In 2006, a subsidiary of Japan Motorcycles Tommasi, an Italian manufacturer of high performance motorcycles, provides a new client application data to help our dealers improve motorcycle sales and marketing activities. Horizon LLP, a consulting firm, has been a global partner for the implementation of Tommasi application. To identify any dealer concerns about the new system, Tommasi Japan brought additional consultants Horizon conduct a series of interviews with dealers. As advisers soon discovered concerns dealers Tomassi goes far beyond the new application. Unannounced visit influential dealer install all the players on a collision course, and soon exposed their very different views and some of the fundamental problems between Tommasi Motorcycles Japan and its dealers network.The event begins with a series of individual conversations with the Director of Sales and Marketing, Nobu Kato , expat president Tommasi Motorcycles Japan, Fambio Bonardi; Koji Saito, the owner of several influential dealers and two consultants from Horizon, both of which are Japanese. When they meet in the board room of Tommasi Motorcycles Japan, subsequent conversation reveals a number of issues: opportunistic behavior bilingual Kato, who plays the role of an interpreter - and the gatekeeper - between the dealers and the Japanese National Office Tommasi, limiting, filtering and shaping messages in both directions; limited understanding of local market conditions expat Tommasi controls that rotate in and out of their positions every three years of frustration on the part of business-savvy dealers and naivety on the part of consultants, who have not seen the social hierarchy at work, or realize that their cultural and linguistic language that was in the past projects have always been an asset, can also be a threat. "Hide
by Jeff Hicks, Derek Lehmberg Source: Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation 15 pages. Publication Date: April 3, 2012. Prod. #: W12842-PDF-ENG
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