Out of the mouths of babes and ...bosses

In my new avataar as mint-fresh b-grad, i rather too wholeheartedly took to the job of designing a new channel structure for a widget product offer from Acme Global. Ol' John Silver warned me about how important this was to Acme global, and sternly demanded rigorous detail in the research and analysis. "We like to think we hire the best people, and here's your chance to show we did right!!"


Followed weeks of dust-filled days of interviewing customers and consumers (aha!), gathering data, wringing out all my meagre knowledge to squeeze out sensible conclusions on the channel structure, crunching the distribution cost figures into respectable looking excel sheets -complete with linked sheets,modify-able assumption figures each neatly fonted in red, with comments in the important cells.




Two weeks later, Ol' John Silver beckons me into the meeting room "Slave - you ready with the numbers?" "ulp!..eh..sure" ... I stumble into the glassed in meeting room.....begin gaining confidence as i open my laptop like a an egyptian peddler about to show off his new range of aprodisiacs .....the screen blinks into life...and emerges my tabbed, highlighted, commented 17days, twenty two hours and 3 zillion grey cell worth excel file - row upon row of gleaming ratios and percentages.....kilos and tons of product....hundreds of thousands of consumers...just waiting to make millions for Acme Global....I launch into my spiel....take care to bring out the nuances in the channel structure - different options i'd considered but discarded in the face of crystal clear consumer insights before arriving on this gleaming model, different combinations of which are laid out in the shining specimen now awaiting his razor-sharp, analytical brain's incisive attention.


....pause..


Ol' John narrows his brows, scratches his chin thoughtfully ....." I am not interested in numbers, slave". "Eh, Lord John?" (they are quite informal around here..no tedious usage of full names unlike other stuffy companies. Even a cheery "your highness" could pass muster on saturdays)


"I said i am not interested in the numbers.." leans back in sleek, ergonomic chair....and looks at the ceiling..."I want to know what exactly is the moral ground holding your channel structure together?"


Kerrrr-whump!...... "eh, what?"


"I said what exactly is the MORAL GROUND HOLDING YOUR CHANNEL TOGETHER?"


"eh? ....er...moral..uh..well...economic incentives?" (this while cursing myself for the classes i've slept through.)


Ol' John is in into his stride now "You mean to say that the only thing holding your channel together is economic rationale?"


"err....well...no...i mean..there is ..umm..bonding.. mutual resp--"


"blah blah blah ........anyway, we'll talk about this tomorrow -it is too important to ignore in our business. Channel members must be morally bound as well as economically incentivized and you should have thought of this".


May the sweet lord help me.