Maureen Frye Essay

Marureen Frye made numerous mistakes in trying to implement her plan, a plan that was going to directly affect the salespeople of Quaker Steel Company as well as the District Sales Managers (DSMs), among other departments in the company. Her major mistake was sending a short-descriptive memo to the sales representatives. Why was this a major mistake? For one, Frye is trying to change the way the sales people allocate their time between big and small accounts, and yet she has not spend enough time in the field and with these salespeople. Although her simulations to optimize sales efforts might be correct, they are based on cold numbers and computations, sitting behind a computer, without taking into account the human factor that goes into those sales efforts. She does not have a feel for how they operate, where does their current success come from, what do they think and feel about how they are doing their job, and above what do they think it can be improved. Not only did Frye ignore the salespeople but she did not make good use of the relationship she thought she had with the DSMs. In fact, she had discussed her project with the Chicago DSM and he had seems to like to idea, with indicates that if more effort was put to introducing her plan to the other DSMs, using her good relationships with them, they could possibly perceive the idea well too idea of using the middle man. If she had no time to spend on the field and get to know the salespeople better, she made the mistake of not taking advantage of the relationship between the DSMs and the salespeople. Due to the hierarchical level of the DSMs, she is probably closer to them. As it is mentioned in the article, the DSMs leave a lot of free space to the salespeople which means that they are used to making their own decisions. This fact shows that the DSMs and the Salespeople have a special communication to understating each-other and to get the work done well. Thus, if a new project needs to be implemented, the DSMs are the most probable people to get through the salespeople and having them on board about this project is significantly important. This powerful link should have been taken advantage by Frye. Not having considered the above-mentioned steps, thus working in person with the salespeople or/and lobbying with the DSMs, Frye should have at least used the power of her superiors, Israel and Bethancourt, not only by  approving it but also as means of enforcement. For example, have them sign the memo she sent or give a direct order to the DSMs for its application. However, needs to be emphasized that this solution used on its own, is a last resort one just because she didn’t make use of the other options. This option would definitely be interpreted as a scare tactic, however it might have worked. As a manager or as the leader of her project, Frye first needs to find the authority from within and then also use the power given to her from her bosses. This option could be best used in collaboration with the previous options.