Question

ETHICS EXERCISE SEVENTEEN

Jan Fields is leaving her office to start her daily round of sales calls when the telephone rings. Her plans for the morning go awry as the angry voice on the other end of the line demands to know the status of an order. The order represents Jan’s biggest sale to date and the first her company has made with a major franchise.

Jan quickly contacts Ken McBride. Ken feels his breath catch in his chest. As he had predicted earlier in the month, production has fallen behind schedule. Now he has a unique part on hand that is needed for two different orders. He has to decide whether to use it to fill a regular customer’s order, which is legitimately far ahead of the one in question and urgently needed, or to honor Jan’s frantic request.

Ken could reduce his immediate stress level and save Jan’s day by bumping the regular customer’s order. This move would cause a serious problem for the valued old customer. However, no business would be lost, of course, because the old customer would have no way of knowing that its order has been set aside to accommodate a new customer in the hope of generating future sales.

[“Boxed In, An Ethical Dilemma”; Business Communication, Strategies and Skills; 4^th Ed., The Dryden Press, 1991]

Assignment:

1. How should Ken resolve the dilemma?

2. Based on Ken’s decision, what action do you recommend for Jan?

How could the company reduce or avoid such situations in the future?

Answer 1

1. In my opinuon, Ken should hold the production of regular customer order and accomodate Jan's request since the new customer should be served on time in order to increase the customer satisfaction and associate him for a long term with the company like the old customer. Hence Ken should fulfill the new customer's order.

2. Based on Ken's decision, action to be recommended for Jan is that she should talk to the customer and tell him that the production for the part is already underway and the order would be ready in some time. She should aloso apologize for the order delay.

3. The company could reduce or avoid such situations in the future by planning in advance and expanding the production capabilities to accomodate such requests in future. Since production is the bottleneck in the whole process, hence it should be expanded and there must be no backlog of orders to be produced since it leads to customer dissatisfaction.