Credenhill Industries "thinking Critically" Simulation

Credenhill Industries "Thinking Critically" Simulation

Linda James, notable entrepreneur, is Credenhill Industries Through-Cred Management Development Program lead. In this simulation, the participant is immersed in the life of an inductee in this prestigious program. This paper seeks to explain how critical thinking affects the successful decision-making process while incorporating several key points derived from the course textbook.

The Credenhill business sector our acting manager is assigned is a troubled consumer electronics store in Dallas, TX. As acting manager, it is up to the inductee to deal with the stores issues and offer decisive logical solutions for the complex issues plaguing the business. The goal is to save the store, while in the process win the competition against two equally gifted co-inductees working independently on other assignments. Linda James will mentor all three participants personally.

The first order of business is to frame the problem or in this case, the problems, then evaluate proper solutions to apply to the problem areas. The six steps of decision-making were used to identify four critical and one non-critical problem, as illustrated in table 1.

Critical Non-Critical

Urgent Product Mix WAN

New Store

Variable Pay

Non-Urgent Legal Action

Table 1 - Credenhill, Dallas Store, Problems

Product mix: Large ticket items (i.e. Home Theatres, high end audio, etc.) account for the primary products stocked. Demand has waned for these items due to strict competition. Computer and Internet items that are in vogue now are items Credenhill does not market.

New Store: A new multi-brand store has opened near the Credenhill, Dallas location luring former Credenhill customers along with experienced staff.

Variable Pay: Low variable pay was ranked as the number one complaint among junior associates even though Credenhill's pay is competitive in the industry; nevertheless, pay differences between junior associates and senior associates accounts for the disparity.

Legal Action: The Credenhill Lemmon Ave. store does not meet current local regulations for disability access and the city Council is threatening legal action for non-compliance. Renovations would force the store to be closed for 10-15 days.

WAN: The WAN has crashed six times during the last month. Sales and inventory data has been reported using the backup Intranet system.

The brainstorming technique was used to identify a list of causes and/or effects from Credenhill's problems. With the brainstormed list a cause and effect diagram was drafted to isolate the cause of Credenhill's root problem. From this tool, an available alternative solutions list was generated, again by using the brainstorming tool. Obvious unrealistic alternatives were pruned from the list, considerably paring it into a usable list of identified alternatives. Finally, potential solutions could be evaluated and ranked against each other. Two options were evaluated as illustrated in table 2.

Solution 1 Solution 2

Hike Promotional Expenditure Reorient Product Mix

Reorient