Case Study Ethics Guide Dialing For Dollars Marketing Essay

Case Study Ethics Guide Dialing For Dollars Marketing Essay In Dialing for Dollars, a company is faced with low sales. Desperate to meet quota, a boss authorizes a salesperson to offer customers a 20% discount if they take delivery before the end of the quarter, and to start dialing for dollars. Get what you can. Be creative. This prompts the salesperson to try out a few creative but questionable ways of trying to boost sales. The sales person moves from customer to customer trying different tactics to convince the customers to buy some products. This article raises the question of how far one is willing to go to succeed. In this report, we aim to discuss the creative sales tactics the salesperson employed, to evaluate if they were ethical or not, and in instances, to evaluate whether they were legal or not. We will also discuss the merits and demerits of each tactic, and whether they were in the scope of what the company would find acceptable. The four questions asked are: Is it ethical for you to write the email agreeing to take the product back? If the email comes to light later, what do you think your boss will say? Is it ethical for you to offer the advertising discount? What effect does that discount have on your companys balance sheet? Is it ethical for you to ship to the fictitious company? Is it legal? Describe the impact of your activities on next quarters inventories. Case Study Questions Q1. Is it ethical for you to write the email agreeing to take the product back? If the email comes to light later, what do you think your boss will say? According to the American Marketing Associations Statement of Ethics, marketers should be forthright in dealings with customers and stakeholders. To this end, marketers should strive to be truthful in all situations and at all times.  [1]   In business, stakeholders refers to any person(s) and/or entity/ies that has/have vested interest in the decisions businesses make. In general, these people are usually employees, customers, stockholders, consumers, and even society at large if a companys business decisions were to affect them. In the case of Dialing for Dollars, a salesperson finds himself in quandary when the sales forecasting system predicts quarterly sales to be substantially under quota, prompting the salespersons boss to suggest that the salesperson start dialing for dollars. Get what you can. Be creative. This results in the salesperson offering a management-authorized 20% discount on orders that are delivered before the end of the quarter to its customers. Unknown to management, the salesperson also offered to take back any unsold stock the following quarter. He confirms this offer by email to the customer instead of on the purchase order, as accounting would not log the order this quarter under those conditions. The question is: Who is affected by this decision? And what would be the outcome to those affected? In the case of the salesperson, his total sales would be upped, including his commissions, resulting in a net gain to him. In the case of the customer, he gets his 20% discount on the new merchandise, along with a guarantee than unsold inventory could be returned the following quarter. For the customer, this is also a winning situation. In the case of the company, the companys bottom line shows hearty sales and income flows for the quarter as a result of this decision. In the short time, it is a good business decision. But businesses do not exist to operate for a short term. They exist with the hope that they will continue operations indefinitely. So a decision such as this that may appear to be a net positive in the short-term, could have disastrous consequences in the long term. This brings me to the other stakeholders, the stockholders. Stockholders purchase stock in a company based on the faith they have that the company will go on to thrive. A business decision that seeks to be deceitful and cut corners in one quarter, which will negatively affect business the following quarter, is a bad one from the point of view of stockholders. A companys public reputation is dependent on the internal ethics of the company and its employees. Any hit to its public image could perceivably cause stock prices to plummet drastically, as was the case with Martha Stewart stock during her insider-trading scandal. To answer the question, it was not ethical to write the email to take the product back without the expressed consent of management, and if the email comes to light, the boss would probably be disappointed at the action. To quote the American Marketing Associations mantra referred to above à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ marketers should strive to be truthful in all situations and at all times. Clearly this was not the case. Q2. Is it ethical for you to offer the advertising discount? What effect does that discount have on your companys balance sheet? Because the companys sales forecasting system has predicted that quarterly sales will be substantially under quota, the vice president of sales has authorized a 20-percent discount on new orders, with the only stipulation being that customers must take delivery prior to the end of the quarter so that accounting can book the order. Start dialing for dollars, she says, and get what you can. Be creative. With that said, three creative strategies were implemented. The second strategy that the salesperson tried was that instead of offering the discount, the salesperson offers the product at full