ISMS EXAM ANSWER SHEETS
PROVIDED. MBA EMBA BMS DMS ANSWERS
PROVIDED. DR. PRASANTH MBA PH.D. DME MOBILE
/ WHATSAPP: +91 9924764558 OR +91 9447965521 EMAIL: prasanththampi1975@gmail.com WEBSITE: www.casestudyandprojectreports.com
Master Program in
Business Administration (MBA)
Note :- Solve any 4
Case Study
All Case Carry equal Marks.
CASE I
Sunder Singh
Sunder Singh had studied only up to high school. He was
32-years of age, lived alone in a rented room, and worked eight-hour shift at
one petrol pump, then went to the other one for another eight-hour shift. He
had a girl friend and was planning to marry.
One day when he returned
from work, he got a note from his girl friend 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 very depressed. After a month, he was running Iowan 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 few things that
he had. He would do some odd jobs at the railway station or the bus terminal.
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 a 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 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 consumers want.
The working poor are
forced to spend a disproportionate percent of their income on food, housing,
utilities, and healthcare. 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 day-to-day survival.
QUESTIONS
1.
What does the purchase of a product like
Nike mean to Sunder Singh?
2.
What does the story say about our society
and the impact of marketing on consumer behavior?
CASE II
Key to Buyers' Minds
Consumer buying research has turned a new leaf in India.
The era of demographics seems to be on the backbench. Now, Marketing Research
people are less likely to first ask you about your age, income, and education
etc. Instead, there is a distinct shift towards inquiries about attitudes,
interests, lifestyles, and behaviour - in short towards a study of consumers'
minds called psychographics.
Pathfinders, the marketing
research wing of Lintas, occasionally came out with its highly respected
"Study on Nation's Attitudes and Psychographics (P:SNAP). The first in
this series was released in 1987 with an objective to develop a database of
lifestyles and psychographics information on the modem Indian women. The second
was in 1993, and the third in 1998. Pathfinders choose woman for the study
because of the belief that more often than not, in urban areas, it is the woman
who makes buying decision.
The Pathfinders' study
involves interviewing over 10,000 women over the entire country and segmenting
them in clusters according to their beliefs, attitudes, lifestyles, and lastly
their demographics profile. The idea is to identify groups of consumers with
similar lifestyles who are likely to behave towards products or services.
For advertisers and
advertising agencies, this profile helps enormously. For example, an advertiser
may want to give a westernised touch to a commercial. The profile of the target
customer, as revealed by this study, tells the advertising people the perimeter
within which she/he must stay, otherwise the ad may become an exaggerated
version of westernised India.
For the purpose of this
study, Pathfinders divided the Indian women in 8 distinct cluster of varying
values and lifestyles. Figures from two studies are available publicly and are
given below:
|
Cluster
|
1987 (%)
|
1993 (%)
|
|
Troubled homebody
|
15.9
|
18.3
|
|
Tight-fisted traditionalist
|
14.8
|
10.0
|
|
Contended conservative
|
7.0
|
9.3
|
|
Archetypal provider
|
13.0
|
8.8
|
|
Anxious rebel
|
14.1
|
15.8
|
|
Contemporary housewife
|
19.2
|
22.1
|
|
Gregarious hedonist
|
8.7
|
6.6
|
|
Affluent sophisticate
|
7.3
|
9.1
|
The studies seek to track
the macro level changes and movements within these 8 clusters in a period of
time.
We note from the table
that in 1987, 8.7% of the women could be classified as "gregarious
hedonist" - those who consider their own pleasure to be supreme in life.
'In 1993, this figure fell to 6.6%. The "troubled homebody" segment -
those with large families and low-income, increased from 15.9% in 1987 to 18.3%
in 1993.
Information, such as this,
is obviously useful to assess the collective mood. That's why Pathfinders have
an impressive list of clients fort heir P:SNAP, which includes Hindustan Lever,
Cadbury, Johnson and Johnson, and Gillette.
