The Phantasmagoria Factory
The decision makers in Phantasmagoria factory case are challenged by a number of decision making complexities in managing Cirque du Soleil. To start with, multiple criteria present a crucial source of complexity as the decision makers must satisfy the conflicting criteria that represent the interests of company’s directors, employees and stakeholders. For instance, while the Chief Executive Officer of the entertainment company wants to maintain creativity and originality, other stakeholders think that the company is losing money by declining to repeat their previous shows (Kreitner, 2006). The other source of complexity is the risk and uncertainty faced by the company as they plan to stage a show in Los Angeles with the possibility of the show flopping and them being unable to fly their cast and equipment back home (Kreitner, 2006).
Most of the decision making discussed in the case is almost entirely unprogrammed because they are made on the basis of creative problem-solving due to their unfamiliar and novel nature. The president of Cirque for shows and new ventures remarks that they let the creative people make the important decisions regarding the running of the company (Kreitner, 2006). This makes the key decision in this case – letting the musicians, acrobats, designers and contortionists run the entertainment business through their undying creativity and invention. However, leaving the making of important decisions to the artists could have such unintended consequences as unreasonably high expenditure as a result of the artists asking for more revenue than is needed for their personal benefit.
In order to foster a conducive climate for continuous creativity, Cirque du Soleil resorts to a noble mission of providing new productions every time for their audience without repeating previous shows with a view to maintaining and improving the quality of the productions. Furthermore, the company encourages creativity by leaving the running of the business to its artists so that they are free to bring in their new artistic ideas without suppression from the leaders (Kreitner, 2006).
The profitable balance between artistic creativity and business discipline is created through choice of quality over quick profits by shunning duplication of shows, while at the same time charging their audiences enough to counterbalance the deficit that may result from non-duplication of productions. In fact, the company always sells at least 97 per cent of available seats for not less than 150 dollars (Kreitner, 2006). Concisely, the secret behind the success of Cirque du Soleil is letting the creative artistic minds run the business, investing generously in staging shows and charging enough for the high quality productions they stage before their audience.
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