price, but agrees to pay a 20-percent credit in the next quarter, that way the full price is booked for this quarter. The salespersons pitch claims that the companys marketing department analyzed past sales with a fancy new computer system and determined that increasing advertising will cause additional sales, so if they order more product now, next quarter the company will give 20-percent of the order back to pay for advertising. The obvious is that the customer is going to receive the credit next quarter and not buy product in that quarter, killing your sales for that quarter, but thatll be a problem for next quarter. According to the Journal of Indian Management, Advertising is the life blood of all business organizations, without which the products or services cannot flow to the distributors or sellers, and on to the consumers or users. Unethical issues in advertisement include providing misleading information, using ambiguous terms and defaulting and promised rewards.  [2]  After analyzing the given circumstances that the companys salesperson created, many of these unethical issues were brought up. The salesperson first gave misleading information, by claiming that the marketing department analyzed past sales using a fancy new computer system that determined increasing advertising will cause additional sales. Secondly, the salesperson promised a reward, by stating that by buying more product in this quarter, the company in return will reward 20-percent of their order back for advertising. Lastly, the whole sales pitch used ambiguous terms. For example, the salesperson used terms such as, ou r fancy new computer system, but mainly well give you 20-percent of the order back to pay for advertising.' What and how exactly will the company determine whether or not the 20-percent given back to the customer will be used for advertising, as that is a part of the agreement in the salespersons pitch? With all said and done, the salespersons advertising discount offer strategy for increasing the companys quarterly sales is highly unethical and raises several red flags. If the advertising discount offer is accepted by both sides, then the balance sheet for the current quarterly sales will show a boom in sales, however in the following quarter, the advertising discount will show up as a bust in the balance sheet, because that is when the 20-percent of the customers order will be credited back to the customer for advertising purposes. Q3. Is it ethical for you to ship to the fictitious company? Is it legal? According to Business Law and the Legal Environment by Beatty and Samuelson, Ethics is the study of how people ought to act.  [3]  We believe the Dialing for Dollars salesperson acted very unethically for the reasons stated below. Many organizations create a Code of Ethics which states the organizations primary values, and sets the rules employees should abide by. No legitimate business will have a Code of Ethics that makes behavior such as this salespersons actions acceptable. Due to expected low quota, the vice president allowed employees to offer a 20% discount on new orders. The words start dialing for dollarsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and get what you can. Be creativeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ are not instructions to behave unethically. They mean that the salesperson should use creativity in trying to sell as much merchandise as possible, but in an ethical and legal fashion. This particular salesperson, out of desperation, sold $40,000 dollars worth of merchandise to a fictitious company owned by his brother-in-law. It is not ethical to ship to a fictitious company. The quota is met but the product is returned in the next quarter. A big lying scheme was formed with the brother-in-law. This deception causes the company to produce more merchandise based on deceptive sales amounts, which will result in the company being harmed in the long run. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, their mission is to reduce the incidence of fraud and white-collar crime. They performed a research using Benfords law to detect fraud,  [4]  which looked at investigative and audit sampling methods. They described something similar to what was done by the salesperson to be an embezzlement scheme. It is also illegal because the sales person created a fictitious company using his brother-in-law as the front person and allowed the company to perform a credit check. Moreover, this salesperson is also causing his company to record fictitious revenue which is also fraud. This is a serious problem as the company is not aware of the scheme it is being unwittingly involved in. The CPA Journal provides ways for company auditors to catch this type of fraud. They provide the following advice: Be skeptical about large revenue transactions recorded near the fiscal year-endà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and In reviewing purchase orders, auditors should look for cancellation clauses that could negate the sale. Auditors should read sales contracts and look for cancellation privileges and lapse dates. Revenue should not be recorded until the cancellation privilege lapses.  [5]   In summary, shipping products to a fictitious company is both unethical and illegal. It causes many problems for the company in the long run. Ultimately, the company is responsible as it should take the proper steps in reviewing sales to ensure no such scheme is happening. Since the salesperson represents the company, if caught, they will both be charged with fraud. Q4. Describe the impact of your activities on next quarters inventories. The impact of the three sales actions above would have terrible effects on the inventories. All of the returned material would become overstock. Since the automated system noticed the trend of increase in sales of the product it would wrongly forecast higher demand of the product. This would result in compounding the overstock problem by eventually increasing the amount of finished goods of the product in stock even more. On top of receiving back the returned product, the automated process to increase production would cause increased orders for raw materials for the manufacture of the product. With the finished product overstock from the returns as well as ill-advised over-production and increased raw materials, space for storing all of the inventories within the warehouse may also become a problem. Further, with the increased orders for the raw materials and possible negative net income from all of the returns, the company could be placed in jeopardy with its cash flow. Depending up on how bad the situation gets, the company may be put in a position to have the sales team sell the product at a loss in order to get inventory levels back to normal and not take any further, worse losses. In terms of accounting for inventories, one can also look at the calculation for Cost of Goods Sold as referenced from Cornerstones of Managerial Accounting: Cost of Goods Manufactured + Finished goods inventory (beg. of period) Finished goods inventory (end of period) Cost of Goods Sold The Finished Goods inventory at the end of the next quarter (regardless of when the items are returned) would be increased dramatically by the returned product. This in turn would inevitably have a negative effect on the Cost of Goods Sold at the end of the next quarter. Materials inventory as used in calculations for Cost of Goods Manufactured would also be affected because of the increase in raw materials purchased. The formula for Cost of Goods Manufactured as shown in Cornerstones of Managerial Accounting is: Direct Materials + Direct Labor + Overhead + WIP (beg. of period) WIP (end of period) Cost of Goods Manufactured Since the Direct Materials would be increased because of the increase in purchases, then the Cost of Goods Manufactured would be increased, which in turn would increase the Cost of Goods Sold again. Summary Why is ethics in business important? Society views unethical behavior by business leadership as being socially irresponsible. Bad ethical behavior can result in crushing blows to a companys public image, resulting in a greatly decreased bottom line. Ethics is so critical that management has to pay close attention to it in order to survive. Customers reaction to unethical management behavior can force an organization out of business. Additionally, deceptive behavior and short cuts usually result in lawsuits and injuries, adding to a companys woes. In the end, its always best to do the right thing from the outset.

Phnom Penh

I was born in Kampong Cham Province and I have moved to live in Phnom Penh since I finished my high school. When I first came here in Phnom Penh, I felt very surprise and scare. The building and people were far different from my hometown. I got around Phnom Penh by motorbike for a first few days. I saw many high rise buildings; especially the city's French colonial buildings were beautiful. I saw some different kind of transportation that running on the road such as: modern car, Motorbikes, Motorbike-taxis (motodops), Taxis were available at a few locations, Tuk-tuks, and Cyclos. There transportations were in the great amount if compared to my province and it sometimes caused a very serious traffic jam and accidents. I also went to the Royal Palace which no photography was allowed inside the Silver Pagoda and some of the Palace buildings. You were expected to dress decently (no bare legs or shoulders). Beside this, I went to Wat Phnom. I liked the park there. It was a pleasant green space and a popular gathering place for locals. A few monkeys kept quarters there as well and will helped themselves to any drinks you leave unattended. After that I went to Independence and Liberation memorials. Impressive Buddhist-style Independence Memorial, commemorating the departure of the French in 1953, dominated the centre of the city. Nearby was the very ugly Stalin-style Liberation Memorial, marking the Vietnamese capture of the city in 1979. The area was especially popular on weekend nights with locals when the multi-colored fountains were activated and communal music was played. I took several pictures there and got some rest. I also went to Sorya shopping center which located at the south of the Central Market. It's on a North-South Street on the west side. It is currently Phnom Penh's main Western-style mall. It is air-conditioned and contains a range of cheap fast-food outlets as well as a well-stocked supermarket named Lucky Supermarket. You can do shopping, eating, drinking, playing game and whatsoever. Everything is served here. After I live in Phnom Penh for many years, I feel that it is completely different from my province. Phnom Penh is developing very fast. Many high buildings were built, many companies were established and the whole city’s infrastructures are constructing rapidly. One I feel very anxious about is people here are competing for each other very aggressively. If you are not smart enough and you don’t high education, you will be jobless, isolate and demise from the society.

