San Fabian Case Study
Cast:
Paul Cheng – founder of San Fabian; immigrated from mainland China in 1940; considered wealthy, with successful children and multiple lines of business (restaurants); 7% shareholder in MacDowell
Corazon Aquino – newly elected President (Feb 1987) of the Philippines
Carlos Valdez – Vice President of Sales (head of San Fabian’s salesforce)
Luis Rabat – assistant sales manager in charge of retail sales in Manila
Marcelo Amado – head of government sales in Manila
Toni Salgado – responsible for sales to the Department of Public Works
Jean Brevett – new president of MacDowell Philippines; previously headed MacDowell’s Australian operations, where he had streamlined distribution and grown sales 20% annually in a flat market
David Leong – previous president of MacDowell Philippines who had protested the aggressively grown capacity but had been overruled by MacDowell’s “experts”
Questions for San Fabian:
1) What does San Fabian bring to its relationship with MacDowell? Do you think San Fabian has been a good distributor for MacDowell? Why?
- Experience navigating heavy corruption through the Philippines’ political and economic system
- National coverage that was partially built up to support the MacDowell product line
- Strong brand name built on decades of high-quality service and products
- Exclusive-only basis approach to distribution has allowed San Fabian to spend heavily on targeted advertising, consultations and customer support on behalf of MacDowell o Critical since MacDowell’s products, while high quality, have a lot of product-specific installation methods that need to be implemented to ensure customer satisfaction o San Fabian uses a highly trained, technical workforce that would be difficult for MacDowell to replicate (San Fabian also compensates them extremely well, with significant potential for commissions to equal 50-100% of base)
- Valuable relationships at all types of customers o Retail: lists of
Paul Cheng – founder of San Fabian; immigrated from mainland China in 1940; considered wealthy, with successful children and multiple lines of business (restaurants); 7% shareholder in MacDowell
Corazon Aquino – newly elected President (Feb 1987) of the Philippines
Carlos Valdez – Vice President of Sales (head of San Fabian’s salesforce)
Luis Rabat – assistant sales manager in charge of retail sales in Manila
Marcelo Amado – head of government sales in Manila
Toni Salgado – responsible for sales to the Department of Public Works
Jean Brevett – new president of MacDowell Philippines; previously headed MacDowell’s Australian operations, where he had streamlined distribution and grown sales 20% annually in a flat market
David Leong – previous president of MacDowell Philippines who had protested the aggressively grown capacity but had been overruled by MacDowell’s “experts”
Questions for San Fabian:
1) What does San Fabian bring to its relationship with MacDowell? Do you think San Fabian has been a good distributor for MacDowell? Why?
- Experience navigating heavy corruption through the Philippines’ political and economic system
- National coverage that was partially built up to support the MacDowell product line
- Strong brand name built on decades of high-quality service and products
- Exclusive-only basis approach to distribution has allowed San Fabian to spend heavily on targeted advertising, consultations and customer support on behalf of MacDowell o Critical since MacDowell’s products, while high quality, have a lot of product-specific installation methods that need to be implemented to ensure customer satisfaction o San Fabian uses a highly trained, technical workforce that would be difficult for MacDowell to replicate (San Fabian also compensates them extremely well, with significant potential for commissions to equal 50-100% of base)
- Valuable relationships at all types of customers o Retail: lists of