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CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

CASE I

Sunder Singh

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

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

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.

Case IV

Mouse-Rid

1.          Has Shobha identified the best target market for Mouse-Rid? Why or why not?

2.          Does Shobha have enough needed data on consumer behaviour? What type of consumer research should Shobha conduct?

3.          What type of advertising can influence consumers for this type of product?

Case V

Golden Glow Soap

QUESTIONS

1.      Discuss the nature of problem(s) in this case?

2.      Suggest the kind of consumer research needed?

3.      How should Golden Glow be positioned/ repositioned to bring about the desired change among consumers? Give your reasons.

CASE VI

Impact of Retail Promotions on Consumers

1.            Why would some consumers have high-involvement levels in learning about this sales promotion?

2        Is a level of 75 per cent comprehension realistic among those who become aware of an ad?  Why or why not?

3.       Do you think such promotions are likely to influence the quality image of the retail store? Explain.

CORPORATE LAW

1.       How is the price fixed in a contract of sale? If price is not determined by the parties, what price, if any, is the buyer liable to pay?

2.       On what principles and to what extent can a wife pledge her husband’s credit (i) while she lives with him and (ii) while she lives apart from him.

3.       When a pledger fails to redeem his pledge, what rights does the pledgee have in the pledge?

4.       When the cheque shall be considered as dishonoured and what are the consequences of the dishonour of the cheques?

5.       “Every shareholder of a company is also known as a member; while every member may not be known as a shareholder.” Comment.

6.       Discuss briefly the provisions of the Companies Act in regard to the appointment of and removal directors.

7.       “A contract caused by mistake is void.” Discuss fully the statement.

8.       Discuss the legal aspects of ‘liability of an agent for acts of sub-agent.’

9.       What companies may dispense with the use of the word ‘Limited’ as part of their name, even though they are limited companies?

10.   “A company cannot be party to a contract before it has come into existence.” – Discuss.

11.   Who is eligible to become a member of a society? How is membership acquired?

12.   Under what circumstances can the order of attachment of property be passed by the Co-operative Court? What are the powers of sale where an attachment of property has been ordered?

13.   Can a minor be admitted to partnership? If so, what will be the rights and liabilities during his minority and after he has attained majority?

GENERAL MGMT

PANDIT TO AFAUZI

1.               What was the cause of fear in RBM?

2.               What were the symptoms of fear displayed by RBM?

3.               How did the RMO come to know of the war phobia of RBM?

4.               What actions should be taken to avoid building up of fear among the troops? Which of these steps were taken by the officer?

Case II

HE WHO RIDES A TIGER

1.              Discuss merits/demerits of the role of strike, agitation and legal approach in union­management relations.

2.              What role does mutual trust play in building union-management relations?

CASE III

COMPETITION AHEAD: VSNL AT CROSS ROADS

1. What were the strengths and weaknesses of VSNL?
2. Do you think that VSNL should have changed its thrust from basic telephony to cellular services?
3. If you were the Deputy General Manager, what strategies would you have undertaken to deal with the competition?

Case IV

DISNEY’S DESIGN

1.       What environmental factors influenced management style at Disney?

2.       What kind(s) of organizational structure seem to be consistent   with “Dream as a Team” ?

3.       How and where might the informal organization be a real asset at Disney ?

Case V

 “THAT’S NOT MY JOB” – LEARNING DELEGATION AT CIN-MADE

Questions:

1.       How were principles of delegation and decentralization incorporated into Cine – Made operations?

2.       What are the sources and uses of power at Cin – Made?

3.       What were some of the barriers to delegation and empowerment at Cin –Made?

4.       What lessons about management in a rapidly changing marketplace can be learned from the experience of Cin – Made? 

Case VI

HIGH-TECH ANSWERS TO DISTRIBUTION PROBLEMS AT ROLLERBLADE

Questions:

1.       With retailers as their primary customers, what customer competitive imperatives could be affected by Rollerblade’s inventory problems?

2.       How appropriate might a just – in – time inventory system be for a product such as roller skates?”

3.       What opportunities are therefore Rollerblade managers to see FOR themselves as selling services, instead of simply roller skates?

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

CASE I

A GLOBAL PLAYER?

1.            What routes of globalization has the Mayor group chosen to go global? What other routes could it have taken?

