Chapter 13: Supply Chain Management and Marketing Channels
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3. Your family runs a specialty ice cream parlor, Scoops. It manufactures its own ice
cream in small batches and sells it only in pint-sized containers. After someone not
affiliated with the company sent six pints of your ice cream to a popular talk-show
host, she proclaimed on her national TV show that it was the best ice cream she had
ever eaten. Immediately after the broadcast, orders came flooding in, overwhelming
your small-batch production schedule and your limited distribution system. The
company’s shipping manager thinks she can handle it, but you disagree. List the
reasons why you need to restructure your channel of distribution.
Students’ answers will vary. The major reason why you need to restructure your supply
chain is obvious; you cannot meet the sudden increased demand for your product. As
awareness grows of your delicious ice cream, the demand will continue to increase. The
reasons why any small business should restructure a rudimentary distribution system are as
4. Building on question 1, determine a new channel structure for Scoops. Write a
proposal to present to your key managers.
Students could build a good case for any of the structures described in the chapter,
depending on what Scoops’ long-term growth goals are. However, given that the current
business is very small, Scoops is likely to use an agent/broker channel and do the
5. Working with another student in the class, decide when it would be most
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