Caselet 1: Managing Buying Dynamics at Hughes Aircraft Fred Johnson is a sales manager with WRT Electronics and his team of sales engineers call upon original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) located...

Caselet 1: Managing Buying Dynamics at Hughes Aircraft

Fred Johnson is a sales manager with WRT Electronics and his team of sales engineers call upon original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) located in Southern California. Hughes Aircraft is a large manufacturer with multiple government contracts for supplying helicopters, communications equipment, and weapons systems to all branches of the military that is serviced by WRT. On a recent visit to the satellite communications components division in Los Angeles, sales engineer Ron Hartley was told by the purchasing administrator, Sharon Reynolds, that WRT will be in a bidding war for the current Request for Quotation (RFQ) and that the supplier would be selected based primarily upon price. However, later in the day when Ron met with Matma Singh, design engineer, he was informed that conformity to design tolerances would be the criterion utilized for selection of suppliers. To his further dismay, Ralph Jackson, who is the Hughes’s Quality Assurance Manager, stated that the initial contract would be for six months at which time the supplier with the fewest quality problems would receive a multi-year contract for the major share of the components. Fred understands that participants in a buying center play distinct roles and are motivated differently. As he drives to his home in Orange County through heavy freeway traffic, Fred tries to make sense of what is motivating these three members of the Hughes buying center so that he can recommend a sales strategy for his salesperson Ron Hartley, who will visit Hughes again next week.

Questions

1. How can Fred explain Sharon, Matma, and Ralph’s motivations to Ron based upon the different buying roles they play?

2. Could Fred explain each buyer’s weight using the multi-attribute model? 3. What pointers should Fred offer Ron to successfully manage this major account? Why?