The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Decision Logjam

Every once in a while as individuals we face mental blocks. A logjam, we see often at cross roads, happens in our mind. This mental block also effects entrepreneurs and just like at roundabouts or cross roads, it happens when the business is at a decision point.
With sales a healthy 25% up YOY, my first rotomoulding conference to America became a reality. On my return one month later, things were different. We follow the JIT (just in time) production policy, we make to order. As orders were  “zero”, production was at a standstill. A quick check on the market conditions revealed that our biggest competitor had dropped prices by 33%. The trade expected us to do the same.
Everyone, dealers, board of directors, employees and myself was looking for a decision. Classic logjam. I was not the best marketing student at the Asian Institute of Management where I studied for my MBA. But one lesson kept coming back to me. Prof Faustino, used to say you do not need managers to sell a product by reducing the price, you need “boy scouts” to stand at a corner and give it a way.  While sure it was not my job to reduce the price and sell. What could  be done?
As I walked from dealer to dealer, the same sentiments were expressed, SHAKTI would have to drop its price as otherwise customers would prefer the cheaper more established brand. The visits to the dealer while taking time allowed me to inspect the competitors product and I noticed that whenever I bent over to look inside the top was not able to take my weight. We purchased some tanks from the market and studied them. EUREKA!!!! We found the reason for the drop in price, the competitor had simply dropped the weight of the tank 30%.
This revelation did not make matters simple, it raise more questions. The Board believed we should launch a sub brand a la “SHAKTI LITE”, the trade believed we should simply reduce the weight and reduce the price. Both these decisions effected our core policies. We had already committed the product weight to our customers, could we quietly change without informing them just because our competitor had done so? Could we have two  types of product on one line, SHAKTI, a quality product at a higher price and SHAKTI LITE a chalta hai product. What would be the effect of this decision on our functioning with industrial customers. Would we become accustomed to offering cheaper products by cutting corners instead of costs? Would we be able to meet our long term goal of servicing industrial customers with such practices?  Classic Logjam and in the process sales were being lost.
After much soul searching, discussions with stake holders and well wishers the decision was taken. Stick to original weight, stick to original price and inform customers about the weight feature (advertise). This decision was in line with core policy, deliver to the customer as per promise, we would not have any “chalta hai” products on our line, thus ensuring the integrity and sharpness of our employees on the line, and most of all our customers past present and future would trust us.
The delay in deciding cost us lots of sales, by Mar 2001, we closed just below the previous years close.  However subsequent years sales endorsed our decision. We had clawed our way back. The point is could we have decided faster, did we need the time we took.?
I believe  that we were fortunate to have a road map, we wanted to be first choice suppliers to OEM customers. For that market, quietly changing specifications to keep costs down is not an option, therefore had we applied that test early to the possible choices we would have had a decision earlier. Unfortunately we delayed checking if our decisions met our long term goals.  In a logjam it will be easier to filter out suggestions that do not help the goal. Moral of the story: Every business has to have a long term goal or strategy against which day to day operational decisions are benchmarked  to prevent mental blocks.