Ms-25 Question bank (11)
Ms-25 Question bank
Ms-25 dec 2010
Written by sales@mbaonlinepapers.com sales@mbaonlinepapers.comMS-25 Dec-2010
MS-25 : MANAGING CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONS
1. What is Total Quality Management (TQM) ? How TQM contributes in bringing change in organisations ? Explain with an example.
2. Describe the Process of Transformation bringing changes in organisations ?
3. Describe different methods of collecting data for evaluation and explain action research approach for evaluation.
4. Discuss how to leverage structure and systems for Managing Organisational Changes.
5. Write short notes on any three of the following :
a) Managing transition
b) Team building intervention
c) Turn around Management
d) Cultural change as a strategy
(e) Types of Resistance
6. Read the following case carefully and answer the questions given at the end :
Synergy Formulations (India) Limited was a public limited company and had been in
business of pharmaceuticals and drugs since 1988. The company set up its manufacturing plant at Ghaziabad near Delhi in 1988 having separate units for producing tablets, capsules and oral liquids. Under its expansion programs an ultra modern state of the art plant was commissioned at Meerut in U.P. The company had its corporate office at Lucknow and registered office at Delhi. Synergy Formulations was a premium pharmaceutical company which had a nation-wide distribution network. The company's
annual turnover in 1995 was Rs. 10 crores. In the last three years, Synergy had been able to increase its turnover from Rs. 10 crores to Rs. 35 crores. Till 1998 the company was organized into two groups; the generic and OTC (over the counter) grouped together and the ethical division which functioned independently. In 1998, the company decided to restructure its marketing organization into three separate and independent divisions in view of its phenomenal growth.
Synergy Formulation Limited in late 1997 reviewed its existing marketing organization
structure with the intention of bifurcating the OTC and generic division. The issue was debated at corporate level. While the field staff and majority of managers at corporate level were of the opinion that the present arrangements were adequate and other strategies could be used to ensure better performance, the MD and one to two percent of
the senior executives at corporate level were vehemently propagating the reorganization of marketing division. They felt that this would lead to better control of field staff, optimum utilization of marketing resources and the independent groups would function more effectively which in turn would improve the performance of the different divisions.
In spite of the prevailing divergent views the MD's decision was implemented and the marketing organization was reorganized into three divisions : generic products, the unbranded products which were sold in bulk to hospitals, bulk buyers and nursing homes; ethical products, the medicines which were sold to users on the prescription of doctors and OTC products, those branded products which could be sold without any doctor's prescription. Post Restructuring As a result of the restructuring exercise all the sales staff of generic divisions were shifted to OTC division. New zonal and regional managers were hired for generic division. The company decided to discontinue field staff in generic
division as it was felt that generic products were predominantly sold by the distribution channel and the role of field staff was limited, hence their absence would not affect the sales adversely. The company now maintained separate accounts for the different divisions to avoid conflicts. Soon after the reorganization of the marketing department
the corporate office noticed there were frequent clashes and disputes between the generic and OTC divisions. The causes for the conflicts could be ascribed to the following reasons :
• The distribution channel (Annexure 1) was common for all the three divisions due to which it was experienced that the OTC and generic were competing with each other for
orders from channel members who had limited monetary resources. The purchase from one division offer lead to a cut in purchase from the other division. It appeared that the divisions were growing at the cost of each other at distributors level. This fluctuating sales affected the incentives received by sales staff which was based on the volume of sales generated by an individual.
• The company as a policy matter did not supply products to distributors who had outstanding payments to the company, be it on the account of generic division or the OTC division. There was discontentment in the OTC division as they often found that supplies were not being made on orders received by them due to the outstanding of the generic division. This supply policy affected the performance of the OTC division and in turn, their incentives.
• When the field staff of generic divisions was transferred to OTC division, the marketing overheads of the generic division were reduced and to encash on this, the company decided to reduce the prices of the generic products. The generic division became extremely price competitive in the market. Inspite of the reduced prices generic division did not show a considerable positive rise as was expected. This fall in the performance of generic division was observed in the first quarterly review since the restructuring of the organization. The corporate executives of marketing felt concerned. The review showed that OTC division was flourishing and was in a position to double its sales in this period, but the generic division continued to show decline in sales. The generic division was
the largest contributor of the sales turnover of the company (Annexure II on page 8). Though the profit contribution of the generic division was less than OTC but the company could not afford loss of sales in the generic division any more. On discussion with the distributors it was realized that the absence of intermediaries between the distributors and their bulk customers was leading to loss of goodwill and customers. The channel members were of the opinion that the transfer of field staff had been counter-productive to the marketing effort and in the long-term interest of the company, field staff was an essential element of the supply chain though they were able to generate only 30% of the total sales in the generic division. They recommended the recruitment of field staff in generic division and that the status co-ante or achieved. The organization hired new junior field staff for the generic division in October, 1998. The recruitment of field staff led to the increase in the marketing overhead. Since the organisation used cost plus pricing, it was forced to increase its MRP. This increase in price affected the sales of generic product adversely as generic are extremely price sensitive. Synergy Formulation was now caught in a vicious circle. It neither could reduce prices nor discontinue the field staff in generic division.
