of control is imperative and has to be exercised on a continuous basis so as to ensure that the channel members are properly motivated. However the challenge in front of the channel manager is to achieve the state of total control. This is a challenge as the possibility of achieving total control is low.

Secondly it is not always possible for channel managers to be able to predict all events that are related to the channel and that too with perfect accuracy. Thus achievement of desired outcomes at all times is not practical and this becomes the second challenge for the channel manager.

Thirdly in an inter-organizational setting firms are loosely arranged and hence the advantages of central direction remains intangible and missing to a large extent. There are no close contractual agreements and this leads to a situation in which the benefits of a formal power base do not materialize on a practical basis. The existence of a group of loosely-aligned firms makes it difficult for the channel manager to exercise proper control. This problem gets accentuated by the lack of a clear demarcation of a superior-subordinate relationship.