Higher National Certificate/Diploma in Business

Assignment Brief
Student Name /ID Number Ritik Garodia

Unit Number and Title 4 Management and Operations

Academic Year 2018-19

Unit Tutor Vidhi Trivedi

Assignment Title Leaders and Operations Management

Issue Date 04-04-19

Submission Date 10-07-19

IV Name and Date Arshi Zaveri-15-07-19

Submission Format:
Task 1 (LO1 & LO2)
The submission is in the form of an individual written report. This should be written in a concise, formal
business style using single spacing and font size 12. You are required to make use of headings, paragraphs
and subsections as appropriate, and all work must be supported with research and referenced using the
Harvard referencing system. Please also provide a bibliography using the Harvard referencing system. The
recommended word limit is 4,500–5,500 words, although you will not be penalized for exceeding the total
word limit.

Task 2 (LO3 & LO4)

The submission is in the form of a 10-15 minutes PowerPoint presentation and speaker notes
(report). The presentation slides and speaker notes should be submitted as one copy. You are
required to make effective use of PowerPoint headings, paragraphs and subsections as
appropriate. Your research should be referenced using the Harvard referencing system. Please
also provide a bibliography using the Harvard referencing system. The recommended word limit is
4,000–5,500 words, including speaker notes, although you will not be penalized for exceeding the
total word limit.
HNC/D in Business 2016 2
Unit Learning Outcomes:

LO1 Differentiate between the role of a leader and the function of a manager. LO2

Apply the role of a leader and the function of a manager in given contexts.

LO3 Demonstrate an appreciation of the role leaders and managers play in the operations function
of an organization.

LO4 Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between leadership and

management in a contemporary business environment.

Assignment Brief & Guidance:

Task 1 (LO1 & Lo2)

You are the Human Resource Manager of a local organization [an organization of your choice]
and have been asked by the CEO to investigate the impact of leaders and managers on the
operations of your ever-growing company.

You will need to produce a report for the senior leadership team that includes the following:
1. An introduction to the organization.

2. Definition, roles and characteristics of both managers and leaders, highlighting the
differences between management and leadership.

3. An examination of the different roles of a leader and functions of a manager in application

to different organizational situations or contexts giving examples.

4. Application of different theories and models of approach to the organization

including situational leadership, systems leadership and contingency approach.

HNC/D in Business 2016 3

Task 2 (LO 3 & LO 4)
Since reporting on the role of management and leadership within your selected organization
as the HR Manager, the CEO and founder have now asked you to submit feedback on
appropriate approaches and practices with regards to operations management.
This will take the form of a report and a 15-minute presentation to the leadership team that will
address how the leadership and management team can improve overall operations within the
company.

To assist with this you will need to investigate external business factors that impact upon
operational management and the decisions the management team makes.

The above task should cover the following areas:

1. An introduction to the key operations of any selected organization.
2. Explanation of the key approaches to operations management identifying the roles of the
leaders and managers in the key operational functions.
3. Explanation of the importance and value of operations management in achieving business
objectives.
4. An assessment of the impact of external business environment factors that
impact upon operational management and decision-making by leaders and
managers.

HNC/D in Business 2016 4

 Grading Criteria
Learning Outcome Pass
LO1 Differentiate P1 Define and
between the role of a compare the different
leader and the roles and
function of a manager. characteristics of a
leader and a manager.
LO2 Apply the role of P2 Examine examples
a leader and the of how the role of a
function of a manager leader and the
in given contexts. function of a manager
apply in different
situational contexts.
P3 Apply different
theories and models of
approach, including
situational leadership,
systems leadership
and contingency.
5
Merit Distinction
M1 Analyse and D1 Critically analyse
differentiate between and evaluate the
the role of a leader different theories and
and function of a approaches to
manager by effectively leadership in given
applying a range of contexts.
theories and concepts.
M2 Assess and
evaluate the strengths
and weaknesses of
different approaches
to situations within the
work environment.
 Grading Criteria

Learning Outcome Pass Merit Distinction

LO3 Demonstrate an P4 Explain the key M3 Evaluate how D2 Critically evaluate

appreciation of the approaches to leaders and managers application of
role leaders and Operations can improve operations
managers play in the management and the efficiencies of management and
operations function of role that leaders and Operational factors that impact on
an organization. managers play. management to the wider business
successfully meet environment.
P5 Explain the business objectives.
importance and value
of operations
management in
achieving business
objectives.

