I have received an RFP (Request For Proposal) from Salena Way, Director of Carnivorous Cruise Lines. Her RFP is enclosed in hard copy and also attached electronically (see page 54).

After you read and think about Ms. Way’s problem, I want each of you to send me a preliminary proposal for how to deal with it. I will give you some feedback and you can resubmit your revision to me (I will post the deadlines on our intranet web site). I will then pass on your revised proposal to our marketing team, who will cost it out. I will write a cover letter and submit the final proposal to Ms. Way myself.

Our marketing team will need your proposal to include the following, so make sure you address each of them:

1. What is the perceived problem(s) and its consequences?
2. Possible reasons for the problem (The RFP suggests three possibilities. Make sure you address these and maybe consider one or two other possibilities).
3. A plan for gathering data to help identify the problem. You need to include a rough timeline for the whole data collection and analysis process.
4. Use your possible reasons and possible solutions (1 and 2 above) as a way of ensuring that your data collection gets you what you might need; that is, use these as a reality check to refine your thinking.
5. Identify any possible difficulties, problems or expenses (there will indeed be some) that might be encountered in collecting and analyzing such data. Don’t include any dollar figures because our marketing team will do this.

As you may be aware, cruise ship traveling has become big business. Our cruise line is now competing for customers of all age groups and socioeconomic status levels. We offer all types of cruises, from relatively inexpensive 3-4-day cruises in the Caribbean, to 12-15-day cruises in the Mediterranean, to several-month, around-the-world cruises. These have several features that attract customers, many of whom book 6 months or more in advance: (1) they offer a relaxing, everything-done-for-you way to travel, (2) they serve food that is plentiful, usually excellent, and included in the price of the cruise, (3) they stop at a number of interesting ports and offer travelers a way to see the world, and (4) they provide a wide variety of entertainment, particularly in the evening.

This last feature, the entertainment, presents a difficult problem for our ship’s staff. A typical cruise might have well over a thousand customers, including elderly singles and couples, middle-aged people with or without children, and young people, often honeymooners. These different types of passengers have varied tastes in terms of their after-dinner preferences in entertainment. Some want traditional dance music, some want comedians, some want rock music, some want movies, some want to go back to their cabins and read, and so on. Obviously, our cruise entertainment director wants to provide the variety of entertainment our customers desire within a reasonable budget because satisfied customers tend to be repeat customers. The question is how to provide the right mix of entertainment.

As a part of an internal quality control study my department has been conducting, I recently took one of our 12-day cruises. The entertainment seemed to be of high quality and there was plenty of variety. A seven-piece show band played dance music nightly in the largest lounge, two other small musical combos played nightly at two smaller lounges, a pianist played nightly as a piano bar in an intimate lounge, a group of professional singers and dancers played Broadway-type shows about twice weekly, and various professional singers and comedians played occasional single-night performances. (There is also a moderately large onboard casino, but it tended to attract the same people every night and it was always closed when the ship was in port.) Although this entertainment was free to all passengers, much of it had embarrassingly low attendance. The nightly show band and musical combos, who were contracted to play nightly until midnight, often had fewer than a half dozen people in the audience, sometimes literally none. The professional singers, dancers, and comedians attracted larger audiences, but there were still plenty of empty seats. In spite of this, the cruise staff posted a weekly schedule, and they stuck to it regardless of attendance. In a short-term financial sense, it doesn’t make much difference. The performers get paid the same whether anyone is in the audience or not, the passengers have already paid (indirectly) for the entertainment part of the cruise, and the only possible impact on our cruise line (in the short run) is the considerable loss of liquor sales from the lack of passengers in the entertainment lounges. The morale of the entertainers was not great; entertainers love packed houses (and so do we at Carnivorous!). Of course, as they usually argue somewhat philosophically, their hours are relatively short and they are still, after all, getting paid to see the world.

We need to get to the bottom of this. Off the top of my head, could it be that we have a problem with deadbeat passengers, or low-quality entertainment, or a mismatch between the entertainment offered and the entertainment desired? How do I go about finding out? Should we keep a strict schedule, or should we play it more by ear? We need a proposal that identifies the problem(s) and then offers a solution(s) within a reasonable time frame for a reasonable price.

(Adapted from Data Analysis and Decision Making with Microsoft Excel by Albright, Winston, and Zappe, Duxbury Press, New York, 1999)