2.            What impediments are coming in the Mayor group’s way becoming a major and active player in international business?

3.            Why is ‘Made in India’ not liked in foreign markets? What can be done to erase the perception?

CASE II

ARROW AND THE APPAREL INDUSTRY

1.            Why did Arvind Mills choose globalization as major route to achieve growth when domestic market was huge?

2.            Hoe does lifting of Country-wise quota regime’ help Arvind Mills?

3.            What lessons can other Indain business learn from the experience of Arvind Mills?

CASE III

AT THE RECEIVING END ! 

1.       What lessons can other MNCs learn from the experience of McDonald’s?

2.       Aware of the food habits of Indians, why did McDonald’s err in mixing beef extract in the oil used for fries?

3.       How far has McDonald’s succeeded in strategizing and meeting local cultures and needs?

CASE IV

BPO-BANE OR BOON ?

1.       Which of the theories of International trade can help Indian services providers gain competitive edge over their competitors?

2.       Pick up some Indian services providers. With the help of Michael Porter’s diamond, analyze their strengths and weaknesses as active players in BPO.

3.       Compare this case with the case given at the beginning of this chapter. What similarities and dissimilarities do you notice? Your analysis should be based on the theories explained in this chapter.

CASE V

THE SAGA CONTINUES

1.        Having a strong presence in India, what drives L&T to think of emerging a strong MNC ?

2.        What challenges lies ahead of L&T ? How does it prepare to cope with them ?

3.        Will the L&T Saga continue ?

CASE VI

THE ABB PBS JOINT VENTURE IN OPERATION

1.        Where does the joint venture meet the needs of both the partners? Where does it fall short?

2.        Why had ABB-PBS failed to realized its technology leadership?

3.        What lessons one can draw from this incident for better management of technology transfers?

ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR

CASE I

A DIAMOND PERSONALITY

1. What factors do you think attributed to Suraj bhai’s success? Was he merely ``in the right place at the right time’’, or are there characteristics about him that contribute to his success?

2. How do you believe Suraj bhai would score on the Big Five dimensions of personality (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness to experience)? Which ones would he score high on? Which ones might he score low on?

3. Do you believe that Suraj bhai is high or low on core self-evaluations? On what information did you base your decision?

4. What information about Suraj bhai suggests that he has a proactive personality?

CASE II

BULLYING BOSSES

1)       Of the three types of organizational justice, which one does workplace bullying most closely resemble?

2)       What aspects of motivation might workplace bullying reduce? For example, are there likely to be effects on an employee’s self-efficacy? If so, what might those effects be?

3)       If you were a victim of workplace bullying, what steps would you take to try to reduce its occurrence? What strategies would be most effective? What strategies might be ineffective? What would you do if one of your colleagues was a victim of an abusive supervisor?

4)       What factors do you believe contribute to workplace bullying? Are bullies a product of the situation, or are they flawed personalities? What situations and what personality factors might contribute to the presence of bullies?

CASE III

THANKS FOR NOTHING

1)       If praising employees for doing a good job seems to be a fairly easy and obvious motivational tools, why do you think companies and managers don’t often do it?

2)       As a manager, what steps would you take to motivate your employees after observing them perform well?

3)       Are there any downsides to giving employees too much verbal praise? What might these downsides be and how could you alleviate them as a manager?

4)       As a manager, how would you ensure that recognition given to employees is distributed fairly and justly?

CASE IV

WILL GEORGE W. BUSH BE A GREAT PRESIDENT?

1.       How would you rate President George W. Bush on the four characteristics outlined at the beginning of the case? How would you contrast his reaction to Hurricane Katrina with his reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? What do you think his handling of these two events says about his leadership?

2.       Do you think leaders in other contexts (business’, sports, religious) exhibit the same qualities of great or near-great U.S. presidents?

3.       Do you think being in the right place at the right time could influence presidential greatness?

Case V

A UNIQUE TRAINING PROGRAM AT UPS

1.       Do you think individuals can learn empathy from something like a 1-month CIP experience? Explain why or why not.

2.       How could UPS’s CIP help the organization better manage work-life conflicts?

3.       How could UPS’s CIP help the organization improve its response to diversity?

4.       What negatives, if any, can you envision resulting from CIP?

5.       UPS has 2,400 managers. CIP includes only 50 each year. How can the program make a difference if it includes only 2 percent of all managers? Does this suggest that the program is more public relations than management training?