SOME PSYCHOGRAPHICS PROFILES OF INDIAN WOMEN
Rama Devi, the Contended Conservative
The lady lives a 'good' life - she is a devoted wife, a
dotting mother of two school-going sons, and a God fearing housewife. She has
been living her life by the traditional values she cherishes - getting up at
the crack of dawn, getting the house cleaned up, having the breakfast of 'Aloo
Parathas' ready in time before the children's school-bus honks its horn, laying
down the dress her 'government servant' husband will put on after his bath, and
doing her daily one-hour Puja. She fasts every Monday for the welfare of her
family, looks at the 'freely mixing' and 'sexually liberal' youngsters with
deep disdain and cannot understand the modem young woman' s 19reed' for money,
jewellery, and jobs.
Her one abiding interest
outside the household is the Ganesh Mandir that she has visited every
Wednesday, ever since she got married. She lacks higher education and hence has
little appreciation for the arts, the literature, and the sciences. Her ample
spare time is spent watching the TV, which is her prime source of entertainment
and information.
Shobha, the Troubled Homebody
Shobha married young to the first person she fell in
love with, Prakash. Four children came quickly before she was quite ready to
raise a family. Now, she is unhappy. She
is having trouble in making ends meet on her husband's
salary who is employed as clerk in a private business and is often required to
work up to late hours. She is frustrated, as her desire for an idyllic life has
turned sour. She could not get education beyond high school and hence there are
hardly any job opportunities for her. Her husband also keeps on complaining of
the long hours of backbreaking work he has to put in. He consumes country-made
liquor routinely.
Shobha finds escape in
Black and White TV soap operas and films that transport her into the world of
her dreams. She watches TV almost all through the day and her children roam
around in the locality streets and cannot expect any help from their'
ever-grumbling' mother. Purchases are mostly limited to 'essentials' and any
discretionary purchases are postponed till it becomes possible.
Neeru, the Archetypal Provider
Neeru epitomises simplicity. Her life is untangled. It
runs on a set timetable with almost clockwork precision. She works as a primary
school teacher in a rural government school about 50 kilometers from her
district town residence. She is married to a social worker in an NGO whose
income is erratic. Her three children, two teenaged sons and l0-year old
daughter are getting school education.
The day begins with the
lady getting up before anybody else and finishing the household chores as fast
as she can. There is no room for delay as the State government 'Express' bus,
on which she ravels to her school will be at the bus stop across the road
precisely at 8.00 A.M. If she misses that, the next ordinary bus comes at 11.15
A.M, quite useless as it will reach her school only at 1.00 P.M. The school
closes at 2.00 P.M. There are private Jeeps running sporadically, but the fare
is high and Neeru does not believe in wasting hard earned money. Besides, she
travels on husband's 'free pass'. Neeru prides herself on her monthly savings
ofRs.1000 for the last many years. The money will go toward the wedding of her
daughter.
Vandana, the tight-fisted traditionalist
For Vandana, saving money is 'in-born' discipline. When
she was young and unmarried, she remembers her mother was extremely
tight-fisted and ran the household in under Rs.800 per month. It was the
necessity of those times as her father retired at a princely salary of Rs.1800
per month. All through her childhood, she saw deprivation and hardship. She
would not join the annual class picnic in her school days as it meant'
avoidable expenditure'.
Now she is married and
mother of two school going children. The husband works in a bank as a clerk. He
has taken all the loans that he could from the bank and invested the money in
real estate. As a result of monthly deductions toward repayment of loans, his
take home salary is now very little. But Vandana can manage. The school dresses
are sewn by her at home, the stationary required comes from a wholesale market,
and the books are second-hand from 'friends', cultivated for the purpose. On
birthdays, Vandana prepares a sweet dish at home and they spend on a film.
There is a cow and calf at home, being kept as a source of revenue and milk.
She sells half the milk to a neighbour and the family consumes the rest. Life
in general is hard and frugal. There is a colour TV at home, but they
disconnected the cable connection ever since the rates went up. Now they watch
Doordarshan only.
Aditi, the Anxious Rebel
Daughter of a Freedom Fighter, Aditi has always fought
her values and principles.
