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Business Situations

D

Deleted61970

Guest
Hello,

I wanted to try something different with my latest post, something more interactive. I will present several business related situations(some common and some rare) to which I will give my own solutions for and then ask for your solution on the problems presented, as well as any opinions on the solutions I’ve presented as well. I hope to learn a lot from a post like this and maybe others can learn as well. Let us begin.

I will present 5 situations and then put my solution to the situations underneath each in brackets.

Situation 1: You’re the CEO of a company that is struggling financially, 3 companies offer to buy out your business and its assets but each buyout comes with a contract with different requirements to it. The first business’s offer is that they will buy your business but you will have to work in a lower level managerial position. The second business’s offer is that they will buy out your business but will remove all of your current employees in order to transfer their own employees in. The third business’s offer is that they will buy out your business but you and your employees will have to move to another country to work at a separate branch as the business buying out sees an opportunity oversees and would like you and your staff to go there. Which option do you take?

(I would choose option 1, option 2 suffers issues with employees not happy about being laid off in such a way and therefor impacts your overall reputation as a manager, damaging your future prospects for people wanting to work under you, option 3 suffers problems with employees possibly not wanting to go oversees because of their families and even trying to do business in another country will be difficult for everyone not well versed in the countries business climate. I chose option 1 because employees won’t have to be laid off, there will be no need to go oversees and just being in a lower level managerial position still has prospects to advance upwards.)

Situation 2: You invest into shares of an IT company that is expanding rapidly. You notice that several long term shareholders have sold their shares in quick succession but the company itself hasn’t suffered any issues and still seems to be growing steadily. One of the shareholders tells you that the reason they sold was because the IT company hired a marketing manager with a bad reputation and it might spell doom for the business in the future. Do you keep your shares and stick with the company or sell them?

(I would keep my shares in the company for the mean time, I would pay close attention each week to the state of that IT business in particular, trying to see any trends of negative growth or other problems. I would only sell my shares once have seen enough evidence to be absolutely sure of this businesses fall.)

Situation 3: A person applies to your company for a position in IT management. They have a masters in business management and are fresh out of university. They studied both programming and business in high school and even started out in a Bsc Computer science degree before transferring in their second year. They have also come with a recommendation from their university’s head of faculty for commerce studies. Your current IT manager began working as a programmer after high school and he came to the company after 5 years of working in the IT field. He performs very well and makes almost no mistakes in his work but has some noticeable social issues with 2 members of his department that has been happening for a couple of months. Do you take the recent university graduate or keep your current IT manager.

(I would keep the current IT manager, I trust his work experience far more then the studies of student straight out of university, I also think the social problems with the 2 members can be solved within a week with conflict resolution steps and warnings.)

Situation 4: One of your competitors is changing the way they market their products. They switch to purely marketing their products online through their social media pages as well as by paying internet celebrities to promoted their products. A noticeable increase in their buyer base as well as the number of other business interested in them has increased. But you also notice that they are suffering a lot of negativity from their social pages and some of the internet celebrities that they don’t sponsor start criticizing them for using other internet celebrities that they don’t like. The internet celebrities that criticize you also have a larger following than the ones you sponsor do. After taking data and analyzing it, you only notice a slight decrease in sales and positive feedback over a period of 3 months. What direction do you take?

(I would follow the competitors way of advertising, the only difference being is I would choose internet celebrities that generally have a very positive standing with both their audience and their fellow creators. I would also invest in internet celebrities that have content that caters to different audiences to increase potential buyers.)

Situation 5: You have started a new marketing campaign for a new shampoo product that you are releasing. 3 months into the campaign you decide to take statistics as well as release a survey for your product in order to get some customer feedback and the results are: 60% of sales come from men under the age of 25, 25% from men over 25 and 15% from women of all ages, 55% of negative comments and reviews on social media come mainly from women and most of your sales peak towards the end of the month. What action do you take?

(I would start advertising the shampoo as a men only product, as 60% of sales come from men under 25 I would advertise it with a more youthful and party style. I feel it is alright to just ignore the negativity from female users online and focus the product entirely on a male target market.)

Please feel free to state any criticisms, inconsistencies and other problems with the situations and solutions I have presented.

I look forward to your replies.

Thank you for your time.
 
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minivanman

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1. I would find someone else to sell to because I only sell on MY terms. And, MY terms are that when I sell the company, I am done.... out.... it is yours, you run it. If I stayed WORKING for the new company, there is no way I could take being an employee again.

2. I would sell. I'd never own shares of 1 company like that. I'd sell even if things were going great. (Would have never invested to begin with)

3. I'm keeping the guy I have.

4. I would have to be in the situation. It depends on the product(s) and or the celebrities.

5. I would focus on males only. I'd play both sides of the fence though. I'd market to younger males and older males. Maybe as a dad/son thing. I think if that high of a percentage of younger males are buying it, I could get the older males to buy it with a little smart marketing.

Just giving answers to the questions asked.... not a lot of thought went in to seeing if the questions were screwy or not. :)
 

Mukul

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
113%
Nov 19, 2017
16
18
24
India
Hello,

I wanted to try something different with my latest post, something more interactive. I will present several business related situations(some common and some rare) to which I will give my own solutions for and then ask for your solution on the problems presented, as well as any opinions on the solutions I’ve presented as well. I hope to learn a lot from a post like this and maybe others can learn as well. Let us begin.

