Maggots

MBA Business Strategy and Ethics 101
Case study

Read the following case, and answer the questions which follow (50 minutes)

Mr X
Mr X walks into a department store, chooses a camcorder, pays for it and leaves the store 15 minutes after arriving, a happy man, fully equipped to stalk his ankle-biters with said camcorder for the remainder of their short childhood.


Mr B
Mr B walks into department store, hangs silently around the customer service desk in that very English way (you know the one - desperately trying to convey annoyance at poor service, without actually saying or doing anything), being roundly ignored by the sales staff, who are stapling bits of paper to other bits of paper. Ten minutes later, when it becomes clear that Mr B is not going to go away anytime soon, a member of staff finally acknowledges his presence and provides assistance in choosing a camcorder. Mr B selects a camcorder, and in a controversial move, suggests buying it then and there. The staff are flabbergasted - does this fool really think we actually stock these things?

Mr B reluctantly gives the sales guy a lot of personal information, which is typed very slowly into an ancient computer, whose printer eventually spits out a piece of paper, which is stapled to another piece of paper, and handed back to Mr B, with the promise that the camcorder will be in stock within two weeks.

Three weeks pass.

Mr B receives a voicemail that the camcorder is ready for collection. Mr B returns to the department store, and finds himself once again facing a pair of under-employed sales assistants - one is adjusting his tie and staring at a hole in the ceiling, the other is ... stapling a piece of paper to another piece of paper. Mr B attracts the sullen attention of one of these coves and relays his intelligence regarding the camcorder, only to be told by the sales guy, with a mixture of relief and joy, that he can't possibly help, and that Mr B is required to join a very long queue for something obliquely referred to as 'Customer Assistance'.

Ten minutes pass, during which time the two members of staff serving customers (there are four more lurking in the background, apparently checking the work of the other two) manage to serve one customer each, which of course involves stapling a lot of pieces of paper to other pieces of paper.

A further five minutes pass, at which time Mr B is finally at the front of the queue. Two minutes after that he is served, and pays the princely sum of £399 for the camcorder (do you remember the camcorder? He'd ordered it the previous year.) It then transpired that 'Customer Assistance' did not actually have the camcorder - an entirely seperate team of paper-staplers called 'Customer Collections' was the only one actually permitted to get their hands on the things that customers actually visit the store in order to buy.

A short elevator ride later, Mr B emerges in the 'Customer Collections' area, a strange mixture of an old-fashioned Post Office and rather bad tempered branch of Argos. Due to a minor miracle, there is no queue. Mr B is served by an angry looking man called Nigel who disappears behind a screen for a spell before eventually returning with...the camcorder. Nigel staples some pieces of paper to some other pieces of paper.

Mr B brings the camcorder home, some 3 weeks later than planned. Mr B opens the box. Mr B frowns slightly, since the camcorder doesn't look like the one he chose all those weeks ago. Mr B checks on the department store's website, and discovers that he's in fact been given a top of the range product by the hapless Nigel, worth some £300 more than he paid for it.

Questions

1. Discuss the merits of the business model used by the department store under the two scenarios. Provide evidence to back up your conclusions (15 marks)

2. How on earth is the department store under scenario B still in business? (25 marks)

3. Given the crass incompetence, stupidity and rudeness of everyone associated with the department store, should Mr B return the camcorder to the store? (Note that the camcorder that he originally ordered is still out of stock, according to the store's website) (10 marks)