You are a salesperson for Jiffy Office Supplies. You and three other people (you
ID: 359947 • Letter: Y
Question
You are a salesperson for Jiffy Office Supplies. You and three other people (your team) just sealed a deal with the company’s major client, Acme Printing. The new agreement would bring Acme’s total sales for Jiffy to $20,000 per week.
It is 6:30 pm on Friday evening and your phone rings. The caller, John Bly, is the Purchasing Agent for Acme. It seems that a recent deal on Jiffy’s end has tripled its need for spiral bound tablets. This deal would raise the sales for Jiffy to $30,000 per week. You are excited but there are two facts that nag at you. First, Acme has a credit limit with the company of $1,000,000 and second, this sale would constitute more than one-third of Jiffy’s sales. Worse yet, Bly intimated that if Jiffy did not agree to the addition he would look elsewhere to fill the need.
In the competitive world of office supplies, failing to produce on a small point could lose the whole contract. You are empowered to make this decision, but not sure of the best way to go - accept the offer of the additional sales at this time to avoid Bly looking at a competitor, or put him off until Monday so that you can get together with your team and make the decision as a group?
“Are Groups Better and More Capable of Making Critical Decisions than Individuals?”
In the presentation, include:
The advantages and disadvantages of individual decision making.
The advantages and disadvantages of group decision making.
Give a clear choice of either individual or group decision making in the answer to the question.
Explain how you arrived at your decision using the facts and the assigned reading below or in class material as support.
Explain why the option not chosen was eliminated.
Explanation / Answer
The advantages and disadvantages of individual decision making.
Individual Decision Making
Advantage
Disadvantage
Efficient and fast decision-making approach
Biased and may be perceptual
Full accountability goes to that individual for anything wrong or right happens
It is difficult to analyse all the possible outcome and consequences
You take no argument for your opinion
Level of motivation is low because somewhere there is fear of getting wrong
You are free from too much of diverse perspective coming from Group thinking
There may not be many creative solution generated on only one person involve in decision making
The advantages and disadvantages of group decision making.
Group Decision Making
Advantage
Disadvantage
Greater Pool of knowledge come across the table
Leader feel a lot of social pressure and group feels peers pressure in taking decision and coming to any conclusion
People have different perspective on the solution and approach
Only few dominates the whole discussion while not letting others to express opinion
Decision maker can have greater comprehension to deduce the problem
Sometime Group forget the ultimate objective and take the discussion in wrong direction
When you take everyone to be the part of decision making system, you also expect greater acceptance and alignment to achieve the goal
Logrolling is the major drawback
Give a clear choice of either individual or group decision making in the answer to the question.
Group Decision Making system
Explain how you arrived at your decision using the facts and the assigned reading below or in class material as support.
From the case its clearly evident that Jiffy is just a salesperson, and he bagged the deal along with his other team Member, which means he is not in higher authority to take individual decision based on the rank and cannot also ignore the contribution of his team while making some big decision about that client.
Secondly delivering the product to the company involve other stakeholders too in value chain and understanding their situation is also of utmost importance.
Such as: Logistic Department: whether they can make available the product on time or not?
Finance department for checking the line of credit given to the company
Suppliers: can they make raw material available at given capacity or there is any capacity constraint on their side too?
Explain why the option not chosen was eliminated.
Secondly delivering the product to the company involve other stakeholders too in value chain and understanding their situation is also of utmost importance.
Such as: Logistic Department: whether they can make available the product on time or not?
Finance department for checking the line of credit given to the company
Suppliers: can they make raw material available at given capacity or there is any capacity constraint on their side too?
Advantage
Disadvantage
Efficient and fast decision-making approach
Biased and may be perceptual
Full accountability goes to that individual for anything wrong or right happens
It is difficult to analyse all the possible outcome and consequences
You take no argument for your opinion
Level of motivation is low because somewhere there is fear of getting wrong
You are free from too much of diverse perspective coming from Group thinking
There may not be many creative solution generated on only one person involve in decision making
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