Steve Wright said, "What an appalling manager!!". Actually, maybe not: I think
he was a good "trooper" just following orders (as he had been trained to do in
the Marines).
It was my (later) analysis that the firm was was deliberately TRYING to
generate new sales without regard to customer turnover in order to justify high
prices being charged to the government, which generated a significant portion
of sales (more than 80%). Due to a "most favored nations" clause, whereby the
firm would charge no more for the government than its lowest priced customer,
they would not discount. Hypothesizing that commercial customers would not
stick around long, they preempted by ignoring them and focused on new sales,
each of which helped to justify the high price being charged to government. The
unwise executives perhaps failed to understand that customers will pay premium
prices for premium SERVICE and had no intention of leaving for price alone.
FYI: The disagreement was "solved" by adherence to the top-down edict and the
employee, yours truly, resigned and started a business serving the after-sales
service niche, prospered, cashed out, and migrated to academia. My on-going
research focuses on managing strategic performance, strategic thinking, and
entrepreneurial management.
--
Prof. John L. Naman naman+@pitt.edu