Jia Yuan Company was a small Chinese business founded by two brothers in 2005. The more ambitious of the brothers worked at the front of the business, successfully transforming it from a local sales agent for foreign branded products to a contractor for government-financed construction projects. He saw new opportunities for the business and wanted to make further investment in a related company that his friend worked at. However, the conservative brother, in charge of internal management, was not convinced of the project's potential and did not approve of making drastic changes to their company's overall strategy. The brothers had a history of disagreement and suppressing resolution of the problems. Can the brothers manage their conflict, or should they go their separate ways?

In spring 2012, the issue of trans-boundary sales arose for China's Weikang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Weikang). Sales of the company's products were allocated to distributors in different regions, with each distributor enjoying a monopoly within that region. However, issues had been arising with such a rigid demarcation of sales territory. One question was whether introducing competition between sales agents would lead to higher sales, or whether regional teams could co-operate and share best practices. The sales director of Weikang pondered a conflict between two distributors that had aroused great controversy. With each party sticking to its own view, the conflict seemed intractable, and now distributors from different regions were looking for a reasonable solution. It was time for a meeting to discuss the company's channel management. Faced with such a great difficulty as a cross-border operation, how should the company proceed?