Reference no: EM132927683

Can anyone help me with the following questions.

You decide to interview Ronald Black, the owner of Black IPS. He brings in Russell O'Neill who was their sales representative to JMC. He indicated that they no longer did business with JMC. They had had a long standing relationship with them, but when Jim Miller retired, they started doing less and less business with JMC. Mr. Black tried to salvage the account, but couldn't.

He had some suspicions about it, but didn't feel comfortable telling you. After a bit of prodding, he tells you that he felt that Brackens was trying to shake them down. O'Neill had come to Black sometime in 2001 and said that Brackens had hit him for making some kind of arrangement between him (O'Neill) and Brackens. Brackens would make sure that business would come his way if there some real good reason to do so. O'Neill told him that he would give him really good prices and service, but that was all he could do.

He was already giving JMC discounts, but that was far as he could go. When Brackens told him he was missing the point, O'Neill said he would have to get back with him. Brackens told him to forget it. After that, JMC started giving more and more business to other vendors. O'Neill had heard that there were some vendors in town who didn't have the best reputation.

They were brothers and located on Lamar. He didn't feel comfortable telling you anything else. When you asked him about Angela Harkins, he said that he had had lunch with her and Brackens once or twice, but he didn't know too much about her.

Questions:

1.Based on this information, do you have enough to terminate Brackens? Why or why not.

2. Who else do you suspect at this time? Why or why not?

3. What is your next move?

4. Who would you next interview?

5. What questions would you ask?