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Operations management.

This case can be used in a core course in production and operation management; process management and courses like design and planning of operations at the graduate level, preferably during or after the basic operations module of the course. The case focuses on the use of a process analysis that decomposes the problem into a number of easily solvable sub-problems, each of which could be distinctly analyzed and solved. The case can also be effectively utilized in elective courses on process reengineering, concurrent engineering/management, process management, capacity planning, etc. Ideally, this case can be discussed for 75 to 90 minutes.

The case describes the situation facing the operations supervisor, Sunil Mehta, of A-CAT Corp. in Vidarbha Region, Maharashtra, India. A-CAT Corp. was a mid-sized manufacturer and distributor of domestic electrical appliances, largely catering to the price-sensitive rural population. The firm operated two medium-sized facilities in one of the remote districts in Vidarbha, and these manufacturing units had been in operation since 1986. A-CAT manufactured a relatively wide range of electrical appliances for household use. Typical products from its stable included TV signal boosters, transformers, FM radio kits, electronic ballasts, battery chargers, voltage regulators, etc. The voltage regulators manufactured by A-CAT were used for many different purposes, although the focus was on its flagship product, VR500. The issue at hand for Sunil Mehta, operations supervisor at A-CAT, was to get data and act right; more often than not, this boiled down to critical information which everyone in the firm kept collecting but were too busy to use and utilize. The challenge was to select the right kind of data needed from the data-deluge that the company had in their databases. The eluding objective was to use it for the betterment of the firm. The challenge was to utilize the data that the workers and other operators kept logging in and, in the process of doing so, came up with some solutions to the problems faced on the operational front.

The case teaching and learning objectives are as following: to grasp the basics of process and process parameters; to understand the interrelationship between capacity, utilization, efficiency and productivity of a process; and to carry out process capacity analysis in assessing the performance of the firm on different metric drivers. The case also provides a very good foundation for understanding process parameters in a simple and lucid manner. To make right computations and not to use the terms and terminology in “cook book” or “strait jacketed” manner, students need to realize the parameters and their understanding changes from situation to situation.

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CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

This case attempts to study one of the key problems faced by a multinational organisation in the globalised environment that exists today: whether to outsource or insource. Outsourcing deals with getting into a contract with an outside vendor/supplier (local to the region in question) to deliver services to the parent company as per the agreed deliverables. On the other hand, insourcing deals with setting up operations in the destination country and hiring local staff on behalf of the company to do the same tasks.

Historically, outsourcing has been considered a better choice because of several benefits such as the ease of setting up operations, a predictable costing model and reduced capital investment. However, it comes with its own set of disadvantages as well, including a high attrition rate and a sub-standard level of quality in the deliverables. Apart from the quantifiable parameters, there are several qualitative parameters as well, which encompasses the employees' passion/commitment towards the company, sense of achievement and performance management process.

This case considers an existing situation in First Telecom (henceforth, referred as FT), where they have outsourced one part of their operations to multiple providers in India and are now facing huge issues with the quality of the deliverables; as a result, FT are now looking to explore if an insourced solution would be more cost-effective and productive. It evaluates the two models against various parameters and makes a recommendation on the preferred model.

This case can be used as a teaching tool in the following courses: MBA/postgraduate programme in strategic decision-making; MBA/postgraduate programme in management in management accounting and management control systems; and executive training programme for middle- and senior-level employees to look at the various factors involved (in addition to cost) that should be taken into account while comparing outsourcing versus insourcing.

FT is a communication service provider and has presence in more than 170 countries around the world. The company is considered among the top three telecom companies around the globe and offers solutions to multinational customers in the areas of networks, IP telephony, security services and other managed services.

The company has more than 100,000 employees around the globe. In addition to the regular (on rolls) employees, the company also outsources a lot of its operations in various countries to local service providers. The services that this company outsources include software/tools development, solution pricing and in-life service management. Historically, the company has believed that outsourcing is a better alternative because of the ease of setting up operations and lower cost.

However, because of the recent changes in the global market, there is a huge pressure within the company to reconsider all the functions and find ways to contain costs to help the company's bottom line.

