Note: Solve any 4
Cases Study’s
CASE: I Conceptualise and Get Sacked
HSS Ltd. is a leader in high-end textiles
having headquarters in
The company records a turnover of Rs 1,000
cr. Plus a year. A year back, HSS set up a unit at Hassan (250 km away from
Maniyam has a vision. Being a firm
believer in affirmative actions, he plans to reach out to the rural areas and
tap the potentials of teenaged girls with plus two educational background.
Having completed their 12th standard, these girls are sitting at homes, idling
their time, watching TV serials endlessly and probably dreaming about their
marriages. Junior colleges are located in their respective villages and it is
easy for these girls to get enrolled in them. But degree colleges are not
nearby. The nearest degree college is minimum 10 km and no parents dare send
their daughters on such long distances and that too for obtaining degrees,
which would not guarantee them jobs but could make searching for suitable boys
highly difficult.
These are the girls to whom
Maniyam wants to reach out. How to go about hiring 1500 people from a large
number who can be hired? And Karnataka is a big state with 27 districts. The
GM-HR studies the geography of all the 27 districts and zeroes in on nine of
them known for backwardness and industriousness.
Maniyam then thinks of the
principals of Junior Colleges in all the nine districts as contact persons to
identify potential candidates. This route is sure to ensure desirability and
authenticity of the candidates. The girls are raw hands. Except the little
educational background, they know nothing else. They need to be trained.
Maniyam plans to set up a training centre at Hassan with hostel facilities for
new hires. He even hires Anil, an MBA from
All is set. It is bright day in
October 2006. MD and the newly hired VP-HR came to Hassan from
In this meeting, Maniyam is told
that his style of functioning does not jell with the culture of HSS. He gets
the shock of life. He responds on expected by submitting his papers.
Back in his room, Maniyam wonders
what has gone wrong. Probably, the VP-HR being the same age as he is, is
feeling jealous and insecure since the MD has all appreciation for the concept
and the way things are happening. Maniyam does not have regrets. On the
contrary he is happy that his concept is being followed though he has been
sacked. After all, HSS has already hired 500 girls. With Rs 3,000 plus a month
each, these girls and their parents now find it easy to find suitable boys.
Question:
1.
What
mad the MD change his mind and go against Maniyam? What role might the VP-HR
have played in the episode?
2.
If
you were Maniyam, what would you do?
CASE: II A Tale of Twists and Turns
Rudely shaken, Vijay came home in the
evening. He was not in a mood to talk to his wife. Bolted inside, he sat in his
room, lit a cigarette, and brooded over his experience with a company he loved
most.
Vijay, an M.Com and an ICWA,
joined the finance department of a Bangalore-based electric company (Unit 1),
which boasts of an annual turnover of Rs. 400 crores. He is smart, intelligent,
but conscientious. He introduced several new systems in record-keeping and was
responsible for cost reduction in several areas. Being a loner, Vijay developed
few friends in and outside the organization. He also missed promotions four
times though he richly deserved them.
G.M. Finance saw to it that Vijay
was shifted to Unit 2 where he was posted in purchasing. Though purchasing was
not his cup of tea, Vijay went into it whole hog, streamlined the purchasing
function, and introduced new systems, particularly in vendor development. Being
honest himself, Vijay ensured that nobody else made money through questionable
means.
After two years in purchasing,
Vijay was shifted to stores. From finance to purchasing to stores was too much
for Vijay to swallow.
He burst out before the unit head,
and unable to control his anger, Vijay put in his papers too. The unit head was
aghast at this development but did nothing to console Vijay. He forwarded the
papers to the V.P. Finance, Unit 1.
The V.P. Finance called in Vijay,
heard him for a couple of hours, advised him not to lose heart, assured him
that his interests would be taken care of and requested him to resume duties in
purchasing Unit 2. Vijay was also assured that no action would be taken on the
papers he had put in.
