At the April meeting Smith presented his decision to retain the services of Able Management Consultants-a firm of logistics specialists.
The marking vice president was in full agreement with the decision.
The director of distribution services and the financial vice president were opposed .
In their opinion, the problem could be corrected if proper marketing and customer service polices were implement on a corporate wide basis.
They questioned if a so-called high-powered specialist would in fact have sufficient knowledge of food product distribution to conduct a meaningful investigation.
At one point in a heated discussion the vice president of manufacturing added to the general argument with the comment.
“The last thing we need is some more theory: the last group of so-called experts spent three weeks here and then told us thing we already knew and had told them. WE need action , not research.”
After about two hours of discussion, Smith concluded the meeting with the following comment: