MT499 Unit 6 Mock Board Seminar Reflection Example

Three Objections From a Mock Board: An MT499 Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on a Store-Brand Recommendation

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT499: Bachelor's Capstone in Management

Unit 6 Seminar Reflection

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Halsey Hearing, its figures and the classmates are composite; the sources cited are real.

The Hearing

In our Unit 6 seminar, classmates were cast as directors of each student's company and heard our Unit 5 rankings as recommendations. I presented the store-brand supply deal for Halsey Hearing: manufacture a pharmacy chain's own-label hearing aid for three years, worth about $16.1 million in present value. One director was briefed to speak for the clinic channel, another for finance. Three objections stood out, and I answered each one twice, once in the room and once afterward.

Objection One: A Secret That Would Not Keep

The clinic director said that clinics would learn of the deal within weeks, from pharmacy buyers, sales representatives or the device itself, and asked how I planned to keep it quiet. In the room I said the store-brand packaging would carry no Halsey name. That was true and beside the point.

On reflection I concede the objection completely. Clinics talk to each other and to manufacturers' representatives every day, and a device made on Halsey's lines would be traced to Halsey quickly. A plan that depends on secrecy depends on something the company cannot control. I have replaced it with a letter from the chief executive to Halsey's 400 largest independent clinic accounts before any public announcement, explaining what the deal is, what it is not, and how Halsey will keep supporting clinics. Kotter (1995) argues that change efforts fail when the people most affected hear about them second-hand, and the clinics are the people most affected here.

A concession that removes a promise the company could not keep makes the recommendation stronger, not weaker.

Objection Two: Margin Handed to a Retailer

The finance director asked why Halsey should accept about $105 of margin on a pair sold to a chain when its own brand would earn about $265. In the room I fumbled, saying something about lower marketing costs that did not answer the question.

The written answer uses the stress table I already had. The own brand's larger margin comes with returns of 22 percent and a break point near 25 percent, a launch cost of about $34 million in its first year, and clinic losses that grow as the brand becomes visible. Under 30 percent returns or volumes 30 percent lower, the own brand loses about $18.5 million to $19.9 million in present value. The store brand stays positive under both. The smaller margin survives conditions that erase the larger one, which is the reason the evaluation weighted robustness most heavily.

I also noticed why the question had unsettled me. The $265 figure is the kind of number that wins arguments in a room, and Lovallo and Kahneman (2003) describe how executives anchor on the most attractive forecast and discount the ways it could fail. My fumble was partly that I had absorbed the same pull. Writing the answer down, with the stress results beside the margins, was the only way I found to resist it.

Objection Three: When the Contract Ends

Another director asked what happens if the chain declines to renew after three years. I answered with the figure from the stress table: the deal would still be worth about $4.1 million in present value.

The figure is thin, and I now present it as the case's floor rather than as reassurance. A deal that is barely positive if the partner leaves is not a deal to celebrate; it is one whose downside is limited, which is a different claim.

A Tripwire From the Floor

Near the end, the classmate playing the finance director proposed that the recommendation carry a review threshold. I adopted it. The store brand stops paying if independent-clinic losses exceed about 1.9 percent of clinic revenue a year. The recommendation now names a review at 1.5 percent, about $7.8 million of clinic revenue, measured quarterly, which leaves room to act before the break point is reached.

What Stayed the Same

The ranking held. None of the three objections changed which answer best meets the criteria fixed in Unit 2. What changed was how the recommendation is protected and communicated: an announcement plan in place of secrecy, a stated floor in place of a hopeful figure, and a tripwire in place of a general promise to monitor. Schein (1999) describes the most useful feedback as the kind that improves how a client acts on a decision, and the hearing gave me that rather than a different decision. I think a board would want to see that distinction, because a recommendation that changes with every objection would be hard to trust.

References

Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59-67.

Lovallo, D., & Kahneman, D. (2003). Delusions of success: How optimism undermines executives' decisions. Harvard Business Review, 81(7), 56-63.

Schein, E. H. (1999). Process consultation revisited: Building the helping relationship. Addison-Wesley.