Our cause study deals with Rob Lebow, who was a director of corporate communications for Microsoft Corporation, which is located in Redmond, Washington. Rob Lebow also helped administer the $10 million which were for the advertising budget. He is used to dealing with aggressive ad agencies but this time he encountered a dilemma. In his need to excel he searched for outside help in conducting an agency review, Rob Lebow had high expectations in the volume of response he would have received.
One company Rossin Greenberg Seronick & Hill (RGS&H) stood out amongst all applicants. This was a very young company that was under the leadership of its president, Neil Hill. It only had been in existence for only 5 years. What was very impressive to Rob Lebow was that their business worth was stro
...ng with over $26 million dollars business worth. Not only that but it had a growth rate of 65 percent for the past year. RGS&H was a company based in England but had sought to become more of a national force, by going after high tech industries.
Something that RGS&H had done to further strengthen their level of expertise was to grant the employment of Jamie Mambro and Jay Williams who were previously employed by another firm called Leonard Monahan Saabye which had provided services to one of Microsoft’s main competitors Lotus Corporation. After Neil Hill sending Rob Lebow two letters and many phone calls, he finally sent a flier which included round-trip airline tickets. In the flier he stressed the agency's familiarity with Lotus 1-2-3, which was the main competition for Microsoft's new spreadsheet program known
as, Excel. It also stated that RGS&H had recently hired two people who had worked on the Lotus account for some other advertising agency, explained that he thought that if these new employees had prior knowledge of lotus strategy, this would be beneficial to Microsoft.
When we analyze the situation it clearly states that the information that was proposed to be traded by RGS&H is actually property of the Lotus Corporation not theirs. The employees that were hired and paid for their assistance, and in the same instance the products being produced and sold belong to the Corporation. If this information was to be used, then Lotus would be placed in an unfair competitive position.
Therefore if the disclosure happened then it might be considered illegal if Microsoft uses the information that could have possible be patent by Lotus Corportation; which consequently can end up in a law suits, along with bad publicity for the company.
Even though RGS&H was very persistent in their pursuits to get the attention of Mr. Lebow, there were several considerations that had to take place. Rob Lebow's decision had to be based on ethical, legal and practical implications. He had four options, first he could ignore RGS&H's flier; second he could return the flier with the reply, "Thanks but no thanks;" third he could forward the flier to Lotus; and finally he could investigate the offer.
The action that we would take if we where Rob Lebow is that we would refuse the offer that has been made for confidential information from Lotus or even the offer of the experience of employees who worked with
the Lotus Corporation. The reason that we would refuse the offer from Neal Hill and his company is because the Microsoft Company will have been receiving the information without the consent of the Lotus Corporation which is not the right way to get such information. The information would be of great use to the Microsoft company but it could later cause damages for the company.
If Rob Lebow accepted the information that was to be provided by Neal Hill, Mr. Lebow would be guilty of basically theft, the Microsoft Company would be guilty of getting information and the secrets of another competitors company through improper means. It is illegal to acquire information from a person who did not get the information through the proper way and who is not the legal owner of the information, which makes clear that such information should not be used.
Though out this case we understand how important and chaotic one single choice can be for a big company such a the Microsoft Corporation. We should always take into consideration that sometimes even if something to good like this comes knocking at your door maybe its better to turn it down, for the fact that it maybe “to hot to touch” specially if your a major corporation your always under the media's eye.
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