Lakhasly

Conflict and Communication on Project Aerial Emma Richardson squinted at the TerraCog GPS (Global Positioning System) prototype in her hand. The first message was from Allen Roth, the director of design & development (see Exhibits1and 2 for an Organizational Chart and brief biographies of key managers): "Emma, it's Allen. Listen, Tony and I have been over these cost numbers on Aerial. We cut all that we could and we ended up with only 7% or 8% reduction to cost. Unfortunately don't think this will get us to the price point that Sales is looking for. But I don't need to remind you that we gave Sales the features and functionality they wanted in Aerial, so I'm not going to back now to ask my team to do the impossible. We'll hash it out tomorrow, but I figured it best you hear it from me."The second message was from her boss, Richard Fiero, the company president: "Emma, I wanted to check on Aerial. I heard grumbling from Ed and sales team on Friday. They seemed frustrated with Tony Barren's production team. Make sure Production has its act together. Tony should know he's on thin ice after the recent production fiasco on that soar project- he's got to succeed on Aerial. We need to have Aerial on shelves at the start of Q3.Some board members are worried, so Aerial will be near the top of the agenda at the board meeting next month."Neither message was encouraging.

Conflict and Communication on Project Aerial
Emma Richardson squinted at the TerraCog GPS (Global Positioning System) prototype in her hand. She zoomed
in until the display showed a clearer satellite photo of the lake200 feet in front of her and into which her Labrador
had already happily bounded. Most weekends, Richardson made the hike to the lake to clear her mind and, on
occasion, to test new GPS models from her employer, TerraCog, Inc. Unfortunately, with the “Project Aerial” launch
meeting scheduled for the next day, it was difficult to enjoy this particular hike. Emma wondered how to get all
parties to reach an agreement on the price point for Aerial. TerraCog had started losing share to a competitor,
Posthaste, and it was imperative to get the new product to market.
Arriving at the lake, Richardson gave in to the urge to check her phone and grimaced as she noticed two new
voicemails. The first message was from Allen Roth, the director of design & development (see Exhibits1and 2 for
an Organizational Chart and brief biographies of key managers):
“Emma, it’s Allen. Listen, Tony and I have been over these cost numbers on Aerial. We cut all that we could
and we ended up with only 7% or 8% reduction to cost. Unfortunately don’t think this will get us to the price point
that Sales is looking for. But I don’t need to remind you that we gave Sales the features and functionality they
wanted in Aerial, so I’m not going to back now to ask my team to do the impossible. We’ll hash it out tomorrow, but
I figured it best you hear it from me.”
The second message was from her boss, Richard Fiero, the company president:
“Emma, I wanted to check on Aerial. I heard grumbling from Ed and sales team on Friday. They seemed
frustrated with Tony Barren’s production team. Make sure Production has its act together. Tony should know he’s
on thin ice after the recent production fiasco on that soar project- he’s got to succeed on Aerial. We need to have
Aerial on shelves at the start of Q3.Some board members are worried, so Aerial will be near the top of the agenda
at the board meeting next month.”
Neither message was encouraging. The Aerial meeting the next day, involving the sales, design & development,
and production departments, was now guaranteed to be contentious.
It was March 2008-only two months since Richardson had been promoted to executive vice president. Fiero had
asked her with moving TerraCog toward greater operational alignment and increasing cross-departmental
cooperation. Richardson had already been tested by both inventory problems and quality issues, which had led to
significant tension between the U.S. headquarters in Chicago and the production team in Shenzhen, China. Now,
disagreement over the proposed price point for Aerial threatened to derail the launch of the prototype in her hand.