Sem 2 Case Study 2
HBR Case Study
BY JOHN HUMPHREYS, ZAFAR U. AHMED,
AND MILDRED PRYOR
World-Class Bull
Inspired sales ploy or ethical breach? be kidding me, Sam,”
Jeremy sputtered. “Chris brought in the single biggest piece of business we’ve won here in more than two years. He’s our top performer! He broke that logjam with Armadillo!
He was absolutely brilliant!”
From the window of his 10th-floor office at Specialty Fleet Services, sales vice president Jeremy Silva spied two of the bright yellow repair trucks of Armadillo Gas & Power a block away, flanking a rectangular gash in South Polk near the old Paramount building. Getting Armadillo’s lucrative fleet-management business had been a long, hard slog. Had it not been for the fiendishly clever machinations of sales ninja Christopher Knox (known as “Fort” to his colleagues, because of his golden touch), SFS would still be trying to dent Armadillo’s famously resistant armor. And now, to Jeremy’s amazement, human resources vice president Samantha Williams was informing him that she wanted to reprimand Knox for a breach of the SFS code of ethics.
“If ‘brilliant’ is a synonym for ‘devious,’ maybe so,” said Sam, eyebrows raised. Sam was Jeremy’s friend and frequent ally, having helped him push through a reorganization of the sales force, including new incentive and commission structures. But she was also currently the chair of SFS’s ethics review board.
“An ethics breach is an ethics breach.
As our code states, ‘deceptive business practices’ are unethical. There have to be consequences. And you, of all people, should know that.”
True enough, Jeremy thought.
When he had arrived at SFS five years ago, on the heels of an embarrassing kickback scandal, Jeremy had been a driving force behind creating the corporate code of ethics. And now it was being wielded against his star sales animal, Fort Knox. How had it come to this?
Daniel Vasconcellos
“YOU’VE GOT TO
One Tough Customer
Six months earlier, regional sales manager Will Meyers had
BY JOHN HUMPHREYS, ZAFAR U. AHMED,
AND MILDRED PRYOR
World-Class Bull
Inspired sales ploy or ethical breach? be kidding me, Sam,”
Jeremy sputtered. “Chris brought in the single biggest piece of business we’ve won here in more than two years. He’s our top performer! He broke that logjam with Armadillo!
He was absolutely brilliant!”
From the window of his 10th-floor office at Specialty Fleet Services, sales vice president Jeremy Silva spied two of the bright yellow repair trucks of Armadillo Gas & Power a block away, flanking a rectangular gash in South Polk near the old Paramount building. Getting Armadillo’s lucrative fleet-management business had been a long, hard slog. Had it not been for the fiendishly clever machinations of sales ninja Christopher Knox (known as “Fort” to his colleagues, because of his golden touch), SFS would still be trying to dent Armadillo’s famously resistant armor. And now, to Jeremy’s amazement, human resources vice president Samantha Williams was informing him that she wanted to reprimand Knox for a breach of the SFS code of ethics.
“If ‘brilliant’ is a synonym for ‘devious,’ maybe so,” said Sam, eyebrows raised. Sam was Jeremy’s friend and frequent ally, having helped him push through a reorganization of the sales force, including new incentive and commission structures. But she was also currently the chair of SFS’s ethics review board.
“An ethics breach is an ethics breach.
As our code states, ‘deceptive business practices’ are unethical. There have to be consequences. And you, of all people, should know that.”
True enough, Jeremy thought.
When he had arrived at SFS five years ago, on the heels of an embarrassing kickback scandal, Jeremy had been a driving force behind creating the corporate code of ethics. And now it was being wielded against his star sales animal, Fort Knox. How had it come to this?
Daniel Vasconcellos
“YOU’VE GOT TO
One Tough Customer
Six months earlier, regional sales manager Will Meyers had