Business

1. ElectronicCity is an organization that operates in a large scale with 160 stores in the retail sector. They have their presence in the states in the east coast and that of south.  ElectronicCity operates along with other chains with national presence who sill similar branded products. Thus the competition is not in terms of number of players in operation, but rather in terms of the intense competition among these players. The scope for earning higher margins is limited and the focus therefore is on the volumes.

Consider for example the case of HDTVs as mentioned in the case. These major players are vying hard to keep increasing their market share in whatever markets they have presence.

2. The decision made by VP Marketing of ElectronicCity to aggressively push for the so called warranty extension contract for HDTVs can be termed aggressive. The focus here is to push for higher margins in a business where the margins are generally low. The decision to make each salesperson go through a scripted sales pitch is just an indicator of how aggressively he wants to push his team to achieve better returns.

From a purely marketing point of view his approach is right, as this is one which could bring in higher revenues and better margins for the company. Since the general trend of product failures among the appliances that ElectronicCity sells has been on the lower side warranty extension contract makes sense.

3. The ethical issue involved in this case is that of whether ElectronicCity is doing the right thing by pushing hard for the warranty extension contract. The company fully well realizes from the past records and experiences that the brands that they sell have a very low failure rate and even if a failure does occur most of them can be rectified at low cost and little time. In such a scenario pushing for such a scheme simply because certain segments of consumers are apprehensive about the chances of product failures and the cost they would have to incur for repairs is questionable.

4. Phil has been performing well in his role of sales executive and his ability to predict the consumer reaction puts him in a good position. If he can improve his accuracy from 80 to 90 it translates into him able to focus his sales pitch for the warranty extension contract in a better way and thereby increasing the chance of converting such potential customers. And for customers who he feels are not interested in the contract, he could tweak his sales pitch in order to sell just the HDTV without the contract, again enhancing his chance of making a successful pitch.

5. The various comments made by the different people at the dinner table could shape Phils thinking in different ways.

Maria She admires his style of selling and hopes to make it big like him someday. And her admiration would in all probability encourage him to keep bettering himself.

Dr. Smith The queries that Dr. Smith put forward would lead to Phil thinking more about his techniques and in the process could understand it better and enhance it even more.

Fr. George If there is somebodys comment that would have made Phil think twice about the scheme in question and his own techniques it is Fr. Georges. His comment is sure to make Phil look within in order to ascertain whether he is doing the right thing.

6. Phil might take a pause and think about the warranty extension contract and his technique of predicting the customer behavior. But being a practical person that he is and with the desire to succeed and the competitive streak of the typical business school graduate he will continue pushing the scheme to the customers he services. Maybe he would be choosier about the customers he would push it to instead of pushing it to all customers he predicts would be interested in the contract.