When sales falter in a region, the sales force may want to maintain its independence from interference and contain the problem by creating a solution using only its own people, perhaps by putting more salespeople into the field. This seems like a logical answer when no one knows the cause of the problem for sure.
Let's look at an example of when such an approach can be flawed. For instance, when Russia's economic woes led to a default on government debt in 1998, many distributors of foreign products in Russia were unable to pay for inventories of imported goods as the ruble plunged in value versus foreign currencies. Sales by many companies exporting to Russia ground quickly to a halt.
What do do? Some exporters tried to solve the problem by going into Russia and selling directly to the retailers themselves, then handing the orders to the Russian distributors. Since the distributors had too little money to buy the goods, they still couldn't order much. Selling wasn't the distributors' weakness, it was a financial liquidity problem.
The Gillette sales force quickly perceived that more help than with selling to retail accounts was needed in Russia, and added financial people to its team of problem solvers. Their solution involved amending Gillette's credit policies to undertake the currency risk for three days after the order was received (during which time the product could be received and shipped to the distributors' customers).
This policy enabled many distributors to borrow the needed foreign currency for working capital to support a "cash and carry" policy with the distributors' customers, who were ready and willing to pay cash to get the supplies. Soon Gillette's sales in Russia began to recover.
In retrospect, the Russian situation called for financial thinking and changed credit policies, not more sales people as many other companies perceived. Wise companies in this situation avoided unnecessary costs to increase their sales by focusing on just solving the credit issue, rather than by trying to do everything for everyone including selling to the distributors' customers directly for the distributors.
Why do organizations make mistakes when new situations arise? Chances are that each organizational function seeks to operate as independently of one another as possible. With that goal in mind, there's often reluctance to describe problems to others . . . especially the financial staff. Yet the other parts of the organization will probably be needed to define and implement an optimal solution. Certainly, no new credit policy is going to be authorized without financial review. Why not have the financial people involved from day one?
Who has he learned the most from? It's his young daughter, Samantha, who launched him into the new and challenging role as parent. With all his academic and professional accomplishments, he is most proud of being Samantha's father. But he also points with pride to the marathon (26.2 miles) he ran in 2001 and the half Iron Man he accomplished in 2000 (a 1.25 mile swim, followed by a 60-mile bike ride, completed with a 13.1-mile run).
A self-characterized "academic consultant," Dr. Scholey is engaged in a busy consulting practice in Canada helping leaders develop strategy maps and Balanced Scorecards (ways of making organizational strategies explicit) to implement their new directions. When he's not consulting, Dr. Scholey teaches MBA students at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) and provides workshops for The Society of Management Accountants of Ontario and The Society of Management Accountants of Canada. A self-described "Pied Piper", he enjoys traveling throughout North America to spread the word about the benefits of strategy mapping and the Balanced Scorecard'
After earning his MBA, Dr. Scholey was eager to advance into a doctoral program. His first experience, however, was less than rewarding: Dr. Scholey's academic advisor wanted him to focus on economics while Dr. Scholey wanted to emphasize psychology (management accounting is grounded in both of these disciplines). Rather than struggle with the conflict, Dr. Scholey tabled his plans for a few years, hoping to find a place where he could study what he wanted in a PhD program.
A number of years later, while teaching at The University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario), Dr. Scholey discovered Rushmore University, an online school that provides a wide variety of master's and doctoral programs. Dr. Scholey enrolled based on the promise of being able to set his own educational direction. What direction was that? He wanted to take his cutting edge consulting and teaching work and push both to a higher level of accomplishment and effectiveness.
That's a tall order for someone who was already teaching graduate business students at one of North America's leading universities. Dr. Scholey's goal was facilitated by being able to draw on some of the world's finest practitioners and authors of advanced strategy concepts on Rushmore's faculty.
To take advantage of those resources, Dr. Scholey took his most advanced writings and consulting assignments and looked to sharpen his effectiveness by creating even better approaches than the published state of the art. There's no doubt that he succeeded: The quality of this work was recognized when the prestigious Journal of Business Strategy accepted one of his Rushmore papers for publication while Dr. Scholey was still earning his doctorate.
In addition to what he learned, Dr. Scholey was able to advance in other ways. He was so impressed by what he was learning that he revised his own teaching methods to more closely model what he was experiencing as a student from his professors. His friend and mentor at The University of Waterloo, Howard Armitage, was extremely impressed at the caliber of teaching at Rushmore.
His professional recognition grew due to his increased knowledge and expertise: In fact, coincident with his earning a Ph.D. in strategic leadership, Dr. Scholey was nominated to be a Fellow of Certified Management Accountants, the pinnacle of recognition for Canadian accountants.
His consulting career was helped by earning the degree, being published in the Journal of Business Strategy, and developing improved ways to help clients. Although he was a published author of a book, A Practical Guide to the Balanced Scorecard (CCH Canadian, 2002) before launching his PhD studies, Dr. Scholey feels that the doctoral program greatly honed his writing skills due to the extremely professional editing help he received and the feedback on drafts that his professor provided.
But becoming a PhD isn't the end by any means. Dr. Scholey is most interested in becoming a whole person. The PhD is just the next step in that continuing process. A true Canadian boy, he has recently taken up hockey again and plays year-round.
I am sure that the number of qualification letters behind his name will grow in the future. Everyone, I'm sure, will benefit as he becomes an even more brilliant teacher, consultant, speaker, and leader who understands that you have to look sharp to stay sharp.
Donald Mitchell has sinced written about articles on various topics from . Donald Mitchell is an author of seven books including Adventures of an Optimist, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The Ultimate Competitive Advantag. Donald Mitchell's top article . to your Favourites.