Case let 1

Mr. and Mrs. Sharma went to Woodlands Apparel to buy a shirt. Mr. Sharma did not read the price tag on

the piece selected by him. At the counter, while making the payment he asked for the price. Rs. 950 was

the answer.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Sharma, who was still shopping came back and joined her husband. She was glad that

he had selected a nice black shirt for himself. She pointed out that there was a 25% discount on that item.

The counter person nodded in agreement.

Mr. Sharma was thrilled to hear that “It means the price of this shirt is just Rs. 712. That’s fantastic”, said

Mr. Sharma.

He decided to buy one more shirt in blue color.

In no time, he returned with the second shirt and asked them to be packed. When he received the cash

memo for payment, he was astonished to find that he had to pay Rs. 1,900 and Rs. 1,424.

Mr. Sharma could hardly reconcile himself to the fact that the counter person had quoted the discounted

price which was Rs. 950. The original price printed on the price tag was Rs. 1,266.

Questions

1. What should Mr. Sharma have done to avoid the misunderstanding?

2. Discuss the main features involved in this case.

Case let 2

I don’t want to speak to you. Connect me to your boss in the US,” hissed the American on the phone. The

young girl at a Bangalore call centre tried to be as polite as she could. At another call centre, another day,

another young girl had a Londoner unleashing himself on her, “Young lady, do you know that because of

you Indians we are losing jobs?”

The outsourcing backlash is getting ugly. Handling irate callers is the new brief for the young men and

women taking calls at these outsourced job centers. Supervisors tell them to be ‘cool’. Avinash Vashistha,

managing partner of NEOIT, a leading US-based consultancy firm says, “Companies involved in

outsourcing both in the US and India are already getting a lot of hate mail against outsourcing and it is

hardly surprising that some people should behave like this on the telephone.” Vashistha says Indian call

centres should train their operators how to handle such calls. Indeed, the furor raised by the Western media over job losses because of outsourcing has made ordinary

citizens there sensitive to the fact that their calls are being taken not from their midst, but in countries

such as India and the Philippines.

The angry outbursts the operators face border on the racist and sexist, says the manager of a call centre in

Hyderabad. But operators and senior executives of call centres refuse to go on record for fear of kicking

up a controversy that might result in their companies’ losing clients overseas.

“It’s happening often enough and so let’s face it,” says a senior executive of a Gurgaon call centre,

adding, “This doesn’t have any impact on business.”

Questions

1. Suppose you are working as an operator in a call centre in India and receiving calls from

Americans and Londoners. How would you handle such calls?

2. Do you agree with the view such abusive happenings on the telephone do not have any impact

on business?

Case let 3

COMPANY BACKGROUND

The Bronson Insurance Group was originally founded in 1900 in Auxvasse, Missouri, by James Bronson.

The Bronson Group owns a variety of companies that underwrite personal and commercial insurance

Policies. Annual sales of the Bronson Group are $100 million. In recent years, the company has suffered

operating losses. In 1990, the company was heavily invested in computer hardware and software. One of

the problems the Bronson Group faced (as well as many insurance companies) was a conflict between

established manual procedures and the relatively recent (within the past 20 years) introduction of

computer equipment. This conflict was illustrated by the fact that much information was captured on

computer but paper files were still kept for practical and legal reasons.

FILE CLERKS

The file department employed 20 file clerks who pulled files from stacks, refilled used files, and delivered

files to various departments including commercial lines, personal lines, and claims. Once a file clerk

received the file. Clerks delivered files to underwriters on an hourly basis throughout the day. The

average file clerk was paid $8,300 per year. One special file clerk was used full time to search for

requested files that another file clerk had not been able to find in the expected place. It was estimated that

40 percent of the requested files were these “no hit” files requiring a search. Often these “no hit” files

were eventually found stacked in the requester’s office. The primary “customers” of the file clerks were

underwriters and claims attorneys.

UNDERWRITING

Company management and operations analysts were consistently told that the greatest problem in the

company was the inability of file clerks to supply files in a speedy fashion. The entire company from top

to bottom viewed the productivity and effectiveness of the department as unacceptable. An underwriter

used 20-50 files per day. Because of their distrust of the files department, underwriters tended to hoard

often used files. A count by operations analysts found that each underwriter kept from 100-200 files in his

or her office at any one time. An underwriter would request a file by computer and work on other

business until the file was received. Benson employed 25 underwriters.

