Question

When dealing with family, it is very difficult. Needless to say, I was put in an awkward and embarrassing situation when I was told by a customer that the pasta I was supplying was already represented by another distributor. It goes without saying that my brother-in-law did not disclose all the information when asked if there were other distributors in my region. When I confronted him, again in the presence of my wife, he basically said that it was my misunderstanding and that it has always been the company’s policy to have more than one distributor to gain INTENSE DISTRIBUTION. Is the practice of having more than one distributor in one region unethical? Perhaps not, but it does create HORIZONTAL CONFLICT.

Answer 1

Having more than one distributor in one region is not unethical and many distributors might be present in a region who supply the same product. This creates a competitive environment among the distributors and the prices might be different for these distributors. This creates a lack of understanding between them and they start competing with each other for customers. Hence a conflict starts which makes the situation messy and it is very tough to solve such situations and even our materila that must be received from one of them might get into trouble. These conflicts among smae parallel lines is called horizontal conflicts. Hnece having more than one distributor gives rise to horizontal conflicts.