Six months passed by. Then came
the time to effect promotions. The list of promotees was announced and to his
dismay, Vijay found that his name was missing. Angered, Vijay met the unit head
who coolly told Vijay that he could collect his dues and pack off to his house
for good. It was great betrayal for Vijay.
Question:
1.
What
should Vijay do?
CASE: III Mechanist’s Indisciplined Behaviour
Dinesh, a machine operator, worked as a
mechanist for Ganesh, the supervisor. Ganesh told Dinesh to pick up some trash
that had fallen from Dinesh’s work area, and Dinesh replied, “I won’t do the
janitor’s work.”
Ganesh replied, “when you drop it,
you pick it up”. Dinesh became angry and abusive, calling Ganesh a number of
names in a loud voice and refusing to pick up the trash. All employees in the
department heard Dinesh’s comments.
Ganesh had been trying for two
weeks to get his employees to pick up trash in order to have cleaner workplace
and prevent accidents. He talked to all employees in a weekly departmental
meeting and to each employee individually at least once. He stated that he was
following the instructions of the general manager. The only objection came from
Dinesh.
Dinesh has been with the company
for five years, and in this department for six months. Ganesh had spoken to him
twice about excessive alcoholism, but otherwise his record was good. He was
known to have quick temper.
This outburst by Dinesh hurt
Ganesh badly, Ganesh told Dinesh to come to the office and suspended him for
one day for insubordination and abusive language to a supervisor. The decision
was within company policy, and similar behaviours had been punished in other
departments.
After Dinesh left Ganesh’s office,
Ganesh phoned the HR manager, reported what he had done, and said that he was
sending a copy of the suspension order for Dinesh’s file.
Question:
1.
How
would you rate Dinesh’s behaviour? What method of appraisal would you use? Why?
2.
Do
you assess any training needs of employees? If yes, what inputs should be
embodied in the training programme?
CASE: IV A Case of Misunderstood Message
Indane Biscuits is located in an industrial
area. The biscuit factory employs labour on a daily basis. The management does
not follow statutory regulations, and are able to get away with violations by
keeping the concerned inspectors in good books.
The factory has a designated room
to which employees are periodically called either to hire or to fire.
On the National Safety Day, the
Industries Association, of which Indane Biscuits is a member, decided to celebrate
collectively at a central place. Each of the member was given a specific task.
The Personnel Manager, Indane Biscuits, desired to consult his supervisors and
to inform everybody through them about the safety day celebrations. He sent a
memo requesting them to be present in the room meant for hiring and firing. As
soon as the supervisors read the memo, they all got panicky thinking that now
it was their turn to get fired. They started having ‘hush-hush’ consultations.
The workers also learnt about it, and since they had a lot of scores to settle
with the management they extended their sympathy and support to the
supervisors. As a consequence, everybody struck work and the factory came to a
grinding halt.
In the meantime, the personnel
manager was unaware of the developments and when he came to know of it he went
immediately and tried to convince the supervisors about the purpose of inviting
them and the reason why that particular room was chosen. To be fair to the
Personnel Manager, he selected the room because no other room was available.
But the supervisors and the workers were in no mood to listen.
The Managing Director, who rushed
to the factory on hearing about the strike, also couldn’t convince the workers.
The matter was referred to the
labour department. The enquiry that followed resulted in all irregularities of
the factory getting exposed and imposition of heavy penalties. The Personnel
Manager was sacked. The factory opened
after prolonged negotiations and settlements.
Question:
1.
In
the case of the Indane Biscuits, bring out the importance of ‘context’ and
‘credibility’ in communication.
2.
List
the direct and indirect causes for the escalation of tension at Indane
Biscuits.
3.
If
you were the Personnel Manager what would you do?
CASE: V Rise and Fall
Jagannath (Jaggu to his friends) is an over
ambitious young man. For him ends justify means.
With a diploma in engineering.
Jaggu joined, in 1977, a Bangalore-based company as a Technical Assistant. He
got himself enrolled as a student in a evening college and obtained his degree
in engineering in 1982. Recognising his improved qualification, Jaggu was
promoted as Engineer-Sales in 1984.