LO4 Demonstrate an P6 Assess the factors M4 Analyse how these

understanding of the within the business different factors affect
relationship between environment that the business
leadership and impact upon environment and wider
management in a Operational community.
contemporary management and
business environment. decision-making by
leaders and
managers.

6
Higher Nationals RQF

STUDENT ASSESSMENT SUBMISSION AND DECLARATION

When submitting evidence for assessment, each student must sign a declaration confirming
that the work is their own.

Student name: Ritik Garodia Assessor name: Ms. Arshi Zaveri

Issue date: Submission date: Submitted on:

4th April 2019 10th July 2019 10th July 2019

Programme:

Pearson BTEC HNC in Business level 4 - RQF

Unit:

Unit 4: Management and Operations

Assignment number and title:

Leaders and Operations Management

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a particular form of cheating. Plagiarism must be avoided at all costs and
students who break the rules, however innocently, may be penalised. It is your responsibility
to ensure that you understand correct referencing practices. As a university level student, you
are expected to use appropriate references throughout and keep carefully detailed notes of all
your sources of materialsfor material you have used in your work, including any material
downloaded from the Internet. Please consult the relevant unit lecturer or your course tutor if
you need any further advice.

Student Declaration

Student declaration

I certify that the assignment submission is entirely my own work and I fully understand the
consequences of plagiarism. I understand that making a false declaration is a form of
malpractice.

Student signature: D ate:

7
 Index

Sr Table of contents Page

No. No.
1. Executive summary. 9
2. Introduction. 10
3. Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a leader 11-24
and a manager.
4. Examine examples of how the role of a leader and the function of a 25-32
manager apply in different situational context.
5. Apply different theories and models of approach, including 33-42
situational leadership, systems leadership and contingency.
6. Explain the key approaches to operations management and the role 43-52
that leaders and managers play.
7. Explain the importance and value of operations management in 53-64
achieving business objectives.
8. Assess the factors within the business environment that impact upon 65-73
operational management and decision making by leaders and
managers.
9. Author’s Conclusion. 74
10. Bibliography/References. 75-76

8
 Executive summary.

 This report describes the roles of a leader and a manager in an organization and how they both work
differently using various theories and styles. The report consists of various roles of a leader and a manager
in various situations/events in an organization. The report explains that how various approaches like
contingency model, systems leadership and situational leadership is applied by the leaders and managers
to achieve the organizational objectives. It also includes various approaches used in operations
management by leaders and managers and their roles to achieve the organizational objectives like
increased productivity, reduction of wastage delivering the products of time to the customers for maximum
customer satisfaction, etc. It explains the importance of operations management in an organization for
achieving business objectives using various functions of operations management and the roles the leaders
and managers play in it. Finally the report consists of various internal and external environmental factors
affecting the operations management and decision making of the leaders and managers to overcome such
situations and make the best possible use of the resources to function even in such difficult conditions and
adapt to various changes made in the business environment.

9
 Introduction to organization:

Bajaj Auto Ltd.

 Bajaj Auto Ltd. is a flagship company of the Bajaj group which is amongst the top 10 business houses in
India. Bajaj group is present in various industries like two/three wheeler manufacturing, home appliances,
lighting, iron and steel, insurance, travel and finance. Bajaj Auto itself ranks as 4th largest manufacturer
of two & three wheeler and it is a well-known Indian brand in various countries like Latin America, Africa,
Middle East, South and South East Asia. The company was founded in 1926 by Mr. Jamnalal Bajaj.
Kamalnayan Bajaj son of Jamnalal Bajaj took over the company in 1942 when he was 27 years old. Today
the company’s chairman is Mr. Rahul Bajaj who then took over the company in 1965 and under his
leadership the company has achieved great success and popularity around the globe and is recognized in
more than 70 nations with great respect towards the brand. The company’s product portfolio is expanded
and has got a great presence global market.

10
Definition:

Leadership: It is an activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this, in order
to meet the demands and expectations of increasingly complex and fast changing world. Leadership is about
mobilizing people to tackle the toughest problems and to do best of their work. (Gordon and Slim, n.d.)

Meaning:

Leadership: Leadership is a activity of leading a group or an institution or the ability to do it. It is a activity
which helps the leader to influence and motivate the subordinates and their team to work towards the
organizational objectives by creating an environment needed for successful accomplishment of the objectives
and get a step closer to making the vision a reality. Also leadership qualities help the leader to step up during
the time of crises and being able to think and act creatively, leading to overcoming of the difficult phase faced
by the organization.

