ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR IIBM ANSWER SHEETS PROVIDED MOB/WHATSAPP 91 9924764558

 Organizational Behaviour IIBM ANSWER SHEETS PROVIDED. CONTACT: DR. PRASANTH MBA PH.D. DME MOBILE / WHATSAPP: +91 9924764558 OR +91 9447965521 EMAIL: prasanththampi1975@gmail.com WEBSITE: www.casestudyandprojectreports.com

Section A: Objective Type & Short Questions (30 marks)
 This section consists of Multiple Choice and short notes type questions
 Answer all the questions.
 Part one carries 1 mark each and part two carries 5 marks each.
Part A:-
Multiple Choices:-
1. Which of the following is not comes under Maslow‟s needs theory?
1. Social needs
2. Affiliation needs
3. Physiological needs
4. Specification needs
2. Collegial model is an extension of:
a. Supportive model
b. Autocratic model
c. Custodial model
d. None of the above
3. Sigmund Freud‟s theory on personality is:
a. Related with moral values
b. Related with sexual values
c. Related with social values
d. Related with parental values
4. A person who moves fast, talk rapidly, usually impatient, measures success by quantity is a person
of:
a. Class A personality type
b. Class B personality type
c. Class C personality type
d. Class AB personality type
5. According to Maslow‟s need hierarchy theory esteem need comes at__________ position from
bottom:
a. 2nd
b. 3rd
c. 4th
d. 5th
Examination Paper of Organizational Behaviour

6. Informal communication is also called:
a. Grapevine
b. Red vine
c. Adams communication
d. Dead communication
7. Needs related to hunger, thirst, sleep etc. are considered as:
a. Safety needs
b. Physiological needs
c. Social needs
d. Self actualization needs
8. Horizontal expansion of a job that involves the addition of tasks at same level of skills:
a. Job enrichment
b. Job rotation
c. Job enlargement
d. Management by objectives
9. Path goal theory of leadership is developed by:
a. Robert R. Blake
b. Charles Bird
c. Fred fielder
d. Robert House
10. Potential or ability to influence others in a delivered direction is called:
a. Politics
b. Power
c. Motivation
d. Leadership
Part B:-
1. Define Bureaucracy.
2. State the concept of „Span of Control‟.
3. Wright a short note on classical conditioning learning theory of Ivan Pavlov.
4. What are the various stages of group development?
END OF SECTION A
Examination Paper of Organizational Behaviour

Section B: Caselets (40 marks)
 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 to 200 words).
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?
END OF SECTION B
Section C: Applied Theory (30 Marks)
 This section consists of Applied Theory Questions.
 Answer all the questions.
 Each question carries 15 marks.
 Detailed information should form the part of your answer (Word limit 200 to 250 words).
1. What are Psychological games & why people play these games?
2. A good leader is not necessarily a good manager.” Discuss this statement & compare leadership
with management.



Principles and Practices of Management IIBM ANSWER SHEET
Subject Code-B101
Section A: Objective Type & Short Questions (30 marks)
 This section consists of multiples choice and short notes type questions
 Part one carries 1 mark each & part two carries 5 marks each.
 Attempt all questions
Part One
Multiple Choices:
1. A plan is a trap laid to capture the ________
a. Future
b. Past
c. Policy
d. Procedure
2. Which of the following is the function for employing suitable person for the enterprise?
a. Organizing
b. Staffing
c. Directing
d. Controlling
3. ___________ means “ group of activities & employees into departments”:
a. Orientation
b. Standardization
c. Process
d. Departmentation
4. This theory states that authority is the power that is accepted by others:
a. Acceptance theory
b. Competence theory
c. Formal authority theory
d. Informal authority theory
5. Which of the following means dispersal of decision-making power to the lower levels of the
organization?
a. Decentralization
b. Centralization
c. Dispersion
d. Delegation
6. This chart is the basic document of the organizational structure:
a. Functional chart
b. Posts chart
Principles and Practices of Management

c. Master chart
d. Departmental chart
7. Communication which flow from the superiors to subordinates with the help of scalar chain is
known as:
a. Informal communication
b. Downward communication
c. Upward communication
d. Oral communication
8. Needs for belongingness, friendship, love, affection, attention & social acceptance are comes
under___________
a. Physiological needs
b. Safety needs
c. Ego needs
d. Social needs
9. A management function which ensures “jobs to be filled with the right people, with the right
knowledge, skill & attitude” is comes under__________
a. Staffing defined
b. Job analysis
c. Manpower planning
d. Recruitment
10. It is a process that enables a person to sort out issues and reach to a decisions affecting their life:
a. Selection
b. Raining
c. Reward
d. Counseling
Part Two:-
1. What do you understand by Maslow‟s Theory of Motivation?
2. Define Management By Objective.
3. Differentiate between co- ordination and co-operation.
4. Write a short note on „Acceptance theory‟.
END OF SECTION A
Principles and Practices of Management

Section B: Caselets (40 marks)
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

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?
Section C: Applied Theory (30 marks)
1. What are the common drawbacks in classical and Neo classical theories of management?
2. What is Training? Explain the different methods of training.
S-2-250613
 This section consists of Applied Theory Questions.
 Answer all the questions.
 Each question carries 15 marks.
 Detailed information should form the part of your answer (Word limit 200-250 words).

IIBMS CASE STUDY ANSWERS PROVIDED MOB OR WHATSAPP 91 9924764558

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Note: Solve any 4 Cases Study’s


CASE: I  Toyota

Of all the slogans kicked around Toyota, the key one is kaizen, which means “continuous improvement” in Japanese. While many other companies strive for dramatic breakthrough, Toyota overtook Ford Motor Company to become the second largest automaker in the world. Ford had been the second largest since 1931.
Toyota simply is tops in quality, production, and efficiency. From its factories pour a wide range of cars, built with unequaled  precision. Toyota turns out luxury sedans with Mercedes-Benz-like quality using one-sixth the labor Mercedes does. The company originated just-in-time production and remains its leading practitioner. It has close relationships with its suppliers and rigid engineering specifications for the products it purchases
Toyota’s worldwide leadership in the automotive industry was built on its competitive advantage across the supply chain. Between 1990 and 1996, Toyota reduced part defects by 84 percent, compared to 47 percent for the Big 3. It also reduced the ratio of inventories to sales by 35 percent versus 6 percent. These reduction advantages occurred despite the fact the Big 3 relied on identical suppliers. A study by Jeff Dyer of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Kentaro Nobeoka of Kobe University attributed Toyota’s success partly to its implementation of bilateral and multilateral, knowledge-sharing routines with suppliers that result in superior Interorganizational or network learning. Toyota uses six approaches to facilitate knowledge sharing: (1)a supplier association;(2) teams of consultants;(3)voluntary study groups;(4)problem-solving teams;(5)interfirm employee transfers; and (6)performance feedback and monitoring processes. This effort also involves intense levels of personal contact between Toyota and its suppliers.
Toyota pioneered quality circles, which involve workers in discussions of ways to improve their tasks and avoid what it calls the three Ds: the dangerous, dirty, and demanding aspects of factory work. The company has invested $770 million to improve worker housing, add dining halls, and build new recreational facilities. On the assembly line, quality is defined not as zero defects but, as another slogan puts it, “building the very best and giving the customer what she/he wants.” Because each worker serves as the customer for the process just before hers, she becomes a quality control inspector. If a piece isn’t installed properly when it reaches her, she won’t accept it.
Toyota’s engineering system allows it to take a new car design from concept to showroom in less than four years versus more than five years for U.S. companies and seven years for Mercedes. This cuts costs, allows quicker correction of mistakes and keeps Toyota better abreast of market trends. Gains from speed feed on themselves. Toyota can get its advanced engineering and design done sooner because, as one manager puts it, “We are closer to the customer and thus have shorter concept time.” New products are assigned to a chief engineer who has complete responsibility and authority for the product from design and manufacturing through marketing and has direct contacts with both dealers and consumers. New-model bosses for U.S. companies seldom have such control and almost never have direct contact with dealers or consumers.
The 1999 Harbour Report, a study of automaker competencies in assembly, stamping, and powertrain operations, stated that the top assembly facility in North America (based on assembly hours per vehicle) is Toyota’s plant in Cambridge, Ontario. In this plant, a Corolla is produced in 17.66 hours. Toyota was also rated number one in engine assembly, taking just 2.97 hours to produce an engine.
In  Toyota’s manufacturing system, parts and cars don’t get build until orders come from dealers requesting them. In placing orders, dealers essentially reserve a portion of factory capacity. The system is so effective that rather than waiting several months for a new car, the customer can get a built-to-order car in a week to 10 days.
Toyota is the best carmaker in the world because it stays close to its customers. “We have learned that universal mass production is not enough,” said the head of Toyota’s Tokyo Design Center. “In the 21st century, you personalize things more to make them more reflective of individual needs.”
In 1999, Toyota committed to a $13 billion investment through 2000 to become a genuinely global corporation without boundaries. In this way, it will be able to create worldwide manufacturing facilities that produce cars according to local demand. Its goal is to achieve a 10 to 15 percent global market share by 2010.
Why the drive towards customization of vehicles? Part of this is due to fierce competition that provides consumer with a multitude of choices. The Internet enables consumers to be more demanding and less compromising. They now have access to the lowest prices available for specific models of vehicles with all of the bells and whistles they design. From the comfort of their homes, they are able to bypass dealers and still find the vehicle of their dreams.
Senior management at Toyota believes that kaizen is no longer enough. The senior vice president at the Toyota USA division, Douglas West, states that his division is committed to both creating and executing a new information system to drive the fastest, most efficient order-to-delivery system in the North American market. Toyota management has come to realize Kaizen alone can no longer predict business success. The sweeping changes taking place in the business environment can no longer rely on the kaizen philosophy of small, sustained improvements. In fact, one expert in the industry believes that “pursuing incremental improvements while rivals reinvent the industry is like fiddling while Rome burns.” Competitive vitality can no longer be defined by continuous improvement alone.


