Puma Prague - Learning from the Sports Shoe Industry

The case is set in the Fall of October 2005. Budget season is underway and the management team of Puma Prague, led by Piotr Cichecki as general manager, is finalizing its numbers before sending it off to Puma Austria. In general, RHQ in Austria has always supported Puma Prague. Recently, incidents have happened which were confusing and unclear. Erwin Kaiser, RHQ head in Puma Austria, was the point man for many years. Now times are changing. Puma Prague has a well established business. It sometimes took too much management time to "go through" RHQ.
Rumour has it that there would be changes within the company in the next year. Piotr has been invited to a late Fall November meeting for general managers. What is to be discussed is uncertain at this point.