Jamie Turner at MLI, Inc

Working Group – C2 (PGDM-MKT)

Members:

21M110 – Dhyey Hareshbhai Salot

21M123 – Pritha Mitra
21M124 – Rajat Ramesh Nayak
21M132 – Shubham Sood
21M134 – Sparsh Parashar

Analysis

1. Reasons for the situation at MLI

● Communication gap- Since Cardullo is busy overlooking the operations of 2 companies

he could not devote his full time and efforts to the operations of MLI, any quick
decisions regarding the sales of an inventory or any pricing strategy that needed urgent
attention were getting affected by this.
● Flawed ideology- President Cardullo always believed in the idea that each manager
should be able to run his or her own department with only a little help from the other
functions. This ideology overburdened Turner with a lot of tasks as he was now doing
budgeting, controlling, and a lot of other tasks that could have been dealt with ease by
other support functions of the organisation.
● Regular intervention- Turner was vice president of marketing and sales and he was
promised autonomy over taking major marketing decisions and pricing but President
Cardullo regularly intervened in his decisions.
● No definite direction- Turner, and Cardullo both were of different opinions on how to
run the company, Turner was more interested in increasing the sales volume whereas
Cardullo was more interested in increasing the margin earned by selling each product.
● New pricing scheme- Turner with his sales strategy was working on improving the sales
numbers of the company and he was getting some success in it as well, as the sales
numbers for the company improved a bit from the February period but it was still below
the projected numbers which Cardullo didn’t like and was more interested in the better
margin. To counter this Cardullo decided to adopt a new pricing scheme without taking
demand, competitor analysis, and other things into the consideration, as a result, MLI
was in a much worse situation than before.
● Cardullo’s Behavior- Cardullo dealt with the management team and employees in an
inappropriate way, He raised his voice in staff meetings, this behavior was unnecessary
and possibly even destructive. Cardullo's behavior might have negatively affected the
working environment of the organization.
● Internal conflicts- Top management at MLI were having conflicts among themselves as
Julie Chin and Turner didn’t see eye to eye on most of the occasions, she was the one
 that went to Cardullo to inform about the low margin sale that Turner made and she
also declined to reimburse Juanita Swenson. Julie Chin also believed that Tim Kelly was
the major problem for the company whereas Turner believed in the skillset of Time
Kelly.

2. What possibly could have avoided this situation.

● Delegation of authority- If Cardullo has to divide his time between the two
organisations then he should delegate some decision-making authority to one of his
subordinates so that he can take charge of the MLI in the absence of Cardullo and
address some important issues as and when they arise.
● Trust - The President should trust the Vice President’s or managers' decisions ability
skills and not regularly intervene in all decisions. Give flexibility and freedom to
managers to work in the organization.
● Employee friendly environment -. Censured managers in public or staff meetings might
make a negative image in the mind of colleagues or perceive a negative impression of
Cardullo and then avoid listening to his advice. Cardullo has to change his behavior and
follow the cardinal rule in dealing with subordinates.
● Support from the other functions- Cardullo must understand that to perform effectively
in an organisation manager has to take support from the different functions of the
organisation so that he does not get overburdened and is able to perform his primary
tasks and duties effectively.
● Clear objectives of the company- Turner should have had a discussion with Cardullo
regarding the objectives of the company. As Turner was more inclined towards
increasing the sales volume of the company whereas Cardullo insisted more on
improving the margins.
● Turner should speak his mind- Turner should have stood up to Cardullo regarding the
new pricing policy and should have told him that he is not looking at the factors such as
volume, demand, competition, and other factors before making this policy change.
Cardullo insisted on following the 24% margins for all products, which made a negative
impact on the sales of the company. Company sells its products in three different
groups, decorative lighting(39% of sales), commercial and industrial lighting(43% of
sales) and MLI consulting (18% of sales) which indicates that it sells different products
and volume to the different customers, So it’s not possible to maintain the same 24%
margin for all the products across different categories.
3. What should Jamie do now?

Jamie should not consider leaving the company, since this was his 3rd marketing management
job in the last 2 years. The job shift might lead to questioning of his managerial skill set.
Instead, he should have a discussion with Cardullo about the following and move forward with
a clean slate:
● Jamie Turner should ask for full autonomy
● Clear goals and motives of the company should be set: whether they want to increase
their profitability or increase sales volume.
● Conduct root cause analysis on what went wrong, so that in future such things are not
repeated

He should also work on building good relationships with managers from other departments. For
example, he realised that his deteriorating relationship with Julie Chin was one of the factors
affecting his relationship dynamics with Cardullo.

He should also work on his conflict management skills. When Turner received mail from Chin he
got furious, took the print out of the mail, went to Chin’s office, threw it in the waste bin and
said “I got your mail”. Instead, he could have dealt with the situation in a much more
professional manner.