Question:

1. In what ways is Toyota’s new-product development system designed to serve customers?
2. In what ways is Toyota’s manufacturing system designed to serve customers?
3.   How does Toyota personalize its cars and trucks to meet individual consumer needs?


CASE: II  Exposure, Attention, and Comprehension on the Internet

The Internet universe literally grows more cluttered by the minute. According to Network Solutions, Inc., which registers the vast majority of Web addresses around the world, about 10,000 new addresses are registered each day. That means by the time you finish reading this case, about 60 new domain names will have been gobbled up. With all the clutter on the Web, how have some firms been able to stand out and attract millions of customers?
First, there are some basics to which online firms must attend. These cost little more than some time and a little  creativity. The first is creating a good site name. The name should be memorable (yahoo.com), easy to spell (ebay.com), and/or descriptive (wine.com—a wine retailer). And, yes, ideally it will have a .com extension. This is the most popular extension for e-commerce, and browsers, as a default, will automatically add a .com onto any address that is typed without extension.
The second priority is to make sure the site comes up near the top of the list on any Web searches. If you use Lycos.com to perform a search for “used books,” you get a list of more than 2.6 million websites. Studies have shown that most people will look only at the top 30 sites on the list, at most. If you are a used-book retailer and you show up as website #1,865,404 on the search list, there is a very good chance you will not attract a lot of business. A 1999 Jupiter Research study reveals that “searching on the Internet” is the most important activity, and Internet users find the information they are looking for by using search engines and Web directories. A good Web designer can write code that matches up well with search engine algorithms and results in a site that ranks high on search lists.
Virtually all popular websites have those basics down pat. So the third step is to reach out proactively to potential customers and bring them to your site. Many companies have turned to traditional advertising to gain exposure. Television advertising can be an effective option—albeit an expensive one. In late January 1999, hotjobs.com spent $2 million—half of its 1998 revenues—on one 30-second ad during the Super Bowl. According to CEO Richard Johnson, so many people tried to visit the site that the company’s servers jammed. Johnson says the number of site hits was six times greater than in the month before. A quirky ad campaign may or may not help. Pets.com, now de-func, built its image around a wise-guy sock puppet. CNET, a hardware and software retailer, ran a series of television ads featuring cheesy music, low-budget sets, and unattractive actors. One such ad featured two men—one in a T-shirt that said ”you,” another in a T-shirt labeled “the right computer” – coming together and joining hands thanks to the efforts of another guy in a CNET T-shirt. The production quality was rudimentary enough that any sophomore film student could have produced it. The spots were so bad that they stood out from the slick, expensive commercials to which viewers were accustomed. Critics ripped the campaign to shreds, but CNET called it a success.
Other Internet firms have used sports sponsorships to increase visibility. CarsDirect.com, a highly rated site that allows consumers to purchase automobiles online, once purchased the naming rights to NASCAR auto race (the CarsDirect.com400). Lycos also has tried to make the most of NASCAR’s increasing popularity. It spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to have its name and logo plastered all over the car of popular driver Johnny Benson. Meanwhile, online computer retailer Insight and furniture seller galleryfurniture.com each targeted football fans by purchasing the naming rights to college bowl games.
Of course, if you can reach consumers while they are in front of their computers rather than their television sets, you may stand an even better chance of getting them to your site. However, typical banner ads are inefficient, averaging click-through rates of only about 0.5 per cent (only one of every 200 people exposed to the ad actually clicked on the ad). Too often, banner ads are just wallpaper; consumers may see them but they usually are not sufficiently stimulated to click-through. However, Michele Slack of the online advertising group Jupiter Communications believes banner ads can be useful if used correctly. “The novelty factor is wearing off,” she says. But “when an ad is targeted well and the creative is good, click-through rates are much higher.”
An alternative way to reach people who are already online is through partnerships. One of the most visible examples of such an alliance is the one between Yahoo! And Amazon.com. Let’s say you’re working on a project on the Great Depression and you want to see what kind of information is available online. If you go to Yahoo! And type in “Great Depression,” you will not only be presented with a list of websites, but you will also see a link that will allow you to click to see a list of books on the Great Depression that are available through Amazon. Another example of a successful partnership was forged in 1998 between Rollingstone.com and the website building and hosting service Tripod. Every one of the 3,000 artist pages on Rollingstone.com contained a link to Tripod. The goal was to encourage fans to use Tripod’s tools to build webpages dedicated their favorite singers or bands. According to the research company Media Metrix, during the course of the alliance Tripod jumped from the Web’s fourteenth most popular website to number eight. Alliances with nonvirtual companies are another options. In 2003, the Internet classified firm CareerBuilder kicked off a cross-promotional campaign with major Internet firms, including AOL and MSN.
A less subtle but nonetheless effective way to build traffic is to more or less pay people visit your site. One study showed more than half of Internet consumers would be more likely to purchase from a site if they could participate in some sort of loyalty program. Hundreds of online merchants in more than 20 categories have signed up with a network program called ClickRewards. Customers making purchases at ClickRewards member sites receive frequent-flier miles or other types of benefits. Mypoints.com offers a similar incentive program in which customers are rewarded with air travel, gift certificates and discounts for shopping at member merchants. The search engine iwon.com was even more direct. It rewards one lucky visitor each weekday with a $10,000 prize. According to Forrester Research, companies in 2002 spent about $6 billion annually on online incentives and promotions.
Finally, some firms rely on e-mail to thoroughly mine their existing customer databases. The auction site Onsale (later merged with Egghead.com) proved just how successful e-mail can be. It sent out targeted e-mails to its customers based on their past bidding activities and previously stated interests. Click-through rates on these targeted e-mails averaged a remarkable 30 percent. E-mail marketing also holds promise for business-to-business firms. The Peppers and Rogers Group is a marketing firm that gives presentations around the United States. At the end of the presentations, people are invited to go to the company’s website and sign up for their e-mail newsletter, Inside 1 to 1. The newsletter invites readers to visit the Peppers and Rogers website to learn more about various articles, promote their products and services, and participate in forums. Inside 1 to 1 now boasts a subscriber base of 45,000, but the company estimates that about 200,000 people actually see it because subscribers forward it to their friends and colleagues. About 14,000 people visit the Peppers and Rogers site each week, with traffic often peaking immediately after the newsletter is sent.
As you can see, there is no one effective method for generating interest in a website. The same methods that have worked for some firms have failed for others. One certainty is that as the Internet grows and more people do business online, Internet firms will have to find ever more creative ways to expose customers to their sites and keep their attention once there.




Questions:

1. Consider the e-mail campaigns discussed in the case. Why do you think these campaigns were successful? Discuss the attention processes that were at work. Do you see any potential drawbacks to this type of marketing?

2. During the 2000 Super Bowl, ABC invited viewers to visit its Enhanced TV website. Fans could play trivia, see replays, participate in polls and chat rooms, and view player statistics. The site received an estimated 1 million hits. Why? Frame your answer in terms of exposure, attention, and comprehension.

3. Think about your own Web surfing patterns. Write down the reasons you visit sites. Which of the marketing strategies discussed in the case do you find most (and least) influential?


