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Caselet 1
Uptron Electronics Limited, is a
pioneering and internationally reputed firm in the electronics
industry. It is one of the largest firm
in the country. It attracted employees from internationallyreputed
institute and industries by offering
high salaries, perks, etc. It has advertized for the position
of an electronic engineer recently.
Nearly 150 candidates applied for the jobMr. Sashidhar, an
electronics Engineering Graduate from
the Indian Institute Of Technology with 5 years working
experience in a medium sized electronics
firm, was selected from among the 130 candidates who took
tests and interview. The interview board
recommended an enhancement in his salary by Rs 5,000
more than his present salary at his
request. Mr Sashidhar was very happy to achieve this and he was
congratulated by a number of people
including his previous employer for his brilliant interview
performance, and wished him good luck.
Mr Sashidhar joined Uptyron Electronics
Ltd., on 21st January, 2002, with greater enthusiasm. He
also found his job to be quite
comfortable and a challenging one and he felt it was prestigious to work
with this company during the formative
years of his career. He found his superiors as well as
subordinates to be friendly and
cooperative. But this climate did not live long. After one year of his
service, he slowly learnt about a number
of unpleasant stories about the company, management, the
superior subordinate relations, rate of
employee turnover, especially at higher level But he decided to
stay on as he has promised several
things to the management in the interview. He wanted to please
and change the attitude of management
through his diligent performance, firm commitment and
dedication. He started maximizing his
contributions and the management got the impression that Mr.
Sashidhar had settled down and will
remain in the company.
After some time, the superiors started
riding rough- shod over Mr Sashidhar. He was overloaded with
multifarious jobs. His freedom in
deciding and executing was cut down. He was ill treated on a
number of occasions before his
subordinates. His colleagues also started assigning their
responsibilities to Mr Sashidhar.
Consequently there were imbalances in his family life and
organizational life. But he seemed to be
calm and contented. Management felt that Mr Sashidhar had
the potential to bear with many more
organizational responsibilities.
So the general manager was quite
surprised to see the resignation letter of Mr Sashidhar along with a
cheque equivalent to a month’s salary
one fine morning on 18th January, 2004. The General Manager
failed to convince Mr Sashidhar to withdraw
his resignation. The General Manager relieved him on
25th January, 2004. The
General Manager wanted to appoint a committee to go into the matter
immediately, but dropped the idea later.
Questions:
1. What is wrong with the recruitment
policy of the company?
2. Why did Mr. Sashidhar’s resignation
surprise the General Manager?
Caselet 2
The contexts in which human resources
are managed in today's organizations are constantly,
changing. No longer do firms utilize one
set of manufacturing processes, employ a homogeneous
group of loyal employees for long
periods of time or develop one set way of structuring how work is
done and supervisory responsibility is
assigned. Continuous changes in who organizations employ
and what these employees do require HR
practices and systems that are well conceived and
effectively implemented to ensure high
performance and continued success.
1. Automated technologies nowadays
require more technically trained employees possessing
multifarious skills to repair, adjust or
improve existing processes. The firms can't expect these
employees (Gen X employees, possessing
superior technical knowledge and skills, whose attitudes
and perceptions toward work are
significantly different from those of their predecessor organizations:
like greater self control, less interest
in job security; no expectations of long term employment;
greater participation urge in work
activities, demanding opportunities for personal growth and
creativity) to stay on without
attractive compensation packages and novel reward schemes.
2. Technology driven companies are led
by project teams, possessing diverse skills, experience and
expertise. Flexible and dynamic
organizational structures are needed to take care of the expectations
of managers, technicians and analysts
who combine their skills, expertise and experience to meet
changing customer needs and competitive
pressures.
3. Cost cutting efforts have led to the
decimation of unwanted layers in organizational hierarchy in
recent times. This, in turn, has brought
in the problem of managing plateau employees whose careers
seem to have been hit by the delivering
process. Organizations are, therefore, made to find alternative
career paths for such employees’
4. Both young and old workers, these
days, have values and attitudes that stress less loyalty to the
company and more loyalty to oneself and
one's career than those shown by employees in the past,
Organizations, therefore, have to devise
appropriate HR policies and strategies so as to prevent the
flight of talented employees
Question:-
1.
Discuss that technological breakthrough has brought radical
changes in HRM.
Caselet 1
Ask the company top brass what „almost there‟ means.
The answer: a premier Indian retail company
that has come to be known as a specialty chain of
apparel and accessories. With 52 product categories
under one roof, Shoppers‟ Stop has a line-up of 350
brands. Set up and headed by former Corona
employee, B. S. Nagesh, Shoppers‟ Stop is India‟s
answer to Selfridges and Printemps. As it proudly
announces, „We don‟t sell, we help you buy.‟ Back in
1991, there was the question of what to retail.
Should it be a supermarket or a departmental store?
Even an electronics store was considered. Finally,
common sense and understanding won out. The safest
bet, for the all-male team was to retail men‟s
wear. They knew the male psyche and felt that they
had discerning taste in men‟s clothing. The
concept would be that of a lifestyle store in a
luxurious space, which would make for a great shopping
experience. The first Shoppers‟ Stop store took
shape in Andheri, Mumbai, in October 1991, with an
investment of nearly Rs. 20 lakh. The original
concept that formed the basis of a successful marketing
campaign for seven years is here to stay. And the
result is an annual turnover of Rs. 160 crores and
five stores, nine years later. Everything went right
from the beginning, except for one strange
happening. More than 60 per cent of the customers
who walked into Shoppers‟ Stop in Mumbai were
women. This gave rise to ideas. Soon, the store set
up its women‟s section. Later, it expanded to
include children‟s wear and then, household
accessories. The second store in Bangalore came in
1995. The store at Hyderabad followed in 1998 with
the largest area of 60,000 sq. ft. The New Delhi
and Jaipur stores were inaugurated in 1999. All this
while, the product range kept increasing to suit
customer needs. The most recent experiment was home
furnishings. Secure in the knowledge that
organized retailing in global brands was still in
its infancy in India, Shoppers‟ Stop laid the ground
rules which the competition followed. The biggest
advantage for Shoppers‟ Stop is that it knows how
the Indian consumer thinks and feels while shopping.
Yes, feeling – for in India, shopping remains an
outing. And how does it compare itself to foreign
stores? While it is not modeled on any one foreign
retailer, the „basic construct‟ is taken from the
experience of a number of successfully managed retail
companies. It has leveraged expertise for a critical
component like technology from all over the
world, going as far as hiring expatriates from
Littlewoods and using state-of-the-art ERP models.
Shoppers‟ Stop went a step further by even integrating
its financial system with the ERP model.
