The president of Simplex Mills sat at his desk in the hushed atmosphere, so typical of business

offices, after the close of working hours. He was thinking about Rehman, the manager in-charge

of purchasing, and his ability to work with George, the production manager, and Vipulabh, the

marketing and sales manager in the firm. When the purchasing department was established two

years ago, both George and Vipulabh agreed with the need to centralize this function and place a

specialist in charge. George was of the view that this would free his supervisors from detailed

ordering activities. Vipulabh opined that the flow of materials into the firm was important enough

to warrant a specialized management assignment. Yet since the purchasing department began

operating it has been precisely these two managers who have had a number of confrontations with

the new purchase manager, and occasionally with one another, in regard to the way the purchasing

function in being carried out. From George's point of view, instead of simplifying his job as

production manager by taking care of purchasing for him, the purchasing department has

developed a formal set of procedures that has resulted in as much time commitment on his part as

he had previously spent in placing his orders directly with vendors. Further, he is specially irritated

by the fact that his need for particular items or particular specification is constantly being

questioned by the purchasing department. When the department was established, George assumed

that the purchasing manager was there to fill his needs, not to question them. As Vipulabh sees it,

the purchasing function is an integral part of marketing function, and the two therefore need to be

jointly managed as a unified process. Purchasing function cannot be separated from a firm's overall

marketing strategy. However, Rehman has attempted to carry out the purchasing function without

regard for this obvious relationship between his responsibilities and those of Vipulabh, thus

making a unified marketing strategy impossible. In his previous position, Rehman had worked in

the purchasing department of a firm considerably larger than Simplex. Before being hired, he was

interviewed by all the top managers, including George and Vipulabh, but it was the president

himself who negotiated the details of the job offer. As Rehman sees it, he was hired as a

professional to do professional job. Both George and Vipulabh have been distracting him from

this goal by presuming that he is somehow subordinate to them, which he believes is not the case.

The people in the production department, who use the purchasing function most, have complained

about the detail that he requires on their requisitions. But he has documented proof that materials

are now being purchased much more economically than they were under the former decentralised

system. He finds Vipulabh's interests more difficult to understand, since he sees no particular

relationship between his responsibilities for efficient procurement, and Vipulabh's responsibilities

to market the firm's products. The president has been aware of the continuing conflict among threemanagers for some time, but on the theory that a little rivalry is healthy and stimulating, he has felt

that it was nothing to be unduly concerned about. But now that much of his time is being taken up

by much of what he considers to be petty bickering, the time has come to take some positive action.

Is George's view of the situation realistic?How do you evaluate Vipulabh's position?How might

this conflict be associated with factors in the formal organization? What should the president of

Simplex Mills do now?