There have been numerous complaints about the quality of output from one of the outsourced functions, namely, the “Pricing Team”, which is being presently outsourced to two service providers in India. The lack of accuracy has cost the company a key opportunity valued at more than USD5 million and the COO is furious at this loss. He has tasked the head of business improvement to do a full review of the function and look at the possible alternatives the company can explore to avoid these issues in future.

FT now wants to do a cost-comparison analysis of the existing set-up with a new insourced set-up considering all costs that would come into play. This would help FT to decide the future course of action to ensure reduced costs and enhanced operational efficiency from the process.

Understanding of cost-comparison parameters involved as an effective tool for strategy development and achieving organisational objectives; understanding of SWOT analysis (organisation level and decision level) and its applicability in the organisation context; understanding the Porter's five competitive forces model to illustrate the effect of environment on an organisation; and understanding of outsourcing and insourcing models and the pros and cons of each model, which is a key management decision in most multinational organisations.

Historical reports of the concerned unit in terms of the costs incurred, rate of attrition and operational efficiency achieved. Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, 14th ed., Charles T. Horngren, Srikant M. Datar and Madhav Rajan, Publisher: Prentice-Hall, 2012.Practical implications Based on the option (outsourcing versus insourcing) found to be better, appropriate actions would need to be taken in terms of either renewing the contracts with the outsourcing partners or preparing to terminate the existing contracts and hiring of talent from the market to replace the outsourced staff.

For nearly two decades, India as a country has grown considerably and one of the key contributors in that growth has been “Business Process Outsourcing” from all across the world to India. While the outsourcing wave has provided the initial push to the economy of India, it would not be able to help sustain the momentum primarily because of two reasons: the first is the growth of other countries, such as Hungary, the Philippines and China, as alternatives for outsourcing (and equally may be more cost-effective at times); and the second reason is the shift in various companies towards an insourcing model for critical functions.

Therefore, as a country, India needs to move ahead and, instead of only focusing on providing resources to do the tasks outsourced by global companies, focus should now shift to promoting innovation and creativity among the workforce. A lot of companies nowadays are realising the importance of product innovation and are investing huge amounts in R&D to come up with breakthrough technologies that can help them create a sustainable development model. However, this should in no way be considered an end of the outsourcing era. Although there needs to be an effort towards improving the interlock process, outsourcing is here to stay because of the benefits it brings.

In mid-2013 Deepak Kumar, Chairman and Group CEO of MakeMyTrip (MMT), was headed to the Hindustan conference room of the company's head office in Gurgaon, India, for deciding the new homepage design. A day earlier, Ajay, Product Head, had shared the consolidated results of the trials of different options (see Exhibit 1 for the results of testing the options) with the homepage website redesign team, responsible for the entire project. The team consisted of the head of business (CBO), the Analytics Head, the user experience (UX)head, the Product Head and the Tech Head (CTO).

Looking at the results, Deepak Kumar reflected that there were a lot of surprises in how the different options had performed. While the tracking tools in online businesses had a huge advantage over traditional businesses in that almost every customer interaction could be measured, there was still a lot of reading between the numbers that had to be done. Deepak was looking forward to a fruitful discussion to evaluate the options and finalise the new homepage design to be rolled out. As he opened the door to the conference room, he heard an excited chatter.

Spiegel Online (www.spiegel.de) is the leading news Web site in Germany. The site was first designed to accompany Der Spiegel, one of Europe's largest and Germany's most influential weekly magazine, which has a weekly circulation of around one million. The site's content is produced by a team of more than fifty journalists writing in several categories: politics, business, networld, panorama, arts and entertainment, science, university, school, sports, travel, weather, and automobiles. The original content is complemented by articles purchased from news agencies and selected articles from the print edition. Spiegel-Verlag is a major contributor to the Hamburg Media School, which offers professional master's degree programs in Media Management (MBA), film, and journalism. In their second year, MBA students typically engage in consulting projects with major media companies. In a recent assignment, Spiegel Online posed two questions to the MBA team: are there any chances for an economically successful entry into the market for interactive classifieds? And if so, what should the business model look like in detail? A student team analyzed markets for classified ads and found one market segment that appeared to be particularly promising: the market for art objects. During the development of a business plan for a new venture in this market it became apparent that there is much uncertainty about the key input parameters to the business plan. As a result, it is very difficult to assess the viability of the business idea. How can the team properly account for the uncertain input parameters? What is the impact of this uncertainty on the bottom line? Will a Web site for art objects earn or lose money? How can the team communicate this uncertainty to a group of high-level decision makers who want a simple “go or no-go” recommendation?