Expertise was imported wherever it felt that
expertise available in-house was inadequate. But the
store felt there was one acute problem. A shortage
of the most important resource of them all was
trained humans. Since Indian business institutes did
not have professional courses in retail
management, people were hired from different walks
of life and the training programme was
internalized. By 1994, the senior executives at
Shoppers‟ Stop were taking lectures at management
institutes in Mumbai. The Narsee Monjee Institute of
Management Studies (NMIMS) even
restructured its course to include retail management
as a subject. Getting the company access to the
latest global retail trends and exchange of
information with business greats was an exclusive
membership to the Intercontinental Group of
Department Stores (IGDS). It allows membership by
invitation to one company from a country and
Shoppers‟ Stop rubs shoulders with 29 of the hottest
names in retailing – Selfridges from the UK, C.K.
Tang from Singapore, Lamcy Plaza from Dubai
and the like. With logistics I in place, the accent
moved to the customer. Shoppers‟ Stop conducted
Examination Paper of Marketing Management
surveys with ORG-MARG and Indian Market Research
Bureau (IMRB) and undertook in-house
wardrobe audits. The studies confirmed what it
already knew. The Indian customer is still evolving
and is very different from, say, a European
customer, who knows exactly what he wants to purchase,
walks up to a shelf, picks up the merchandise, pays
and walks out. In India, customers like to touch
and feel the merchandise, and scout for options.
Also, the majority of Indian shoppers still prefer to
pay in cash. So, transactions must be in cash as
against plastic money used the world over.
Additionally, the Indian customer likes being served
– whether it is food, or otherwise. The
company‟s customer profile includes people who want
the same salesperson each time they came to
the store to walk them through the shop floors and
assist in the purchase. Others came with families,
kids and maids in tow and expected to be suitably
attended to. Still others wanted someone to carry
the bags. So, the shops have self-help counters,
with an assistant at hand for queries or help. The inhouse
wardrobe audit also helped with another facet of the
business. It enabled Shoppers‟ Stop to
work out which brands to stock, based on customer
preferences. In fact, the USP of Shoppers‟ Stop
lies in judiciously selected global brands,
displayed alongside an in-house range of affordable
designer wear. The line-up includes Levi‟s, Louis
Philippe, Allen Solly, Walt Disney, Ray Ban and
Reebok, besides in-house labels STOP and I. Brand
selection is the same across the five locations,
though the product mix may be somewhat city-based to
accommodate cuts and styles in women‟s
wear, as well as allowing for seasonal variations
(winter in Delhi, for instance, is a case in point).
Stocking of brands is based on popular demand –
recently, Provogue, MTV Style, and Benetton have
been added. In-house labels are available at
competitive prices and target the value-for-money
customer and make up around 12 per cent of Shoppers‟
Stop‟s business. Sometimes in-house brands
plug the price gap in certain product categories. To
cash in on this, the company has big plans for its
in-house brands: from re-branding to repositioning,
to homing in on product categories where existing
brands are not strong. Competition between brands is
not an issue, because being a trading house, all
brands get equal emphasis. The in-house brand
shopper is one who places immense trust in the
company and the quality of its goods and returns for
repeat buys. And the company reposed its faith
in regular customers by including them in a concept
called the First Citizen‟s Club (FCC). With
60,000 odd members, FCC customers account for 10 per
cent of entries and for 34 per cent of the
turnover. It was the sheer appeal of the experience
that kept pulling these people back. Not one to let
such an opportunity pass, the company ran a
successful ad campaign (that talks about just this factor)
in print for more than eight years. The theme is
still the same. In 1999, a TV spot, which liked the
shopping experience to the slowing down of one‟s
internal clock and the beauty of the whole
experience, was aired. More recently, ads that spell
out the store‟s benefits (in a highly oblique
manner) are being aired.
The campaign is based on entries entered in the Visitors‟
Book. None of the ads has a visual or text –
or any heavy handedly direct reference to the store
or the merchandise. The ads only show shoppers
having the time of their lives in calm and serene
locales, or elements that make shopping at the store a
pleasure – quite the perfect getaway for a
cosmopolitan shopper aged between 25 and 45. The brief to
the agency, Contract, ensured that brand recall came
in terms of the shopping experience, not the
product. And it has worked wonders. Value-addition
at each store also comes in the form of special
care with car parks, power backup, customer paging,
alteration service and gift-wrapping. To top it
all, cafes and coffee bars make sure that the
customer does not step out of the store. In Hyderabad, it
has even created a Food Court. Although the food
counter was not planned, it came about as there
was extra space of 67,000 sq. ft. Carrying the
perfect experience to the shop floor is an attempt to
stack goods in vast open spaces neatly. Every store
has a generic structure, though regional customer
variances are accounted for. Each store is on lease,
and this is clearly Shoppers‟ Stop‟s most
expensive resource proposition – renting huge spaces
in prime properties across metros, so far
totaling 210,000 sq. ft of retail space. Getting
that space was easy enough for Shoppers‟ Stop, since
its promoter is the Mumbai-based Raheja Group, which
also owns 62 per cent of the share capital.
Examination Paper of Marketing Management
Questions:
1. What are the significant factors that have led to
the success of Shoppers‟ Stop?
2. How should Shoppers‟ Stop develop its demand
forecasts?
Caselet 2
The rise of personal computers in the mid 1980s
spurred interest in computer games. This caused a
crash in home Video game market. Interest in Video
games was rekindled when a number of different
companies developed hardware consoles that provided
graphics superior to the capabilities of
computer games. By 1990, the Nintendo Entertainment
System dominated the product category. Sega
surpassed Nintendo when it introduced its Genesis
System. By 1993, Sega commanded almost 60 per
cent of Video game market and was one of the most
recognized brand names among the children.
Sega‟s success was short lived. In 1995, Saturn (a
division of General Motors) launched a new 32-bit
system. The product was a miserable failure for a
number of reasons. Sega was the primary software
developer for Saturn and it did not support efforts
by outside game developers to design compatible
games. In addition, Sega‟s games were often
delivered quite late to retailers. Finally, the price of the
Saturn system was greater than other comparable game
consoles. This situation of Saturn‟s misstep
benefited Nintendo and Sony greatly. Sony‟s Play
Station was unveiled in 1994 and was available in
70 million homes worldwide by the end of 1999. Its
“Open design” encouraged the efforts of outside
developers, resulting in almost 3,000 different
games that were compatible with the PlayStation. It too
featured 32-bit graphics that appealed to older
audience. As a result, at one time, more than 30 per
cent of PlayStation owners were over 30 years old.