CASE: III  Peapod Online Grocery—2003

The online grocery turned out to be a lot tougher than analysts thought a few years ago. Many of the early online grocers, including Webvan, ShopLink, StreamLine, Kosmom, Homeruns, and PDQuick, went bankrupt and out of business. At one time, Webvan had 46 percent of the online grocery business, but it still wasn’t profitable enough to survive. The new business model for online grocers is to be part of an existing brick-and-mortar chain. Large grocery chains, like Safeway and Albertson’s, are experiencing sales growth in their online business but have yet to turn a profit. Jupiter Research estimates that online grocery sales will be over $5 billion by 2007, about 1 percent of all grocery sales, while it expects more than 5 percent of all retail sales to be online by then. A few years ago, optimistic analysts estimated online grocery sales would be 10 to 20 times that by 2005, but it didn’t work out that way.
One of the few online grocers to survive in 2003 is Peapod, the first online grocer, started by brothers Andrew and Thomas Parkinson in 1990. However, even Peapod was failing until 2001 when Dutch grocery giant Royal Ahold purchased controlling interest in the company for $73 million. Peapod operates in five markets, mainly by closely affiliating itself with Ahold-owned grocery chains. Peapod by Giant is in the Washington, DC, area, while Peapod by Stop and Shop runs in Boston, New York, and Connecticut. The exception is Chicago, where Peapod operates without an affiliation with a local grocery chain. Peapod executives claim the company is growing by 25 percent annually and has 130,000 customers, and all of its markets except Connecticut are profitable. Average order size is up to $143 from $106 three years earlier.
The online grocery business seemed like a sure winner in the 1990s. Dual-income families strapped for time could simply go online to do their grocery shopping. They has about the same choices of products that they would have had if they went to a brick-and-mortar grocery, about 20,000 SKUs (stockkeeping units). They could browse the “aisles” on their home computers and place orders via computer, fax or telephone. The orders were filled at affiliated stores and delivered to their homes in a 90-minute window, saving them time and effort and simplifying their daily lives. For all this convenience, consumers were willing to pay a monthly fee and a fee per order for packaging, shipping, and delivery. Since most of the products purchased were well-known branded items, consumer faced little risk in buying their traditional foodstuffs. Even perishables like produce and meat could be counted on to be high quality, and if consumers were concerned, they could make a quick trip to a brick-and-mortar grocery for these selections. However, while all of this sounded good, most consumers didn’t change their grocery shopping habits to take advantage of the online alternative.
Currently analysts do not expect the online grocery industry to take off in the near future, if ever. Miles Cook of Bain & Company estimates that only 8 to 10 percent of U.S. consumers will find ordering groceries online appealing, but only about 1 percent will ever do so. He concludes: “This is going to remain a niche offering in a few markets. It’s not going to be a national mainstream offering.” Jupiter Media Metrix analyst Ken Cassar concludes that “The moral of the story is that the ability to build a better mousetrap must be measured against consumers’ willingness to buy it.”

Question:

1. What behaviors are involved in online grocery shopping? How does online shopping compare with traditional shopping in terms of behavioral effort?
2. What types of consumers are likely to value online grocery shopping from Peapod?
3. Overall, what do you think about the idea of online grocery shopping? How does it compare with simply eating in restaurants and avoiding grocery shopping and cooking altogether?

CASE: IV         Sony
In just over half-century, Sony Corporation has from a 10-person engineering research group operating out of a bombed-out department store to one of the largest, most complex, and best-known companies in the world. Sony co-founders Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita met while serving on Japan’s Wartime Research Committee during World War II. After the war, in 1946, the pair got back together and formed Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation to repair radios and build shortwave radio adapters. The first breakthrough product came in 1950, when the company produced Japan’s first tape recorder, which proved very popular in music schools and in courtrooms as a replacement for stenographers.
In 1953, Morita came to the United States and signed an agreement to gain access to Western Electric’s patent for the transistor. Although Western Electric (Bell Laboratory’s parent company) suggested Morita and Ibuka use the transistor to make hearing aids, they decided instead to use it in radios. In 1955, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation marketed the TR-55, Japan’s first transistor radio, and the rest, as they say, is history. Soon thereafter, Morita rechristened the company as Sony, a name he felt conveyed youthful energy and could be easily recognized outside Japan.
Today Sony is almost everywhere. Its businesses include electronics, computer equipment, music, movies, games, and even life insurance. It employs 190,000 people worldwide and does business on six continents. In 1999, Sony racked up sales of $63 billion; 31 percent of those came from Japan, 30 percent from the United States, and 22 percent from Europe. (To visit some of Sony’s country-specific websites, go to www.sony.com and click on “Global Sites.”)
Perhaps Sony’s most famous product is the Walkman. Created in 1979, the Walkman capitalized on what some perceived as the start of a global trend towards individualism. From a technological standpoint, the Walkman, was fairly unspectacular, even by 1979 standards, but Sony’s marketing efforts successfully focused on the freedom and independence the Walkman provided. One ad depicted three pairs of shoes sitting next to a Walkman with the tag line “Why man learned to walk.” By 2000 more than 250 million Walkmans had been sold worldwide, but Sony was concerned. Studies had shown that Generation Y (ages 14 to 24) viewed the Walkman as stodgy and outdated. So Sony launched a $30 million advertising and marketing campaign to reposition the product in the United States. The star of the new ads was Plato, a cool, Walkman-wearing space creature. The choice of a nonhuman character was no accident according to Ron Boire, head of Sony’s U.S. personal-mobile group. He wanted a character that would appeal to the broadest possible range of ethnic groups—thus, the space creature. Boire explains, “An alien is no one, so an alien is everyone.”
Sony’s current vision, however, extends far beyond the Walkman: to become a leader in broadband technologies. Sony looks forward to a day when all of its products—televisions, DVDs, telephones, game machines, computers, and so on—can communicate with one another and connect with the Web on a persona network. A Sony executive provides an example of such technology in action: “Say you are watching TV in the den, and your kids are playing their music way too loud upstairs,” he says. “You could use your TV remote to call up an onscreen control panel that would let you turn down your kids’ stereo, all without having to get up from your recliner.”
Sony sees its new PlayStation2 filling a major role in the Internet of the future. In March 2000, Sony introduced the PlayStation2 in Japan and sold 1 million units within a week. Newsweek featured the PlayStation2 on its cover that spring, even though it wasn’t offered in the United States until later in the year. Most consumers probably bought PlayStation2 to play video games, but its potential goes far beyond that. It is actually powerful enough to be adapted to guide a ballistic missile. Sony envisions consumers turning to the PlayStation2 for not only games but also movies, music, online shopping, and any other kind of digital entertainment currently imaginable. Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, predicts the PlayStation2 will someday become as valuable as the PC is today: “A lot of people always assumed the PC would be the machine to control your home network. But the PC is a narrowband device that… has been retrofitted to play videogames and interactive 3-D graphics. The PlayStation2 is designed from the ground up to be a broadband device.”
The PlayStation2 also reflects a changing attitude within Sony regarding partnerships with other companies. Toshiba helped Sony design the Emotion Engine, which powers the PlayStation2. In previous years, these kinds of alliances were the exception rather than the rule with the Sony. Sony was perceived as arrogant because it rarely cooperated with other companies, preferring to develop and popularize new technologies on its own. Recently, however, that has changed. Sony has worked with U.S. based Palm to develop a new hand-held organizer with multimedia capabilities, cooperated with Intel to create a set of standards for home networks, and launched a joint venture with Cablevision to build a broadband network in the New York metropolitan area. Nevertheless, some critics believe Sony remains too insular, looking on from the sidelines while other companies join forces to create entertainment powerhouses. Sony has no alliances with U.S. cable or television networks, raising some doubts about its ability to fully develop its home Internet services. Sony has talked with other music companies about possible joint venture, but nothing has come to fruition.
Unlike many U.S.-based multinationals, Tokyo-based Sony traditionally has marketed itself on a regional rather than a global basis. For example, Sony has almost 50 different country-specific websites from which consumers can order products. However, there are signs that strategy may be changing, at least to some degree. Sony launched www.Sonystyle.com, a website that is the company’s primary online outlet for selling movies, music, and electronic products. Sony also plans to provide product service and support on the site, and eventually software upgrades as well. The current main website (www.sony.com) is mainly a source for corporate and investor information. Also, in 1997 Sony embarked on a worldwide ad campaign to make itself and its products more relevant in the eyes of younger consumers. Ironically, much of Sony’s future growth may come from its own backyard. The primary buyers of electronic and digital products are ages 15 to 40. It is estimated that by 2010, two-thirds of the people in the world in that age bracket will live in Asia. Tokyo is already a powerful influence on Asian culture. Asia’s most popular youth magazines are published in Tokyo, and most of the music Asian young people listen to comes form Tokyo. So part of Sony’s challenge is to continue to grow on a global scale while paying close attention to the burgeoning market at home.
Immediately following World War II and for some years thereafter, the label “Made in Japan” connoted cheap, shoddy, imitation products. Today, for many people, that same label stands for excellence and innovation. Certainly Sony can take much of the credit that transformation. Now the question is whether Sony’s products and marketing efforts can keep pace (or set the pace) in the upcoming age of digital convergence.

