Your Management Learning Portfolio is a collection of activities specially desig

Question

Your Management Learning Portfolio is a collection of activities specially designed to demonstrate your management knowledge and skill. Be sure to save your work. Taking your printed portfolio to an employment interview could be helpful in obtaining a job. The portfolio activity for this chapter is Making a Decision at Microsoft. Study the following information and complete the exercises that follow. Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, recently contacted you in reference to a situation that is developing at Microsoft. Specifically, Microsoft is receiving reports that its gaming system, the Xbox 360, is having problems. Users from around the world are contacting the company to complain that their systems, which sell for as much as $500 at some retail locations, have stopped working after only one year or so of use. It seems that systems with this problem display three red lights and then the systems stop working. Although this problem is not affecting every Xbox 360 owner, it is clear that the problem is somewhat widespread. Robbie Bach has contacted you for your advice in handling this situation. The Xbox 360 is important to Microsoft,
as it looks to find new entertainment products and services to sell to customers around the globe. He feels that he is under a spotlight, as customers around the globe are watching to see how Microsoft deals with these frustrated customers. Your mission is to walk Bach through the various steps in the decision-making process:

Gather feedback to find out whether the implemented alternative is solving the identified problem and how?

Please help this question in detail.

Explanation / Answer

The various stages in decision making process are

The first stage in the decision making process is to identify the probelm that exists with the Xbox 360. The problem could lie anywhere from manufacturing defect to improper usage by customers. Once the problem is recognized we go to the next stage of analysing the various alternatives to solve the problem. The alternatives available to the company include providing a patch, educating the consumer about proper usage, recalling the product if the patch fix does not resolve the problem etc.

Once the various alternatives have been analysed, the next stage is to choose the alternatives which will likely solve the problem the Xbox 360 is facing. Suppose the chosen alternative is to release a patch to be installed on each Xbox 360, then this alternative will be pursued and each Xbox 360 will be installed with the patch.

The last stage is to implement the alternative which is installing the patch. This could be achieved by shipping a CD to each and every customer of Xbox 360. The CD would contain the patch and the instruction regarding how to install the patch.

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