Nintendo 64 was introduced in 1996 and had eyepopping
64-bit graphics and entered in more than 28 million
homes by 1999. Its primary users were
between the age of 6 and 13 as a result of
Nintendo‟s efforts to limit the amount of violent and adultoriented
material featured on games that can be played on its
systems. Because the company
exercised considerable control over software
development, Nintendo 64 had only one-tenth the
number of compatible games as Sony‟s PlayStation
did. By 1999, Sony had captured 56 per cent of
the video game market, followed by Nintendo with 42
per cent. Sega‟s share had fallen to a low of
1%. Hence, Sega had two options, either to concede
defeat or introduce an innovative video machine
that would bring in huge sales. And Sega had to do
so before either Nintendo or Sony could bring
their next-generation console to market. The Sega
Dreamcast arrived in stores in September 1999
with an initial price tag of $199. Anxious gamers
placed 300,000 advance orders, and initial sales
were quite encouraging. A total of 1.5 million
Dreamcast machines were bought within the first four
months, and initial reviews were positive. The
128-bit system was capable of generating 3-D visuals,
and 40 different games were available within three
months of Dream cast‟s introduction. By the end
of the year, Sega had captured a market share to 15
per cent. But the Dreamcast could not sustain its
momentum. Although its game capabilities were
impressive, the system did not deliver all the
functionality Sega had promised. A 56K modem (which
used a home phone line) and a Web browser
were meant to allow access to the Internet so that
gamers could play each other online, surf the Web,
and visit the Dreamcast Network for product
information and playing tips. Unfortunately, these
features either were not immediately available or
were disappointing in their execution. Sega was not
the only one in having the strategy of adding
functionality beyond games. Sony and Nintendo
followed the same approach for their machines
introduced in 1999. Both Nintendo‟s Neptune and
Sony‟s PlayStation 2 (PS2) were built on a DVD
platform and featured a 128-bit processor. Analysts
applauded the move to DVD because it is less
expensive to produce and allows more storage than
CDs. It also gives buyers the ability to use the
machine as CD music player and DVD movie player.
As Sony marketing director commented, “The full
entertainment offering from Play Station 2
definitely appeals to a much broader audience. I
have friends in their 30s who bought it not only
Examination Paper of Marketing Management
because it‟s a gaming system for their kids, but
also a DVD for them.” In addition, PlayStation 2 is
able to play games developed for its earlier model
that was CD-based. This gives the PS2 an
enormous advantage in the number of compatible game
titles that were immediately available to
gamers. Further enhancing the PS2‟s appeal is its high-speed
modem and allows the user‟s easy
access to the Internet through digital cable as well
as over telephone lines. This gives Sony the ability
to distribute movies, music, and games directly to
PS2 consoles. “We are positioning this as an allround
entertainment player,” commented Ken Kutaragi, the
head of Sony Computer Entertainment.
However, some prospective customers were put off by
the console‟s initial price of $360. Shortly
after the introduction of Neptune, Nintendo changed
its strategies and announced the impending
release of its newest game console, The GameCube.
However, unlike the Neptune, the GameCube
would not run on a DVD platform and also would not
initially offer any online capabilities. It would
be more attractively priced at $199. A marketing
vice president for Nintendo explained the
company‟s change in direction, “We are the only
competitor whose business is video games. We want
to create the best gaming system.” Nintendo also
made the GameCube friendly for outside developers
and started adding games that included sports titles
to attract an older audience. Best known for its
extra ordinary successes with games aimed at the
younger set, such as Donkey Kong, Super Mario
Bros, and Pokemon, Nintendo sought to attract older
users, especially because the average video
game player is 28. Youthful Nintendo users were
particularly pleased to hear that they could use their
handheld Game Boy Advance systems as controllers for
the GameCube. Nintendo scrambled to
ensure there would be an adequate supply of Game
Cubes on the date in November 2001, when they
were scheduled to be available to customers. It also
budgeted $450 million to market its new product,
as it anticipated stiff competition during the
holiday shopping season. With more than 20 million
PlayStation 2 sold worldwide, the GameCube as a new
entry in the video game market would make
the battle for market share even more intense. For
almost a decade, the video game industry had only
Sega, Nintendo, and Sony; just three players.
Because of strong brand loyalty and high product
development costs, newcomers faced a daunting task
in entering this race and being competitive. In
November 2001, Microsoft began selling its new Xbox,
just three days before the GameCube made
its debut. Some observers felt the Xbox was aimed to
rival PlayStation 2, which has similar functions
that rival Microsoft‟s Web TV system and even some
lower level PCs. Like the Sony‟s PlayStation 2,
Xbox was also built using a DVD platform, but it
used an Intel processor in its construction. This
open design allowed Microsoft to develop the Xbox in
just two years, and gave developers the option
of using standard PC tool for creating compatible
games. In addition, Microsoft also sought the
advice of successful game developers and even
incorporated some of their feedback into the design of
the console and its controllers. As a result of
developers‟ efforts, Microsoft had about 20 games ready
when the Xbox became available. By contrast, the
GameCube had only eight games available.
Microsoft online strategy was another feature that
differentiated of the Xbox from the GameCube.
Whereas Nintendo had no immediate plans for
Web-based play, the Xbox came equipped with an
Ethernet port for broadband access to Internet.
Microsoft also announced its own Web-based network
on which gamers can come together for online head-to
head play and for organized online matches
and tournaments. Subscribers to this service were to
pay a small monthly fee and must have highspeed
access to the Internet. This is a potential drawback
considering that a very low percentage of
households world over currently have broadband
connections. By contrast Sony promoted an open
network, which allows software developers to manage
their own games, including associated fees
charged to users. However, interested players must
purchase a network adapter for an additional
$39.99. Although game companies are not keen on the
prospect of submitting to the control of a
Microsoft-controlled network, it would require a
significant investment for them to manage their own
service on the Sony-based network. Initially the
price of Microsoft‟s Xbox was $299. Prior to the
introduction of Xbox, in a competitive move Sony
dropped the price of the PlayStation 2 to $299.
Nintendo‟s GameCube already enjoyed a significant
price advantage, as it was selling for $100 less
than either Microsoft or Sony products. Gamers
eagerly snapped up the new consoles and made 2001
Examination Paper of Marketing Management
the best year ever for video game sales. For the
first time, consumers spent $9.4 billion on video
game equipment, which was more than they did at the
box office. By the end of 2001 holiday season,
6.6 million PlayStation 2 consoles had been sold in
North America alone, followed by 1.5 million
Xbox units and 1.2 million Game Cubes. What ensued
was an all out price war. This started when
Sony decided to put even more pressure on the
Microsoft‟s Xbox by cutting the PlayStation 2 price to
$199. Microsoft quickly matched that price.
