IIBMS QUESTION PAPER

Subject – General Management

Marks - 100

Attempt Any Four Case Study

CASE – 1 Your Job and Your Passion—You Can Pursue Both!

The 21st century offers many challenges to every one of us. As more firms go global, as more economies
interconnect, and as the Web blasts away boundaries to communication, we become more informed
citizens. This interconnectedness means that the organizations you work for will require you to develop
both general and specialized knowledge—such as speaking multiple languages, using various software
applications, or understanding details of financial transactions. You will have to develop general
management skills to foster your ability to be self-reliant and thrive in a changing market-place. And
here’s the exciting part: As you build both types of knowledge, you may be able to integrate your
growing expertise with the causes or activities you care most about. Or, your career adventure may lead
you to a new passion.
Former presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton are well known for combining their
management skills—running a country—with their passion for helping people around the world.
Together they have raised funds to assist disaster victims, those with HIV/AIDS, and others in need.
Jake Burton turned his love of snow sports into an entire industry when he founded Burton Snowboards.
Annie Withey poured her business and marketing knowledge into her two famous business ventures:
Smartfood and Annie’s Homegrown. Both products were the result of her passion for healthful foods
made from organic ingredients.
As you enter the workforce, you may have no idea where your career path will lead. You may be
asking yourself, “How will I fit in?” “Where will I live?” “How much will I earn?” “Where will my business
and personal careers evolve as the world continuous to change at such a fast pace?” If you are feeling
nervous because you don’t know the answers to these questions yet, relax. A career is a journey, not a
single destination. You may have one type of career or several. It is likely you will work for several
organisations, or you may run one or more businesses of your own.
As you ask yourself what you want to do and where you want to be, take a few minutes to review the
chapter and its main topics. Think about your personality, what you like and dislike, what you know and
what you want to learn, what you fear and what you dream. Then try the following exercise.

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 Questions

1. Create a three-column chart in which the first column lists nonmanagement skills you have. Are you good at travel?
Do you know how to build furniture? Are you a whiz at sports statistics? Are you an innovative cook? Do you play
video games for hours? In the second column, list the causes or activities about which you are passionate. These
may dovetail with the first list, but they might not.

2. Once you have you two columns complete, draw lines between entries that seem compatible. If you are good at
building furniture, you might have also listed a concern about families who are homeless. Remember that not all
entries will find a match—the idea is to begin finding some connections.

3. In the third column, generate a list of firms or organizations you know about that reflect your interests. If you are
good at building furniture, you might be interested working for the Habitat for Humanity organization, or you might
find yourself gravitating towards a furniture retailer like Ikea or Ethan Allen. You can do further research on
organizations via Internet or business publications.

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 CASE – 2 Biyani – Pioneering a Retailing Revolution in India

“I use people as hands and legs. I prefer to do thinking around here.”

─ Kishore Biyani, CEO & MD, Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd.

Kishore Biyani (Biyani), CEO& MD of Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd., planned to have 30 Food Bazaar outlets,
22 outlets in Big Bazaar, 21 Pantaloons outlets, and four seamless malls under the Central logo, by the
end of 2005. He also planned to launch at least three businesses every year and had already selected
music, footwear and car accessories as his next areas of investments. He was already the top retailer in
India followed by Raghu Pillai of RPG. As of 2004, Biyani headed a company that had a turnover of Rs
6,500 million and operated 13 Pantaloon apparel stores, 9 Big Bazaars, 13 Food Bazaars, and 3
seamless malls (Central), one each located in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune.
Biyani’s journey from a person who looked after his family business to India’s top retailer in 1987, when he
launched Manz Wear Pvt. Ltd. The company launched one of the first readymade trousers brands –
‘Pantaloon’ – in the country. The company also launched its first jeans brand called ‘Bare’ in 1989. On
September 20, 1991, Manz Wear Pvt. Ltd. went public and on September 25, 1992, it changed its name
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to Pantaloon Fashions (India) Limited (PFIL). ‘John Miller’ was the first formal shirt brand from PFIL.
The company opened its first apparel stores, called ‘Pantaloons’ at Kolkata in August 1997. The
stores generated Rs 70 million. Biyani then realized the potential of the Indian market and started to
aggressively tap it. Accordingly, Biyani decided to expand into other segments of retailing besides
apparel. To reflect this change in focus, the company changed its name to Pantaloon Retail (India)
Limited (PRIL) in July 1999 and set itself a target of achieving Rs 10 billion in sales by June 2005. In
course of time he launched three other retail formats -- Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, and Central.
Biyani didn’t believe in copying ideas from western retailers. He was critical of his peers who felt just
copied ideas form the west without making any effort to mold them to Indian conditions. He ensured
that his store formats such as Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, and Pantaloons were all suited to the
purchasing style of Indian consumers.
Biyani was a huge risk taker and his planning was always different from the conventional way of
doing business. This was also one of the factors that had prompted Biyani to move away from his
father’s conventional way of doing business. During the initial stages of his success, his risk-taking
attitude sometimes had the effect of turning away financiers. The biggest risk that Biyani took was in
opening Big Bazaar in Mumbai in 2001. The company needed money to expand Big Bazaar’s operations.
However, it had profits of only Rs 40 million with a low share price at eighteen rupees. Therefore, Biyani
could not raise money through equity. In light of this situation, Biyani took a loan of Rs 1,200 million
from ICICI for launching the operations of Big Bazaar, which increased his debt exposure. However, Big
Bazaar proved to be a resounding success with 100,000 customer visits in its first week of operations.
According to analysts, if Big Bazaar had failed, Biyani would have landed in a severe debt crisis. The
success of Big Bazaar not only increased the company profits, it also changed the perception of
investors.
Many people criticized Biyani for not delegating authority and Biyani himself accepted the criticism.
He said, “I use people as hands and legs. I prefer to do the thinking around here.” He preferred taking
individual decision on activities like strategic planning, ideas for other ventures, and other important