Minimum of Two Suggests That Family Can Be Both a Blessing and a Curse

In Tim Winton’s collection of short stories, ‘Minimum of Two’, family is a major, recurring theme. Winton displays his interest in exploring the idea of family within each story differently, containing the positive and negative influence that family has on the actions and emotions of the Nilsam family and his alternative protagonists. In ‘Distant Lands’, he deals with the feeling of obligation towards and the traditional expectations of family whilst in ‘The Water Was Dark’ the focus is on a need to separate oneself from negative family completely. Laps’ focuses on how family can help you move on from her past. Winton has a strong belief that family shapes the kind of person one becomes, regardless of whether that is a good, or bad natured person. Within the short story ‘Distant Lands’, although it is portrayed subtly, family plays an important role. We are told of Fat Maz’s parents; her mother, who sits in the family shop for the majority of her day, emitting ‘dull thudding’ sounds from the register and Maz’s father, who is portrayed as a hot headed, intimidating individual. As Winton goes on to display Maz’s character, which contains attributes the likes of reserved, self-conscious yet quietly ambitious, we are made to create a link between Maz’s persona and her parents, that of which one is silent and dismal and the other unapproachable, and the realization that it was the impact of her family that has built the aspects her character by failing to restore her confidence and paying little to no attention of whether Maz had her own ambitions. This contributes to her overall quietness. The Water Was Dark’ has it’s protagonist, ‘the girl’, who is struggling to escape from the negativity of her mother. The girl lists her mother’s many faults bitterly and her mother’s poor decisions’ impact show heavily as we read in to the girl’s thoughts. The girl has no actual stability that she feels in her life and she is angry at her mother because her mother is to be blamed. She actually says in many a sense that her life would collectively improve if her mother rid herself of the poisonous things in her life, like drinking and being isolated. Basically, the state of the girl’s family is so ruined that she herself becomes destructive. Despite the lack of encouragement, in ‘Distant Lands’ Maz’s parents actually follow the traditional expectations associated with family. They give Maz a roof over a head and a secure, paying job in a small town. It is not what Maz wants however it is a safe, stable environment and so Maz feels a sense of debt towards her family. ‘Laps’ revolves around Queenie and her family. Queenie’s daughter Dot provides a great contrast in regards to most of the adolescents Winton writes. She is not only in a secure and stabile lifestyle, but she is content. It could be argued that this is because she is younger than other characters explored by Winton however given that Queenie and Cleve are in a healthy marriage and they openly show their pride, care and love towards their daughter, it is clear that Dot will be provided with a more normal, happy life. Every Family is different from the other. Certain are functional and certain are falling apart at the seams. The short stories of Minimum of Two explore this through different experiences and circumstances which directly reflect on how the characters are portrayed. Family is a huge aspect of a person’s identity. Throughout the stories, Winton gives us examples of how the support and love of family are required for one to be fully satisfied with life and truly be aware of their identity. The absence of this supportive, healthy family will most likely outcome in a never-ending negativity for the members within that family. In most instances, the impact of family can either act as a curse that increases one’s isolation and negativity or a blessing that provides a sense of belonging and contentment, not only with the family itself but also with the broader world. Mainly, the stories of Minimum of Two suggest that regardless of being moral or immoral, family shapes oneself.