Wanting to maintain its low-price status, Nintendo
in turn responded by reducing the price of its the
GameCube by $50, to $149. By mid 2002, Microsoft
Xbox had sold between 3.5 and 4 million units
worldwide. However, Nintendo had surpassed Xbox
sales by selling 4.5 million Game Cubes. Sony
had the benefit of healthy head start, and had
shipped 32 million PlayStation 2s. However, seven
years after the introduction of original
PlayStation, it was being sold in retail outlets for a mere $49. It
had a significant lead in terms of numbers of units
in homes around the world with a 43 per cent
share. Nintendo 64 was second with 30 per cent,
followed by Sony PlayStation 2 with 14 per cent.
The Xbox and GameCube each claimed about 3 per cent
of the market, with Sega Dreamcast
comprising the last and least market share of 4.7
per cent. Sega, once an industry leader, announced in
2001 that it had decided to stop producing the
Dreamcast and other video game hardware
components. The company said it would develop games
for its competitors‟ consoles. Thus Sega
slashed the price of the Dreamcast to just $99 in an
effort to liquidate its piled up inventory of more
than 2 million units and immediately began
developing 11 new games for the Xbox, four for
PlayStation 2, and three for Nintendo‟s Game Boy
Advance. As the prices of video game consoles
have dropped, consoles and games have become the
equivalent of razors and blades. This means the
consoles generate little if any profit, but the
games are a highly profitable proposition. The profit
margins on games are highly attractive, affected to
some degree by whether the content is developed
by the console maker (such as Sony) or by an
independent game publisher (such as Electronic Arts).
Thus, the competition to develop appealing, or
perhaps even addictive, games may be even more
intense than the battle among players to produce the
best console. In particular, Nintendo, Sony, and
Microsoft want games that are exclusive to their own
systems. With that in mind, they not only rely
on large in-house staffs that design games but they
also pay added fees to independent publishers for
exclusive rights to new games. The sales of video
games in 2001 rose to 43 per cent, compared to just
4 per cent increase for computer-based games. But
computer game players are believed to be a loyal
bunch, as they see many advantages in playing games
on their computers rather than consoles. For
one thing, they have a big advantage of having
access to a mouse and a keyboard that allow them to
play far more sophisticated games. In addition, they
have been utilizing the Internet for years to
receive game updates and modifications and to play
each other over the Web. Sony and Microsoft are
intent on capturing a portion of the online gaming
opportunity. Even Nintendo has decided to make
available a modem that will allow GameCube users to
play online. As prices continue to fall and
technology becomes increasingly more sophisticated,
it remains to be seen whether these three
companies can keep their names on the industry‟s
list of “high scorers”.
Questions:
1. Considering the concept of product life cycle,
where would you put video games in their life cycle?
2. Should video game companies continue to alter
their products to include other functions, such as
email?
Caselet 1
M/s. ABC Ltd is a medium-sized engineering company
producing a large-range of product lines
according to customer requirements. It has earned a
good reputation as a quick and reliable supplier to
its customers because of which its volume of
business kept on increasing. However, over the past one
year, the Managing Director of the company has been
receiving customer complaints due to delays in
dispatch of products and at times the company has to
pay substantial penalty for not meeting the
schedule in time. The Managing Director convened an
urgent meeting of various functional managers
to discuss the issue. The marketing manager
questioned the arbitrary manner of giving priority to
products in manufacturing line, causing delays in
wanted products and over-stocking of products
which are not required immediately. Production
Control Manager complained that he does not have
adequate staff to plan and control the production
function; and whatever little planning he does, is
generally overlooked by shop floor manager. Shop floor
managers complained of unrealistic
planning, excessive machine breakdowns, power
failure, and shortage of materials for scheduled
products because of which it is impossible to stick
to the schedule. Maintenance manager says that he
does not get important spares required for equipment
maintenance because of which he cannot repair
machines at a faster rate. Inventory control manager
says that on one hand the company often accuses
him of carrying too much stock and on other hand
people are grumbling over shortages. Fed up by
mutual mud-slinging, the Managing Director decided
to appoint you, a bright management consultant
with training in business management to suggest ways
and means to put his “house in order”.
Questions:-
1. What would you suggest to avoid delays in
dispatch of products?
2. What action should be taken by various functional
managers to meet the scheduled dates?
Caselet 2
Rajender Kumar was a production worker at competent
Motors Limited (CML) which made
components and accessories for the automotive
industry. He had worked at CML for almost seven
years as a welder, along with fifteen other men in
the plant. All had received training in welding both
on the job and through company sponsored external
programmes. They had friendly relations and got
along very well with one another. They played
Volleyball in the playground regularly before retiring
to the quarters allotted by the company. They work
together in the company canteen, cutting Jokes on
each other and making fun of everyone who dared to
step into their privacy during lunch hour. Most
of the fellows had been there for some length of
time, except for two men who had joined the ranks
only two months back. Rajender was generally
considered to be the leader of the group, so it was no
surprise that when the foreman of the new was
transferred and his job was posted, Rajender applied
for the job and got it.
Examination Paper of Organizational Behaviour
There were only four other applicants for the job,
two from mechanical section and two from outside,
when there was a formal announcement of the
appointment on a Friday afternoon, everyone in the
group congratulated Rajender. They literally carried
him on their shoulders, and bought him snacks
and celebrated. On Monday morning, Rajender joined
duty as Foreman. It was company practice for
all foremen to wear blue jacket and a white shirt.
Each man‟s coat had his name badge sewn onto the
left side pocket. The company had given two pairs to
Rajender. He was proud to wear the coat to
work on Monday. People who saw him from a distance
went up to him and admired the new blue
coat. There was a lot of kidding around calling
Rajender as „Hero‟, „Raja Babu‟ and „Officer‟ etc.
One of the guys went back to his locker and returned
with a long brush and acted as though he were
removing dust particles on the new coat. After about
five minutes of horseplay, all the men went back
to work. Rajender went to his office to familiarize
himself with the new job and environment. At
noon, all the men broke for Lunch and went to the
canteen to eat and take a break as usual. Rajender
was busy when they left but followed after them a
few minutes later. He bought the food coupon,
took the snacks and tea and turned to face the open
canteen. On the left-side corner of the room was
his old work group; on the right-hand side of the
canteen sat the other entire foreman in the plant—all
in their smart blue coats.
At that point of time, silence descended on the
canteen. Both groups looked at Rajender anxiously,
waiting to see which group he would choose to eat
with.
Questions:
1. Whom do you think Rajender will eat with? Why?
2. If
you were one of the other foremen, what could you do to make Rajinder‟s
transition easier?