Jaggu excelled himself in the new
role and became the blue-eyed boy of the management. Promotions came to him in
quick succession. He was made Manager-Sales in 1986 and Senior
Manager-Marketing in 1988.
Jaggu did not forget his academic
pursuits. After being promoted as Engineer-Sales, he joined an MBA (part-time)
programme. After completing MBA, Jaggu became a Ph.D. scholar and obtained his
doctoral degree in 1989.
Functioning as Senior
Manager-Marketing, Jaggu eyed on things beyond his jurisdiction. He started
complaining Suresh—the Section Head and Phahalad the Unit Chief (both
production) with
Jaggu started spreading wings. He
prevailed upon
Things had to end at some point.
It happened in Jaggu’s life too. There were complaints against him. He had
inducted his brother-in-law, Ganesh, as an engineer. Ganesh was by nature
corrupt. He stole copper worth Rs.5 lakh and was suspended. Jaggu tried to
defend Ganesh but failed in his effort. Corruption charges were also leveled
against Jaggu who was reported to have made nearly Rs.20 lakh himself.
On the new-year day of 1993, Jaggu
was reverted to his old position—sales. Suresh was promoted and was asked to
head production. Roles got reversed. Suresh became the boss to Jaggu.
Unable to swallow the insult,
Jaggu put in his papers.
From 1977 to 1993, Jaggu’s career
graph has a steep rise and sudden fall. Whether there would be another hump in
the curve is a big question.
Question:
1.
Bring
out the principles of promotion that were employed in promoting Jaggu.
2.
What
would you do if you were (i) Suresh, (ii) Prahalad or (iii)
3.
Bring
out the ethical issues involved in Jaggu’s behaviour.
CASE: VI Chairman and CEO Seeking a Solution and
Finding It
Sitting on 50-plus year old ION Tyres, the
Kolkata-based tyres and tubes manufacturing company with a turnover of more
than Rs.1,000 crore, both A.K. Mathur, and Raman Kumar, the CEO are searching
for solutions to problems which their company started unfolding.
Financial performance of ION
Tyres, is poor as reflected in its falling PBT. Performance gap between the top
performer in tyres and tubes and ION Tyres ranges from 4 per cent to 5 per
cent. The company has aging managerial people and equally old plant and
equipment. High cost of production keeps the company in a disadvantaged
position. “Boss is always right” culture has permeated everywhere. Common
thread binding all the departments is missing. Each department is a stand alone
entity.
There are positives nevertheless.
ION Tyres and tubes are famous world-wide for durability, and superior quality.
The company offers a wide range of bias tyres and tubes catering to all users
segments like heavy and light commercial vehicles, motorbikes, scooters, and
autos. The firm has state-of-the-art radial plant. The client list of ION
comprises several big guns in Indian corporate sector. Tata Motors, Hero Honda,
TVS Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra, L&T, Eicher, Swaraj Mazda, Maruti Udyog
and Bajaj are the regularly buying ION’s tyres and tubes.
ION seems to have everything going
in its favour. It is the market leader in the Indian market enjoying 19 per
cent of the market share; manufactures 5.6 m tyres per year, has a network of
50 regional offices with over 4,000 dealers and 180 C&F agents.
Suddenly both Chairman and CEO
have realised that there are too many road blocks ahead of them and the journey
to be rough and bumpy.
Realisation dawned on Mathur and
Raman Kumar way back in 2001 when they both attended a two-day seminar on
“Enhancing Organisational Capability through Balanced Scorecard” organised by
CII at Kolkotta. The duo had personal talk with Sanjeev Kumar, the then
Chairman of CII. They are now convinced that Balanced Score card is ideal
performance assessment tool that could be used in ION with greater benefits.
Mathur and Raman Kumar acted fast.