People still remember when she walked out of the exam
half in a huff as a mark of protest against mass cheating' sanctioned' by the
centre superintendent in a tough paper. While every body else passed with high
marks, Aditi failed.
Even though she repeated
the paper, Aditi never learned to swim along the flow. She always swam against
the current. She joined the Communist Party in her college and gave rousing
speeches against the teachers and authorities. This resulted in her getting
very poor marks and left her jobless.
Later, Aditi joined an NGO
and now works on social issues. She says she is a creature of the mind, not
materialism. Her favourite dress is a long flowing Kurta, and slacks. She wears
loosened hair and chappals. She reads voraciously. Financially, she is
independent and lives with her parents. Her disdain for the institution of marriage
and contempt for the modern Indian male keep her single and unattached. She
will continue-to be so as she prefers this status, but may adopt a baby later
in life.
Reema, the Gregarious Hedonist
Just 19, and Reema is already divorced. Her father is a
wealthy businessman. During Reema's childhood, her father was mostly away in
Dubai and Africa, trying to amass a fortune. That he did but he lost on his
chance to be a good father. Both his children started feeling like' orphans'
after their mother got involved with another man.
Reema was ever longing for
her family when alone came Harsh, her private high school tuition teacher.
Harsh was all of 22 and very caring. He was tall, handsome, and very popular in
school and many girls had a crush on him. Reema was sixteen then and a great
fan of Harsh. For her, Harsh was a prize catch as he combined the loving
qualities of a father with a mix of being a good teacher. She was soon dazzled
and surrendered in a physical relationship.
Marriage followed. She
never understood how Harsh changed overnight from a caring father figure to a
demanding husband. And she could never cope with the six hours she had to spend
in the kitchen everyday. Why should she do the cooking, she asked Harsh, as it
was something that the 'Ayas' did? The reality of a humdrum middle-class
existence hit her hard and she soon walked out of 'the hell'.
Her father understood her
need to recover and made her allowance rather generous. He bought her a Red
Sports Car and got her an admission in a private college.
College is entertainment
for her. She attends college only on days when there is some function like a
cultural evening or the sports meet. Now, Reema spends on alcohol, dresses,
parties, and holidays. She consumes a mood elevating drug every evening and
keeps sending SMS messages on her mobile to her friends all through the night.
For her, life means 'buying pleasure endlessly'.
Shruti, the Contemporary Housewife
Shruti is an urbane woman. She is well educated and
genteel. She is an officer in a national bank, and active in her club affairs
and community activities. Socialising is an important part of her life. She is
a doer, interested in watching cricket, politics, and current affairs. Her life
is hectic as she has a lot to do for home and office everyday. Still she often
enjoys viewing movies on TV every week.
Shruti shops for Sarees,
jewellery, and cosmetics for herself on a regular basis. However, family needs
come before her own needs. Her home is a double income household and she has
one kid. All the modern gadgets are present and the standard of living is upper
middle-class.
QUESTIONS
1.
Explain how the above-mentioned information
is likely to benefit a marketer?
2.
Which of the above mentioned types are
likely to respond to sales promotion? Explain.
3.
A manufacturer of personal care products in
the premium segment starts frequent sales promotions. What is likely to be the
impact on the above-mentioned types?
Case III
Star Airways
Star Airways offered passengers
air services within the country and served a territory of 18, 000 sq. miles
with an expanding population of over 70 lakh of people who are potential users
of the airline services. The geographic diversity and scattered business and
commercial cities have led to steady increase in the number of people who use
air travel. The clientele includes business people, as well as individuals on
non-business trips, holidays, and leisure trips etc. As a result, the passenger
traffic had been increasing steadily since the firm started operations in 1983.
In the last three years, however, the growth has not been consistent with the
growth pattern showed by the company in the last fifteen years - as against a
healthy growth of 13 per cent, the sales have marginally improved, registering
a growth of 6 per cent.