Question:

1. Identify and discuss some of the cultural meanings for Sony possessed by consumers in your country. Discuss how these cultural meaning were developed and how they influence consumers’ behaviors (and affect and cognition). What is the role of marketing strategies in creating and maintaining (or modifying) these cultural meanings?
2. It is often stated that the world is becoming smaller because today people communicate relatively easily across time and distance. Discuss whether that has been beneficial for Sony. What are some marketing challenges it presents?
3. What do you think about Sony’s tradition of region-specific or nation-specific marketing? Would Sony be better served by working to create a more uniform global image?

CASE: V   Pleasant Company

Samantha Parkington fights for women’s suffrage. Addy Walker escapes from slavery. Kirsten Larson builds a life in the frontier. Characters from feminist novel? No, these plucky heroines are part of The American Girls Collection, a line of historical dolls that are the darlings of 7- to 12 year-olds. Christmas orders piled up so fast at Pleasant Co.—the privately held doll-maker—that company vice presidents had to pack boxes in the warehouse.
Former president, Pleasant Rowland, who began the company with royalties she received from writing primary school reading books knew her vision had to be broad. Simply launching a me-too doll would have meant failure.
Before Rowland got her idea she went shopping for dolls for her two nieces. All she found were Barbies that wore spiked heels, drove pink Corvettes, and looked as if they belonged in strip joints. Though industry sources told her she couldn’t sell a mass market doll for over $40—some Barbies cost less than $10—Rowland gambled that boomer parents would pay more for one that was fun and educational.
Each of Pleasant Co.’s five dolls represents an era of American history. Addy is from the Civil War, and Samantha is described as a “bright Victorian beauty.” Parents can also buy historically accurate replicas of clothes, furniture, and memorabilia, such as the June 6, 1944, Chicago Daily Tribune headlined “Allies Invade France, made for Molly McIntire, the 1940s doll. The 18-inch dolls cost $84; add in all the accessories, including $80 dresses for the doll’s owner, and the price exceeds $1000. Every doll also stars in its own series of novels, with titles like Kirsten Learns a Lesson Samantha Saves the Day. The heroines go on adventures and cope with moral dilemmas; for example, Felicity Merriman, a colonial girl, has to decide whether to continue her tea parties while her father fights King
George Ill’s tea tax. Says Rowland: “We try to give girls chocolate cake with vitamins.”
Pleasant Co. decided early on not to compete doll to doll on toy store shelves. Defying industry wisdom, Rowland began selling only through her own catalog. She counted on her dolls’ being so different that word of mouth would take care of sales. She also coddled her customers. Pleasant Co. opened a “hospital” for broken dolls, so when brother sticks a pair of scissors through Molly’s head, Mom can return her to Pleasant Co. for repairs. For $35 the company does the surgery then mails Molly—now wearing a hospital gown and carrying a certificate of health form the house doctor—home to recuperate.
Will Pleasant Co.’s dolls have legs? Rowland says movies, CD-ROMs, and theme parks aren’t out of the question. But she’ll expand only as long as she can keep the business special. She refuses to license her products on T-shirts and lunch boxes, fearing that too much exposure would cheapen the doll’s image. Says Rowland: “It never hurts to play hard to get.”
In 1998, Mattel, Inc., purchased Pleasant Co., which continues to operate as an independent subsidiary. During the same year, American Girl Place, the company’s first retail and entertainment site, opened in downtown Chicago, and a second store opened in New York in 2003. The stores are a little girl’s delight. Visitors can purchase dolls, books, and clothing; view a musical revue; and have tea, lunch, or dinner at the Café at American Girl Place. The Chicago store sold $35 million worth of products in 2003.


Question:

1. Why do consumers pay $84 for a Pleasant Company doll when they can buy other dolls much more cheaply at retail stores?
2. Considering money, time, cognitive activity, and behavioral effort costs, are Pleasant Company dolls more or less costly than dolls that can be purchased at retail stores?
3. What recommendations do you have for Pleasant Company to increase sales and profits?



Attempt Only 4 case study
CASE – 1: Where Do We Go from Here?

As one of the many seminars held to discuss the corporate response of family-owned business to liberalisation and globalisation, the keynote Mr Gurcharan Das concluded his speech by saying, “In the end, I would say that the success of Indian economy would depend on how the Indian industry and business respond to the reform process.”
As the proceedings of the seminar progressed it became clear that there was a difference of opinion in the perception of participants. Those who were supporting the case for letting the family-owned businesses face competition opined that such businesses in India have exhibited financial acumen; its members have generally adopted an austere life style; they have demonstrated an ability to take calculated risks, and an ability to accumulate and manage capital. They have devised unique managerial style and led the creation of the equity cult among Indians. Several of them are low-cost producers.
The participants critical of the role of family business had this is to say: “There has been a tendency to mix up family’s intent with that of businesses managed by them. There is a lack of focus and business strategy. Family businesses have generally adopted a short-term approach to business causing less purposeful investments in specially critical areas such as employee development and product development. Customers and development of marketing skills have been neglected.”
The valedictory session of the Seminar attempted to bring out the issues clearly. It culminated in an agenda for reform by the family businesses. The points highlighted in the agenda are:
1. Indian family-owned business organisations need to professionalise management,
2. they need to curtail the diversified of their business groups and impart a sharper focus to their business activities, and
3. they need to pay greater attention to the development of human capital.


Question
Suppose you were an observer at the seminar. During tea and lunch breaks you had an occasion to meet several people who were skeptical and felt that the reform process was having only a superficial impact on the corporates. Express your opinion that you form about the issues at the seminar.



CASE – 2   A Healthy Dose of Success

Muhammad Majeed represents a typical Indian who has created success out of sheer hard work and commitment through his education and expertise. At the age of 23 years, Majeed, after graduating in pharmacy from Kerala University, went to pursue higher studies in the US. He completed his masters and PhD in industrial chemistry. Armed with high qualifications, he became a research pharmacist and eventually, as most expatriate Indians do, set up his own company, Sabinsa Corporation. Experiencing difficulties with the long-drawn drug approval process of the US Food and Drug Administration and his own dwindling savings, Majeed focussed on ayurvedic products based on natural extracts. He returned to India in 1991 (incidentally, the year when liberalisation started in India) and set up Sami Chemicals and Extracts Ltd, late renamed as Sami Labs Ltd (SLL), Bangalore.
SLL has over three dozen products, and seven US patents. There are 25 European and other country patents pending approval. SLL has four manufacturing units all based in Karnataka. The sales is Rs 44.5 crore and the profit-after-tax is Rs 5.89 crore. It has pioneered specialised products based on Indian herbal extracts relying on the principles of ayurveda. The major thrust is on remedies for cholesterol control, fat reduction, and weight management. As against several Indian companies exporting raw herbs, SLL specialises in value-addition through extractions. The result is encouraging: SLL’s products typically fetch an export price that is more than double the price of raw herbs.
SLL thinks of its business as “manufacturing and selling traditional standardized extracts and nutritional and pharmaceutical fine chemicals”. Sabinsa, its US-based company, secures contracts from the US companies to manufacture certain chemicals in India. Its business plans are quite ambitious. Setting up a product management team, assisting farmers in cultivation of pharmaceutically useful herbs, and international collaborations for developing research-based intellectual property and its commercialisation are some of the strategic actions on the anvil.
SLL looks forward to being a Rs 500-crore company by 2005 when the World Trade Organisation’s patenting regimes comes into force.


Question
How will you define the business of SLL? Comment on the business of SLL and your opinion on the likelihood of its success.




CASE – 3     No Chain, No Gain  

Textile industry is one of the oldest industries in India. Several business houses have their origin in this industry. In the mid-1980s, the powerloom sector in the unorganised sector started hurting badly the interests of the composite textile mills of the sector. Their cost structure, with lower overheads and no duties, was less than half of that of mills for equivalent production. While the powerlooms sold cloth as a commodity, the mills tried to establish their products as brands. The post-liberalisation period has seen a large number of foreign brands enter India. It is in this scenario that the Mayur brand of Rajasthan Spinning and Weaving Mills (RSWM) had to carve out a place for itself.

RSWM is the flagship company of the LNJ Bhilwara group. It has been the largest producer and trader of yarn in the country and caters to the large demands for blended yarns and grey cloth fabric used for children’s school uniform. In 1994, the yarn business faced a severe crunch owing to overcapacity. From 1995 onward, RSWM became a late follower of the industry trend as other competitors already moved up the value chain.

Textile manufacturing is basically constituted of the processes of spinning, weaving, processing, and marketing. More than 50 per cent of the value is concentrated in weaving and processing. Moving up the value chain from spinning involves large investments in machinery and labour. Graduating to marketing requires getting closer to the customers. This is the challenge that a traditional spinning mill like RSWM had to face if it was to sustain itself in a highly competitive market.