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 issues. It was because of this that managers like Kush Medhora of Westside were initially apprehensive
about joining Biyani’s business. However, Biyani changed his attitude gradually with the launch of Big
Bazaar, Food Bazaar, and Central and appointed different people for managing different business units.
Biyani believed in leading a simple life and in being simply dressed. His vision came from his diverse
reading connected to retailing and other areas. He made it a point to visit each of his stores across the
country. He aimed to spend at least seven hours a week at the stores. In the stores, he would stand at a
corner and observe people. He also walked on streets, met common people, and talked to local leaders
to plan and put up new products in his stores. Each of his stores was set with a weekly target, which
was reviewed every Monday. Whenever a new store was opened, the details of its operations during the
first 45 days were to be sent to him. Sometimes, he suggested remedies to some problems. Biyani
believed in extensive advertising to make more people know about the product. His decision making
was quick and devoid of unnecessary delays. Biyani was also a good learner and learned quickly from
his mistakes. He planned to improve inventory management through responding effectively to the
demands of the customers rather than forecasting them, as he felt that forecasting would pile up the
inventory in this dynamic market.

Questions

1. The tremendous success of the ‘Pantaloons’, ‘Big Bazaar’ and ‘Food Bazaar’ retailing formats, easily made PRIL
the number one retailer in India by early 2004, in terms of turnover and retail area occupied by its outlets. Explain
how Biyani is further planning to consolidate his businesses.

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2. “Our striving toward looking at the Indian market differently and strategizing with the evolving customer helped us
perform better.” What other qualities of Kishore Biyani do you think were instrumental in making him top retailer
of India?

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 CASE – 3 The New Frontier for Fresh Foods Supermarkets

Fresh Foods Supermarket is a grocery store chain that was established in the Southeast 20 years ago. The
company is now beginning to expand to other regions of the United States. First, the firm opened new
stores along the eastern seaboard, gradually working its way up through Maryland and Washington, DC,
then through New York and New jersey, and on into Connecticut and Massachusetts. It has yet to reach
the northern New England states, but executives have decided to turn their attention to the Southwest,
particularly because of the growth of population there.
Vivian Noble, the manager of one of the chain’s most successful stores in the Atlanta area, has been
asked to relocate to Phoenix, Arizona, to open and run a new Fresh Foods Supermarket. She has
decided to accept the job, but she knows it will be a challenge. As an African American woman, she has
faced some prejudice during her career, but she refuses to be stopped by a glass ceiling or any other
barrier. She understands that she will be living and working in an area where several cultures combine
and collide, and she will be hiring and managing a diverse workforce. Noble has the support of top
management at Fresh Foods, which wants the store to reflect the surrounding community—in both staff
makeup and product selection. So she will be looking to hire employees with Hispanic and Native
American roots, as well as older workers who can relate to the many retired residents in the area. And
she will be seeking their inputs on the selection of certain food products, including ethnic brands, so
that customers know they can buy what they need and want a Fresh Foods.
In addition, Noble wants to make sure that Fresh Foods provides services above and beyond those
of a standard supermarket to attract local consumers. For instance, she wants the store to offer free
delivery of groceries to home-bound customers who are either senior citizens or physically disabled.
She wants to be sure that the store has enough bilingual employees to translate for and otherwise
assist customers who speak little or no English. Noble believes that she is a pioneer of sorts, guiding
Fresh Foods Supermarkets into a new frontier. “The sky is almost blue here,” she says of her new home

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 state. “And there’s no glass ceiling between me and the sky.”

