Common Description:
TrueColor, an event management company in eastern India, had been in a business of inviting Tollywood singers to a city called Tivanna, and made money out of selling tickets of their concerts. The stars were paid a fixed fee regardless of the number of tickets sold. The company had a specialized team that negotiated the singers’ fee with their managers. However, for selling the tickets of such events, they were reliant on an external media agency called Zedius. Zedius had a long-standing relationship with TrueColor, and had been instrumental in achieving a target of 50,000 tickets for each of the flagship events.
Mr. Sukanta Rao joined TrueColor as an inhouse sales and marketing manager, a position exclusively created for him. The CEO, Mr. Adil Banerjee, had assigned a task of increasing the sales of tickets to 100,000. In Sukanta’s earlier stint, he had seen that similar cities sell more than 75,000 tickets for such events. He felt that, over time, reaching 100,000 was plausible for TrueColor.
The following year, Sukanta discussed with Adil that unless they got into the ticket selling process, they might not be able to improve the ticket numbers. However, this would mean moving away from Zedius, and the transition could cause short-term pains since TrueColor would be entering into unchartered territory.
Further, Sukanta added that TrueColor would achieve self-sufficiency over couple of years. Adil was concerned about the risk of taking over an activity that the organization was not competent at, but understood Sukanta’s point. In the interest of building long-term competencies, he authorized Sukanta to take it forward. Sukanta did not renew Zedius’s contract in the following year; instead, he recruited a skeletal team of three freshers from a premier business school as his support staff.
As the event approached, the team dedicated themselves to executing their plan. However, by the time the ticket sales window closed, they managed to sell only 40,000 tickets. This shift in strategy provoked considerable dissent within the company, challenging Sukanta's decision.
Disturbed by the situation, witnessing the internal turmoil, Adil must now navigate the company's immediate reaction.
Which of the following should now be Adil’s BEST course of action?
B
Step-by-Step Solution
Key idea: This is a "post-implementation review and strategic patience" question, recognizable because a previously approved strategic shift has failed in its first iteration, causing internal dissent.
Step 1: Identify the context. Adil explicitly authorized this shift knowing it would cause "short-term pains" to build "long-term competencies".
Step 2: Evaluate the failure. Selling 40,000 tickets with a team of freshers in their first year is a predictable learning curve outcome, not necessarily a fatal strategic flaw.
Step 3: Analyze the options. Option B (wait and watch) aligns with the original strategic agreement and gives the new team time to adapt. Option A and D are knee-jerk reversals that waste the investment and destroy morale. Option E creates a hostile environment. Option C introduces a new, unvetted vendor, repeating the dependency problem.
Answer: B