At another level, for RSWM, it was a matter of cultural transformation of the organisation long used to a conservative, trader mentality. Imagine a company whose main driving force, Shekhar Agarwal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director having little interest in watching Hindi movies signing up Sharukh Khan at a considerable price for celebrity advertising. From the market side, it has long been troubled with its commitment to the loyal middle-class customers as it had to simultaneously pay attention to the upwardly mobile upper middle class customers. Then there was the dilemma of being too many things to a wide range of audience. RSWM wanted to have a stake in the export markets as well as keep its share in the rural markets. It perceived itself as an efficient producer and wished to become a flamboyant retailer. It excelled in basic textile processing yet dreamt of attaining sophistication in in-house production of readymade garments. And all this while it has been a late mover, losing out to early movers such as Raymonds. No wonder it virtually landed up on the fringes of the industry, far behind formidable competitors like Reliance, Grasim, and S. Kumar.


 Question

Suggest how should RSWM manage its value chain effectively. Should it try to imitate the market leaders? If yes, why? If no, why not? What alternatives routes to success do you propose?

CASE – 4         A Very Intriguing Package

It is not quite often that a positive product feature becomes an albatross around the neck of a company. VIP Industries had held sway for over two decades in the organised Indian luggage market on the basis of the durability of its moulded suitcases. Obviously, the customer perceives value-for-money in the long-lasting, reasonably-priced Alfa brand of VIP suitcases which sells 1.5 lakh pieces a month. But this means that having bought one suitcase the customer can do with it for several years. Market research by the company shows that an average Indian family pulls out the suitcase merely for outstation travel a few times a year. Hence, there is no pressing need for continual replacement of the old luggage.

The VIP products are made of virgin polymer as compared to the recycled grade I and II polymers used by the unorganised sector. They are subjected to stringent stress tests for quality control.

VIP has a presence in a wide range of the market segments within a price spectrum of Rs 295 to Rs 6,000 apiece. It is her that the competition from the unorganised sector hurts the company most. VIP’s economically-priced brand, Alfa is widely imitated and sold at much lower prices. This enables the unorganised sector to typically sell 20 times more than VIP can. The lower price threshold seems to be Rs 225 which in nearly impossible for VIP to achieve given its cost structure. In the Rs 1500 plus premium range, VIP has to contend with Samsonite which is a formidable competitor.

The obvious tactic for VIP has been to cut costs. Distribution and logistics is one area where valiant efforts have been made at cost reduction. VIP has four factories located in heart of India. The average distribution costs come to Rs 7 to Rs 8 apiece. Reduction in cost has been attempted through distributed manufacturing by having vendors making the product at different locations, thereby, avoiding transportation of high-volume suitcases across long distances and reducing inventory build-up in the channel.

Severe pressure on sales has resulted in VIP Industries offering discounts and unwittingly entering into a disastrous price war. Promotion of a high visibility product suffered and advertising expenditure has been ruthlessly curtailed from the earlier Rs 11 crore to Rs 2 crore now. Its lead advertising agency is HTA. Action on the promotion front has seen reorganisation of the brand portfolio. Incidentally, earlier its successful and popular Kal bhi aaj bhi campaign served to reinforce its durability theme.

There are several roadblocks that the company has to negotiate. Increase in population, rising propensity of Indian to travel, and the insatiable thirst of customers for state-of-the-art technological products with newer designs and innovation, all at an affordable price are the opportunities and challenges before the company. Introduction of new brands, Mantra and Skybags, product range of diversification to include children’s bags and ladies’ bags, strategic alliance with Europe’s leading luggage-maker—Delsey—are some of the steps taken by the company.

Yet, caught in its self spun web of past successes, VIP is today faced with an uncertain future.


Question

How should the VIP Industries get out of the bind that it finds itself in? Outline the contours of the marketing plans and policies that VIP needs to formulate and implement?







CASE – 5     Let There be Light

Traditionally, power plants, being capital-intensive, have been set up by the public sector and state electricity boards (SEBs) in India. Everyone agrees today that the energy sector is the major infrastructure bottleneck holding up economic development. A critical aspect of economic reforms thus is the reform of the energy sector.

The Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board (MPSEB) is not much different from its counterparts in other states. It faces similar problems and is opting for identical solutions. The common elements in the power sector reforms are: corporatisation by breaking the SEB into generation, transmission, and distribution; financial restructuring including debt and interest payment rescheduling; reduction of manpower; and improvements in operational efficiency.

Public utilities, like SEBS, have to be commercially viable in order to survive. Yet historically, this aspect of SEB as an organisation has been sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. The ruling party, irrespective of whether it is the Congress at present or the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier, have made pre-election promises of supplying free or heavily-subsidised power. Digvijay Singh, the present chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, a populist politician earlier, on longer sees electoral benefit in providing free electricity. “It pays to pay” is his refrain today, whether it is healthcare or electricity.

Bold steps—bold, as they still carry the risk of a political fallout with fiery BJP leader Uma Bharti breathing down Digvijay’s neck or the silent schemers of his own party working overtime behind the scenes—have been initiated to reform the energy sector in Madhya Pradesh. MPSEB is to be divided into generation, transmission, and distribution (T&D), and supply companies. Financial management and cash flow management is to be improved. The retirement age of MPSEB employees has been reduced from 60 to 58 years. Effective operational control is sought to be exercised by metering power supply at division / district level to fix responsibility for T & D losses and power thefts. A sustained drive is on to identify non-paying consumers, install meters, and make them pay their bills regularly.
MPSEB’s annual losses are to the tune of a massive Rs 1,600 crore; total liabilities are estimated to be Rs 20,000 crore. Undeniably, are parameters indicating the rot that has corroded the system.

At one level, the reform of the energy sector is a political action but at another, and perhaps, a more fundamental level, it is a question of managing an organisation strategically through strategic actions designed to turn around a vital public utility.






Question

Analyse the problems of the MPSEB from the strategic management perspective. Do you feel that the actions taken or being contemplated are strategic in nature? Propose what else needs to be done to make the MPSEB a viable organisation.


CASE STUDY:
 No Minor Offence
Census data reveals high level of under – age marriages
  Census statics are generally full of surprises. But this one is startling:  6.4 million Indians under the age of 18 are already married. That’s not all. As many as 1.3 lakh girls under 18 are widowed and another 56,000 are divorced or separated. The legal marriageable age for women is 18, for men 21. A century and a half after Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s crusade against child marriage, the practice persists. Obviously, the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, exists only on paper and has not been able to deter parents from marrying off under –aged sons and daughters. The incidence is understandably higher in rural areas, but not low as expected in the cities. It’s more common in the BIMARU states, with Rajasthan leading the way ironically, the Act renders all under-age marriages illegal but not void, which means that an illegally married couple can stay married. It is, therefore, violated with impunity and hardly anyone is ever hauled up. Despite the fact that child marriage is a criminal offence, action is rarely taken by the police. Even civil society remains a passive spectator. There’s not enough penalty-a fine of Rs.1, 000 and imprisonment up to three shows that the state does not view the crime seriously.
  The practice is linked to the curse of dowry. “Chhota Chhora dhhej kam mangta” (the younger the groom, the smaller the dowry demand) justifies many such alliances. The grimmest part of the scenario is the physical havoc that early marriage wreaks upon girls who are too young to bear the burden of maternal and child mortality. There is also the belief that a daughters’ marriage is a scared obligation that parents must fulfill at the earliest. A new legislation, Prevention of Child marriages Bill, 2004, to replace the loophole-ridden 1929 Act is awaiting parliament’s approval. But legislation alone is not enough. Compulsory registration of marriages is one way of tackling the problem. Creating awareness about the ill-effects of such marriages and mobilizing committed social workers to intervence are others. However, social workers have to often function in hostile conditions. The 1992 case of Bhanwari Devi, the Rajasthan saathin who was raped for preventing a child marriage, is chilling. In the end only education, economic security and increasing empowerment of women can eliminate the problem.
Questions
1. Discuss ethically the drawbacks you find in the under-age marriages?
2. How does the increasing empowerment of women help eliminate problems if this type?
Section II
Solve any six questions:
Q2.
a) What are moral hazards and why is it important?
b) What is emergent strategy?
Q3.
a) What are the objectives of a business, and which is the most important?
b) How many steps are there in the decision making process and what are they?
Q4.
a) What CSR issues exist for NFPs?
b) What measures of performance are typically used by these organizations?
Q5.
a) How globalization effect CSR?
b) Is globalization threat for CSR?
Q6.
a) Why is the measurement of performance important?
b) What is ISO14000 and what factors does it cover?
Q7.
a) What are the responsibilities of business in their corporate decision?
b) What is the relationship between CSR and corporate behavior?
Q8.
a) What are the 4 factors of sustainability?
b) What are the factors of distributable sustainability?
Q9.
a) What justification does stakeholder Theory use for considering stakeholder?
b) What are the steps involved in the incorporation of environmental accounting into the risk evaluation system of an organization?