Caselet 1
Mr. Vincent, the Manager of a large supermarket, was
taking a management course in the evening
programme at the local college. The Professor had
given an interesting but disturbing lecture the
previous night on the various approaches to
management. Vincent had always thought that
management involved just planning, organizing and
controlling. Now this Professor was saying that
management could also be thought of as quantitative
models, systems theory and analysis, and even
something called contingency relationships. Vincent
had always considered himself a good manager,
and his record with the supermarket chain had proved
it. He thought of himself, “I have never used
operations research models, thought of my store as
an open system, or developed or utilized any
contingency relationship. By doing a little planning
ahead, organizing the store, and making some
things got done, I have been a successful manager.
That other stuff just does not make sense. All the
professor was trying to do was complicate things. I
guess I will have to know it for the test, but I am
sticking with my old plan, organize and control
approach to managing my store.”
Questions:
1. Critically analyze Mr. Vincent‟s reasoning.
2. If you were the professor and you knew what was
going through Vincent‟s mind, what would you say
to Vincent?
Caselet 2
The Regional Administration Office of a company was
hastily set up. Victor D‟Cuhna a young
executive was directly recruited to take charge of
Data Processing Cell of this office. The data
processing was to help the administrative office in
planning and monitoring. The officer cadre of the
administrative office was a mix of directly
recruited officers and promote officers (promotion from
within the organization).
Females dominated the junior clerical cadre. This
cadre was not formally trained. The administrative
office had decided to give these fresh recruits
on-the-job training because when results were not upto
the expectations blame was brought on the Data
Processing Cell. Victor D‟Cuhna realized that the
administrative office was heading for trouble. He
knew that his task would not be easy and that he had
been selected because of his experience, background
and abilities. He also realized that certain
functional aspects of the administrative office were
not clearly understood by various functionaries,
and systems and procedures were blindly and randomly
followed. Feedback was random, scanty and
controversial, and Data Processing Cell had to
verify every item of feedback. Delays were inevitable.
D‟Cuhna sought the permission of senior management
to conduct a seminar on communication and
feedback of which he was an expert. The permission
was grudgingly given by the senior management.
Everyone appreciated the seminar. Following the
first seminar, D‟Cuhna conducted a one week
· This
section consists of Caselets.
· Answer
all the questions.
· Each
Caselet carries 20 marks.
· Detailed
information should form the part of your answer (Word limit 150-200 words).
Principles and Practices of Management
IIBM Institute of Business Management 4
training course for the clerical cadre, especially
for the junior, freshly recruited clerks. Amongst other
topics, D‟Cuhna laid emphasis on
Questions:
1. Diagnose the problem and enumerate the reasons
for the failure of D‟Cuhna?
2. What
could D‟Cuhna have done to avoid the situation in which he found himself?
Caselet 1
Mr. and Mrs. Sharma went to Woodlands Apparel to buy
a shirt. Mr. Sharma did not read the
price tag on the piece selected by him. At the
counter, while making the payment he asked for
the price. Rs. 950 was the answer.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Sharma, who was still shopping came
back and joined her husband. She was
glad that he had selected a nice black shirt for
himself. She pointed out that there was a 25%
discount on that item. The counter person nodded in
agreement.
Mr. Sharma was thrilled to hear that “It means the
price of this shirt is just Rs. 712. That‟s
fantastic”, said Mr. Sharma.
He decided to buy one more shirt in blue color.
In no time, he returned with the second shirt and
asked them to be packed. When he received the
cash memo for payment, he was astonished to find
that he had to pay Rs. 1,900 and Rs. 1,424.
Mr. Sharma could hardly reconcile himself to the
fact that the counter person had quoted the
discounted price which was Rs. 950. The original
price printed on the price tag was Rs. 1,266.
Questions
1. What should Mr. Sharma have done to avoid the
misunderstanding?
2. Discuss the main features involved in this case.
Caselet 2
I don‟t want to speak to you. Connect me to your
boss in the US,” hissed the American on the
phone. The young girl at a Bangalore call centre
tried to be as polite as she could. At another call
centre, another day, another young girl had a
Londoner unleashing himself on her, “Young lady,
do you know that because of you Indians we are
losing jobs?”
The outsourcing backlash is getting ugly. Handling
irate callers is the new brief for the young
men and women taking calls at these outsourced job
centres. Supervisors tell them to be „cool‟.
Avinash Vashistha, managing partner of NEOIT, a leading
US-based consultancy firm says,
“Companies involved in outsourcing both in the US
and India are already getting a lot of hate
mail against outsourcing and it is hardly surprising
that some people should behave like this on
the telephone.” Vashistha says Indian call centre‟s
should train their operators how to handle
such calls. Indeed, the furor raised by the Western
media over job losses because of outsourcing
Examination Paper of Business Communication
has made ordinary citizens there sensitive to the
fact that their calls are being taken not from
their midst, but in countries such as India and the
Philippines.
The angry outbursts the operators face border on the
racist and sexist, says the manager of a call
centre in Hyderabad. But operators and senior
executives of call centres refuse to go on record
for fear of kicking up a controversy that might
result in their companies‟ losing clients overseas.
“It‟s happening often enough and so let‟s face it,”
says a senior executive of a Gurgaon call
centre, adding, “This doesn‟t have any impact on
business.”
Questions
1. Suppose you are working as an operator in a call
centre in India and receiving calls
from Americans and Londoners. How would you handle
such calls?
2. Do you agree with the view such abusive
happenings on the telephone do not have any
impact
on business?
Caselet 1
Overview
of our Client’s Strategy
Our client had an online store. They were spending
$15,000 each month on pay per click
advertising. This resulted in about $225,000 per
month in sales. They didn‟t know which clicks
were leading to sales because they didn‟t track the
clicks. There rankings in the natural listings was
minimal because they hadn‟t done keywords research
on what visitors were using to try to find a
site like there‟s. They weren‟t able to quantity
results because their we statistics program only
showed very general traffic information. They were
also doing an irregular email newsletter even
though they had more than 32,000 e-mails in their
database.
Analysis of the situation
In the natural listings we suspected they were being
penalized by the search enines for duplicate
content. The search engines frown on this because
they feel this is trying to fool them. Google will
often give a site like this something called “Supplement
Results”, which means that the search
engines know the page exists but doesn‟t have any
content in their database. We also suspected
their email newsletter was being blocked by many
spam blockers because the names of the products
they sold were often on used in spam e-mails.
Implementation of a Solution
For the pay per click advertising we started
tracking the clicks down to the individual terms and the
actual results that came from them. We were able to
delete terms that were not getting enough sales
and increase the bids on ones that brought sales.