They soon organised a workshop on “Balanced Score” to educate in-house managers
about the concept and the procedural aspects of its implementation. There was
initial resistance to accept the scorecard as the managers felt that they were
already burdened since they were busy implementing other quality improvement
initiatives. Deliberations in the workshop changed them. They are now convinced
and enthusiastic about the positives of the scorecard. They are ready to
implement the system.
A two member task force was
constituted comprising Director—HRD and G.M.—Strategy and Planning. The task
force travelled to all three factories as well as zonal headquarters to unfold
the implementation of scorecard. The scorecard principles were implemented
successfully from November 2002 and completed by March 2003. Figures 1 to 4
show the scorecards adopted by ION Tyres.
|
Financial |
||||
|
“To succeed financially how should we
appear to our shareholder |
Objectives |
Measure |
Target |
Initiatives |
|
To achieve turnover of Rs.1850 crs by FY05 |
· Sales turnover · PBIDT |
· To achieve turnover of Rs.1850
crs by FY05 · PBIDT of Rs.150 crs (FY05) · Decrease in conversion cost from
Rs.25 to Rs.21/kg in |
· Develop acceptable 1000-20 lug
tyres · Increasing number of sales
offices from 180 to 220 · 7 day work week to be introduced
at · Improve fuel wastage and ensure
lower power · VP Technology and MD to initiate
technology tie-ups |
|
Fig. 1
|
Customer |
||||
|
“To achieve our vision, how should we
appear to out customers” |
Objectives |
Measure |
Target |
Initiatives |
|
Improvement in customer satisfaction |
· Customer satisfaction survey (by
external agency) |
· To improve from 65% to 70% · Customer engagement at 30% |
· Claim settlement to be reduced
from 8 to 2 days · Improvement of casing value of
used tyres, atleast by 15% · Cost per Kilometer of tyre
comparable to competitors |
|
Fig. 2
Outcomes of scorecard implementation have
been very encouraging. PBT improved and the gap between ION Tyres and the
toppers in the industry reduced by 50 per cent. A transparent and objective
performance assessment system came to be kept in place. With inertia and the
ennui being broken, both Mathur and Kumar felt galvanized and realised that the
road ahead of them was no more bumpy and rough. Thus, solutions to the problems
were found.
|
Learning and
Growth |
||||
|
“To achieve our vision, how will we sustain
our ability to change an improve” |
Objectives |
Measure |
Target |
Initiatives |
|
Identification of “high-fliers”; Talents to
be identified through development workshops |
· Job enrichment, job
enlargement, job rotation · Competency Assessment · Potential Appraisals |
· Career planning for the
High-Fliers (expected to be around 30 managers) · Successions planning for all key
positions · 5 manday’s training/manager/year |
· Move people within same
functions, in the first two years and at the year two move them to another
function · Variable pay component in the
ration 1:4 for the “high-fliers” · Non-financial rewards · Felicitation by company chairman
in presence of family members for recognizing extraordinary contributions |
|
Fig. 3
|
Internal Business
Processes |
||||
|
“To satisfy our shareholders and customers,
what business processes must we excel at” |
Objectives |
Measure |
Target |
Initiatives |
|
Introduction of new products in the
commercial tyre segment Reduction of development time Quarterly reconciliation of accounts
receivables from dealers Annual increases on-time to employees |
· Introduction of 3-4 new products
per year in commercial tyre segment · Reduction of development time from
18 months to 6 months · Achieve 100% reconciliation · Annual increases by on time by
1st July |
· Introduction of 3-4 new products
per year in commercial tyre segment · Reduction of development time
from 18 months to 6 months · Achieve 100% reconciliation · Annual increases by on time by
1st July |
· Regular quarterly review of
performance · KRA targets to be ready by 1st
April · European certification for tyres
|
|
Fig.4
Question:
1.
Do
you agree with the conclusion drawn at the end of the case that scorecard
system has galvanised ION Tyres? In other words, does scorecard system deserve
all the credit?
2.
Will
quality improvement initiatives clash with scorecard implementation? If yes,
how to avoid the clashes?
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