Quality Control and Quality Assurance Activity

You are the management team at a dealership of a prestigious car dealership. You have received numerous letters from customers highlighting a number of issues relating to your product line of vehicles the dealership sells.

The dealership not only needs to deal with unhappy customers, but it also faces a difficult series of decisions. It has failed to meet its sales targets for two years and is under pressure from the dealership head office to get results. If it does not meet its targets for next year, it risks losing the dealership.

The senior management team has arranged a meeting at which they are seeking to discuss the problems facing the company.

The Team’s Task:

  1. Pick the role of a team member that you would like to assume. Read their profile and the issues they have targeted.
  2. As a team, address each issue that has been identified and write how you think the dealership can rectify the problems.
  3. If there are issues that have not been specifically specified, write them down and address them
  4. Type your paper in Microsoft Word in the following format:

Management Team Member Names:

Managing Director: ______

Service Manager: ______

Accounts Manager: ______

Sales Director: ______

Promotions Director: ______

Issue: ______

Recommendation: ______

The Management Team:

Managing Director –You are the managing director of the dealership and Chair of the meeting. You have been the Marketing Director for 8 years, during which time the dealership has seen good and bad times. You have always professed to be totally committed to quality but are not always around to ensure that the business meets your standards. Your excuse is that you pay others to ensure that what he/she wants is carried out!

Service Manager–You have tried hard to improve quality standards since your promotion to the post from another dealership in 2002. You see problems in communication as being the key issue in customer relations.

Accounts Manager–You are an experienced management accountant with your fingers on the pulse of the business. You have recognized the impact on the costs of the business of the warranty work that is being done on vehicles and the fact that warranty work not only does not generate revenue but also prevents revenue-generating work from taking place.

Sales Director – You are getting concerned at the feedback from customers and the press at the image the company seems to be getting. You face searching questions from prospective customers and are finding it increasingly difficult to persuade such skeptical customers of the commitment to quality that the firm has. In addition, yourecognize that the firm's customers tend to be from the A and B list and, as such, tend to be informed and aware of the issues facing the firm.

Promotions Manager–You see the issues as being a small minority of people who have had unfortunate problems with their vehicles. Your work in promotions involved the management at the Head Office of the dealership and is convinced of the quality of the product. You feel that the customers who have legitimate complaints have been 'unlucky' but are not representative of the client base as a whole.

MgmtConcepts-Quality-Lesson 8 – Handout2