Definition:

Management: According to Henri Fayol, “To Manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to
co-ordinate and to control.” (Thenmozhi, n.d.)

According to F.W. Taylor, “Management is art of knowing what you want to do and then seeing that it is done
the best and cheapest way” (Thenmozhi, n.d.)

According to Harold Koontz, “Management is the art of getting things done through and with people in
formally organized groups.” (Akrani, 2011)

Meaning:

Management: Management is an art of getting things done by other people in a given period of time.
Management involves various factors of production, i.e. machineries, labor, capital and materials. Taking care
of each of these factors and other things which are related to day to day functioning of the organization is a
part of management activities and is performed by the respected manager of that particular group or
department in the organization. Management consist of interlocking functions like creating various
organizational policies, organizing, planning, controlling and directing an company’s resources in order to
accomplish the objectives of the organization.

Definition:

1. Leader: Leader is a person who uses various tools, behaviors, and capabilities that a person needs in
order to be successful at motivating and directing others. Leaders are those who have the ability to
drive others to achieve their own success. (Mtd Training Leadership Skills, n.d.)

2. Leader: A person or a thing that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able to
exercise a high degree of control or influence over others. (Mtd Training Leadership Skills, n.d.)

Meaning:

1. A leader is a person who is at a superior rank in terms of status and has specialized skills in his field
or work and does a job of influencing or controlling his/her subordinates by motivating them to work
towards their goals and objectives given by their company and makes sure the goals and objectives are
achieved in time and in the most beneficial way to the organization.
(BusinessDictionary.com, n.d.)

11
 2. A leader is a person who is at the senior most position in a group of people or teams and his job is to
set visions and manage/control the employees in such a way that the employees get influenced by the
him and try to become more efficient and effective in their job making the set goals and objectives
achievable easily and quickly. A leader always takes the risk to take any decision and ensures
everything goes smooth by calculating the amount of risk taken and develop strategies trying to
eliminate those risks. (Dictionary.cambridge.org, 2019)

Definition:

1. Manager: An individual who is in charge of a certain group of tasks, or a certain subset of a company.
A manager often has a staff of people who report to him or her. (Dictionary.cambridge.org, n.d.)

2. Manager: A person who has control or direction of an institution, business, etc., or of a part, division,
or phase of it. (Dictionary.cambridge.org, n.d.)

Meaning:

1. A manager is a person who is the head of a group of task to be completed or a larger part of a
organization. A manager has various subordinates who work as per the commands and report timely
regarding the progress of the work done which was assigned to them by the manager.

2. A manager is an individual who has a control or directions in which the organization should move
towards in order to achieve the organizational objectives. A manager coordinates with the leader to
build various policies and strategies to make the vision turn into a reality. A manager constantly tries
to improve the quality of the products and services and bringing various ideas and resources to lower
the cost of production which will help to compete in the market.

12
The author has explained the roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager:

(Kotelnikov, 2019) (WiseStep, 2019) (Forbes.com, 2019)

 Leaders help to achieve the goals and objectives set by the managers by communicating it with the
employees and focus on effort put in by the employees towards achieving the goals and objectives.
Managers develop various strategies and systems for smooth and effective operations to achieve the goals
and objectives by using the existing knowledge and skills known by him.

 Leaders help the employees to interpret the given task/objectives given by the manager and make sure
each and every employee is clear about their jobs so that the goals could be achieved effectively. Managers
are not concerned about interpretation of given task instead he/she just assign the activity/goals that are
beneficial for the company in any regard and simply do not care about the approaches used by the
employees to get the job done.

 Leaders are the people who create a vision whereas the managers the people who create goals; leaders are
the people who think way beyond than what an ordinary individual does and makes sure what he’s thinking
about is possible further he inspires and motivates other people in turning that vision into reality. Managers
on the other hand ensures that all the goals that are needs to make that vision a reality are set and
implemented so that he can instruct the employees to work upon it and achieve that vision smoothly.

 Leaders are very unique in terms of their approaches towards work and are ready to stand out from the
crowd due to their unique ideas which they absolutely comfortable with and try to make it a reality by
working hard towards achieving it. Managers having a tendency to imitate they will try to recreate the
competencies and the behaviors they learn from others especially leaders and will adopt their leadership
styles rather than creating it on their own.