For the natural listings we did keywords research
and focused on the main keywords on the content for
the home page and in the META tags. We
also found that visitors search on product names
rather than manufactures, so in the title tag for the
page we switched and put the product name before the
manufacturer. With the newsletter, we used
a good mix of graphics and content to appease the
spam blockers, as well as put the product names
in graphics so they wouldn‟t be blocked. In order to
analyze of the site‟s traffic, we implemented a
powerful web statistics program.
Results of our work
Through our tactics, our clients were able to move
up to #4 on Google for their main search term,
which got a lot of traffic. With pay per click, they
went from $.43. They decrease their budget to
$10,000 per month, yet were able to increase their
traffic by 33 percent. Through our optimization
of their pay per click, their cost per conversion to
sale decreased by at least 45 percent. The
deliverability of their newsletter increased as
well. Within a year, their sales increased to over
$600,000 per month.
Questions:
1. Discuss the client strategy for the success of
store.
2. Suppose if you are the client maker what would
you suggest for the client.
Caselet 2
Examination Paper of Management Information Systems
Data Warehouse is a massive independent business
database system that is populated with data that
has been extracted from a range of sources. The data
is held separately from its origin and is used to
help to improve the decision-making process.
Many traditional Databases are involved in recording
day to day operational activities of the
business, called Online Transaction Processing
(OLTP), COMMONLY IMPLEMENTED IN
Airline Bookings and Banking Systems, for faster‟s
response and better control over data.
After establishment of OLTP Systems, reports and
summaries can be drawn for giving inputs to
decision-making process and this process is called
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP).
For better customer relationships management
strategy, the call centre‟s and data Warehouse works
as a strategic tool for decision-support which
requires lot of time for establishment, and needs to be
updated with operational information on daily weekly
or monthly basis.
Data Warehouse is used for proactive strategies
formulation strategies formulation in critical and
complex situations. A number of CRM vendors are
advocating for single integrated customer
database which includes call centre, web sites,
branches and direct mail, but it lacks in analytical
functioning of data warehouse. This Database can‟t
be expanded also, and carry decision support
operations on call centre Database becomes slow
& the query processing and inquiries andling
operations also become slow & inefficient for
agents dealing with customers.
Data Warehouse is must for identifying most
profitable & loyal customers and those customers can
be offered better customized services which increase
the chances of additional profits.
Although call centre system & data warehouse are
altogether different systems yet dependent on
each other to fully exploit their potential
respectively.
Questions:
1. Explain the role of data warehousing in the
functioning of a call centre.
2. How the
response time in performing OLAP queries can be improved?
Caselet 1
Company Background
The Bronson Insurance Group was originally founded
in 1900 in Auxvasse, Missouri, by James Bronson.
The Bronson Group owns a variety of companies that
underwrite personal and commercial insurance
policies. Annual sales of the Bronson Group are $100
million. In recent years, the company has suffered
operating losses. In 1990, the company was heavily
invested in computer hardware and software. One of
the problems the Bronson Group faced (as well as
many insurance companies) was a conflict between
established manual procedures and the relatively
recent (within the past 20 years) introduction of
computer equipment. This conflict was illustrated by
the fact that much information was captured on
computer but paper files were still kept for
practical and legal reasons.
File Clerks
The file department employed 20 file clerks who
pulled files from stacks, refilled used files, and delivered
files to various departments including commercial
lines, personal lines, and claims. Once a file clerk
received the file. Clerks delivered files to
underwriters on an hourly basis throughout the day. The average
file clerk was paid $8,300 per year. One special
file clerk was used full time to search for requested files
that another file clerk had not been able to find in
the expected place. It was estimated that 40 percent of
the requested files were these “no hit” files
requiring a search. Often these “no hit” files were eventually
found stacked in the requester‟s office. The primary
“customers” of the file clerks were underwriters and
claims attorneys.
Underwriting
Company management and operations analysts were
consistently told that the greatest problem in the
company was the inability of file clerks to supply
files in a speedy fashion. The entire company from top to
bottom viewed the productivity and effectiveness of
the department as unacceptable. An underwriter used
20-50 files per day. Because of their distrust of
the files department, underwriters tended to hoard often
used files. A count by operations analysts found
that each underwriter kept from 100-200 files in his or her
office at any one time. An underwriter would request
a file by computer and work on other business until
the file was received. Benson employed 25
underwriters.
Management Information System
Upper management was deeply concerned about this
problem. The MIS department had suggested using
video disks as a possible solution. A video disk
system was found that would be sufficient for the
companies needs at a cost of about $12 million. It
was estimated that the system would take two years to
install and make compatible with existing
information systems. Another, less attractive was using
microfilm. A microfilm system would require
underwriters to go to a single keyboard to request paper
copies of files. The cost of a microfilm system was
$5 million.
Questions:
1. What do you recommend? Should the company
implement one of the new technologies, if yes,
why?
Examination Paper of Production and Operations
Management
2. An operations analyst suggested that company
employees shared a “dump on the clerks”
mentality. Explain.
Caselet 2
Harrison T. Wenk III is 43, married, and has two
children, ages 10 and 14. He has a master‟s degree
in education and teachers junior high school music
in a small town in Ohio. Harrison‟s father passed
away two months ago, leaving his only child an
unusual business opportunity. According to his
father‟s will, Harrison has 12 months to become
active in the family food-catering business, Kare-
Full Katering, Inc., or it will be sold to two key
employees for a reasonable and fair price. If Harrison
becomes involved, the two employees have the option
to purchase a significant, but less than
majority, interest in the firm. Harrison‟s only
involvement with this business, which his grandfather
established, was as an hourly employee during high
school and college summers. He is confident that
he could learn and perhaps enjoy the marketing side
of the business, and that he could retain the longtime
head of accounting/finance. But he would never
really enjoy day-to-day operations. In fact, he
doesn‟t understand what operations management really
involves. In 1991 Kare-Full Katering, Inc. had
$3.75 million in sales in central Ohio. Net profit
after taxes was $ 105,000, the eleventh consecutive
year of profitable operations and the seventeenth in
the last 20 years. There are 210 employees in this
labor-intense business. Institutional contracts
account for over 70 percent of sales and include partial
food services for three colleges, six commercial
establishments) primarily manufacturing plants and
banks), two long -term care facilities, and five
grade schools. Some customer location employs a
permanent operations manager; others are served from
the main kitchens of Kare-Full Katering.
Harrison believes that if he becomes active in the
business, one of the two key employees, the vice
president of operations, will leave the firm.