Essay on The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe - 1130 Words

A short story I have recentrly read which has an incident or moment of great tension is, the Tell - Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allen Poe. The short story can produce many different types of characters. Usually, these characters are faced with situations that give us an insight into their true character. The main character of the story is faced with a fear. He is afraid of an Old Mans Eye that lives with him. The actions that this charecter or man - as he is known in the story - performs in order to stop his fear can lead others to believe that he suffers from some sort of mental illness. The very fact that this man is so repulsed by the old mans eye, which he refers to as the evil eye, is reason enough to be suspicious of†¦show more content†¦Every night he would watch the old man sleep. He found comfort in knowing that the eye was not watching him, that it could not see the true evil in him. While the eye was closed, so was the idea of killing the old man. It is not until the old man awakens each day that the struggle within him is apparent. This may be the reason why the narrator is so obsessed with watching the old man sleep. The actual act of murder, which the man believes was premeditated, was in fact a spur of the moment action. He toiled with the idea while the man was awake, that is, while he could see the evil eye. However, while the eye was closed, the man was at peace. One night, during one of the mans stalking sessions, the old man awakens. The man goes into a paranoid frenzy, mistaking the beating of his heart for the beating of the old mans heart. During this frenzy, the man is afraid that neighbors will hear the beating of the old mans heart. This causes the man to take action. He quickly subdues the old man and kills him. He then takes extreme steps in disposing of the body, dismembering it and burying it under the planks in the floorboard. These extreme actions can be used as evidence to the paranoia that is taking o ver him. The fear of getting caught would be a normal reaction to someone who has committed a murder. However, the dismemberment of the body was not necessary since the man had ample resources to dispose ofShow MoreRelatedThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allen Poe1427 Words   |  6 PagesMeghan Amorim ENWR 106:29 Professor Ghoshal 27 September 2015 The Tell Tale Heart In â€Å"The Tell Tale Heart†, by Edgar Allen Poe, the reader is presented with the short story of a madman who narrates his murder of an old man because, â€Å"he had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it† (Poe 105). The narrator has thought thoroughly about his plan to murder this old man, and the murderer then stashes his body underneath the floorboards. 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Throughout this macabre, sinister, narrative short story, the narrator attempts to convince readers of hisRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allen Poe981 Words   |  4 PagesThe Tell-Tale Heart In the first-person short story â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† by Edgar Allen Poe Men have guilty intentions. A man can have a heart and do something harmful and have guilty intentions afterwards. It has a lot to do with how a person is feeling on the inside to actually determine their intentions. The Tale-Tell Heart follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a vulture eye. From the complex of all of Poe s short stories, The Tell-TaleRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allen Poe1703 Words   |  7 PagesIn â€Å"The Tell Tale Heart†, by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator both experiences guilt from killing the old man in which he cared for and also the constant plea of proving his sanity. 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Eventually, the narrator’s guilt eats him alive to the point that he confesses his crime to three visiting policemenRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allen Poe Essay1452 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart† Analysis and Opinion Edgar Allen Poe, born January 19, 1809 in Boston Massachusetts, is famously known for his tales and poems of horror and mystery that evoked the interest of readers worldwide, and still do to this day. Some background about Poe is that his father, David Poe Jr., left his family early in Poe’s life, and his mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, died when Poe was just three years old due to tuberculosis. He had to be separated from his sister, Rosalie, and his brotherRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allen Poe934 Words   |  4 Pagesthe head and the arms and the legs†, said the madman (39). In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart†, the themes are vital for readers to identify with the madman’s reasoning of every single action he executes. Such events as in the first sentence would be difficult, if not impossible, to grasp without the knowledge of any themes. While some individuals may feel that themes are merely add-on elements in similar tales, this analysis will establish quite the contrary. The themes areRead MoreThe Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allen Poe Essay2597 Words   |  11 PagesEdgar Allen Poe is one of the best short stories writers and known for his insane crimes and gruesome murders. How he portrays the murderer is his art and how he makes the readers feel is his talent. Often in his short stories he used common themes, but the plots are different. In comparing three of Poe’s short stories â€Å"The Tell-Tale Heart†, â€Å"Hop Frog† and â€Å"The Cask of the Amontillado† a reader can see common themes such as love and hate, revenge and insanity. In Poe’s story, â€Å"The Tell Tale Heart†