 Leaders are very dynamic and adapt to the changes fairly quickly in order to tackle the situation and move
forward whereas managers often try to implement the existing strategies and skills to maintain the status
quo and not think outside the box to deal with a particular situation.

 A leader always tries to share his load of work with other employees and work upon it together as a team
to achieve the given objective/target, this is the reason why the employees get inspired from the leader and
are happy to work with him whereas managers often try to put his workload on heads of the employee
without his active participation in working towards it which makes the employees a bit demotivated
because a manager teaches how to get money for their work where as a leader teaches how to get personal
gains for being a successful person.

13
The author has compared the roles of a manager and a leader.
(Telegraph Jobs, 2019) (Forbes.com, 2019)
Sr. No. Roles of a manager
1. Managers set short/long term goals in
a company to achieve the vision set by
the leader. E.g. Managers in Hero
MotoCorp set various short and long
term goals like increasing the
efficiency in their department by
desired number of percentage,
reaching the sales target for a quarter
etc.
2. Managers develop various systems
and strategies for the betterment and
smooth functioning of the
organization.
E.g. managers at Bajaj auto have
developed a strategy to improve the
functions of production for two/three
wheelers that will bring a rise in
quality levels of the products targeted
to improve, by the theory of Kaizen
that helps to improve the quality
levels of the processes in an
organization to achieve the
organizational objectives.
3. Managers perform various
administrative duties and correspond
with different departments to make
sure there is synchronization and
harmony across various departments
in the company.
E.g. Operations manager at TVS
Motors perform various duties like
budgeting, coordinating, planning,
directing various activities across
various other departments of the
company like marketing, production,
HR, Sales, and etc. to help to achieve
active synchronization and harmony
in the entire organization for the
departments to function as a single
organizational unit to use team work
and create competitive advantage.
4. Managers help to maintain
coordination among various
department so that the common goals
and objectives can be achieved much
more effectively helping the
organization grow in various aspects.
14
Roles of a leader
Leaders persuade the subordinates to
achieve the objectives set by the
managers. E.g. Leaders in Hero
MotoCorp use various leadership styles
like democratic leadership style,
transformational leadership style, and etc.
to achieve the objectives of the
organization.
Leaders help Leaders help to implement
those ideas and turn them into reality by
communicating and coordinating it with
the employees.
Leaders in Bajaj Auto use effective
communications to persuade the
employees to achieve the objectives of the
company by raising the productivity and
profitability of the company, with the
help of their subordinates and describing
their roles and responsibilities clearly and
delegating them tasks according to the
eligibility.
Leaders do not perform administrative
functions generally instead they help to
create a link between the management
and employees and makes sure each task
is accomplished with most efficiency.
E.g. leaders at TVS Motors do not
perform duties like budgeting, setting
short/long term goals etc. like managers
instead they perform duties like using
effective communication with the
employees to track their performance and
create a link with the managers and
increase the productivity levels of the
employees using various leadership styles
an persuade them to work as desired by
the management.
Leaders makes sure all the employees are
interested in achieving the
goals/objectives and are ready to
voluntarily co-operate for achieving the
common objective.
 E.g. Managers of the production
department at Hyundai Motors co-
ordinates with the marketing team to
share the advantage and features of
the cars manufactured by the
production team to help increase the
overall productivity and effectiveness
in the company to create a
competitive advantage over the
competition.
E.g. leaders at Hyundai Motors use
democratic style of leadership to make
sure each employee is prepared and ready
to perform his duties with utmost
efficiency and productivity on the
upcoming projects.

5. Manager organizes all the resources
in an effective way to achieve the
goals/objectives so that it can be
accomplished with utmost efficiency
and fulfill all the requirements needed
for it to become successful.
E.g. managers at Xiaomi cracks
various deals with the suppliers and
logistics partners to get timely and
desired raw material for producing
their electronic gadgets and fulfilling
the required demands in the markets
successfully and price their products
much more aggressively due to better
sourcing of raw material and high
productivity in the organization due to
effective organization of resources.
Leaders allocate all the resources
efficiently and motivate the employees to
utilize each and every resource optimally
to produce best possible results.
E.g. leaders in Xiaomi delegate/allocates
various jobs to their subordinates
depending upon various criteria like past
performance, abilities, qualifications,
willingness to that work etc. this helps to
allocate jobs most accurately and raise the
motivation levels amongst the employees
as it increases their job satisfaction levels
which is reflected in production numbers
and quality levels of the final products.

