An Analytical Review

An Analytical Review of Symptoms and Causes of Drasco’s Managerial Puzzle

In today’s business climate, almost all types of organizations, regardless of their running scale or developing stage, face varying degrees of problems and clashes that could cause barriers to the overall goal-reaching process. For Drasco Stores, the issue, primarily revolving around the firm’s new credit cards’ launching and marketing procedure, was unveiled when Vice President of Branch Operations, D. K. Adams, wrote an accusing letter to Lino Cerutti. As Ray Patton was complained by Adams for his behaviors of directing blames on regional managers regarding the visible lack of promotional materials, a deeper-level difficulty was suggested over the distribution of responsibilities among three functional divisions. For the implementation of the credit card project, divergence of opinions emerged when Lino categorized the task into Finance’s duty and stressed the coordinating role of Marketing, whereas Adams argued for a full job taken by Operations. Though the meeting decision was made to require collaborations from three departments, Lino identified a prevalence of cold attitudes towards credit card promotion. A dilemma was hence observed overshadowing Lino, who showed hesitations between reporting to the President and confronting Adams through the phone.

Without any question, the overwhelming sign that brought about conflicts and dissatisfactions to multiple sides was the inadequate supplies of promotional materials. As a customer-based business engaging in houseware and hardware products, Drasco introduced new credit cards as one strategic way to improve its foundation of revenues and maintain its edge in the industry shaped by increasingly fierce competitions. With the strongly-held belief that equipping purchasers with a new paying method could stimulate consumptions of goods, marketers and decision-makers represented by executing members launched activities to publicize credit cards. To achieve the aim of retaining customer loyalty, promotional objects, such as posters and flyers were considered necessary steps and convenient ways to directly reach customers and inform them of related advantages about signing. The apparent lack of provisions for these materials, as one factor of negativity fueled Ray Patton’s venting out on store managers, was one widespread situation plaguing a majority of branch stores. Besides, the witnessed absence of enthusiasm from employees, who were supposed to behave positively at both mental and physical levels to win favors from customers, was another abnormal and dangerous element causing Lino’s frustrations. Altogether, these aspects led to adverse effects of conflicts, where verbal arguments and disagreements were seen playing among leaders of various titles.

The primary problem that transformed the whole environment into an impasse lies in the discrepancy of understandings considering responsibility allocations. Possessions of distinctive opinions could be identified in the executive committee meeting where Lino and Adams declared their standings through expressing their own views on new credit cards’ implementation. As the charger leading Branch Operations, Adams defined the promoting work as tasking items of Store Operations. On the other side, by mentioning details of authorization, monitor and collection, Lino observed the process as one fundamental part of Finance. He added that marketing shared a coordinating role in terms of distributing cards to customers and constructing the brand image. There is no deny that broad scarcities of promoting instruments provided a platform for different attitudes to materialize and added complexity to the already tricky and energy-consuming process of generalizing credit cards’ usage. Ray Patton’s behavior of calling into account regional store managers manifested his attitude of seeing Operations as responsible for undersupplies. Further, Lino’s suspicion that the slowness of actions and an insufficiency of urgency were generated due to Adams’s weak leadership intensified the case. The lack of advertising materials helped drive the large division of perspectives into a severe crisis of interests as stakeholders stood out to justify their grounds and point fingers at other parties’ performances. These controversial aspects not only contributed to postponing the accomplishment of goals of capturing customers and enlarging profits but held back clear comprehensions of separations of duties.

Whether caused by Marketing’s careless mistakes or sub-branches’ moderate responding abilities while carrying out policies and orders issued by authorities, problems analyzed give explicit expressions to more profoundly seated problems eroding larger levels of management and execution. Distinctions of understandings over participations in tasks and underperformances of store employees jointly move the needle at a peril hard to detect in front of examinations: the overall business inaction. In other words, the executive team on behalf of Drasco Stores, through giving meeting discussions and accumulating proposals, succeeds in identifying and confirming plans for launching and throwing into the market new credit cards. However, they harvest failures in terms of declaring with complete clarity concrete details of task delegations and spheres of responsibilities. Exactly because of the overly simplistic instructions and obvious ambiguity expressed in giving orders to teams of diverse characters, disasters of a shortage of promotional data and lack of consensus took place and hindered the firm from arriving at its goals. The sense of non-doings of the company as a whole, when put in smaller areas and inter-department layers, is manifested in poor communications and selfish business conducts. Therefore, the supreme power of authority eventually gets translated into unhealthy patterns of leadership and speaks out as evident inefficiency and complete vagueness.

Undoubtedly, troubles occurred within Drasco display universal contradictions, at the same time, implying bothersome weaknesses of the Canadian retailer itself. Through a careful glance at its baffling problems, it is estimated that the business’s inability to hand out valid orders and give straightforward assignments are the hidden roots of an array of ill performances as well as disharmonious voices. The cause could be generalized as the primary reason for implemention obstacles, thus, preventing the organization from efficiently fulfilling its mission of maximizing revenues and dynamic flows of operations within internal structures.