Harrison has decided to complete the final two months of
this school year and then spend the summer around
Kare-Full Katering – as well as institutions with
their own food services – to assess whether he wants
to become involved in the business. He is
particularly interested in finding out as much as
possible about operations. Harrison believes he owes
it to his wife and children to fairly evaluate this
opportunity.
Questions:
1. Prepare a worksheet of operations activities that
Harrison should inquire about this summer.
2. If
you were Harrison, what would you do? Why?
Caselet 1
National Competitive Advantage of IKEA Group, a
Swedish company founded in 1943 with its
headquarters in Denmark, is a multinational operator
of a chain of stores for home furnishing and
furniture. It is the world‟s largest retailer, which
specializes, in stylish but inexpensive Scandinavian
designed furniture. At the end of 2005 the IKEA
Group of Companies had a total of 175 stores in 31
countries. In addition there are 19 IKEA stores
owned and run by franchisees, outside the IKEA store
around the world.
In Sweden, nature and a home both play a big part in
people‟s life. In fact one of the best ways to describe
the Swedish home furnishing style is to describe
nature-full of light and fresh air, yet restrained and
unpretentious.
To match up the artist Carl and Karin Larsson
combined classical influences with warmer Swedish folk
styles .They created a model of Swedish home
furnishing design that today enjoys world-wide renown. In
the 1950s the styles of modernism and functionalism
developed at the same time as Sweden established a
society founded on social equality .The IKEA product
range –The IKEA product range- modern but not
trendy, functional yet attractive, human-centered
and child friendly – carries on these various Swedish
home furnishing traditions.
The IKEA Concept, like lots founder, was born in
Samaland. This is a part of Southern Sweden where the
soil is thin and poor. The people are famous for
working hard, living on small means and using their
heads to make the best possible use of the limited
resources they have. This way of doing things is at the
heart of the IKEA approach to keeping prices low.
IKEA was founded when Sweden was fast becoming an
example of the caring society, where rich and
poor alike were well looked after. This is also a
theme that fits well with the IKEA vision. In order to give
the many people a better everyday life, IKEA asks
the customer to work as a partner. The product range is
child-friendly and covers the need of the whole
family, young and old. So together we can a better
everyday life for everyone.
In addition to working about around 1,800 different
suppliers across the world, IKEA produces many of
its own products through sawmills and factories in
the IKEA industrial group, Swedwood.
Swedwood also has a duty to transfer knowledge to
other suppliers, for example by educating them in
issues such as efficiency, quality and environmental
work.
Swedwood has 35 industrial units in 11 countries.
Examination Paper of Strategic Management
Purchasing: IKEA has 42 Trading Service Offices
(TSO‟s) in 33 countries. Proximity to their suppliers
is the key to rational, long term cooperation.
That‟s why TSO co-workers visit suppliers regularly to
monitor production, test new ideas, negotiate prices
and carry out quality audits and inspection.
Distribution: The route from supplier to customer
must be as direct, cost- effective and environmentally
friendly as possible. Flat packs are important
aspects of this work: eliminating wasted space means we
can transport and store goods more efficiently.
Since efficient distribution plays a key role in the work of
creating the low price, goods routing and logistics
are a focus for constant development.
The business Idea: The IKEA business idea is to
offer a wide range of home furnishings with good design
and function at prices so low that as many people as
possible will be able to afford them. And still have
many left! The company targets the customer who is
looking for value and is willing to do a little bit of
work serving themselves, transporting the items home
and assembling the furniture for a better price. The
typical IKEA customer is young low to middle income
family.
The Competition Advantage: The competition advantage
strategy of IKEA‟s product is reflected through
IKEA‟s success in the real industry. It can be
attributed to its vast experience in the retail market, product
differentiation, and cost leadership.
IKEA Product Differentiation: A wide product range
The IKEA product range is wide and versatile in
several ways. First, it‟s versatile in function.
Because IKEA think customer, shouldn‟t have to run from
one small specialty shop to another to furnish their
home, IKEA gather plants, living room furnishings,
toys , frying pans, whole kitchens i.e.; everything
which in a functional way helps to build a home – in
one place , at IKEA stores.
Second, it‟s wide in style. The romantic at heart
will find choices just as many as the minimalist at IKEA.
But There is only one thing IKEA don‟t have, and
that is, the far- out or the over-decorated. They only
have what helps build a home that has room for good
living.
Third, by being coordinated, the range is wide in
function and style at the same time. No matter which
style you prefer, there‟s an armchair that goes with
the bookcase that goes with the new extending table
that goes with the armchair. So their range is wide
in a variety of ways.
Cost Leadership: A wide range with good form and
function is only half the story. Affordability has a part
to play – the largest part. A wide range with good
form and function is only half the story. Affordability
has a part to play- the largest part. And the joy of
being able to own it without having to forsake
everything else. And the customers help, too, by
choosing the furniture, getting it at the warehouse,
transporting it home and assembling it themselves ,
to keep the price low.
Questions
1. Do you think that IKEA has been successful to
utilize Porter‟s Five force analysis? Give
reasons.
2. Where do you think can IKEA improve?
Examination Paper of Strategic Management
Caselet 2
For ITC Ltd., 2007-2008 continued to be year of
quiet growth. Just more launches in its relatively new
segment of non-cigarettes fast moving consumer
goods, and solid growth. As in the past few years, ITC‟s
non-cigarettes businesses continued to grow at a
scorching pace, accounting for a bigger share of overall
revenues. “The non-cigarette portfolio grew by 37.6%
during 2006-2007 and accounted during that year
for 52.3% of the company‟s net turnover.” An ITC
spokesman said. In fact, over the first three quarters of
2007-08, ITC‟s non-cigarette FMCG businesses have
grown by 48% on the same period last year,
“Indicating that its plans for increasing market
share and standing are succeeding.”
The branded packaged foods business continued to
expand rapidly, with the focus on snacks range Bingo.
The biscuit category continued its growth momentum
with the „Sun feast‟ range of biscuits launching
„Coconut‟ and „Nice‟ variants and the addition of „
Sunfeast BenneVita Flaxseed‟ biscuits. Aashirwad atta
and kitchen ingredients retained their top slots at
the national level, with the spices category adding an
organic range. In the confectionery category which
grew by 38% in the third quarter, ITC cited AC
Nielsen data it claims market leader status in
throat lozenges. Instant mixes and pasta powdered the sales
of its ready to eat foods under the kitchens of
India and Aashirwad brands.
In Lifestyle apparel, ITC launched Miss Players
fashion wear for young women to compliment its range
for men.
Overall, the biscuit category grew by 58% during the
last quarter, ready to eat foods under the kitchens of
India and Aashirwad brands by 63% and the lifestyle
business by 26%.
