Chattanooga Ice Cream Division Case Analysis

Abstract The Ice Cream Division of Chattanooga Food Corporation had shown declining sales for 5 consecutive years through 1996. That was the year that they lost their third largest customer, Stay & Shop. A turn around had to take place but the Ice Cream Division leadership was unsure how to accomplish this. The division was run by Charlie Moore, grandson of the company founder. Charlie was a very democratic leader but had major issues controlling and leading his team of vice presidents. The team was very dysfunctional considering they did not trust each other, had open conflict that was often malicious and mostly unproductive, a very apparent lack of commitment to …show more content…

If Marketing or Sales knew that the loss was imminent and did not involve other relevant departments and Moore, this was an unacceptable dysfunction. Since the broader leadership team was not made aware immediately of any insights of the potential customer loss, this highlights a potential lack of trust in both Moore and the senior leadership team members. Assessing this, the root cause could only be, either the team member feared for their job, they were unaware that the broader team should know, or they simply didn’t have the confidence that anyone could help fix the problem. Moore should have made an effort to talk to Les Holly (VP of Sales) to determine whether or not he knew of the impending loss. Now, Moore needs to focus all efforts on how to fix his team. He needs to quickly assess if the current team can solve this problem, and determine if it is the right team to move the Company forward long-term. Key to this is understanding whether or not this team can ever be a cohesive unit and what steps he needs to take to get them there. All of this has to be done quickly in order to address the larger issue of replacing the lost revenue from Stay & Shop’s departure as well as preventing further customer defections. Recommendations In the years since becoming the president, Moore has failed to develop a functional management team. The Five