At Bajaj Auto the managers and leaders perform their roles and responsibilities with utmost perfection so that
each individual of the company can focus only upon the things which are beneficial to the company and work
towards it as such, the managers like Rakesh Singh(Production Manager.), Joslyn Murzello(Operations
Leader/Manager), Vatsal Seth(General Manager, G.M.), and various other departments managers at Bajaj
Auto set various goals and objectives based upon the period of time and priorities, in order to execute the set
goals and objectives they frame various corporate policies based upon the current performance of the company
and the demands in the market from the customers. The managers at Bajaj Auto also reports about the progress
of the respective department to their superiors and come up with various strategies to even improve the current
quality levels and utilizing the resources even more optimally thereby increasing the overall efficiency. They
also ensure there is smooth working pattern in the company at all time and try to solve any disputes as quick
as possible.

Leaders like Adarsh Jain(Production Dept.) and leaders of various dept.’s like marketing, sales, finance, HR,
and etc. at Bajaj Auto have various important roles and responsibilities which includes, they need to persuade
the subordinates to achieve the set objectives and goals on time by building the team spirit among the
employees and working together as a whole to achieve the goals. The leaders also influence the employees by
setting various examples which motivates them to perform even better resulting in reduced time wastage,
delivering before deadlines and ensuring utmost utilization of resources. The leaders work with the employees
as a team and support them emotionally and consider about their emotions by showing empathy towards them
and giving them right advise to overcome their issues which makes the bonding with the leaders even stronger.
The leaders at Bajaj Auto shows their subordinates the right path to move on in order to achieve the
organizational goals and objectives.

