The Wallingford Bowling Center

A group of twelve lifelong friends put together $1,200,000 of their own funds and built a $6,000,000, 48-lane bowling alley, near Norfolk, Virginia. Two of the investors became employees of the corporation. Ned Flanders works full-time as General Manager and James Ahmad, a licensed CPA, serves as Controller on a part-time basis.

The beautiful, modern-day facility features a multilevel spacious interior with three rows of 16 lanes on two separate levels of the building, a full-service bar, a small restaurant, a game room (pool, videogames, pinball),and two locker rooms. The facility sits on a spacious lot with plenty of parking and room to grow.

The bowling center is located in the small blue-collar town of Wallingford. There is no direct competition within the town. The surrounding communities include a wide-ranging mix of ethnic groups, professionals, middle- to upper-middle-class private homes, and apartment and condominium complexes ranging from singles to young married couples to senior citizen retirement units. Nearly 200,000 people live within 15 miles of Wallingford.

The bowling center is open 24 hours per day and has a staff of 27 part- and full-time employees. After four years of operation, the partners find themselves frustrated with the low profit performance of the business. While sales are covering expenses, the partners are not happy with the end-of-year profit-sharing pool. The most recent income statement follows:

Sales $ 1,844,000

CGS 315,000

GM $ 1,529,000

Operating expenses $ 1,466,000

Mortgage $ 460,000

Depreciation 95,000

Utilities 188,000

Maintenance 70,000

Payroll 490,000

Supplies 27,000

Insurance 136,000

Taxable income $ 63,000

Taxes 19,000

Net income $ 44,000

The bowling center operates at 100 percent capacity on Sunday through Thursday nights from 6:00 P.M. until midnight. Two sets of mens leagues come and go on each of those nights, occupying each lane with mostly five-person teams. Bowlers from each league consistently spend money at both the bar and restaurant. In fact, the mens leagues combine to generate about 60 percent of total current sales.

The bowling center operates at about 50 percent capacity on Friday and Sat nights and on Sat morning.

The Friday and Sat open bowling nights include mostly teenagers, young couples, and league members who come to practice in groups of two or three. The Sat morning group is a kids league, ages 10 through 14.

There are four ladies leagues that bowl on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.

Business is extremely slow at the bowling center on Monday through Friday and Sunday mornings, and on the afternoons of Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat, and Sunday. It is not uncommon to have just three or four lanes in operation during those time periods.

The owners have taken a close look at the cost side of their business as a way to improve profitability. They concluded that while the total operating expense of $1,466,000 might appear to be high, there was in fact little room for expense cutting.

At a recent meeting of the partners, James Ahmad reported on the results of his three-month-long investigation into the operating cost side of other bowling alleys and discovered that the Wallingford Bowling Center was very much in keeping with their industry. James went on to report that bowling alleys were considered to be heavy fixed cost operations and that the key to success and profitability lies in maximizing capacity and sales dollars.

QUESTIONS

1. What is (are) the major problem(s) facing Wallingford? How could you resolve the problem? Apply the decision-making process (steps 1 3) Be specific and state case information for each step. Define the problem clearly. List and describe five specific alternative solutions that could be implemented to solve that major problem and evaluate each solution looking at pros and cons for each alternative. (Please note: Correctly defining the problem is critical to your success in determining your alternatives.)

2. As general manager of this company, how and why could you utilize and manage the group decision-making process and technique to improve company profits? How equates to a description of the actual group process or technique you would use and how you would manage the discussions to produce a favorable outcome. Why relates to the important advantages that can be obtained from using a group decision process. Be sure to include which employees you would have in the group?