Derrick and Kevin Petersen Case
Case 1 describes the situation with two twin brothers, Derrick and Kevin Petersen, from the small suburban town. The boys are going to graduate from a local business school.
During all their lives, they were inseparable. The task of this paper is to advise on their decision-making in terms of their career choices. Both of them aimed at becoming business owners though they have different points of view on achieving their goals after acquiring management training. Therefore, it can be assumed that they will go different ways as their vision of their near future cardinally differs. The Petersen family owns a very successful auto repair and towing business. Their parents own and maintain seven tow trucks and a garage with four bays providing wide range of repair services.
Their business makes a profit of about $4,000,000 a year in sales. As the elder Petersons are going to retire, they want one of their sons to continue the family business. Derrick is seriously considered the next head of the Petersen Company. However, he plans the company to undergo some changes, but his parents do not approve of his new ideas. He wants the unused space above the garage turn into a custom auto parts showroom and the unused space of the property transform into self-service gas pups and car wash.
The solution to the arisen family conflict should be found. The suggestion is that they should work out a formal contract where all the points of discord are discussed. My suggestion to the problem under discussion is that Derrick’s parents should give him the opportunity and a specified period for his plans realization, for example, six months or a year. His parents should give him an opportunity to put his ideas into practice in the following way. They allow him to open a custom auto parts showroom, self-service gas pumps and automatic car wash.
He is in charge of this business on his own. His task is to persuade his parents that his business plan will make profit if put into practice. Besides, it is the best opportunity for Derrick to prove his parents that he will be a good leader for their company. What concerns his brother Kevin, his plans for the future cardinally differ from his brother’s ones. My suggestion for him is to try to develop his own business from the very start.
He wanted to start his own business in e-commerce. It is possible for him as he has $200,000 of his seed money and he has built the relationship with three of the bankers of his family what is of vital importance when opening one’s own businesss. His first step is to maintain and extend ties with foreign trading companies. He is to pay business visits to several foreign companies, as he wants his business to be of international scale. The second step is to look for the producers of the goods he is going to deal with. The best way to develop such kind of business is to maintain direct ties with the producer companies.
He will need to travel a lot, to visit foreign countries, to meet the producers in case he wants to be a successful businessperson.The next step he is going to take can be looking for the talented persons producing, for example, individually hand made pieces of art. Such kind of activity can bring him international recognition and good name in the upper social circles as a person able to deal with individual orders for VIP clients. It can be said in conclusion that every person can achieve different results in different situations under different circumstances depending on the goal this person aims at. The example from this very case perfectly shows it. There were two very similar persons – twin brothers.
Nevertheless, they set different goals in their lives, therefore their lives cannot be the same.
