Analysis of Centurion Media: Doing the Right Thing Case
Executive Summary
Centurion Media is a company that is in the business of broadcasting/publishing
advertisement and commercials. The President of the Cable TV Division, Joseph Fowler,
created a contract with Northpark, a consumer of selling advertisement that has not been
sold by the parent company. The concern of this contract with Richard Bennett, Vice
President for SE Region of the Cable TV Division, is Fowlers possible hidden personal
agendas and gains with the deployment of this contract. There may be a conflict of interest
between Fowler, Centurion and Northpark because Fowler is currently employed by
Centurion but has his stock in Northpark and a seat on the Board of Directors. There is not
only this possible conflict of interest but the method in which Fowler deployed the contract
was very secretive. It was almost done in a manor to cause a concern.
Problem: The problem of this contract is did Fowler do this contract in the best interest of
the company or was it done to best suit his financial gain and career growth. Bennett was
one of the people that received this contract without any prior knowledge of the contract
and was asked to deploy the content of contract.
Solution: The solution to Bennett’s concerns was asking various people within Centurion
Company to find out if other people could give him insight on what this contract was about
and why was it is being deployed. First he talks to one of direct reports in sales, Vicki
Porter, to see if she felt the same way that he did if she were to receive the contract the
way that he did. Then the both agreed that it would be smart to talk to others within the
company. So he talked two people that Fowler worked with in creating the contract and
they told Bennett that it was in the company’s best interest because the gaps in revenue
were going to come from the reduction of the sales department and from the 25% shares
the Centurion Company had with Northpark. But Bennett was still not comfortable with
their reason for the contract and was still contemplating on going external to the company
to tell people what was going on with the company. The issue with Bennett’s not deploying
the contract or questioning the contract is Fowler is willing to fire anybody that objects it.
Because of this I think it is Bennett’s best interest to keep quite of his person issues with
the contract.
Reason: The reasons that I think Bennett should stay quite is he has the potential of losing
his job and he plans to retire within two years anyways. If he talks he might not get the
retirement he has been looking forward to. Also, if he continues to press the issue it might
not only affect his job but the job of all the people that he has been talking to especially
Porter. She may go down with him just by the rule of association.
Discussion
A Summary of the Important Facts
Richard Bennett, VP Cable TV Division in the SE Region, received a sign contract from
Joseph Fowler, President of same division. “The contract required all of the cable
television systems in the Centurion cable division to sell their advertising inventory at
severely discounted rates to Northpark Media” By Bennett’s assumptions he felt that the
company would lose millions of dollars in revenue by selling the inventory so cheap and
not being able to guarantee the current customers commercials would be seen. Also,
Centurion owned 25% of Northpark’s outstanding common stock and had three members
on Northparks board of directors.
Bennett has been the VP for Centurion Media Cable division for 10 years. And in most
recent year his group has received the “Outstanding Team” award nationwide for their
success in financial growth. Most of his direct reports have been there most of his VP
career and after his first year he hired a new Sales director, Vicki Porter. Bennett has
thought very highly of Porter and knows that she is a very trustworthy and knowledgeable
about the political workings of the corporation offices. Because of this trust he first talked
to Porter about the contract he received to get her opinion of it. At first, she was agreed
with his uneasiness of this contract and suggested to him that he talk to other VP to see if
they also received this contract. None of the other VP’s knew that this contract was coming
and was surprised that they had not heard anything about it because of how big the
contract would affect the company. In Bennett’s best calculations it meant that $100
average commercial would be sold to Northpark Media for $30 and if less than 90% of the
commercials were broadcasted Centurion would have to pay a $150 dollar fine. This meant
that the company could lose approximately $2.4 million in the first year. He didn’t
understand this because by all of Vicki’s statistics of their region she has been able to drop
the percent unsold inventory from 80% to 60% with a increase in average rate of $62 to
$100.
When looking at Fowlers history he initially worked at Centurion with a college
internship. Several years after graduating and working for some years he was hired at for
Northpark as the CEO. He not only got hired by them but with his strong personality he
got himself a six-figure salary, stock options, bonuses which were based on revenue