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

Upper management was deeply concerned about this problem. The MIS department had suggested using

video disks as a possible solution. A video disk system was found that would be sufficient for the

companies needs at a cost of about $12 million. It was estimated that the system would take two years to

install and make compatible with existing information systems. Another, less attractive was using

microfilm. A microfilm system would require underwriters to go to a single keyboard to request paper

copies of files. The cost of a microfilm system was $5 million.

Questions:

1. What do you recommend? Should the company implement one of the new technologies? Why or

why not?

2. An operations analyst suggested that company employees shared a “dump on the clerks”

mentality. Explain.

Case let 4

Harrison T. Wenk III is 43, married, and has two children, ages 10 and 14. He has a master’s degree

in education and teachers junior high school music in a small town in Ohio. Harrison’s father passed

away two months ago, leaving his only child an unusual business opportunity. According to his

father’s will, Harrison has 12 months to become active in the family food-catering business, Kare-

Full Katering, Inc., or it will be sold to two key employees for a reasonable and fair price. If

Harrison becomes involved, the two employees have the option to purchase a significant, but less

than majority, interest in the firm. Harrison’s only involvement with this business, which his

grandfather established, was as an hourly employee during high school and college summers. He is

confident that he could learn and perhaps enjoy the marketing side of the business, and that he could

retain the long-time head of accounting/finance. But he would never really enjoy day-to-day

operations. In fact, he doesn’t understand what operations management really involves. In 1991

Kare-Full Katering, Inc. had $3.75 million in sales in central Ohio. Net profit after taxes was $

105,000, the eleventh consecutive year of profitable operations and the seventeenth in the last 20

years. There are 210 employees in this labor-intense business. Institutional contracts account for

over 70 percent of sales and include partial food services for three colleges, six commercial

establishments) primarily manufacturing plants and banks), two long -term care facilities, and five

grade schools. Some customer location employs a permanent operations manager; others are served

from the main kitchens of Kare-Full Katering. Harrison believes that if he becomes active in the

business, one of the two key employees, the vice president of operations, will leave the firm.

Harrison has decided to complete the final two months of this school year and then spend the

summer around Kare-Full Katering – as well as institutions with their own food services – to assess

whether he wants to become involved in the business. He is particularly interested in finding out as

much as possible about operations. Harrison believes he owes it to his wife and children to fairly

evaluate this opportunity.

Questions:

1. Prepare a worksheet of operations activities that Harrison should inquire about this summer.

2. If you were Harrison, what would you do? Why?

Case let 5

National Competitive Advantage of IKEA Group, a Swedish company founded in 1943 with its

headquarters in Denmark, is a multinational operator of a chain of stores for home furnishing and

furniture. It is the world’s largest retailer, which specializes, in stylish but inexpensive Scandinavian

designed furniture. At the end of 2005 the IKEA Group of Companies had a total of 175 stores in 31

countries. In addition there are 19 IKEA stores owned and run by franchisees, outside the IKEA store

around the world.

In Sweden, nature and a home both play a big part in people’s life. In fact one of the best ways to describe

the Swedish home furnishing style is to describe nature-full of light and fresh air, yet restrained and

unpretentious.

To match up the artist Carl and Karin Larsson combined classical influences with warmer Swedish folk

styles .They created a model of Swedish home furnishing design that today enjoys world-wide renown. In

the 1950s the styles of modernism and functionalism developed at the same time as Sweden established a

society founded on social equality .The IKEA product range –The IKEA product range- modern but not

trendy, functional yet attractive, human-centered and child friendly – carries on these various Swedish

home furnishing traditions.

The IKEA Concept, like lots founder, was born in Samaland. This is a part of Southern Sweden where the

soil is thin and poor. The people are famous for working hard, living on small means and using their

heads to make the best possible use of the limited resources they have. This way of doing things is at the

heart of the IKEA approach to keeping prices low.

IKEA was founded when Sweden was fast becoming an example of the caring society, where rich and

poor alike were well looked after. This is also a theme that fits well with the IKEA vision. In order to give

the many people a better everyday life, IKEA asks the customer to work as a partner. The product range is

child-friendly and covers the need of the whole family, young and old. So together we can a better

everyday life for everyone.

