BUSINESS DILEMMA You're the Manager... What Would You Do? THE COMPANY: Bingo's Pizza YOUR POSITION: Co-owner THE PLACE: Dallas, Texas Bingo's Pizza began delivering pizzas in 1969 when, with his sister, Jon McClanahan decided that custom- ers would respond to having the pizza delivered for a small fee. Originally operating out of the Fort Worth area, Bingo's tested its delivery system and found that consumer response was overwhelming. Publicity for the company came quickly and easily as people were delighted and supportive of the delivery service. The company grew from one small store in Fort Worth to five, with an additional nine in the Dallas area, four in Waco, and four in Austin, with negotiations beginning Bingo's Pizza deals with ethical issues in the workplace. for units in Houston. The success of the delivery concept brought on competition from the major pizza manufacturers who tried their hand at delivery. Jon's sister and partner Stephanie was a computer whiz, having majored in computer science at Texas A&M University. Stephanie thought that if they developed an information database, they could become more efficient and gain significant insights into consumer buying behavior and consump- tion patterns. Jon felt their current system and software could use improvement and instituted a test of a new ordering system. After successfully testing this system, Jon and Stephanie put the new order network in place in all of their restaurants. After three months of success, they wanted to gain some publicity for this new system, just as they had when they first instituted delivery service. After several days of attempting to write press releas- es, Stephanie had an idea. "I know we've only been running this system for a few months," she said. "But let's give an award to the family that eats the most Bin- go's pizza. McDonald's gave their best customer in Lubbock a card good for free food and they received publicity across the country. We can use the giveaway as a springboard to talk about the computer system." Jon had not thought of that angle, and he liked the idea. He asked Stephanie to determine the "winner" and get back to him. Stephanie found that the biggest consumer of Bingo's pizza worked outside Waco and had ordered a pizza every weekday for the past three months that the system had been in place. Stephanie put together a program to give him a nice prize-Bingo's gift certifi- cates-and arranged for the newspaper to accompany her to make the award. You must decide how to pro- ceed with this plan. QUESTIONS 1. Critique Stephanie's plan. 2. What are the potential ethical issues associated with this plan? 3. How would you proceed?