Evaluating Product Line Performance: The Case of Wellesley Paint

Evaluating Product Line Performance: The Case of Wellesley Paint1 Carol M. Lawrence, University of Richmond Diane Hotchkiss Tiller, CPA “I’m not looking forward to breaking the news to Mrs. W. She’s going to take this pretty hard,” groaned Charlie Oliver, the controller of Wellesley Paint Company. He and Don Smith, state liaison for the firm, were returning from a meeting with representatives of the Virginia General Services Administration (GSA), the agency that administers bidding on state contracts. Charlie and Don had expected to get the specifications to bid on the traffic paint contract, soon to be renewed. Instead of picking up the bid sheets and renewing old friendships at the GSA, however, they were stunned to learn that Wellesley’s paint samples had performed poorly on the road test and the firm was not eligible to bid on the contract. Charlie and Don were on their way to report to the president of the company, Victoria Wellesley. “Mrs. W.,” as the employees fondly refer to her, is the 70-year-old widow of the company’s founder and has served as president of the company since his death in 1987. “Mrs. W.” is very proud of the quality of the firm’s products and also of its close ties with the state of Virginia, where her family have been prominent citizens since before the Civil War. The label on cans of Wellesley’s house paint features a picture of her ante bellum home. Wellesley’s two main product lines are traffic paint, used for painting yellow and white lines on highways, and commercial paints, sold through local retail outlets. Because of the small size of the firm, all employees handle multiple tasks. For example, Don Smith’s official job title is state liaison, and during contract negotiations he is the firm’s main contact with state officials. When no negotiations are pending, however, he often drives a forklift in the warehouse or travels to road test sites where he operates the striping equipment used to apply traffic paint to the highway.