Maureen Frye, an assistant product manager at Quaker Steel & Alloy Corporation, was given a mandate to develop a plan to change the call patterns of salespeople responsible for selling extruded titanium alloy products. Her previous attempt at this in 1994 had failed, and in December 1995 she was instructed to come up with an implementation plan that would work.

Quaker’s strategy to specialize in high margin, high quality metal alloys had seen them become one of the major manufacturers of specialized metal alloys. A large company with a small town, friendly feel, where the culture was one which encouraged participation in decision making and abandoned rigid hierarchical structures. The company philosophy was very customer focused, aimed at providing the best technical service and customer assistance available. This enabled Quaker to set higher prices and benefit from higher margins, leading to larger sales revenues in 1993 despite a reduction in actual quantity sold. Even Quaker’s competitors viewed them as ‘being very different from other manufacturers of steel and alloyed metals’ . This differentiation was a result of the original founders of the company, both were Quakers.

Our analysis of the case highlights a number of mistakes behind the unsuccessful execution of Maureen’s plan. She knew that there were very few female managers and there was a tendency for these women to only occupy the lower level management positions both at Quaker and in the industry. She had discussed her trepidations with Salk, Maureen’s supervisor, who advised her to get to know the Quaker way of doing things. We feel that she should have spent more time with the sales reps to better learn the Quaker way, build a connection with them, and solidify her position within the company. However, despite her being aware of this, she did not heed this advice.

After 2 years on the job, she