Managerial Decision Making - Essay Example

Introduction Our hardware company which was showing good profits within the United s of America for the last five years prompted the management to expand internationally and offer our products to other developed countries in Europe and Asia, with plans to cover the entire international market in the future. The plan was prepared with meticulous care taking into account all details of international trade, customs laws, partnering with marketing companies of international repute and establishment of shipping and freight handling operations.

However within the first six months our company had a serious problem when we failed to capture the international market in face of stiff competition from rival companies and lack of interest in our products among the international customers.The ProblemThe problem faced by our organization was the prospect of huge loss in our international market as our decision to expand offshore was more of an intuitive one, rather than one being based on a rational decision making process (Thagard P., 2001).

We took the success that our products had achieved within the US in terms of popularity and marketability for granted with enough evidence of customer acceptance, backed by our strict quality control division. These factors mislead us to believe that we could achieve similar results abroad, without considering the peculiar cultural, geographical and market practices in foreign countries. The necessary spade work of preparing a customer base and marketing in foreign lands, which should have been done in consultation with pertinent agencies, prior to the venture, was the major mistake we made.

Criteria considered according to Bazerman’s model (Bakker Karen, et al).ProblemStep1Step2Step3Step4Step5Tips/ToolsDefine the problem;Success in International MarketingIdentify allrelevant criteria1. Political Scenario2. Culture3. Market Size4. Competitors5. Advertising6. Financial AspectsWeigh thecriteria; Identify theRelative values.Assign ranks to identified criteriaSearch andgeneratealternativesTarget markets according to prevailing situation unique to the target countryRate eachalternativeagainst criteriaFind rational alternatives based on facts obtained.

Compute optimaldecisionBiases Table1. Decision-makingStrategies2.ImplementationOptimal DecisionAfter identifying the criteria, decision to redesign international marketing should be made on the basis of rational criteria and available alternatives should be put into practice irrespective of the intuitive opinions of the management. The decision making should be fact based as a rational model is logically expected to lead to an optimal result. All identified criteria are ranked according to the peculiar situation of a country and local help is sought to enable marketing in the traditional way which is common in that country after setting up rational financial goals which are ultimately beneficial for the company.

This leads to putting different marketing strategies into practice which are unique for a region or country. DiscrepanciesAs a wide variety of inputs will be obtained while collecting factual information from foreign countries, the interpretation criteria which is still in the hands of the same management may still be biased. This might require further refinement or necessitate making changes in the management hierarchy by incorporating manpower from the target countries.Problems EncounteredAs the international venture has already been put in practice retracting is not possible and putting the new rational model into place will require a time span which could further aggravate the losses.

Weaknesses in the Fully Rational ModelThe fully rational model is based on statistical data and derived inferences which may not entirely address the problem as other measures like business acumen and innovative marketing strategies might provide immediate results. ConclusionThe international venture of the hardware manufacturing organization was based on the domestic success and did not implement a different marketing strategy abroad which resulted in loss to the company. When the problematic areas were identified and a rational analysis done based on facts obtained, it lead to the identification of flaws of the initial marketing strategies which necessarily had to be designed according to the peculiarities of a region or country.

Reference ListBakker Karen, Corry Anne, Hughes Paul and Thorsett Peter, The FACTS Decision-Making Model And Its Application to Site Selection forThe Cheesecake Factory, Inc., Online Research Paper available at: http://www.thinkingink.com/_contents/edu/phd_archives/MGT8130_FinalPaper.PDFThagard Paul,(2001) How to Make Decisions: Coherence, Emotion, and Practical Inference, Philosophy Department University of Waterloo, Available Online at: http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/Articles/Pages/how-to-decide.html