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS ISBM ANSWER SHEET PROVIDED MOB/WHATSAPP 91 99247645578

International Business ISBM ANSWER SHEETS PROVIDED
CONTACT: DR. PRASANTH MBA PH.D. DME MOBILE / WHATSAPP: +91 9924764558 OR +91 9447965521 EMAIL: prasanththampi1975@gmail.com WEBSITE: www.casestudyandprojectreports.com


Case Studies
CASE STUDY (20
Marks)
In 1982, seven people in Chicago died after taking Tylenol due to an unknown suspect lacing the capsules with cyanide after the
products reached the shelves. In the immediate aftermath, Tylenol's commanding 37% market share dropped to just 7% nationwide,
despite the problem being contained to the Chicago area. Tylenol was not responsible for the tampering of the product, but to
maintain the product's reputation, Johnson & Johnson pulled all of the Tylenol from the shelves, absorbing a loss of more than $100
million dollars. Tylenol was successfully reintroduced with tamper resistant packaging, discounts, and sales presentations to the
medical community. The brand survived due to swift action and effective public relations from Johnson & Johnson.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Why the market share of Tylenols dropped despite no fault of their own?
Q2. Comment on the corrective actions taken by Johnson & Johnson.
CASE STUDY (20
Marks)
The case discusses Sweden-based furniture retailer, IKEA's re-entry into the Japanese market and the strategies it adopted on its reentry.
IKEA first entered Japan in 1974 through a joint venture with a Japanese company as a part of its plans to expand globally. It
exited from the country in 1986, after failing to develop a significant presence. IKEA decided to re-enter the market in 2002, and the
second time around, it conducted a thorough study of the markets and visited several Japanese homes to understand their
requirements better. IKEA then formulated its strategy for the Japanese market based on 'small space living', and brought in products
that were suitable to the Japanese -storage boxes, sofa beds, two-seater sofas, etc. As of 2008, IKEA operated through three stores in
the country. Sweden-based furniture retailer succeeded in the second time through market research, employee management,
localization, and promotional strategies in Japan
Answer the following question.
Q1. Discuss the furniture retail market in Japan.
CASE STUDY (20
Marks)
The case focuses on the UK-based retailer Tesco's entry and expansion strategies in the Japanese market. Tesco's succeeded in
international ventures that began in the 1990s and adopted some of the strategies that it followed in the non-UK markets. Tesco
entered Japan in 2003, after more than two years of research into the retail markets and consumer purchasing patterns in the country.
It acquired a local convenience store operator C Two Network that operated 78 discount supermarkets under the brand 'Tsurukame.'
It then expanded through a few more acquisitions. UK-based retailer Tesco subsequently launched Tesco Express stores in 2007.
Tesco adopted the different localization strategies and succeeded by identifying and solving the challenges faced by them in Japan.
Answer the following question.
7/25/2017 Aeren Foundation
2/2
Q1. Analyze the entry and expansion strategies of Tesco in Japan.
Q2. Discuss the likely challenges faced by Tesco in Japan.
CASE STUDY (20
Marks)
This case is about the Australia endeavor of Starbucks Coffee International, one of the largest specialties coffee chains of the world.
In July 2008, the company closed down the majority of its stores in the island continent citing non-performance triggered by the
economic melt-down as a key reason behind the closures. The company said that the closures were a part of the transformation
strategy being undertaken by its founder Howard Schultz to revive the company's performance. It also clarified that such a step was
unique to Australia and that it would continue to enhance its presence in other international locations. Starbucks entered the
Australian market in July 2000 with its first store being set up in Sydney's business area. Australia was a market with a sophisticated
coffee culture and had numerous local cafés catering to its demand for premium coffee. Although the lack of ready acceptance and
the presence of various competitors hindered its progress, Starbucks expanded quickly by opening company-owned stores in various
towns and cities of Australia. This it did without much customization of its product, process, or promotional strategies. Experts felt
that Starbucks failed in the Australian market largely due to its inability to understand the Australian consumer and culture. Under
these circumstances Starbucks had to close majority of Starbucks stores in Australia in 2008. The decision to close down these stores
came right after the company had recorded a consolidated net loss for the quarter ended June 29, 2008. It aims at portraying the
reasons behind Starbucks ‘failure to allure the Australian coffee drinker. It also attempts to understand the company's objective and
rationale behind partially withdrawing from a coffee-drinking market while it continued to operate in European and other
international markets.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Ascertain the challenges the company is likely to face in the future and explore future strategies that the retailer
can adopt.

 Organizational Behaviour ISBM ANSWER SHEETS PROVIDED
Case Studies
Introduction: XYZ -An Organizational Perspective (20
Marks)
The Pre-OD Scenario: Our Strengths and Areas of Concern In the years 1990-91 XYZ had grown into the largest Indian
HARDWARE company with revenues of over Rs. 1100 crores and racing towards achieving its vision of being global top ten. As
pioneers in the industry, XYZ’s strengths included on time delivery, premier position in the industry in terms of revenues, focus on
training programs, quality initiatives, use of good technical tools and procedures and encouragement of individual excellence in
performance.However, XYZ’s was also, at that point in time, grappling with a few areas of concern with regard to its operational
paradigm. Mounting revenue pressures: The pressure to retain its strong premier position led the organization to tend towards shortterm
revenues, and relatively lesser efforts were being put into medium and longterm markets and activities (such as products and
building up knowledge). Though XYZ’s built relationships with individual customers, Relationship Managers largely tended to focus
on obtaining short-term projects – there was lesser investment on aligning to long-term objectives of customers. The approach, by
and large, was of reactive project management and we were yet to espouse the approach of architecting proactive solutions for the
customer. Selectivity in projects: There was a tangible tension at, XYZ’s between generating revenues and organizing strategically,
on basis of technology and business areas, impacting selectivity in projects accepted. Pressures from customers on schedules was
resulting in faster delivery and hence, snowballing into further pressure on future schedules. Focus on specialization: There was
diffusion of expertise and we were yet to focus on building strategic expertise in individual centers. Employees were rotated across
domains and skills in the interest of learn ability as well as for meeting requirements. In a sense, there was heightened focus on Voice
of the Customer, in comparison to the Voice of Employee. Efforts on Experimentation & Innovation: The management at XYZ’s felt
that by and large, employees tended to go straight by the book. Though Dr. De Bono’s techniques were introduced and employees
trained on these techniques to encourage innovation, there was a need to scale up on perceived rewards for experimentation.
Rewards and Recognitions: The reward structure at XYZ’s was, at this point in time, primarily focused on individual performance
and we were yet to explore the institutionalization of team based rewards at the organizational level. Inter group co-ordination &
knowledge sharing: Sharing of knowledge was very centre-oriented, and although, informally, best practices spread by interaction
and word of mouth, we were yet to evolve a formal system which would capture these for ease of replication across projects.
Multiple centers and multiple projects within the same centre ended up resolving the same sort of issues, resulting in avoidable
rework. Branding and PR: Image building endeavors were not yet an area of focus and, in a subtle way, this affected the sense of
pride of employees. Among educational institutions, this meant greater difficulty in terms of attracting quality talent, which further
aggravated stress among the few key performers in the organization. By the year 2002, management felt the conscious need to bring
in changes in our 3 | P a g e approach to the aforementioned areas, in order to align more closely with the customer, business and
market requirements at an organizational level.
Answer the following question.
Q1. List the various reasons in Organization xyz , which lead to its development?
Q2. If the organization had not invested in its employee, would they have developed?
Q3. Site few examples of Indian companies, similar to XYZ mentioned above?
Q4. What would have been the drawback of the XYZ Company prior to 1991?

