Copper

Key facts

* Copper pharmaceuticals, Inc were a major manufacturer for prescription drugs for medical and dental professions.

* Sales are done mainly with the detailers who were pharmacy school graduates and had couple years of experience as registered pharmacists in drugstores.

* Bob Marsh, with CPI for 12 years, married and had two children

* Marsh's initial salary was $35,000 and been raised to over $60,000 throughout his time with CPI

* Marsh has 6 different field supervisor throughout the time he was with CPI

* 60% of detailers had 10 or more years with CPI and only 8% turnover rate per year.

* CPI's detailer's total earning ranged from $40,000 to $80,000 yearly bonus inclusive.

* CPI has total of 35 district mangers, they were expected to spend 3 to 4 days per week on the field with the detailers. The district mangers reported to one of the 6 zone managers.

* The overall performance appraisals from mangers are satisfactory except being much unorganized.

* Other than the first district manager John Meredith, all the other mangers worked less than 3 years with Marsh.

* Marsh has been on probation twice

* Franklin terminated Marsh with a short discussion in a hotel meeting.

* A week after Marsh's resignation, he called the CPI zone office for an appointment with the zone manager, and the zone manger refused

* During the following weeks, the president of CPI received several letters from customer stating the disbelief and perplexity over the unexplained dismissal of one of the finest detailers in the area.

Step 2 - Determining the Root Problem & Step 3 - Identifying the Problem Components

The current challenge facing CPI is whether or not the dismissal of Marsh a management failure that lend to complaints from customers or it was the right decision to dismiss Marsh but the complaints was a revenge from Marsh to the district and zone mangers for the reason that he was forced to resign from the position.

There are many factors the contributed to root of this problem. First, Marsh had six different district managers throughout his career with CPI. It is almost impossible to understand how a person's work efficiency with this short amount of time working with them. It is the management's flaw in allowing the district manger turnover rate being so high. Second, the mangers are suppose to spent a great amount of time with the detailer in the field, however except one of the early district managers were able to fulfill the requirements, all the other managers failed. Third, the bad news should be delivered by both the zone manager and the district manger in a very well planned way but not only a quick announcement in a hotel meeting. Lastly, the company is now faced with a lot of unhappy customers and complaints requesting an explanation for the dismissal of Marsh

Step 4 - Generating alternatives

* Do nothing.

* Re-hire Marsh as the detailer for the area.

* Look in to the management flaw that caused the dismissal of such a good detailer.

* Dismiss both the district and zone manager for bad decision.

* Have a major meeting with all the previous mangers Marsh had and do an appraisal on Marsh again.

* Send out explanation letters to customer on why the company made this decision.

* Do not send out any explanation letter customer but reply them as this is strictly business decision.

* Do a corporate level overhaul of the management style and procedure.

* Restrict all hiring and firing decisions of detailer and up position to vice president of sales only.

Step 5 - Evaluating Alternative

* This is a crisis situation the company cannot "do nothing" as a response to all the complaint letters received from varies of customers. In additional to that, those complaint letters may be generated because of Marsh's intentional attack to the company because he felt mistreated.

* Re-hire Marsh is one of the better alternatives because all the complaint letters stated he was a very good detailer. However, this is the last alternative the company should consider because it may cause other employees to challenge the management's ability to make a decision efficiently.

* This is one of the alternative that the company must execute at one moment of this crisis management process, the company will need to reconsider the minimum amount of time a district manager should with one region before being transferred to another region. Or how long the transition process should be.

* The situation do not allow dismissal of any other employees during the crisis situation, in additional to that a bad decision in terminating a detailer isn't really that big of an event that can result of a dismissal of both the district and zone managers.

* A major meeting is one of the better alternatives the company should consider, the company need to figure out what went wrong in the process of terminating a detailer who worked for the company for 12 years and received couple honor letters from the president. With the entire managers seat together they can do an overall re-cap of what Marsh really was and may allow them to reconsider re-hiring him.

* Reponses to customers' inquiries about