Questions

1. What steps can Vivian Noble take to recruit and develop her new workforce?

2. What other ways can Noble help her company reach out to the community?

3. How will Fresh Foods Supermarkets as whole benefit from successfully moving into this new region of the country?

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 CASE – 4 The Law Offices of Jeter, Jackson, Guidry, and Boyer

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FIRM

David Jeter and Nate Jackson started a small general law practice in 1992 near Sacramento, California.
Prior to that, the two had spent five years in the district attorney’s office after completing their formal
schooling. What began as a small partnership—just the two attorneys and a paralegal/assistant—had
now grown into a practice that employed more than 27 people in three separated towns. The current
staff included 18 attorneys (three of whom have become partners), three paralegals, and six secretaries.
For the first time in the firm’s existence, the partners felt that they were losing control of their overall
operation. The firm’s current caseload, number of employees, number of clients, travel requirements,
and facilities management needs had grown far beyond anything that the original partners had ever
imagined.
Attorney Jeter called a meeting of the partners to discuss the matter. Before the meeting, opinions
about the pressing problems of the day and proposed solutions were sought from the entire staff. The
meeting resulted in a formal decision to create a new position, general manager of operations. The
partners proceeded to compose a job description and job announcement for recruiting purposes.
Highlights and responsibilities of the job description include:
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 Supervising day-to-day office personnel and operations (phones, meetings, word processing, mail, billings, payroll,
general overhead, and maintenance).
 Improving customer relations (more expeditious processing of cases and clients).
 Expanding the customer base.
 Enhancing relations with the local communities.
 Managing the annual budget and related incentive programs.
 Maintaining annual growth in sales of 10 percent while maintaining or exceeding the current profit margin.

The general manager will provide an annual executive summary to the partners, along with specific action
plans for improvement and change. A search committee was formed, and two months later the new
position was offered to Brad Howser, a longtime administrator from the insurance industry seeking a
final career change and a return to his California roots. Howser made it clear that he was willing to
make a five-year commitment to the position and would then likely retire.
Things got off to a quiet and uneventful start as Howser spent few months just getting to know the
staff, observing day-today operations; and reviewing and analyzing assorted client and attorney data
and history, financial spreadsheets, and so on.
About six months into the position, Howser became more outspoken and assertive with the staff
and established several new operational rules and procedures. He began by changing the regular
working hours. The firm previously had a flex schedule in place that allowed employees to begin and
end the workday at their choosing within given parameters. Howser did not care for such a “loose
schedule” and now required that all office personnel work from 9:00 to 5:00 each day. A few staff
member were unhappy about this and complained to Howser, who matter-of-factly informed them that
“this is the new rule that everyone is expected to follow, and anyone who could or would not comply
should probably look for another job.” Sylvia Bronson, an administrative assistant who had been with
the firm for several years, was particularly unhappy about this change. She arranged for a private
meeting with Howser to discuss her child care circumstances and the difficulty that the new schedule

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presented. Howser seemed to listen half-heartedly and at one point told Bronson that “assistance are
essentially a-dime-a-dozen and are readily available.” Bronson was seen leaving the office in tears that
day.
Howser was not happy with the average length of time that it took to receive payments for services
rendered to the firm’s clients (accounts receivable). A closer look showed that 30 percent of the clients
paid their bills in 30 days or less, 60 percent paid in 30 to 60 days, and the remaining 10 percent
stretched it out to as many as 120 days. Howser composed a letter that was sent to all clients whose
outstanding invoices exceeded 30 days. The strongly worded letter demanded immediate payment in
full and went on to indicate that legal action might be taken against anyone who did not respond in
timely fashion. While a small number of “late” payments were received soon after the mailing, the firm
received an even larger number of letters and phone calls from angry clients, some of whom had been
with the firm since its inception.
Howser was given an advertising and promotion budget for purposes of expanding the client base.
One of the paralegals suggested that those expenditures should be carefully planned and that the firm
had several attorneys who knew the local markets quite well and could probably offer some insights
and ideas on the subject. Howser thought about this briefly and then decided to go it alone, reasoning
that most attorneys know little or nothing about marketing.
In an attempt to “bring all of the people together to form a team,” Howser established weekly staff
meetings. These mandatory, hour-long sessions were run by Howser, who presented a series of
overhead slides, handouts, and lectures about “some of the proven management techniques that were
successful in the insurance industry.” The meetings typically ran past the allotted time frame and rarely
if ever covered all of the agenda items.
Howser spent some of his time “enhancing community relations.” He was very generous with many
local groups such as the historical society, the garden clubs, the recreational sports programs, the
middle-and high-school band programs, and others. In less than six months he had written checks and
authorized donations totaling more than $25,000. He was delighted about all this and was certain that

