Cast:

Paul Cheng – founder of San Fabian; immigrated from mainland China in 1940; considered wealthy, with successful children and multiple lines of business (restaurants); 7% shareholder in MacDowell
Corazon Aquino – newly elected President (Feb 1987) of the Philippines
Carlos Valdez – Vice President of Sales (head of San Fabian’s salesforce)
Luis Rabat – assistant sales manager in charge of retail sales in Manila
Marcelo Amado – head of government sales in Manila
Toni Salgado – responsible for sales to the Department of Public Works
Jean Brevett – new president of MacDowell Philippines; previously headed MacDowell’s Australian operations, where he had streamlined distribution and grown sales 20% annually in a flat …show more content…

Meanwhile, Paul should continue to stock MacDowell products to maintain a full product line, but cut down on specialized staff to improve margins and lower the profitability threshold. At the same time, I’d make sure that the staff are either moved elsewhere within San Fabian or are offered voluntary buyouts with non-competes, so that MacDowell can’t poach them to create its own customer service arm. An important note is that the examples that Brevett cites in showing sales growth through more dealers were all related to consumer packaged goods (beverages and personal health)  building supplies address a totally different type of end customer, and so I’m not sure how relevant these examples are to the situation at hand.

Questions for MacDowell:

1) What are the different reasons for MacDowell’s dissatisfaction with San Fabian? Has San Fabian done everything that is expected of a good distributor?

- Feeling that San Fabian hasn’t expended enough effort to get dealers to carry MacDowell inventory
- San Fabian hasn’t done a good enough job selling the clear benefits of MacDowell products or educating customers on proper installation/handling o Skeptical of San Fabian’s cost structure which drives premium pricing  MacDowell desires to cut out the middle man and secure more of the margin for themselves, to reinvest in sales