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BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

DASHMAN CASE STUDY SUBMISSION

Submitted to: Ms. Shivdasini Amin

Submitted by: Group 11

Sonam Ahuja 104/11

Ankita Agarwal 106/11

Kumar Somil 108/11

Venkat 110/11

Nishant 112/11

Manish Thakur 114/11

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SUMMARY OF THE CASE

The Dashman company is a large concern making equipments of armed

forces.

It operates through over 20 plants, located in the central part of the country.

Till now, the company encouraged the plant executives to operate with their

staffs as separate independent units in purchasing matters.

In 1940, to regulate the purchasing procedures, company appointed Mr. Post

as vice president in-charge of purchasing; and Mr. Larson as his secretary.

Mr. Posts first decision was to immediately centralize the companys

purchasing. He made a plan in which all the plant executives were required to clear all

purchase contracts made in excess of $ 10,000 with the head office; one week

prior to the signing of the contracts.

He got the plan approved by the board of directors and sent out a letter to

notify all the 20 purchasing executives of the company.

In the following weeks, replies were received from all the plants except a few,

assuring cooperation with the head office. During the next six weeks, no notifications were received from any of the

plants regarding any purchases.

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PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED

No background check was done by Mr.Post prior to informing the plant

executives about the new system. He didnt care to find out crucial information

like what the average purchasing amount goes into the orders, how much time

period goes into negotiation of prices etc.

No audience analysis was done and therefore he couldnt gauge what

problems the plant executives might face upon the implementation of the new

system or what they felt about it.

The system was being implemented just 3 weeks before the starting of the

peak buying season. This would have posed problem for the purchase & plant

executives as they would be busy and wouldnt find time to do the needful.

According to Munters model, the tell approach was used by Mr.Post to

inform the plant executives about the new purchase system, whereas the case

demanded that the consult approach should have been used as it was

required of the audience to understand why the system was being adopted

and also because the end result was to be procured from the audience itself,

i.e., the executives.

Mr.Post did not analyze the consequences of acquiring the new system.

The letter that he sent out to the executives contained an imposing tone; and

demanded indirectly the power to control the purchases be taken away from

the plant executives. This could have bred hostility among the executives,

giving the end result that none of the plants actually followed the new system.

Mr.Post did not consider the Mr.Larsons feedback regarding the letter; despite

his experience.