Case (20
Marks)
Mrs Jessy was recently promoted to head the accounting department in Souza manufacturing Company. She had worked in the same
department for 12 years and when Mr, Sewbert the previous manager retired, she was asked to all the position. It has now been about
3 months since Mrs. Jessy has been promoted, and there has been several misunderstandings between her and the Vice-President,
Accounting and Finance-Mr. Arun.The misunderstanding pertained to the way Mrs. Jessy “ran" the accounting department. The
Vice-President wanted Mrs. Jessy to handle all the day-to-day issues and felt that she was not assertive enough in assuming her new
responsibilities. There were instances where Mrs. Jessy failed to get things done on time: was not following up on other people's
duties; and always waiting to be told what to do instead of initiating action. You have been invited as a consultant and asked to look
into the problem and give your suggestions. Being an expert in the field of OB, you met Mrs. Jessy to and out what she feels about
Mr. Arun, the Vice-President and her new position as Manager Accounts. She says that the vice-president does not appreciate her
abilities and that what is lacking in her present job is the direction of her superior, Mr. Arun. She on her part is willing to do
whatever needs to be done. Mrs Jessy wants to do a good job but not becoming an autocrat that Mr. Arun wants her to be. Mrs. Jessy
says she likes her new job but does not know if her career is moving in the right direction. This comes from a person who has been
promoted just 3 months back. As an OB consultant, you have decided that it would be helpful to assess Mrs. Jessy's and Mr. Arum’s
personality type by administering the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Mrs. Jessy’s score indicate that she is more Sensing/Thinking
type and Mr. Arun is an intuiting/Thinking type.
Answer the following question.
Q1. What are the problems witnessed in the above case.
Q2. What is Myers Briggs Type indicator?
CASE (20
Marks)
Tata Cummins Limited (TCL) is a 50-50 joint venture between Tata Motors and Cummins Engine Co., Inc., USA. Tata Motors is the
largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India, and Cummins Engine Co. is the largest 200+ HP diesel engine manufacturer in
the world. The Joint Venture was incorporated in October 1993 and commercial production commenced on January 1, 1996. The
vision of TCL is to be widely acknowledged and bench-marked as one of the best companies in the world. The company, thus,
abides by the following core values: - 􀀀 Care for customers 􀀀 Obsession for quality 􀀀 Care deeply about people 􀀀 Do what's right
and not what's convenient 􀀀 Guarantee product leadership 􀀀 Responsible citizenship 􀀀 Relentless improvement TCL is a QS 9000
company. TCL Jamshedpur boasts of state-of-the-art, fully air-conditioned diesel engine plant, with a computerized Building
Management System for safety and energy conservation. The plant has five major components manufacturing lines for Cylinder
Block, Cylinder Head, Connecting Rod, Crankshaft & Camshaft, with the best measuring and gauging instruments to assure
Consistent Quality. TCL has very strong systems and IT infrastructure for controlling and facilitating its operations. To further
increase overall efficiency and visibility of information, Oracle Applications and a web-based Supply Chain Management System
have been implemented in June 2000. Products The low emission Diesel Engines manufactured by Tata Cummins are for use in a
new generation of Tata Motors Ltd's Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicles. The engines conform to EURO-I, EURO-II &
EURO-III standards for emissions. The 78 to 235 Horsepower engines have a high power to weight ratio and will enable Tata
Motors Ltd. access new markets worldwide with its advantage of emissions, power, oil consumption and durability. Plant Tata
Cummins has a modern manufacturing facility located adjacent to Tata Motors Ltd., designed by Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo
Associates of USA and C. P. Kukreja Associates of Delhi. The unique plant comprises a fully air-conditioned 182 x 186 m building
with pre-cast concrete coffer roofing and 15 x 15 m bays. The North and South walls are of glazed curtain glass. Features such as a
PLC controlled Fire Detection / Suppression System, Skylights and Building Management System ensures high levels of Safety and
Energy efficiency. 5 | P a g e Organizational Strategy At Tata Cummins, the organizational strategy is designed by the leadership
team which includes the top management and the department heads. The department goals are then formulated in accordance with
the organizational goals. These goals are reflected in a document called 'Goal-Tree'. The tree also contains the action plan, the
schedule for achieving the goals, and the persons responsible for achieving them. As per the Goal-Tree, the three organizational
goals for 2005 are: - 􀀀 Grow Sales to 853 crores 􀀀 Improve PBIT by 10% over last year and achieve 25% ROANA 􀀀 Achieve and
Sustain the respect of all Stake Holders The organizational goals are broken down to the strategies. The initiatives for implementing
the strategies are then identified. The responsibility for implementing these initiatives is then assigned to respective departments.
Further, the tentative deadlines are also reflected. The targets are reviewed quarterly.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Do the core values, really influence and have a impact on organizational development ?Explain.
Q2. Is organizational development depended internally on employees and externally influenced by customers? Discuss
Case (20
Marks)
Sunder singh had studied only up to high school. He was now 32 years of age, lived alone in a rented room, and worked together
eight hour shift at on e petrol pump, then went to the other one for another eight hour shift. He had a girlfriend and was planning to
marry. One day when he returned to work, he got a note from his girlfriend that she was getting married to someone else and he need
not bother her. This was a terrible shock to sunder singh and he fell apart. He stopped going to work, spent sleepless nights, and was
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very depressed. After a month, he was running low on his savings and approached his earlier employers to get back his job, but they
would not give him a second chance. He had to quit his rented room, and sold the few things that he had. He would do some odd
jobs at the railway station or the bus terminus. One day, nearly two years ago, he was very hungry and did not have any money and
saw a young man selling newspapers. He asked him what he was selling and he told him about Guzara(an independent, non profit,
independent newspaper sold by the homeless and economically disadvantaged men and women of this metro city). Sunder singh
approached the office and started selling the newspaper. He did not make lot of money, but was good at saving it. He started saving
money for a warm jacket for next winter. He was reasonably happy; he had money to buy food, and no longer homeless and shared a
room with two others. One day, with his savings he bought a pair of second hand Nike shoes from the flea market. Sunder singh is
not unique among low income consumers, especially in large cities, in wanting and buying Nike shoes. Some experts believe that
low income consumers too want the same products and service that other consumer wants. The working poor are forced to spend a
disproportionate percent of their income on food, housing, utilities and health care. They solely rely on public transportation, spend
very little on entertainment of any kind, and have no security of any kind. Their fight is mainly for day-to-day survival.
Answer the following question.
Q1. What are the features of low income consumers?
Q2. How would you differentiate a low income consumers and high income consumers?


 Principles and Practice of Management ISBM ANSWER SHEETS PROVIDED
Case Studies
Case (20
Marks)
Mr Saddhana, the president of International Machine Company, leaned back in his chair and reflected on the success of his firm,
which produces and distributes a line of farm machines. That afternoon after the meeting with distributors from different territories,
Mr Saddhana was urged to introduce new models to satisfy the changing demands of the customers. The president, who had an
engineering background, recognized the implications of the suggestions that came from distributors. Their implementation would
require greater investments in research and development. Furthermore, the changes in the highly automated production line would be
very costly indeed. Also, having a wider variety of models would require stocking many more spare parts. Depending on the kinds of
changes, workers might need to be retrained. Reflecting on previous staff meetings, the president realized that sales and marketing
people always wanted a greater variety of models but never acknowledged the costs involved in changing models. Consequently, the
president decided against the introduction of new models. Instead, he considered improving the current models and reducing the cost
and price. He felt that what the customer really wanted was value. Nevertheless, to test his judgement, the president asked a
consultant for an opinion.
Answer the following question.
Q1. How would you state the mission of the enterprise?
Q2. What do you think are the opportunities and threats in the external environment?
Q3. How would you go about evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the firm? What factors are critical to success
or failure?
Q4. It is often said that to be successful, an organization must be an open system. What does that mean and how does it
apply to this case?
International Case : Global Car Industry (20
Marks)
How the Lexus Was Born-and Continued Its Success in the United States, but will Lexus Succeed in Japan? One of the best
examples of global competition is in the car industry. As the Japanese gained market share in America, U.S. car makers required the
Japanese to self-impose quotas on cars exported to the United States. This encouraged Japanese firms not only to establish their
plants in the United States but also to build bigger and more luxurious cars to compete against the higher-priced U.S. cars- and the
expensive European cars such as the Mercedes and the BMW. One such Japanese car is the Lexus, by Toyota. This car is aimed at
customers who would like to buy a Mercedes or BMW but cannot afford either. With a sticker price of $35,000, the Lexus is
substantially less expensive than comparable European imports. In 1983, Toyota set out to develop the best car in the worldmeasured
against the Mercedes and the BMW. The aim was to produce a quiet, comfortable, and safe car that could travel at 150 miles per
hour and still avoid the gas guzzler tax imposed on cars getting less than 22.5 miles per gallon. This seemed to be an idea of
conflicting goals: cars being fast seemed irreconcilable with cars being at the same time fuel-efficient. To meet these conflicting
goals, each subsystem of the car had to be carefully scrutinized, improved whenever possible, and integrated with the total design.
The first version of the 32-valve V-8 engine did not meet the fuel economy requirement. The engineers applied a problem-solving
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technique called "thoroughgoing countermeasures at the source." This means an attempt to improve every component until the
design objectives are achieved. Not only the engine but also the transmission and other parts underwent close scrutiny to make the
car meet U.S. fuel requirements. Toyota's approach to achieving quality is different from that of German car manufacturers. The
latter use relatively labor-intensive production processes. In contrast, Toyota's advanced manufacturing technology aims at high
quality through automation requiring only a fraction of the work force used by German car makers. Indeed, this strategy, if
successful, may be the secret weapon to gain market share in the luxury car market.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Prepare a profile of the potential buyer of the Lexus.
Q2. What should Mercedes and BMW do to counteract the Japanese threat in the United States and Europe?
Q3. Why has the Lexus model been very successful in the U.S. but has not been marketed in Japan? (Suggestion:
Review the frequency of repair records of luxury cars. Also talk to Lexus dealers or Lexus owners).
Q4. Do you think Lexus will succeed in Japan? Why or why not?
Case (20
Marks)
Progressive Chemical Industries Ltd, is engaged in manufacturing and export of specialty chemicals, having turnover of Rs 300
crores. The Company is growing and having good export orders. The CEO is in mood to expand the business and aiming to reach
turnover of Rs 1000 crores in next 5 years. The CEO is worried about the increase in input costs and workers’ demands. Union has
threatened to go on strike indefinitely. Union has demanded 50% increase in salary and other benefits. But is not agreeing to link it
to productivity. It has also raised issues like unsafe, hazardous working conditions, leakage of poisons gases affecting the health of
workers. The consultant has advised the CEO to be strict and take strict action against the erring employees and be ready to declare
lock out if situation warrants.
Answer the following question.
Q1. What are the various laws which could be applicable in the above problems?
Q2. Do you feel management policies/practices are right? As a CEO how will you convince the union and workers?
Case (20
Marks)
The case ‘Mapro: Sustaining a Family Run Business’ is about Maharashtra, India-based food processing company, Mapro Foods
(Mapro). The company was started in the 1950s by a pharmacist Kishore Vora, who, with the intention of helping the local farmers,
started making jam with locally available strawberry. He soon started a food processing unit where jams and squashes were made
from different fruits. Later on, Kishore Vora’s nephew took up the reins of the company and developed Mapro. As the company
entered its third generation, it ventured into other products like chocolates and fruit-based jelly. The success of its fruit jelly brand
‘Falero’, along with growing competition from both domestic and MNC confectionery companies made the owners think about
establishing a pan-India presence. They chose to bring in professionals into the key management roles to run the company, with the
family not involving itself in day-to-day activities. The company also moved its headquarters to Mumbai and inducted a new sales
team. This left analysts wondering what lay ahead for the company that till then, had been run as a closely managed family venture.
On March 28, 2016, Mapro Foods (Mapro), Maharashtra, India-based manufacturer of jams, fruit beverage concentrates, crushes,
squashes, and fruit bars, announced that it was in the process of launching its own brand of premium chocolates and was in talks
with the world’s largest cocoa producers and grinders, Zurich-based Barry Callebaut. The company, which was headed and run by
the family of the founder, Kishore Vora, also announced that it was opening an office in Mumbai, which would be run by
professionals. According to Mayur Vora, (Mayur), Managing Director, Mapro, “We are setting in place a new team of seven
members. From this we will choose a CEO. If the business has to grow, it has to be run by professionals.” This marked a shift for a
quaint family-run company from Panchgani, near Mahabaleswar, Maharashtra, which till then had a limited presence across the
country.
Answer the following question.
Q1. Discuss the reasons of moving the business from a family-run to a professionally-run organization.
Q2. Explain the concept of concept of “Entrepreneurship”.
Q3. In your opinion what are the measures to be taken to ensure the growth and continuity of a family business.
Q4. Explain the importance of innovation.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IIBM ANSWER SHEET PROVIDED MOB 91 9924764558

