Observation Review for a Decision Observed - Case Study Example

Observational Review For A Decision Observed” Observation review for a decision observed Decision making is something that people are faced with everyday, and so are leaders and managers. It is the basic crux of leadership in the workplace and there are many factors to consider in order ensuring that our decision is a good one (Adair, 2010). Also in daily life people make decisions which may turn out to be good or bad one. I witnessed a company’s brand manager and assistant brand manager discussing the potential of a juice brand they had launched a few years ago in the market. It wasn’t doing very well in the market due to the fact that it couldn’t differentiate itself from other important players in the market. Also its supply chain was weak; it wasn’t available everywhere in the market while other juices were. And the flavors that were available were further limited in the places where the brand was available. Research showed that sales were falling drastically let alone meeting their expectations, and being an organization whose ultimate goal is to make profit; this wasn’t working out too well for the beverages team. Therefore the general manager’s decision was to pull it out of the market. Being a relatively new company in the playing field of fast moving consumer goods, the beverage team so far had launched only one product that was rendered useless to the company. So another decision of launching a new juice but with a different market, playing field and target audience was introduced by the brand ambassador. The impact was a new aim for the beverage team and the implementing of the decision to pull out the old juice from the market over a span of time, and next year, the new juice would be launched with a different campaign altogether. Meanwhile the beverage team was to work with the corporate campaigns in order to cover up for not having a product for the meanwhile (Nutt, 2010). Decision making means choosing one alternative out of the pool of alternatives available. This may or may not be the best decision for the individual, group or organization. However a decision has to be made and there is a procedure that is to be followed. One must keep in mind however, that we are limited by bounded rationality. This means that there are infinite possibilities out there; however we are curbed, primarily by three things; Information available- not all the information may be available for any alternative, which doesn’t give us the full picture while decision making. Human limitations- being only human, maybe our mind cannot grasp all the angles to a situation or alternative, and we may forgo some things. Time limitations- time is of the essence and we don’t have all the time in the world to make decisions. Due to the pressure, we have to make a decision and therefore it may not be the best one (Gigerenzer & Selten, 2001). In making a decision, the objectives first need to be decided. In this case, the objective was to improve the beverage situation of the organization and be productive, and do something to improve the product that was failing miserably. The second step is to clarify the objectives and to prioritize them in order of importance to get the more important issues on the forefront (Kind, 2010). The main objective or issue was the dropping sales, that weren’t bringing any profit for the company, and this problem had to be fixed. Alternative actions also need to be established thirdly, because something may work out or not, and one should have a backup plan since nothing comes with a guarantee. Therefore, even though the brand was being pulled out of the market, different work was being given to the employees of the team, and there was also job rotation to see if they were good in other positions or not. Also, they were working on the new brand with all their resources and creativity, with the thought in mind however, that it may not hit the market as they expected. The alternative of the new juice had to be weighed out against all the objectives as well. The objective was basically to generate sales by making something that was accepted by the masses and according to the masses; the old brand wasn’t working well. Therefore they could have revamped the old brand and brought it into the market again, however this wouldn’t have worked out since the old brand had already taken a place in the bottom of the market due to problems aforementioned and people may or may not respond to the revamping and that would lead to further losses This was the alternative that seemed to meet the objective of the organization and its team, by providing employment as well a profit opportunity, and that is why the launching of the new juice was considered to be a tentative decision and some additional work was started to research on the market. However the deal wasn’t closed on this decision and further research was conducted; the market for the juice that was to be launched next year was researched as well as what they were looking for in a juice brand and that wasn’t already available in the market. They decided to come up with a juice with local flavors only since that seemed to be what appealed to the mass; also something aspirational. The decision was finally taken; it was decided that this was the final decision by the beverage team that the new juice would be launched next year, with an aspirational element and local flavors to cater to the mass taste. Further research was done to polish the back end research, and aspects such as the packaging, name, target audience etc. were to be decided. Packaging and name were extremely important since the product was decided. The product was to be given for making and the packaging which was to be aspirational has to be decided. A few names were come up with and run by the legal department for approval. And work was further being done to find out more of the mistakes done in the first brand and how to improve upon it, as well pulling it out of the market and bringing out all the old stock piled up in shops and stores. Planning allowed the decision making process to be smoother and ensure that adverse situations were avoided during the way. However, there were limitations such as the fact that decisions needed to be made soon so there was work for the beverage team. Also, to boost up sales they had limited resources since the failed brand before it didn’t bring in any profit, so they didn’t have such an extravagant budget as the first one and maybe that’s why they decided to go with the mass product rather than an elitist product (Fitzgerald, 2002). Given the theory of bounded rationality, I would have amended the decision making process slightly. Since the team was huge, and there were many branches to the general manager, I would have found out which employee was responsible for not having marketed their product properly, or if it was a sales person, and I would have taken measures against it. Having viewed that brand managers are often changed to bring new blood into the organization and fresher ideas, I would have either changed the brand manager, or outsourced the marketing along with the advertising altogether rather than do everything internally in the organization. If it were sales persons that weren’t functioning well enough, trainings for the sales people should’ve been held, since the supply chain seemed to be flawed as well. This would teach them how to get better shelf space, how to deal with retailers, and how to report every problem effectively. Related to this I would create a strong system of feedback to ensure that all the prior mistakes were not repeated. I would’ve introduced the new brand because the old one was failing badly, but with some hype created a little before the product was launched, to create some sense of mystery in the market. However, I would’ve researched more about what people like, since budgets and time frames weren’t as tight, but the brand manager seemed a little impulsive to get his idea implemented. I would also locate the employees of the brands team with other teams, for cross functionality, and for something to fall back on, in case the other brand failed as well. So that at least they knew other aspects of the organization as well rather than just the beverage side of the story. The fact that the organization made them work on the corporate campaigns was a good idea, however, that was only for the duration of the campaign and not something that was ongoing; it seemed more of an adhoc work scenario than something substantial to work on. I would also have tested out two or three alternatives and their market research; that is, done more research as to if people would be acceptable of the revamped brand rather than pulling it out of the market because its sales were low. The problems that were highlighted could’ve been reviewed and used for the same brand, rather than for a different brand, since that might be confused as the same brand with a different name, even though it is a new brand altogether (Hall, 2010). Bibliography Fitzgerald, S. P. (2002). Decision making. Oxford: Capstone Pub. Gigerenzer, G., & Selten, R. (2001). Bounded Rationality. London: MIT press. Nutt, P. C., & Wilson, D. C. (2010). Handbook of decision making. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K: John Wiley. Top of Form Adair, J. E. (2010). Decision making and problem solving strategies. London: Kogan Page. Top of Form Kind, V. (2010). The caregivers path to compassionate decision making: Making choices for those who cant. Austin, TX: Greenleaf Book Group Press. Bottom of Form Top of Form Hall, R. E. (2010). Forward-looking decision making: Dynamic-programming models applied to health, risk, employment, and financial stability. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. 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