The objective is to make students aware of the applicability of Monte Carlo simulation to the analysis of complex business plans. Students should learn how to explicitly account for uncertain inputs in a business plan, how to assess the impact of uncertainty on the bottom line via Monte Carlo simulation, and how to communicate the results of their analysis to high-level decision makers.

The learning outcomes are as follows: understand the mechanism of sourcing and allocation of funds in the Indian banking industry; compare financial indicators of Yes bank with the industry average and interpret the hidden stress; understand the role of NPAs in the banking industry and analyze Yes bank’s performance; and identify the possible red signals in the business model of Yes bank.

The case narrated the story of Yes bank which was considered as one of the most promising and rising banks of India. The stock of Yes bank had been the preferred investment choice for many investors because of its outstanding performance in almost all the important parameters of the industry since 2005. Since its inception, investors favored the stock with an assumption that this new generation bank had a unique as well as a sustainable banking model. However, after the year 2016, Reserve Bank of India (Indian central bank and banking regulator) found huge under-reporting of non-performing assets (NPAs) in the three (i.e. 2015–16, 2016–17 and 2018–19) out of its four annual regulatory inspections, casting doubt in the way Yes bank functioned. Risk and aggression seemed to be the two most important aspects of Yes bank’s culture and this case tried to narrate the same through various financial indicators. The ratio comparison with the industry average indicated the possible gray areas of Yes bank, which was once considered as the most promising bank of India. Unfortunately, even the change of guard at the helm of Yes bank did not change the fate of the bank.

MBA/PGDBA/Executive MBA.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Marketing, retail.

The case study is specific to the marketing demographics of Indian shoppers with respect to organized retail stores, and therefore, the inter-relationships between various design elements and the relative importance of certain parameters discussed in the text may not follow the same pattern elsewhere in the world.

The case emulates the real-life situation of an organized retail store, Super Mart, to understand the inculcation of voice of the customer in the design of organized retail stores in India. It gives insights about factors which influence the shopping intent of customers while giving information about the inter-relationships among various design characteristics. It also gives an idea about inter-dependence between design characteristics and customer requirements. This is followed by certain questions, the responses to which can be interpreted from the text and the data provided therein.

The case aims to educate its audience about the following aspects of organized retail business: factors influencing offline shopping intent of customers; relative order of importance of customer requirements with respect to organized retail stores; inter-relationships between various design elements; and future trends in the organized retail space. Such a knowledge would help hone the skills of the next generation of business leaders in the retail space.

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Management, Information technologies.

Courses at the senior university level in social and organizational sciences.

This case aims to observe modes, levels and specific problems in application of information technologies in informing, information sharing and collaboration as important aspects in ensuring quality in control of the processes that occur at school. Some deficiencies in application of information technology within these processes have been identified and alternatives to solving them have been offered. The discussion concerning the solutions was performed according to the parameters that were singled out as important in the analysis of the problems. A school that is recognized in Zlatibor region and elsewhere in Serbia for its advanced development tendencies was selected for the case study. The proposed solutions are practically applicable in any work collective.

Modern management strategy in education; the importance of process management in insuring quality of whole management system; the importance of implementation of modern information technologies in school management system.

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Illustrate the typical organizational responsibility of a small, medium industry dealing with precision manufacturing products. Introduce a balanced scorecard (BSC) as a concept about the case in the context. Introduce the parameters specific to small and medium enterprise (SME) that could be considered to be part of the key performance indicators. Understand the advantages and disadvantages of using a BSC in SMEs in emerging economies.