15
The author has compared the characteristics of leader and a manager:
(Telegraph Jobs, 2019) (Forbes.com, 2019)
Sr. No. Roles of a leader.
1. Leaders are risk takers and try to
calculate all the possible outcomes of
the actions taken by them and take all
the responsibility if anything goes
wrong after making a decision.
E.g. Leaders like Mr. Adarsh Jain at
Bajaj Auto take various risks like
delegating work to his employees
which are fairly new to them but lets
them give their own efforts on them
for making them learn new things by
putting their own hard work and
efforts for better understanding of
work but at the same time they ensure
the type of work to be given which
won’t hamper the performance of the
entire department and by this way he
uses various risk
management/calculating skills for
raising the standards of employees of
the organization thereby resulting in
positive outcome in achieving the
long term goals/vision of the
company
2. Leaders believe in originality and try
to come up with various new
innovative ideas for the betterment of
the organization.
E.g. Leaders like Adarsh Jain at Bajaj
Auto are very innovative and creative
to implement various leadership
styles and help to increase the
performance and happiness among
the employees for achieving various
goals and objective of Bajaj Auto and
stay distinct in terms of their products
due to staying one step ahead of their
competition by constantly
researching and implementing new
techniques in production for utilizing
the resources of the company and
making the best use out of it.
16
Roles of a manager.
Managers risk avoiders and maintain the
status quo and ensure every activity is
conducted in a controlled manner to avoid
risk.
E.g. Managers like Rakesh Singh at Bajaj
Auto makes various budgets which
include many reserves for mitigating the
effects of external environment on their
operations like sudden rise in production
due to rise in cost of fuel, inflation,
increase on import duties on raw material
etc. this helps him to fulfill his duties by
staying within the companies policies and
maintain the status quo of the
organization and sticking to the
organizations policies and boundaries set
for their employees.
Managers try to imitate the style and
skills possessed by other people and try to
implement it in their life for functioning
even better than before.
E.g. Managers at Bajaj Auto are very
experienced and have worked for various
reputed auto industry in the past which
helps them to learn a lot from their seniors
and other executive managers of the same
industry, which then they try to
implement successful style of
management that has worked best for
other competitors and also combining it
with their own experience in the industry
for developing new skills even better than
other managers.
3. Leaders are very dynamic in nature
and are ready to face the challenges
coming up and try to come up with
various strategies to overcome those
hurdles. Leaders function outside
their boundaries and this is the reason
why it makes a positive impact on the
organization.
E.g. Leaders of various departments
at Bajaj Auto have a very flexible and
dynamic personality and are always
open to new ideas and approaches to
create various strategies and styles in
work to improve the departmental
performances and at the same time
make his subordinates more smarter
and experienced for future challenges
which could be dealt with their past
experiences and knowledge gained
from their carrier.
4. Leaders inspire/motivate other
employees by giving their 100% in
their work which influences other
employees to work more efficiently
and whole heartedly.
E.g. Leaders at Onkar developers are
very dedicated towards their job and
work very hard to make the objectives
of the management their top priority
which motivates his employees to
support him in his job as he is the one
who takes all the responsibility for his
department which brings a sense of
caring towards the employees in their
mind and makes them work more
harder and improve constantly to
make their leaders proud of them and
show that they are a part of his team
he is not alone who will carry the
burden of his work.
17
Managers are not change acceptors and
function on the skills and theories they
already know, hence managers function
within the boundaries.
E.g. Managers at Bajaj Auto are very
experienced and knowledgeable in their
fields which makes them a little rigid in
terms of accepting change in their
working fundaments and only implement
change if it’s going to affect their
department or the company severely, they
function based upon their knowledge and
experience and set working style and
methods of reporting which they feel are
best for the company and are within the
boundaries of the policies set by the
company unlike leaders of Bajaj auto who
are inclined more to care about their
subordinates and try to make them feel
comfortable in every situation using their
skills and experience for betterment of the
company by fulfilling the requirements of
the management.
Managers just assigns the work to the
employees which was given to him by his
superiors and expects it to be completed
by the employees without caring about
their emotions of the employees.
Managers simply controls and directs the
subordinates about the given goals.
E.g. Managers at Onkar developers are
very bossy in terms of approaching their
labors and employees as they are task
oriented and don’t care about their
employees much and have a mindset that
paying the employees makes them work
for their employer in any situation and
don’t focus on their emotions usually
until the matter requires to be solved due
to the organizations progress is being
affected by it only then the managers try
to implement change in their style and
strategies.
 5. Leader always believe in team spirit
and this is the reason why he actively
participates with the employees to
achieve a goal or objectives making
them even more motivated and
positive towards their work.
E.g. Leaders at Samsung (India)
always give a helping hand to their
subordinates for competing their tasks
and reach the deadlines to stay
committed to the company but at the
same time they ensure that their
employees are not stuck with a
problem which is causing them to
work ahead and hinders their
performance the leaders give them
individual attention and help them to
come out of those situations to reach
the organizational goals on time with
highest productivity and job
satisfactions displayed by the
employees making the top 3
electronic brand in the entire world.
Managers simply do not participate in any
activity and just does the job of
monitoring the employees and their
working pattern and reporting it to their
superiors and keeping them updated
about the status of the company.
Managers at Samsung (India) are very
inclined towards giving various
commands and directions for the job and
duties assigned by them to their
employees and expect successful
completion of the tasks no matter how
that creates a stressful environment at
work because each employees tries to
push himself forcefully to perform better
in the fear of being punished or fired by
their managers as they believe only the
fittest have a place in the company if the
employees are paid a higher salary than
the rest of the competitors which makes
the managers drain their employees as
much as possible without giving major
emotional and mental support like leaders
who show up in such situations so the
company’s performance stays positive
and the tasks are accomplished by the
team merely by persuading them and
supporting them at each phase of their
work and preparing them for facing
challenges much more competitively
making them better professionals
individually capable of facing even the
toughest situation with moderate
difficulty.

At Bajaj Auto, the managers and the team leaders possess various characteristics which helps the company to
perform its various organizational functions and achieve the organizational objectives efficiently and
effectively. The manager’s like Joslyn Murzello(Operations Dept.), Rakesh Singh(Production Dept.), Vatsal
Seth(General Manager, G.M.), and managers of other departments at Bajaj Auto possess traits like minimizing
risks involved in performing various activities and constantly learning and imitating the style and skills
possessed by successful people/managers around the world. They also make sure that their knowledge about
their field of job is constantly updated leading to increase in the overall quality of the output from the company.
All the managers at Bajaj Auto are well experienced and equipped with vast knowledge about their department
and are backed up with rich working experience in the past working for the similar industry. The managers at
Bajaj Auto have a great time management skills, this ensures timely delivery as committed by the company
and sustain good reputation in the market.

Leaders like Adarsh Jain and the rest of them, at Bajaj Auto are very good communicators which helps the
company to deliver very clear and specific instructions and commands to the each employee individually
making the organizational functions very efficient and effective ensuring superior quality in production and
minimization time wastage. The leaders in Bajaj Auto tries to build a healthy team spirit which ensures the
given objectives are achieved smoothly and effectively. The leaders at Bajaj Auto have very innovative ideas
which help the company mitigate risks during the crisis and keep the shareholders’ interests satisfied.