In addition to working about around 1,800 different suppliers across the world, IKEA produces many of

its own products through sawmills and factories in the IKEA industrial group, Swedwood.

Swedwood also has a duty to transfer knowledge to other suppliers, for example by educating them in

issues such as efficiency, quality and environmental work.

Swedwood has 35 industrial units in 11 countries. Purchasing: IKEA has 42 Trading Service Offices (TSO’s) in 33 countries. Proximity to their suppliers

is the key to rational, long term cooperation. That’s why TSO co-workers visit suppliers regularly to

monitor production, test new ideas, negotiate prices and carry out quality audits and inspection.

Distribution: The route from supplier to customer must be as direct, cost- effective and environmentally

friendly as possible. Flat packs are important aspects of this work: eliminating wasted space means we

can transport and store goods more efficiently. Since efficient distribution plays a key role in the work of

creating the low price, goods routing and logistics are a focus for constant development.

The business Idea: The IKEA business idea is to offer a wide range of home furnishings with good design

and function at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them. And still have

many left! The company targets the customer who is looking for value and is willing to do a little bit of

work serving themselves, transporting the items home and assembling the furniture for a better price. The

typical IKEA customer is young low to middle income family.

The Competition Advantage: The competition advantage strategy of IKEA’s product is reflected through

IKEA’s success in the real industry. It can be attributed to its vast experience in the retail market, product

differentiation, and cost leadership.

IKEA Product Differentiation: A wide product range The IKEA product range is wide and versatile in

several ways. First, it’s versatile in function. Because IKEA think customer, shouldn’t have to run from

one small specialty shop to another to furnish their home, IKEA gather plants, living room furnishings,

toys , frying pans, whole kitchens i.e.; everything which in a functional way helps to build a home – in

one place , at IKEA stores.

Second, it’s wide in style. The romantic at heart will find choices just as many as the minimalist at IKEA.

But There is only one thing IKEA don’t have, and that is, the far- out or the over-decorated. They only

have what helps build a home that has room for good living.

Third, by being coordinated, the range is wide in function and style at the same time. No matter which

style you prefer, there’s an armchair that goes with the bookcase that goes with the new extending table

that goes with the armchair. So their range is wide in a variety of ways.

Cost Leadership: A wide range with good form and function is only half the story. Affordability has a part

to play – the largest part. A wide range with good form and function is only half the story. Affordability

has a part to play- the largest part. And the joy of being able to own it without having to forsake

everything else. And the customers help, too, by choosing the furniture, getting it at the warehouse,

transporting it home and assembling it themselves , to keep the price low.

Questions

1. Do you think that IKEA has been successful to utilize Porter’s Five force analysis?

Give reasons.

2. Where do you think can IKEA improve?

Case let 6

For ITC Ltd., 2007-2008 continued to be year of quiet growth. Just more launches in its relatively new

segment of non-cigarettes fast moving consumer goods, and solid growth. As in the past few years, ITC’s

non-cigarettes businesses continued to grow at a scorching pace, accounting for a bigger share of overall

revenues. “The non-cigarette portfolio grew by 37.6% during 2006-2007 and accounted during that year

for 52.3% of the company’s net turnover.” An ITC spokesman said. In fact, over the first three quarters of

2007-08, ITC’s non-cigarette FMCG businesses have grown by 48% on the same period last year,

“Indicating that its plans for increasing market share and standing are succeeding.”

The branded packaged foods business continued to expand rapidly, with the focus on snacks range Bingo.

The biscuit category continued its growth momentum with the ‘Sun feast’ range of biscuits launching

‘Coconut’ and ‘Nice’ variants and the addition of ‘ Sunfeast BenneVita Flaxseed’ biscuits. Aashirwad atta

and kitchen ingredients retained their top slots at the national level, with the spices category adding an

organic range. In the confectionery category which grew by 38% in the third quarter, ITC cited AC

Nielsen data it claims market leader status in throat lozenges. Instant mixes and pasta powdered the sales

of its ready to eat foods under the kitchens of India and Aashirwad brands.

In Lifestyle apparel, ITC launched Miss Players fashion wear for young women to compliment its range

for men.

Overall, the biscuit category grew by 58% during the last quarter, ready to eat foods under the kitchens of

India and Aashirwad brands by 63% and the lifestyle business by 26%.