Gopika Rani, the recently hired Executive Assistant along with Sanjana M, the Business Development Manager of SEP India Private Ltd. (SEPI), a small medium enterprise, were finalizing a proposal for the forthcoming “India Small Business Excellence Awards 2020.” The proposal was to be considered by the Board of Directors scheduled to meet next week for approvals. Sanjana apprises Gopika on CRISIL’s policy advisory role and its annual awards scheme for SMEs in India. She also details recent modifications announced by the Government of India that had impacted SEPI and was pertinent for filling the application. Gopika understood that SEPI was well-known for the precision and durability of its component, and was poised for growth. The business catered to global suppliers (Tier-1 companies) of the Indian automotive industry that accounted for over 75% and the balance contributed to exports. SEPI’s unique products such as Starter Motor Ignition or the Fuel Vending pump (Automotive) or the non-automotive products such as arrowheads and bowstrings (sports) or the heart-valves (medical) have all the quality certifications. For new product development, customer feedback played a crucial role at all stages of development from prototype to pilot tests. SEPI’s mission “be our customers’ preferred supplier and business partner” drove their personnel and organizational objectives. Also, SEPI could get multiple benefits and be in a strong market position because of this award recognition. Gopika was, however, unclear about SEPI’s business strategies and use of appropriate performance measurement tools. Gopika desired to address the Board of Directors next week on her idea of applying a BSC as a useful “strategic planning and management tool.” The BSC methodology can be used to monitor the performance of SME firms against strategic goals. It can be successfully implemented in smaller organizations because of their simpler set-ups and tendency to arrive at a consensus quickly. However, implementation of BSC within the Indian micro, small and medium enterprises has been scant. Several studies found that the lack of ownership, resistance to change, a scarcity of training and coordination between the departments and lack of funds were among the challenges. The firms also had to make numerous changes to their strategies as business environments evolved. Gopika was convinced that the tool could blend in all the “four perspectives – customer, financial, internal business and learning and growth” and grow. The tool could demonstrate meeting all the prerequisites, “needs to have an exemplary vision, demonstrate outstanding business acumen, use best practices and create a legacy for the others to follow,” that were prerequisites for receipt of this award. Her next project would be to seek approval for the implementation of BSC, a beneficial and apt tool for SEPI. Do you agree with Gopika Rani that BSC is a suitable tool for SEPI? If yes, why? If no, why?

This case study titled leveraging the BSC – a tool for SME advancement is intended for use in the graduate management program (MBA) in subject electives, namely, entrepreneurship, strategy formulation, human resource management or production management.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

Illinois Superconductor Corp. a technology start-up, came up with an innovative new superconducting filter for use in cellular base stations. It needed to estimate the demand for its filters. The manager came up with a simple chain-ratio-based forecasting model that, while simple and intuitive, was too simplistic. The company had also commissioned a research firm to develop a model-based forecast. The model-based forecast used diffusion modeling, analogy-based forecasting, and conjoint analysis to create a forecast that incorporated customer preferences, diffusion effects, and competitive dynamics.

To use the data to generate a model-based forecast and to reconcile the model-based forecast with the manager's forecast. Requires sophisticated spreadsheet modeling and the application of advanced forecasting techniques.

The learning outcomes are as follows: understand the factors that go into the assessment of a distributor performance; understand the criteria that may be useful to distributors while choosing distributorship of a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company; understand the various parameters that define a distributor performance; and understand the critical aspects that sales force consider while staying with an organization on the long term.

This case is about how a FMCG Company in India – Patanjali Products is handling its sales and distribution management strategies. The FMCG segment in India is very competitive and is dominated by big multi- national players such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble as well as other Indian players such as Marico, Dabur, Cavinkare and Himalaya herbal. This industry is characterized by frequent product launches and the trade/ distributors play a key role in providing reach and visibility to the end users. Patanjali Products is a relative new entrant but has rapidly found success in this category. Through a product range that is positioned on “naturalness”, the company has achieved a turnover of US$735m in a span of six years. The case is written from the perspective of Anil Gupta, one of the distributors of the company. He is currently faced with the challenge of evaluating whether he should continue with the distributorship or go back to his old company Himalaya herbal. With this background, the case intends to elaborate on the specific aspects of distributor management and sales management. Some key questions discussed in the case are as follows: What are the aspects that determine the performance of a distributor? What are the parameters that a distributor needs to take into account while selecting a company? How does one calculate the financial return on investment for a FMCG distributor business? What are the elements that contribute to sales force loyalty?

Undergraduate and Post Graduate students of management Sales workshops Corporate training on sales management Particularly it can be taught under the course “Sales and Distribution Management”. The other courses where it can be a part of are: Retail Management, FMCG Sales and Marketing, Channel Management

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Marketing