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The author has summarized the difference between leadership and management.

(WiseStep, 2019) (Simplilearn.com, 2019)

 Leadership refers to an ability or a skill possessed by an individual that helps to inspire and encourage
other people to work harder and give even better performance therefore increasing the overall efficiency
amongst the employees making the organization even better and helps in the growth of the company. There
are many qualities that are a part of leadership skills some of which include, risk taking, forecasting the
outcomes of a situation, having excellent team spirit, facing challenges, being more dynamic in nature etc.

 Management is an art which helps to get things done from other people. Management is generally a more
colder approach all together in terms of guiding/directing a team. Management tasks usually consists of
controlling and directing a group of individuals under a person called as the manager who guides them to
achieve the collective/common organizational goals targeted by the company. Management skills consists
of various traits like, being persistent and adhering to a specific rule or principle, even if it is not acceptable
by the employees, not working based upon emotions of the employees, being work and result oriented
rather than caring about welfare and emotions of the employees/team members.

The author has analyzed and differentiated the role of a leader and a manager at Bajaj Auto:

At Bajaj Auto both the leaders and the managers play a crucial role for the success of the company ensuring
smooth functioning of the organization. The leaders like Mr. Adarsh Jain(Production Dept.) and various other
leaders of respective organizational departments at Bajaj Auto help the management to maintain healthy
relations with the employees to make sure the operations and the work environment is harmonious and each
and every one is working voluntarily without being pressurized also the leader at Bajaj auto help to inspire
and influence the employees by becoming a role model and an advisor for any issues faced by the employees
so the focus isn’t lost and the employees work dedicatedly. Finally the leaders at Bajaj Auto step up during
the tough times faced by the company and come up with creative ideas to tackle the difficult period of time.

The role of the production manager Mr. Rakesh Singh is widely different from the leaders at Bajaj Auto and
effective in various ways like he uses range of management theories like Management by Objective, Classical
Management Theory, and Systems theory to make sure each and every organizational functions are performed
smoothly, maintains communications with various other departments of Bajaj Auto to create a link between
all the departments of the entire organization to build team spirit and achieve the common goals together
thereby increasing the productivity and profitability of the organization and create competitive advantage over
the competitors. Mr. Rakesh Singh(Manager Production Dept.) uses Management by objective where the
manager Rakesh Singh uses this technique to set, record, and monitor goals for a particular period of time.
This helps the managers to make the employees work together with them and as per the desired direction of
the higher level of management of Bajaj Auto to make sure the commands are flowing right from the highest
levels of management right till the front line workforce and translate them into personal goals for individual
employee at Bajaj auto.

This helps the managers to create a link in a organizations to create a link between the organization’s
employees and perform cross function across various other departments to achieve the common goals together
to increase the productivity and chances to achieve the objectives and goals with higher success rate as more
number of professionals work towards a specific objective and use their knowledge to come up with various
strategies to accomplish them, also challenging objectives become more easier to solve with combined efforts
and increase the core competency of the company and build a healthy internal environment inside the company
for smooth and harmonious functioning and better output levels and quality of the products increasing
gradually and cost of productions going low as a result of optimum utilization of resources.

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It also makes the manger create more accuracy while allocating the jobs as the commands from the apex
management is sent very clearly to the bottom most chain of command which helps the company to reduce
duplication of work and confusion while working that could otherwise hamper the productivity by lowering
it and wasting a lot of time of the company that could be used for other productive activities.

Management by objective is a theory applied by the managers and not by the leaders whose job is to make the
theory introduced by the manager is accepted and processed by each of his subordinates and persuade them
to adopt new styles of working by using leadership styles/models to implement the management theories and
makes sure each employees is aligned properly and is working as per the guidelines and deadlines given by
the manager. The leader of production department Mr. Adarsh Jain uses Transformational style of
leadership to ensure that each employee’s behavior is analyzed by the leader to ensure effective and accurate
allocation of jobs for resolving the issue of rising cost of production as each employee was allotted tasks and
responsibilities by the willingness shown towards their jobs, skills and knowledge possessed for right position
to be given for optimum utilization of workforce, past performances in the company, experience in the field,
behavior towards the task etc. This makes the leaders function and perform differently from the managers as
they don’t focus more about the individual characteristics of a person and just assigns the jobs as per their the
duties and responsibilities of the employee but the leader breaks down the tasks in achievable targets and
better efficiency and clarity about the work as each employee is aware and prepared about their upcoming
projects and are known to the methods to achieve them as a whole.