6.       How can UPS justify the cost of a program like CIP if competitors like FedEx, DHL, and the U.S. Postal Service don’t offer such programs? Does the program increase costs or reduce UPS profits?

Principal & Practice of Management

CASE I

NAVEEN FISHERIES  LTD.

Case I Questions:

1.    What were the reasons for the sinking of the vessels?

2.    How could they reorganize the businesses?

CASE II

MNC CORPORATION

1.    Why did the communication problem arise?

2.    What do you suggest to prevent the communication problem?

CASE III

MEHTA BANK LTD

1.    How do you view the present fraud case: a human failure or a system failure?

2.    What are the main issues in the case, and how can our present system of control prevent such fraud?

3.    How would you manage the situation on detection?

CASE IV

SHAHID FABRICS

1.    What information should Mr. Lateef develop to evaluate foreign markets?

2.    Where should he look for this information?

3.    Develop a framework to help Mr. Lateef identify his best potential foreign markets.

CASE V

WESTWARD EXPORTS LTD.

1.    What alternatives are available to Mr Abdul?

2.    Other than purchasing higher technology machinery, in what ways might Mr Abdul increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the dyeing and stitching operations?

CASE VI

BABA BEARINGS COMPANY

Case VI Questions:

1.    What are the measures to be taken to avoid direct effect of heat?

2.    Design a quality improvement process for the bearings company.

CASE VII

PERU

1.            What are some current issues facing Peru? What is the climate for doing business in Peru today?

2.           What type of political risks does this fishing company need to evaluate? Identify and describe them.

3.             What types of integrative and protective and defensive techniques can the bank use?

4.             Would the bank be better off negotiating the loan in New York or in Lima? Why?

Project Management

Q 1 ) Read the case below and answer the question (s) given at the end.

Electran Manufacturing Ltd, is a diversified manufacturer in two primary fields: electronic applications and transportation equipment. In the transportation equipment field. Electran products are in the forefront of technological applications, especially in terms of electrical circuitry and component packages. Electran management takes great pride in its technological leadership and has decided to support a substantial research and development (R&D) effort. Currently 74 persons are employed full-time in the R&D division, and at any one time at least twice that many more are involved to some degree in R&D projects. These employees are assigned primarily to engineering, finance marketing and production.

Electran organizes its R&D effort by functional area within the division. Engineers, scientists, and technical and grouped separately. Additionally, within each of these technical specialties, employees are grouped and housed together. Electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, and merallurgical engineers, for example, are each grouped and located together. Projects rotate from group to group depending upon what work needs to be accomplished. There is a department head of the engineering, science and technical support areas and three additional project managers have individual project responsibility. There is considerable pressure on project managers, but they have limited control over staff within the R&D division and even less control over the approximately 150 employees who assist the R&D division on an occasional basis. The R&D division manager has recently read a brief article about matrix organization. He wonders if matrix organization might be helpful in relieving some of the burden from his project managers and in increasing division productivity.

One of the three project managers is trying to grasp the basis of PERT. He has assembled the following data for a project soon to be started. He wants to establish a PERT, diagram for the project, and determine the earliest completion data from project start using expected times, and find the minimum cost plan. This project manager does not know whether he has enough data to proceed; even if he does have enough data, he does not know how to analysis them and apply the results.

Activity	Required Processors	Expected Time (in days)	Cost of Expedite (in $ day)
A–B	––	2	100
A–C	––	4	80
A–D	––	5	70
B–E	A–B,A–C	3	100
E–F	B–E	6	150
F–H	E–F	2	50
D–H	A–D	11	100
H–I	F–H,D–H	1	100

Case questions: (Assume date, if not available, with appropriate reasons)

1. Establish a PERT diagram and determine the earliest completion time.

2. The project manager has budget $200 for expending should he want to use it.

Q 2  ) A small project is having seven activities (A to G). The relevant data about these activities is given below:

Activity	Dependence	Normal Duration (Days)	Crash Duration (Days)	Normal Cost (Rs.)	Crash Cost (Rs.)
A	–––	7	5	500	900
B	A	4	2	400	600
C	A	5	5	500	500
D	A	6	4	800	1000
E	B,C	7	4	700	1000
F	C,D	5	2	800	1400
G	E,F	6	4	800	1600

(I) Draw the project network. Find out the duration of each path in the network.