I will present 5 situations and then put my solution to the situations underneath each in brackets.

Situation 1: You’re the CEO of a company that is struggling financially, 3 companies offer to buy out your business and its assets but each buyout comes with a contract with different requirements to it. The first business’s offer is that they will buy your business but you will have to work in a lower level managerial position. The second business’s offer is that they will buy out your business but will remove all of your current employees in order to transfer their own employees in. The third business’s offer is that they will buy out your business but you and your employees will have to move to another country to work at a separate branch as the business buying out sees an opportunity oversees and would like you and your staff to go there. Which option do you take?

(I would choose option 1, option 2 suffers issues with employees not happy about being laid off in such a way and therefor impacts your overall reputation as a manager, damaging your future prospects for people wanting to work under you, option 3 suffers problems with employees possibly not wanting to go oversees because of their families and even trying to do business in another country will be difficult for everyone not well versed in the countries business climate. I chose option 1 because employees won’t have to be laid off, there will be no need to go oversees and just being in a lower level managerial position still has prospects to advance upwards.)

Situation 2: You invest into shares of an IT company that is expanding rapidly. You notice that several long term shareholders have sold their shares in quick succession but the company itself hasn’t suffered any issues and still seems to be growing steadily. One of the shareholders tells you that the reason they sold was because the IT company hired a marketing manager with a bad reputation and it might spell doom for the business in the future. Do you keep your shares and stick with the company or sell them?

(I would keep my shares in the company for the mean time, I would pay close attention each week to the state of that IT business in particular, trying to see any trends of negative growth or other problems. I would only sell my shares once have seen enough evidence to be absolutely sure of this businesses fall.)

Situation 3: A person applies to your company for a position in IT management. They have a masters in business management and are fresh out of university. They studied both programming and business in high school and even started out in a Bsc Computer science degree before transferring in their second year. They have also come with a recommendation from their university’s head of faculty for commerce studies. Your current IT manager began working as a programmer after high school and he came to the company after 5 years of working in the IT field. He performs very well and makes almost no mistakes in his work but has some noticeable social issues with 2 members of his department that has been happening for a couple of months. Do you take the recent university graduate or keep your current IT manager.

(I would keep the current IT manager, I trust his work experience far more then the studies of student straight out of university, I also think the social problems with the 2 members can be solved within a week with conflict resolution steps and warnings.)

Situation 4: One of your competitors is changing the way they market their products. They switch to purely marketing their products online through their social media pages as well as by paying internet celebrities to promoted their products. A noticeable increase in their buyer base as well as the number of other business interested in them has increased. But you also notice that they are suffering a lot of negativity from their social pages and some of the internet celebrities that they don’t sponsor start criticizing them for using other internet celebrities that they don’t like. The internet celebrities that criticize you also have a larger following than the ones you sponsor do. After taking data and analyzing it, you only notice a slight decrease in sales and positive feedback over a period of 3 months. What direction do you take?

(I would follow the competitors way of advertising, the only difference being is I would choose internet celebrities that generally have a very positive standing with both their audience and their fellow creators. I would also invest in internet celebrities that have content that caters to different audiences to increase potential buyers.)

Situation 5: You have started a new marketing campaign for a new shampoo product that you are releasing. 3 months into the campaign you decide to take statistics as well as release a survey for your product in order to get some customer feedback and the results are: 60% of sales come from men under the age of 25, 25% from men over 25 and 15% from women of all ages, 55% of negative comments and reviews on social media come mainly from women and most of your sales peak towards the end of the month. What action do you take?

(I would start advertising the shampoo as a men only product, as 60% of sales come from men under 25 I would advertise it with a more youthful and party style. I feel it is alright to just ignore the negativity from female users online and focus the product entirely on a male target market.)

Please feel free to state any criticisms, inconsistencies and other problems with the situations and solutions I have presented.

I look forward to your replies.

Thank you for your time.
Great post! Agreed with you in all situations except the first one.
I think I will not sell to any of three contractors and find some option 4
because...it feels wierd to work in the lower managerial position for the company you started with years of hard work :)

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk
 
D

Deleted61970

Guest
Great post! Agreed with you in all situations except the first one.
I think I will not sell to any of three contractors and find some option 4
because...it feels wierd to work in the lower managerial position for the company you started with years of hard work :)

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk
You would try and find a 4th option and ignore the first 3? The company is struggling financially so do you think it is still viable and will have enough time to find a 4th option?
 
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Mukul

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
113%
Nov 19, 2017
16
18
24
India
You would try and find a 4th option and ignore the first 3? The company is struggling financially so do you think it is still viable and will have enough time to find a 4th option?
Well...it depends on many factors. Like reputation of company, its age , availability of potential buyers and many more. So if there is hope and probability of handling for some time, I will not sell. But if there is no probability then option 1is better.
And sorry for bad english :)

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk
 

minivanman

Platinum Contributor
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Mar 16, 2017
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DFW
I agree because almost NO owner wants to become an employee at a much lower level of the company they started. I think if I liked the company and still had passion for it, I'd turn it around and keep it. If I didn't have passion for it anymore, how could I work in it after I sold it? I'm sticking with my original answer with a twist.... I'd either turn it around or sell it to someone where I wasn't going to be working in it.
 

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