6. NEED OF ONGOING MANAGEMENT CYCLE( Case Study )

Sidney Greenburg was appointed the position of the
director of marketing for a small electronics component
manufacturer. The company had its revenues growing at the
rate of 20% each year and in 1982, they were at 30 million
level The president felt that the growth of the company
required serious planning efforts to determining strategies
product emphasis and new product development.

Mr. Greenburg realising the need to develop the
marketing plan developed a suggested format to obtain
inputs from his regional sales managers. The format to
obtain divided into two parts (a) territory brief for
established status of sales activities and (b) territory
plan asked for identification of key goals, strategy &
resources required to accomplish stated goals. Sales
forecast by products was requested for 3 plan Yrs.

Tom Rosenfield was the marketing manager for Europe
He was previously in the engineering department & was
assigned to Europe because of his technical& Foreign
language capabilities. He replied to Mr.Greenburg as
follows:

“While I will complete the forms on the country brief&
country plan promptly I have some conceptual problems with
them time& time again we have been requested for projected
figures I remember putting together a presentation for the
Executive Vice-President (VP) & Treasurer last year. Great
we educated those guys but what are the results of such
formality? The projections have not yielded specific
results, resources are used at a minimal level & we are not
generating needed sales.
So it is my contention that while goals projections&
forecasts provide immeasurable guidance for a company with
stable sales & developed product lines, for us a fledglings
(young) industry, they distract from the job at hand. My
plan has always been to hit the market- as hard I am able &
I believe this should hold true for all other regional
managers. We have large amounts of resources held up in
ineffective’ marketing planning efforts such as these need
to redirect these efforts to self rather than compile data.

We need more people beating the pavement (action) rater
than sitting on their desks developing plans& strategies
(contemplation) Sell, sell, sell. Get the backing as big as
possible. Planning is wasteful. Let us concentrate on
aggressive sales & optimize sales volume at any cost.

A. What has Mr.Greenburg not done to accomplish his
planning tasks?

B. Is Mr.Rosenfield right in making his comments in
response to Mr. Greenburg’s request?

C. Is Mr. Rosenfleld performing his management
function.

D. What would you do if you were Mr.Rosenfleld’s boss?