Questions :
a) Identify the case issues in this case.
b) What in your opinion were the problems faced by Synergy generic division after its bifurcation from the OTC division ?
c) How do you propose to reduce the conflict between the two divisions.
d) Do you think restructuring the marketing organization was a wise decision ? Justify your answer.
Ms-25 dec 2011
Written by sales@mbaonlinepapers.com sales@mbaonlinepapers.comMS-25 Dec-2011
MS-25 : MANAGING CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONS
1. Explain the rationale for using interventions in bringing change in an organisation. Describe any two types of interventions and their merits and demerits.
2. Discuss the impact of Cross-Cultural experiences on culture of the organisation. Explain how closing cultural gaps could be minimised in multicultural content.
3. What is Turnaround Management ? Describe various steps to be followed in turn around management and explain how turnaround management can take place in an organisational set up.
4. Discuss how a leader can initiate change process and can play the role of change agent as well cite relevant examples.
5. Write short notes on any three of -the following :
(a) Managing Transition
(b) Evaluation of organisational change
(c) Purpose of Merger and acquisition
(d) Process consultation
(e) WeisBord's Six Box Model
6. Read the following case carefully and answer the questions given at the end :
1991 ushered in a new era for Sea side, the mail order retailing agent. The billion rupees company was growing faster than ever before and was no longer the small, homegrown catalogue store. Located in South Kolkata, its five thousand employees reflected the local culture, as did its management practices and the philosophy of its founder and Chairman, Shantanu Das: "Take care of your people, take care of your customers, and the rest will take care of itself." In 1991, Mr. Das decided that the company needed to apply modern management principles to keep up with its growth in size and complexity.
The first step was to recruit a new executive vice-president from competitor Mountain View, Subodh Marwah, to lead the changes. Mr. Marwah quickly made numerous changes to modernise the management systems and processes, including team based management, numerous training programmes for trainees at all levels, a new multirater evaluation system in which managers were rated by peers and subordinates as well as their supervisors, and the use of numerous consultants to provide advice.
The company revised its old mission to provide excellent products and services and to turn every customer into a friend. In addition, the company created one new international venture and one new business each year, resulting in solid businesses in UK, Japan and Germany. Mr. Marwah was elevated to chief executive officer in 1993 and, continuing the modernisation, hired seven new vice-presidents, including Ankit Verma as new vice-president of human resource to oversee all of the changes in the employee arena. The first two years, the changes seemed to be working as the company added 100 million rupees in revenue and posted record profits. All was not as rosy as the profit picture seemed to show, however, In spite of the many programmes aimed at employee welfare, training, and team building, many employees complained of the constant pressure of having to meet production and sales quotas. The new employee
performance evaluation system resulted in numerical ratings, which seemed to depersonalize relationships. No matter how many pieces she monogrammed per day, one employee felt that her work was never appreciated. Other employees complained of too many meetings necessitated by the reorganisation and the cross functional teams. One team of catalogue artists, buyers, and copywriters needed numerous meetings each
week to coordinate their activities. A quality assurance manager complained that his work week had increased from forty hours to fifty-five hours and that the meetings were taking time away from doing his real job. Many employees complained that they did not need to go to training programmes to learn how to take care of customers and communicate when they had been doing that all along. The doubts grew until late 1994, when the board, led by Mr.Das decided that the new management was moving the company too far too fast and straying too far from the basic philosophies that made the company successful. On December 2, 1994, Mr. Das and the Vice-Chairman Nikhil Rao
asked for Mr. Marwah's resignation and fired Mr.Verma, citing the need to return to basics, and lack of confidence in the new direction of the company. Mr.Das then chose thirty four years old Vikash. Sen as chief executive offiCer to guide the return to basics. Mr. Sen, an eleven-year veteran of Sea Side (his entire working career), immediately started the about-face by dismantling most of the teams, reorganising the others, and returning to the basics of the top quality classic clothes and excellent customer service. Three other executives left the company shortly after Mr. Sen's appointment.
Shortly after his takeover, however, paper prices doubled, postal rates increased, and clothing demands dropped sharply. Third-quarter profits dropped by 60 per cent. As the year ended, overall profits were down to rupees 30.6 million on barely Rs. 1 billion in sales and Mr. Sen had to cancel one mailing to save money. Rather than cutting quality and laying off people, Mr. Sen spent even more on increasing quality and employee benefits, such as adoption assistance and mental health referrals. His philosophy was that
customers still demand quality products and that employees who feel squeezed by the company will not provide good customer service. Early results were positive, with first-quarter profits three times those of the year before. Critics of Mr. Sen's return to basics argue that the modernisation attempts were necessary to position the company for global competition and faster reaction to competition in several of its catalogue lines. Its return to growth occurred primarily in acquisition and new speciality catalogue lines and not in the main catalogue for which it was so famous. Mr. Sen has put further acquisition and global expansion on hold as he concentrates on the core businesses. Employees say that they have fewer meetings and more time to do their work.
QUESTIONS
(a) How would you characterise the two sets of changes made at Sea Side ? Which set of change is really modernisation ?
(b) How did the change processes differ from each other ?
(c) How do you think employees will view future attempts to change Sea Side ?
