Manzana Insurance.pdfVIP

Harvard Business School 9-692-015 Rev. January 30, 1997 Christoph Loch and David Paul Grant prepared the original version of this case (S-DS-87, Revised 5/90) under the direction of Professor J. Michael Harrison, Stanford University. It is based on an earlier case by Karlyn Carnahan. Professor Steven C. Wheelwright, Harvard University, prepared the abridged case as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright ? 1991 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685 or write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. 1 Manzana Insurance: Fruitvale Branch (Abridged) It was a Monday morning in early September 1991. Bill Pippin had been at Manzana for only a week, but already he was thinking that perhaps he should have taken a different job. He gazed at a note on his desk from John Lombard, his boss at the Fruitvale branch: “I’m giving a speech at a conference on property insurance, so I’ll be out of the office until next week. Please give this some thought while I’m gone.” The note was attached to a memo from Tom Jacobs, Manzana’s senior vice president for underwriting operations: To: John Lombard From: Tom Jacobs Subject: Second Quarter Performance The performance figures on Property Insurance for the second quarter have just been completed, and Fruitvale is at the bottom of the list again. More important, Golden Gate is killing us in your territory, and they have just announced a promise of one-day turnaround time to all agents. If