Aston-Blair

9-494-015 REV: OCTOBER 15, 2004 JOHN J. GABARRO Aston-Blair, Inc. Bringing Aston-Blairs June 12 executive committee meeting to a close Wynn Aston, III, chief executive police officer and chairman of the board, asked Peter Casey, vice chair of marketing, and Chris Trott, vice president of corporate planning, to seriously reexamine the companys procedures for forecasting sales. Aston hoped that ameliorate product demand projections would lead to better inventory control, monetary planning, and production scheduling. Aston-Blair had suffered significant losses in the first tooshie of 2004 and expected even greater losses in the fleck quarter (the first losses the company had experienced since 1975). Aston matt-up that poor forecasting was one of several underlying factors bestow to the firms poor performance. Casey and Trott subsequently met with Richard Pack, president and chief operate officer, to briefly discuss his ideas on the subject. The two men hence decided to form a task force to wonder the forecasting problem. Casey and Trott agreed to put Michael Bacon, special assistant to Chris Trott, in charge of the task force. Bacon had been with Aston-Blair for two years, having come to the company from a distinguished academic and professional career.

After graduating magna cum laude from Yale, Bacon spent two years with Boston Consulting Group, and was a recent alum of Harvard Business School (see Exhibit 1). Prior to his present denomination, Bacon had worked as a financial analyst in Trotts financial planning group, and he was now assigned to Trotts market planning group. The assignment to market planning was an intentional move on Trotts assort to broaden Bacons exposure to different aspects of Aston-Blairs business. Both Trott and Casey regarded Bacon as an particularly promising and capable individual. Company Background Aston-Blair was the third largest developer of childrens educational products in the Unites States. The medium-sized... If you want to get a full essay, assign it on our website: Orderessay

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