For the Industry, the most significant initiative to watch the ITC foray into premium personal care

products with its Fiama Di Wills range of shampoos , conditioners, shower gels, and soaps. In the popular

segment, ITC has launched a range of soaps and shampoos under the brand name Superia.

Ravi Naware, Chief executive of ITC’s food business was quoted recently as saying that the business will

make a positive contribution to ITC’s bottom line in the next two to three years.

In hotels, ITC’s Fortune Park brand was making the news during the year, with a rapid rollout of first

class business hotels.

In the agri-business segment, the e-choupal network is trying out a pilot in retailing fresh fruits and

vegetables. The e-choupals have already specialized in feeding ITC high quality wheat and potato, among

other commodities grown by farmers with help from e-choupal.

Questions:

Q1. Do you think the progress of ITC Ltd. is realistic?

Q2. After analyzing the above case, do you think every company should aim at cost leadership with high

quality product?

Case let 7

Overview of our Client’s Strategy

Our client had an online store. They were spending $15,000 each month on pay per click

advertising. This resulted in about $225,000 per month in sales. They didn’t know which clicks

were leading to sales because they didn’t track the clicks. There rankings in the natural listings was

minimal because they hadn’t done keywords research on what visitors were using to try to find a

site like there’s. They weren’t able to quantity results because their we statistics program only

showed very general traffic information. They were also doing an irregular email newsletter even

though they had more than 32,000 e-mails in their database.

Analysis of the situation

In the natural listings we suspected they were being penalized by the search enines for duplicate

content. The search engines frown on this because they feel this is trying to fool them. Google will

often give a site like this something called “Supplement Results”, which means that the search

engines know the page exists but doesn’t have any content in their database. We also suspected

their email newsletter was being blocked by many spam blockers because the names of the products

they sold were often on used in spam e-mails.

Implementation of a Solution

For the pay per click advertising we started tracking the clicks down to the individual terms and the

actual results that came from them. We were able to delete terms that were not getting enough sales

and increase the bids on ones that brought sales. For the natural listings we did keywords research

and focused on the main keywords on the content for the home page and in the META tags. We

also found that visitors search on product names rather than manufactures, so in the title tag for the

page we switched and put the product name before the manufacturer. With the newsletter, we used

a good mix of graphics and content to appease the spam blockers, as well as put the product names

in graphics so they wouldn’t be blocked. In order to analyze of the site’s traffic, we implemented a

powerful web statistics program.

Results of our work

Through our tactics, our clients were able to move up to #4 on Google for their main search term,

which got a lot of traffic. With pay per click, they went from $.43. They decrease their budget to

$10,000 per month, yet were able to increase their traffic by 33 percent. Through our optimization

of their pay per click, their cost per conversion to sale decreased by at least 45 percent. The

deliverability of their newsletter increased as well. Within a year, their sales increased to over

$600,000 per month.

Questions:

1. Discuss the client strategy for the success of store.

2. Suppose if you are the client maker what would you suggest for the client.

Case let 8

Data Warehouse is a massive independent business database system that is populated with data that

has been extracted from a range of sources. The data is held separately from its origin and is used to

help to improve the decision-making process.

Many traditional Databases are involved in recording day to day operational activities of the

business, called Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), COMMONLY IMPLEMENTED IN

Airline Bookings and Banking Systems, for faster’s response and better control over data.

After establishment of OLTP Systems, reports and summaries can be drawn for giving inputs to

decision-making process and this process is called Online Analytical Processing (OLAP).

For better customer relationships management strategy, the call centre’s and data Warehouse works

as a strategic tool for decision-support which requires lot of time for establishment, and needs to be

updated with operational information on daily weekly or monthly basis.

Data Warehouse is used for proactive strategies formulation strategies formulation in critical and

complex situations. A number of CRM vendors are advocating for single integrated customer

database which includes call centre, web sites, branches and direct mail, but it lacks in analytical

functioning of data warehouse. This Database can’t be expanded also, and carry decision support

operations on call centre Database becomes slow & the query processing and inquiries andling

operations also become slow & inefficient for agents dealing with customers.

Data Warehouse is must for identifying most profitable & loyal customers and those customers can

be offered better customized services which increase the chances of additional profits.

Although call centre system & data warehouse are altogether different systems yet dependent on

each other to fully exploit their potential respectively.

Questions:

1. Explain the role of data warehousing in the functioning of a call centre.

2. How the response time in performing OLAP queries can be improved?