BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

DASHMAN CASE STUDY SUBMISSION

Submitted to: Ms. Shivdasini Amin

Submitted by: Group 11

Sonam Ahuja 104/11 Ankita Agarwal 106/11 Kumar Somil 108/11 Venkat 110/11 Nishant 112/11 Manish Thakur 114/11

SUMMARY OF THE CASE The Dashman company is a large concern making equipments of armed forces. It operates through over 20 plants, located in the central part of the country. Till now, the company encouraged the plant executives to operate with their staffs as separate independent units in purchasing matters. In 1940, to regulate the purchasing procedures, company appointed Mr. Post as vice president in-charge of purchasing; and Mr. Larson as his secretary. Mr. Posts first decision was to immediately centralize the companys purchasing. He made a plan in which all the plant executives were required to clear all purchase contracts made in excess of $ 10,000 with the head office; one week prior to the signing of the contracts. He got the plan approved by the board of directors and sent out a letter to notify all the 20 purchasing executives of the company. In the following weeks, replies were received from all the plants except a few, assuring cooperation with the head office. During the next six weeks, no notifications were received from any of the plants regarding any purchases.

PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED No background check was done by Mr.Post prior to informing the plant executives about the new system. He didnt care to find out crucial information like what the average purchasing amount goes into the orders, how much time period goes into negotiation of prices etc. No audience analysis was done and therefore he couldnt gauge what problems the plant executives might face upon the implementation of the new system or what they felt about it. The system was being implemented just 3 weeks before the starting of the peak buying season. This would have posed problem for the purchase & plant executives as they would be busy and wouldnt find time to do the needful. According to Munters model, the tell approach was used by Mr.Post to inform the plant executives about the new purchase system, whereas the case demanded that the consult approach should have been used as it was required of the audience to understand why the system was being adopted and also because the end result was to be procured from the audience itself, i.e., the executives. Mr.Post did not analyze the consequences of acquiring the new system. The letter that he sent out to the executives contained an imposing tone; and demanded indirectly the power to control the purchases be taken away from the plant executives. This could have bred hostility among the executives, giving the end result that none of the plants actually followed the new system. Mr.Post did not consider the Mr.Larsons feedback regarding the letter; despite his experience.