BGMT ***Professor Anthony ONLY***

Joseph Dunn is the owner and general manager of Dunn’s Ski Emporium.  In business for twenty-five years, Dunn’s Ski Emporium is known for its state-of-the-art ski equipment and repairs offered under one roof. It offers moderate prices to skiers in the bustling town of Vail, Colorado.   Dunn’s Ski Emporium has a cozy ambiance, with a Western décor and a two-story fireplace with large windows that overlook the Rocky Mountains.  Catering to skiers, the sporting goods store helps many skiers with their broken or challenged ski equipment.  They specialize in hourly turn-around times on repairs and one day pick up adjustments on new equipment.  This fast service has set Dunn’s sporting goods store way above their competitors in the area for return business both from locals and visitors. Skiers can ski right to their door and leave from their back door to get back on the slopes. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and local.  Most of them work year round.  

Dunn has decided to expand his business.  For some time, Dunn noticed that the Deli next door picks up a lot of his business from the waiting repair customers and he has seen the Deli customers step in to purchase gloves, goggles, and other merchandise after eating at the deli.  The Deli would make an interesting addition to his future business plans.  The Deli, like Dunn’s Ski Emporium, has always done a brisk business especially in season.  Designed in a similar western motif, Dunn thought he would be able to expand easily to include the Deli into his Emporium.  The cross traffic might even increase business.  However, Dunn knows nothing about the Deli business. The deli’s owner, George Atkins, knows and loves his business a great deal.  

Dunn has known George for years and he is aware that George is thinking of retiring in the next few years.  If he buys the Deli now and can get George to stay on at the Deli, George could train and mentor a new managerial staff comprised of some of Dunn’s staff and return employees who work the seasonal rush. The trick to the merger’s success would be to get everyone on board including George.  Dunn wondered how he could ensure George’s best efforts to make the transition stable while Dunn’s Ski Emporium grows, and more specifically, Dunn is concerned that if George is no longer the owner of the Deli (because the Deli would now be a department within Dunn’s Ski Emporium), George will begin to resent Dunn and this might impair the merger of the two businesses into one.  The future is bright for both businesses and Dunn wants to keep it that way. 

Dunn has decided that his best-selling point to George is to design an organizational structure based on George’s vision and mission.  Dunn realizes that the design must reflect George’s relative importance within this acquisition and merger yet must empower the staff of both the new Deli Department and the current employees of Dunn’s Ski Emporium to grow the business.