(II) Mark the critical path in the network and find out its length.

(III) What is the percentage increase in cost to complete the project in 21 days.

Q 3 ) In a transmission line project, the normal estimate and the 'crash' estimate are as given below:

Activity	Normal Estimate			‘Crash’ Estimate
	Time (Weeks)	Direct cost for the activity (Rs. lakhs)	Time (weeks)		Direct cost for the activity (Rs. lakhs)
(1,2)	12	1	9		2.5
(2,3)	4	––-	3		0.4
(2,4)	20	–––	20		–––
(3,5)	20	5	14		6.5
(3,6)	8	–––	4		0.2
(3,7)	8	–––	4		0.2
(4,7)	8	0.5	4		1.0
(6,7)	8	0.4	5		1.0
(7,8)	12	3	9		4.0
(8,9)	4	0.1	1		0.5

Indirect costs: Rs. 35,000 per week

(i) Draw the project network. Find out the critical path and its duration.

(ii) Calculate the cost slope of various activities.

(iii) Crash the project to 43 weeks and calculate the total cost.

Q 4 ) What are the objectives of project management information system? (b) The time and cost estimates of different activities of a project and their precedence relationship are ' given below:

Activity	Preceding activity	Time (weeks)		Cost (Rs.)
		Normal	Crash	Normal	Crash
A	––	6	4	10,000	14,000
B	––	4	3	5,000	8,000
C	A	3	2	4,000	5,000
D	B	8	3	1,000	6,000
E	B	14	6	9,000	13,000
F	C,D	8	4	7,000	8,000

Overhead costs amount to Rs. 1,000 per week. It is stipulated that the contractor will have to pay a penalty of Rs. 2,000 per week for completing the project beyond 16 weeks

(i) Show the critical path in the network Diagram.

(ii) Find out the cost slope for every activity using normal and crash date for time and cost.

(iii) Crash the project to 16 weeks, Estimate the total cost of crashing.

Q 5 ) A project comprising of eight tasks (A to H) has the following characteristics:

Tasks	Predecessor	Time duration (weeks)
		Optimistic	Most Likely	Pessimistic
A	None	2	4	12
B	None	10	12	26
C	A	8	9	10
D	A	10	15	20
E	A	7	7.5	11
F	B,C	9	9	9
G	D	3	3.5	7
H	E,F,G	5	5	5

(a) Calculate the time duration of each activity and the variance.

(b) Draw the network diagram, determine the critical path and mark in the network. What is the total project duration?

(c) What is the probability of achieving the project within the deadline of 30 weeks?

Q 6 ) If a project requires the expenditure of Rs.1,00,000 new and will yield RS.2,00,000 in six years, how will the manager evaluate whether or not this is viable? (Assume 10% discount rate) Discuss.

Q 7 ) The U.K National Lottery was set up with the intention of providing a fund raising tool for culture and arts. The government put out an open innitation to tender for the contract to run the £5 billion - a - year business. With costs allowed, it would be worth in the region of £ 700 million in profit per annum to the winning bidder. The bidders were a consortia of companies. The project was too big and required a wide range of skills for one company. The idea was for people to be able to select their own lottery numbers, enter them at £1 a time in a range of retail stores, and for the winning number to be drawn on prime time TV once a week. The winner could receive between £1 and £10 million. The bids were submitted in February and on Wednesday 25th May 1994, the contestants were informed of the outcome. The came out consortium would be awarded the contract. The main players in the consortium were:



How could expenditure on such a project be justified?

Q 8 ) Why is a Project Management Information System of immense importance in a project ? Discuss the objectives of Project Management Information System. In designing a Project Management Information System what parameters are to be spelt out clearly ?

Q 9 ) What are the important phases of a project life cycle? Discuss each phase briefly with key issues involved in it.

Q 10 ) (a) What do you mean by Technical Analysis?
(b) Explain briefly Project Management Information System.
(c) What do you mean by Network analysis?
(d) What is Project Evaluation?
(e) What is a Project Report?
(f) What is computerisation?

Q 11 ) . If a project requires the expenditure of Rs.1,00,000 new and will yield RS.2,00,000 in six years, how will the manager evaluate whether or not this is viable? (Assume 10% discount rate) Discuss.