Human Resource Management IIBM ANSWER SHEET PROVIDED

CONTACT: DR. PRASANTH MBA PH.D. DME MOBILE / WHATSAPP: +91 9924764558 OR +91 9447965521 EMAIL: prasanththampi1975@gmail.com WEBSITE: www.casestudyandprojectreports.com


Subject Code-B102
Section A: Objective Type & Short Questions (30 marks)
 This section consists of Multiple Choice and Short Answer type questions.
 Answer all the questions.
 Objective Question carries 1 mark each &Short Question carries 5 marks each.
Part One
Multiple Choices:
1. It is a cultural attitude marked by the tendency to regard one’s own culture as superior to others
a. Geocentrism
b. Polycentrism
c. Ethnocentrism
d. Egocentrism
2. It is the systemic study of job requirements & those factors that influence the performance of
those job requirements
a. Job analysis
b. Job rotation
c. Job circulation
d. Job description
3. This Act provides an assistance for minimum statutory wages for scheduled employment
a. Payment of Wages Act, 1936
b. Minimum Wages Act, 1948
c. Factories Act, 1948
d. Payment of Gratuity act, 1972
4. __________ is the actual posting of an employee to a specific job
a. Induction
b. Placement
c. Attrition
d. None
5. Broadening an individual’s knowledge, skills & abilities for future responsibilities is known as
a. Training
b. Development
c. Education
d. Mentoring
Examination Paper of Human Resource Management

6. Change that is designed and implemented in an orderly and timely fashion in anticipation of
future events
a. Planned change
b. Technology change
c. Structural change
d. None
7. It is a process for setting goals and monitoring progress towards achieving those goals
a. Performance appraisal
b. Performance gap
c. Performance factor
d. Performance management system
8. A method which requires the rates to provide a subjective performance evaluation along a scale
from low to high
a. Assessment centre
b. Checklist
c. Rating scale
d. Monitoring
9. It is the sum of knowledge, skills, attitudes, commitment, values and the liking of the people in an
organization
a. Human resources
b. Personal management
c. Human resource management
d. Productivity
10. A learning exercise representing a real-life situation where trainees compete with each other to
achieve specific objectives
a. Executive development
b. Management game
c. Programmed learning
d. Understudy
Part Two:
1. What is the importance of Career Planning in industry?
2. List the various features of HRM.
3. How can you explain the concept of Performance Appraisal?
4. Differentiate between on- the- job and off- the- job training.
END OF SECTION A
Examination Paper of Human Resource Management

Section B: Caselets (40 marks)
 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).
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?
Examination Paper of Human Resource Management

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.
END OF SECTION B
Section C: Applied Theory (30 marks)
 This section consists of applied theory Questions.
 Answer all the questions.
 Each question carries 15 marks
 Detailed information should form the part of your answer (Word limit 150-200 words).
1. Several types of interviews are commonly used depending on the nature & importance of the
position to be filled within an organization. Explain the different types of Interviews.
2. How would you explain Organizational Change and Development?


 Marketing Management IIBM ANSWER SHEET PROVIDED
Section A: Objective Type & Short Questions (30 marks)
 This section consists of multiple choices & short answer type questions.
 Answer all the questions.
 Part One carries I mark each & Part II carries 5 marks each.
Part One
Multiple Choices:
1. It is a concept where goods are produced without taking into consideration the choices or tastes of
customers.
a. Marketing mix
b. Production concept
c. Marketing concept
d. Relationship marketing
2. It involves individuals who buys products or services for personal use and not for manufacture or
resale.
a. Environment analysis
b. Macro environment
c. Micro environment
d. Consumer
3. It is the groups of people who interact formally or informally influencing each other‟s attitudes&
behavior.
a. Consumer behavior
b. Culture
c. Reference groups
d. Primary groups
4. The concept of the product that passes through various changes in its total life known as:
a. Product life cycle
b. Line stretching
c. Consumer adoption
d. Product
5. It refers to unique set of brand associations that brand strategist aspires to create or maintain:
a. Branding
b. Packaging
c. Brand identity
Examination Paper of Marketing Management

d. Brand image
6. It involves a pricing strategy that charges customers different prices for the same product or
service.
a. Promotional pricing
b. Price discrimination
c. Non price competition
d. None of the above
7. It refers to an arrangement where another company through its own marketing channel sells the
products of one producers.
a. End customer
b. Wholesaler
c. Retailing
d. Strategic channel alliance
8. It involves facility consisting of the means & equipments necessary for the movement of
passengers of goods.
a. Logistics
b. Warehousing
c. Transportation
d. None of the above
9. The advertising which is used to inform consumers about a new product or feature & to build
primary demands is known as:
a. Advertising
b. Informative advertising
c. Persuasive advertising
d. Advertising strategy
10. An art that predicts the likelihood of economic activity on the basis of certain assumptions:
a. Compensation
b. Sales forecasting
c. Sales budgeting
d. Selling policy
Part Two:
1. Define Marketing Mix.
2. Discuss the concept of Benchmarking.
3. Write a short note on Target Marketing.
4. What do you understand by Pricing Strategy?
END OF SECTION A
Examination Paper of Marketing Management

Section B: Caselets (40 marks)
 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 to 200 words).
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?
END OF SECTION B
Examination Paper of Marketing Management

Section C: Applied Theory (30 marks)
 This section consists of Applied Theory Questions.
 Answer all the questions.
 Each question carries 15 marks.
 Detailed information should form the part of your answer (Word limit 200-250 words).
1. What do you understand by product life cycle? Discuss implications and limitations of product
life cycle concept.
2. Describe role of marketing channels. List the different types of marketing channels.
END OF SECTION C
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