The
company's early success was due to the pioneering concepts used by it in the
airline industry, which was dominated by large private and government operators
with little market orientation. The launch of the company's services coincided
with a boom in the aviation sector and reduced government dominance, which
opened up the skies for private operators. Besides this, the company offered a
host of innovations in the customer service functions such as smaller and newer
planes, convenient schedules, free gifts, comfortable seats, exclusive
terminals, express baggage-check, and airport-to hotel transit for its first
and business class clients. In turn the fares charged by the company were
premium in the category and almost 15 per cent higher than the industry
average. The company president in the following words justified this move: ''We
are selling entirely on the basis of providing quality experience to our
clients. Our services, ambience, and commitment to safety and time-bound
schedule, all surpass the standards of the industry."
During
the first ten years of operations the company faced no direct competition. The
only problems faced by the marketing staff were (a) the price, (2) the need to
convince clients that air service was more efficient than other alternatives,
(c) identifying the customers, and more importantly (d) developing the image of
a dependable service. The consumers, who till now were forced to put up
indifferent service offered by large government operators, did not offer much
resistance and were agreeable to try out new company. Once customers were
convinced, retaining them was very easy. Hence the company enjoyed immense
loyalty from its clients with
almost 40 per cent of them being regular users. Sales were handled by the sales
division as well as by some independent sales representatives.
In
early 1990s the company faced direct competition for the first time with a new
company coming up with smaller planes and all other advantages which were
previously associated with Star Airways. The growing business had made the
market very lucrative and hence in the next three years, four major competitors
were also vying for the market share. The company slowly lost to these
competitors and could manage to retain only 30 per cent of market share by the
end of 1994. All the competitors were engaged in aggressive promotion and soon
started a 'price war' in order to outdo one another. For the next six months,
each of them offered big discounts and gifts (such as TV / audio systems) with
the return ticket on different routes. The most profitable and commercia1ly
viable routes were the major targets of these price related competitions. The
consumer was the ultimate beneficiary and in short time, the companies started
facing losses due to this price-cutting.
Star Airways had so far remained out of this
‘price-war’ and lost its market share on the competitive routes very
rapidly. It was able to retain the
clients on other routes, which were not a part of this intense
competition. Unhappy an anxious about
this state of affairs, the company vice president, marketing, developed a
marketing plan with several components.
The initial part of the plan consisted of a market research done on a
cross-section of existing clients as well as the clients of competitors and the
following observations were made :
·
Star Airways was
considered a quality-oriented company but many felt that it was getting stodgy.
·
The satisfaction with
crew and schedules had declined over the last 5 years amongst regular
customers.
·
The clients felt that
the airline was losing its edge over customer service because it was nonflexible.
·
The prices offered by
competitors are less and they provide only a fraction of services offered by
Star Airways. This was the main reason of clients switching over to
competitors. As many as 70 per cent respondents considered the costs as the
most important factor in deciding on the airline.
·
Some deciding factors
and their relative importance to clients were found to be following this
pattern.
·
|
Feature offered by airline
|
Importance of feature as the deciding factor
|
Rank of feature in decision making influence
|
|
Price
|
67%
|
1
|
|
Ambience
and food
|
9%
|
3
|
|
Punctuality
|
14%
|
2
|
|
Services
& convenience
|
7%
|
4
|
|
Free
gifts etc.
|
3%
|
5
|
The
second phase of the plan included a massive advertising and promotion plan. The
VP marketing, Anil Saxena, felt that the company needed to advertise it's
dedication to quality and rebuild an image of being a customer-oriented
airline. He began discussions with the advertising agency to launch a campaign
in the near future.
After
a month, the agency came out with the following recommendations:
·
The campaign is to be
completed in four months time and the budget will be 351akh.
·
The company would
reach 85% of target audience, once in a month by direct mail.
·
Four times a month a
TV commercial will be aired on a business show time. The audience TRP is
consistent and highest in this category of shows.
·
Star Airways would
build the campaign theme around 'quality and customer service initiatives' .
·
The direct mail letter
would be sent to a database of 85,000 clients in four months. The letter will
contain information on the airline and again stress on the same theme of'
quality and customer service'.
QUESTIONS
1.
What is likely to be
the decision process in case of choosing an airline?
2.
Would this plan
suggested by the vice president help in convincing the customers to use Star
Airways? Give your reasons.
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