R&r Case Solution

In your opinion, to what extent does Bob Reiss behave according to the principles of effectuation?

There are several means that gave opportunities for Reiss to run the project for trivial game:

•  great work experience in sales and developed selling skills from the company that produced stationary products; achieved excellent results by increasing sales to $ 12 000 000 in three years for American Stock Exchange company;
• good knowledge of market in game industry while being consult for manufactures;
• good connections with stores that were selling adult games while he was working with stationery products;
• sales for this game expected to be ten times more than in Canada where this kind of game had a great success;
• Reiss has persuaded the TV Guide, the magazine that is sold in 18 million copies each week, giving access to target group;
• TV board game supposed to have good demand according to statistic information that every average American family watches TV around 7 hours per day). And the game could be interesting for both adult and children;
• The long-time friend of Reiss, Sam Kaplan, has a good relationship with Swiss-Colony which become the partner of Trivia Inc. for packaging and shipment of games.

The risks and barriers that Reiss has identified for the project:

• The major retailers were not interested in new vendors unless they are convinced of success of the game;
• Games usually have very short life cycle and their popularity fades in short run;
• Seasonal product;
• Lack of brand recognition. The customers didn’t know this company and brand;
• To get convinced some big stakeholders like TV guide to promote the product;
• Very competitive market since a lot of games are designed every year;
• Reiss didn’t have enough experience in handling cash flow (checking the credit, guarantee payments and other administrative activities);
• No start capital for running the idea;
• Changing customer taste.

Reiss has used all risk and uncertainties to develop new decisions for achieving high results.

He saw opportunities in the market and implemented his idea without any start capital, get good profit from it and succeed. Through TV guide he got access to different stores with a total amount of 120, including Bloomingdale’s, Marshall, Fields and etc. The partnership with Heller factoring enabled Trivia Inc. to outsource all financing for operations. The Trivia Inc. didn’t have any administrative work and played quite operational role in the project.