Hassan is a sales representative for Power Flour Factory, which supplies flour to

supermarkets and bakeries across Morocco. Rising Bakery has a long-standing relationship
with Power Flour Factory for their traditional flour, which is used in most of their bread
products. The company has developed a white flour with a nontraditional bleaching agent
that will allow bread products to be baked with fewer carbohydrates while still tasting great.
Hassan believes the new flour product would be a perfect fit to sell to Rising Bakery and has
sent information on the flour to its purchasing department. Should Hassan secure the deal,
Rising Bakery would account for 60 percent of Power Flour Factory's revenue, making it the
biggest client.

Rising Bakery is a Moroccan bakery chain specializing in freshly baked premium bread. The
company bakes its products in a central bakery and ships them to its retail stores. The
management team of Rising Bakery is quite diverse in terms of gender and educational
background. Amina is the CEO of Rising Bakery, and she has a small team of five senior
managers. The teams are the following: Dawn is a production and operations manager;
Nimesh is a sales and marketing manager: Joan is a purchasing manager; Matt is a finance
and accounting manager, and Dan is a distribution manager. Each manager leads an
assistant manager/coordinator and an executive assistant. Rising Bakery also has a store
manager and staff for each of its 24 retail stores.

Amina and her five managers are meeting to discuss the results of the sales and marketing
department's recent market research study on the future of low-carbohydrate diets.
According to the results, low-carb bread products may remain popular for at least the next
three to four years. Since low-carb diets became popular in the market, Rising Bakery's sales
have been declining, and Nimesh wants to maintain its market share by introducing low-carb
products to its product mix. Dawn's main concern is to produce low-carb bread efficiently
without purchasing new equipment. His primary concern is whether current machinery will
handle the new flour. If the current equipment cannot handle the new flour, then the bakery
may need to invest in new equipment. Dawn's assistant manager handles the determination
of quantities for ordering and would be involved with developing the new bread product and
determining the type and amount of flour to be used.

Matt is concerned that this will be a large investment in a possibly short-lived product and
that the forecasted budgets did not anticipate such an outlay for inventory expense. He
advocates a detailed analysis of the financial feasibility of such a monumental decision
before making a final decision. Joan is worried about purchasing the right amount of flour
for the production needs and keeping within the budgets determined by finance. Further,
Joan is bound by Rising Bakery's policy of getting three bids on supply purchases.

Dan is excited at the prospect of new low-carb products for the retail stores but must make
the store managers aware of the changes. The stores would be instrumental in collecting
feedback from their customers to determine the success of the new products. Amina trusts
the decision-making of her management team. Still, ultimately she is responsible for the new
products and especially has a hand in developing recipes up to Rising Bakery's taste
standards. Joan's purchasing assistant, Janice, received the written sales information from
Hassan about the new low-carb flour. In addition, the management team instructed her to
collect information to see if there is another source of flour that is as good as Power Flour
Factory.