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such gestures of goodwill would pay off handsomely in the future.
As for the budget, Howser carefully reviewed each line item in search of ways to increase revenues
and cut expenses. He then proceeded to increase the expected base or quota for attorney’s monthly
billable hours, thus directly affecting their profit sharing and bonus program. On the other side, he
significantly reduced the attorneys’ annual budget for travel, meals, and entertainment. He considered
these to be frivolous and unnecessary. Howser decided that one of the two full-time administrative
assistant positions in each office should be reduced to part-time with no benefits. He saw no reason
why the current workload could not be completed within this model. Howser wrapped up his initial
financial review and action plan by posting notices throughout each office with new rules regarding the
use of copy machines, phones, and supplies.
Howser completed the first year of his tenure with the required executive summary report to the
partners that included his analysis of the current status of each department and his action plan. The
partners were initially impressed with both Howser’s approach to the new job and with the changes that
he made. They all seemed to make sense and were directly in line with the key components of his job
description. At the same time, “the office rumor mill and grape vine” had “heated up” considerably.
Company morale, which had been quite high, was now clearly waning. The water coolers and hallways
became the frequent meeting places of disgruntled employees.
As for the marketplace, while the partner did not expect to see an immediate influx of new clients,
they certainly did not expect to see shrinkage in their existing client base. A number of individual and
corporate clients took their business elsewhere, still fuming over the letter they had received.
The partners met with Howser to discuss the situation. Howser urged them to “sit tight and ride out
the storm.” He had seen this happen before and had no doubt that in the long run the firm would
achieve all of its goals. Howser pointed out that people in general are resistant to change. The partners
met for drinks later that day and looked at each other with a great sense of uncertainty. Should they ride
out the storm as Howser suggested? Had they done the right thing in creating the position and hiring
Howser? What had started as a seemingly, wise, logical, and smooth sequence of events had now

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 become a crisis.

Questions

1. Do you agree with Howser’s suggestion to “sit tight and ride out the storm,” or should the partners take some
action immediately? If so, what actions specifically?

2. Assume that the creation of the GM—Operation position was a good decision. What leadership style and type of
individual would you try to place in this position?

3. Consider your own leadership style. What types of positions and situations should you seek? What types of
positions and situation should you seek to avoid? Why?

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 CASE – 5 The Grizzly Bear Lodge

Diane and Rudy Conrad own a small lodge outside Yellowstone National Park. Their lodge has 15 rooms
that can accommodate up to 40 guests, with some rooms set up for families. Diane and Rudy serve a
continental breakfast on weekdays and a full breakfast on weekends, included in the room they charge.
Their busy season runs from May through September, but they remain open until Thanksgiving and
reopen in April for a short spring season. They currently employ one cook and two waitpersons for the
breakfasts on weekends, handling the other breakfasts themselves. They also have several
housekeeping staff members, a groundkeeper, and a front-desk employee. The Conrads take pride in
the efficiency of their operation, including the loyalty of their employees, which they attribute to their
own form of clan control. If a guest needs something—whether it’s a breakfast catered to a special diet
or an extra set of towels—Grizzly Bear workers are empowered to supply it.
The Conrads are considering expanding their business. They have been offered the opportunity to
buy the property next door, which would give them the space to build an annex containing an additional
20 rooms. Currently, their annual sales total $300,000. With expenses running $230,000—including
mortgage, payroll, maintenance, and so forth—the Conrads’ annual income is $70,000. They want to
expand and make improvements without cutting back on the personal service they offer to their guests.
In fact, in addition to hiring more staff to handle the larger facility, they are considering collaborating
with more local business to offer guided rafting, fishing, hiking, and horseback riding trips. They also
want to expand their food service to include dinner during the high season, which means renovating the
restaurant area of the lodge and hiring more kitchen and wait staff. Ultimately, the Conrads would like
the lodge to open year-round, offering guests opportunities to cross-country ski, ride snow-mobiles, or
hike in winter. They hope to offer holiday packages for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s
celebrations in the great outdoors. The Conrads report that their employees are enthusiastic about their

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 plans and want to stay with them through the expansion process. “This is our dream business,” says
Rudy. “We’re only at the beginning.”

Questions

1. Discuss how Rudy and Diane can use feedforward, concurrent, and feedback controls both now and in future at
the Grizzly Bear Lodge to ensure their guests’ satisfaction.

2. What might be some of the fundamental budgetary considerations the Conrads would have as they plan the
expansion of their logic?

3. Describe how the Conrads could use market controls plans and implement their expansion.

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