For the Industry, the most significant initiative to
watch the ITC foray into premium personal care
products with its Fiama Di Wills range of shampoos ,
conditioners, shower gels, and soaps. In the popular
segment, ITC has launched a range of soaps and
shampoos under the brand name Superia.
Ravi Naware, Chief executive of ITC‟s food business
was quoted recently as saying that the business will
make a positive contribution to ITC‟s bottom line in
the next two to three years.
In hotels, ITC‟s Fortune Park brand was making the
news during the year, with a rapid rollout of first
class business hotels.
In the agri-business segment, the e-choupal network
is trying out a pilot in retailing fresh fruits and
vegetables. The e-choupals have already specialized
in feeding ITC high quality wheat and potato, among
other commodities grown by farmers with help from
e-choupal.
Questions:
Q1. Do you think the progress of ITC Ltd. is
realistic?
Q2. After analyzing the above case, do you think
every company should aim at cost leadership with high
quality
product?
Caselet 1
Database management system is the complex
software which is aimed at the management of the
information stored in the database
effectively. A high-quality management system helps organize,
manipulate, transform, store, retrieve
and create data professionally. It is important that the whole
information kept in the database could
be accessible, manageable, and easy for manipulation. A
successful DBMS should possess a strict
logical structure, which enables everyone to find the required
data easily. The high-quality management
system gives the opportunity for the user to change the
required information without any harm to
the whole application. Database management systems are
extremely important today, because the
humanity lives in the age of information and the whole
information is kept in databases which
require professional skilful management and flexibility.
Every organization, private and
public, connected with business or not possesses the necessary
information which is essential for its
proper functioning. The information is supposed to be stored in
security and only the employees of an
organization can have access to it. The idea of a good database
management system is to make the work
of an organization easier, faster and of higher quality,
because the easier and the faster the
access to the data is, the faster the work will be. Moreover, if the
information becomes out-of-date, the
experts can modify it and introduce the necessary changes to
make it valid.
1.
What are the roles of a database in present scenario?
Caselet 2
The most dramatic advance of the past
decade in software technology has been the development of
database management systems (DBMS).
There is little question about the potential of these systems
for enhancing system support to managers
and users while reducing design, structuring, and
END OF SECTION A
Examination Paper of Information
Technology
maintenance problems. Database systems
also provide a way of improving information system
flexibility by decoupling user-oriented
data structures from physical storage methods. In spite of the
vast potential of database management
systems, the information systems community has not reacted
with the total enthusiasm that might
have been expected. Significant resistance has been encountered
in some organizations, both from users,
systems managers, and programming staff members. Although
the literature on the features of
database systems is substantial, there is little discussion of resistance
problems encountered during the actual
implementation and use of these systems in organizations. The
purpose of this panel is to examine
issues related to resistance toward DBMS in organizations. The
panel members, each of whom is
experienced in this area, will examine a number of organizational,
technical, and application issues
pertinent to the problem of resistance. The discussion will focus on
why this resistance has occurred and
how, if at all possible, it could have been avoided. Both
behavioral and technical issues will be
examined. This session should be of interest to both the
practitioner and theorist alike.
Database management systems are collectively the most significant
software product advance in the last
decade. There is little question about the potential of these
systems for improving data management in
organizations. Yet not all persons show a level of
enthusiasm for these systems that their
capabilities would merit. Users and systems persons alike have
been known to resist acquisition and/or
introduction of database management systems, sometimes
strongly. In the discussion that
follows, the problem of resistance as it applies to database management
systems is introduced. The intent is to
raise issues for research and investigation rather than to provide
concrete answers to problems.
1. Discuss various anomalies in
databases. How would you improve data management in
organizations?
\
Caselet 1
Tech Knowledge is a start-up founded in 1997 by
Robert Thyer. The company is a distributer of
presentation technologies, including computer based
projection systems, video equipment, and
display technologies. The firm has 25 employees and
does $5 million in sales. It is growing rapidly.
The owner, Robert Thyer, would like to net source
the back-office functions of the firm because the
company does not have an internal IT capability. The
applications to be net sourced would include
sales and distribution, financial accounting, and
inventory management.
Tech Knowledge would like to source SAP or another
ERP vendor via a hosting arrangement. It
does not expect to do much customization, and it
does not have any legacy systems.
Questions:
1. What factors should it use to evaluate each of
these potential hosts?
2. What controls should be in place to monitor the
hosting arrangement?
Caselet 2
ITM is a company specializing in network
implementation and management. It provides networking
services to mid-sized companies, which do not have
an internal networking analyst or IT, manager.
These organizations include real estate companies,
law offices, medical practices, architectural /
engineering firms, construction companies, business
services providers, country clubs, community
organizations, and churches.
ITM uses a legacy accounting system to handle its
financial accounting and financial management
functions. It has added on a billing package for
client services. The next step is to obtain a CRM
capability to manage information about current and
prospective customers more effectively.
You have been assigned to identify potential sources
for a net-sourcing arrangement with an ERP
vendor, which provides CRM capabilities.
Questions:
1. Identify potential sources of software.
2.
Determine five criteria you will recommend be used to evaluate each of
alternative providers.
Caselet 1
Case1: Credit Decision - Agarwal
Case
On August 30, 2006, Agarwal Cast Company Inc.,
applied for a $200,000 loan from the main office
of the National bank of New York. The application
was forwarded to the bank's commercial loan
department. Gupta, the President and Principal
Stockholder of Agarwal cast, applied for the loan in
person. He told the loan officer that he had been in
business since February 1976, but that he had
considerable prior experience in flooring and
carpets since he had worked as an individual contractor
for the past 20 year. Most of this time, he had
worked in Frankfert and Michigan. He finally decided
to "work for himself" and he formed the
company with Berry Hook, a former co-worker. This
information seemed to be consistent with the Dun and
Bradstreet report obtained by the bank
According to Gupta, the purpose of the loan was to
assist him in carrying his receivables until they
could be collected. He explained that the flooring
business required him to spend considerable cash to
purchase materials but his customers would not pay until
the job was done. Since he was relatively
new in the business, he did not feel that he could
compete if he had to require a sizeable deposit or
payment in advance. Instead, he could quote for
higher profits, if he were willing to wait until
completion of the job for payment. To show that his
operation was sound, he included a list of
customers and projects with his loan application. He
also included a list of current receivables.
Gupta told the loan officer that he had monitored
his firm's financial status closely and that he had
financial reports prepared every six months. He said
that the would send a copy to the bank. In
addition, he was willing to file a personal
financial statement with the bank.
Question:
1. Prepare your recommendation on
Agarwal Cast Company
