WORLD CLASS BULL

Case study

Submitted by:
 World class Bull
World Class Bull, written by John Humphreys, Zafar U. Ahmed and Mildred Pryor, is a prime

example of how sales personnel can manipulate a potential client into a contract. Christopher

Knox, a stellar sales employee at Specialty Fleet Services (SFS), just landed the Armadillo

Gas & Power account. Samantha Williams, Human Resources Vice President of SFS, was

now filing a breach of the company code of ethics against Christopher and the Vice President

of Sales, Jeremy Silva for “deceptive business practices” used to make the sale by making

personal relationship with clients.

Christopher started off a dishonest relationship between Mr. Landry to make him think that he

had the same interests, which made Mr. Landry reconsider SFS. I do not believe that

Christopher told a direct lie towards Mr. Landry on the circumstances of talking to him, but the

behavior was sneaky and discreditable. After the account was landed, Jeremy Silva published

an email to the entire sales staff about how Christopher acquired the account basically

displaying that Jeremy was proud of Christopher and the sales staff should be more like him.

Obviously, the email got around the company and in the hands of the Board of Ethics of SFS.

It is not only embarrassing for the company to congratulate an employee with doing such

dishonorable behavior, it was also irresponsible to put it in writing because it could get sent

to Dale Landry somehow, or anyone outside the company which could ruin their sales

reputation.
I would regard this as an unethical sales practice. In the end, the only thing that really matters

are that Knox was deceptive with a customer. Obviously, relationship development is a key

strategy in sales that many people use. The situation became much more complicated when

Knox “ran into them” at a public Livestock show, which in and of itself if perfectly ethical. If it

had been that he purposefully went to their house, it would have been an outright invasion of

their privacy. However, he was deceptive in his motives to develop a relationship with Carol

Landry that would in turn get the attention of Dale. Ultimately, he treated the Landry's as a

means to get a sale, instead of actually building a true relationship with the customer that

would last long term. This is proved by his lack of responding to Dale Landry's calls at work

and waiting out until Dale was practically begging to hear the sales pitch.

However, even more disturbing than Knox's sales tactics were Jeremy's irresponsible actions

following the closing of the sale. In an era where no information is private, sending an email to

the entire company praising the hoodwinking of a customer and encouraging other salesmen

to do the same is just stupid. Samantha is right in wondering what would happen if the

Landry's read this. I have very little doubt that it would eventually reach them, considering how

many people have it. Not only that, but encouraging other employees to do the same is just

asking for a scandal to happen that your company could not survive. Forget the ethics of it: I

want Jeremy gone simply because I don't want someone who does stupid stuff like that in any

management position in my company. Without his email, the reprimand and the ethics issue

could have been dealt with privately, and now Knox must be made an example of so other

salesmen don't resort to these unethical activities.

Conclusion

An ethical breach is an ethical breach…all the unethical behavior activities either for a good

mean for your business are unethical in any way. making personal relations with customers

just for the sake of sale is unethical and dishonorable in business code of ethics.