The leader also encourages team spirit by using effective communication skills and personalized approach
towards employees raising the job satisfaction and improving the relations among the teams due to happiness
among the members leading to increased co-ordination and cross functioning of the departments by
communicating effectively and working to support the entire functions of the organization and covering the
strengths and weakness of each other to create core competency and generate better revenue. The leader also
makes various strategies and alternate plans if a particular style of leadership does not work well and
constantly changes his approach to understand and allocate jobs in such a manner that will raise the
organizational productivity in the given amount of resources and reduce the wastage in terms of raw material
and time resulting in decreased cost of production as more units can be produced with the existing cost.

Classical Management Theory is used by the production manager Mr. Rakesh Singh at Bajaj Auto to
increase the productivity in order to maximize profits and specialize his workforce to deliver implement high
levels of skills while performing the production activity to manufacture the vehicles made by Bajaj Auto 2/3
wheelers to make sure the products are produced in the right quantity to cater to the demand in the market and
not loses business due to lack of finished products that could have occurred if not managed carefully with
right monitoring techniques. To achieve the above tasks of the company Rakesh Singh uses various
management theories which he has learned, tried and tested in his experience and has worked well for him as
per past performance is concerned. Classical management theory is implement by Rakesh Singh to maintain
the structure of the organization, adhere to the policies of the company and make decisions based upon them
and stay in their boundaries of action, and use a practical way of management to achieve the objectives and
goals of the business. The following steps help the manager to implement classical management theory most
effectively and correctly asper the required situations.

Firstly Mr. Rakesh divides his work to be assigned as per the groups of employees to be allotted the duties,
and makes sure the jobs to be given are familiar to the employees if not he provides necessary trainings to
avoid future issues arising when executing the plans. This makes him reduce the efforts and attentions to be
given to each employee individually as generalized understanding is created among the employees. It allows
the manager to save the time of the organization and enables him to use the time for other functions of
management used by him in day to day activities bringing in more profitability and stability in the company
to stay competitive.

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Secondly Rakesh Singh being a manager, he maintains the discipline among the employees and a mark of
respect for the formal and informal agreements made between the employees and the firm so the true focus
can stay on the work rather than solving the organizational issues arising due to disagreement in various levels
of the project execution but due to mutual agreements situations like these arise at a negligible level and
impacts the company by staying efficient at all time and function smoothly towards achieving organizational
goals and objectives.

Creating superiority and distinctness among the employees as the commanding, co- ordinating, controlling
and planning is done by the managers based upon the organizational objectives flown down to them by higher
levels of the management and is passed to the employees after breaking them down into achievable goals and
specific to the department and groups of employees. It also enable the manager to create a strong link across
the organization as the communication is very strong and accurate inside the company leading to mitigation
of duplication of work and lack of understanding of work. Manager being a sole person to command it helps
him to make the subordinates work as per his style and working methods which will allow him to plan future
activities based upon the results achieved using the techniques prescribed by him to the employees and
knowing the outcomes well in advance for making future operations achievable much more efficiently and
effectively as per desired.

Initiative due to a hard working environment/culture created by the managers all the staff at every level is
expected to show initiative and be motivated to work willingly and not by pressuring to maintain a healthy
work environment and building stronger relationships with the employees thereby increasing the process and
product quality levels of the company.

Maintain the working order as each employee is deployed on the right place of job the work carried out is
finished in an appropriate order to avoid chaos in the later stages as some groups are done with their jobs and
some are not which will keep the groups that have done the jobs well before without any task for the time
being due to incomplete overall project to be accomplished. By maintaining an appropriate order the manager
can control the activity of work and stay more result based as the inputs from the workforce are eligible to
plan for higher goals and accomplish them for higher returns for the company.

The leader of the production department Mr. Adarsh Jain performs his role and duties by helping the manager
of the production department to implement the required theory of management amongst the team to move
towards the desired direction of the top levels of management of the organization and raise profitability and
effectiveness in the functions of the company and maintaining a strong organizational structure for better
productivity and clear understanding of jobs among the employees for better approach to complete the jobs
an perform better.

To help the manager implement classical management theory effectively and achieve the desired results the
leader Mr. Adarsh Jain uses Action centered leadership model/theory to achieve proper implementation of the
theory and persuade the employees to adopt the new style of working and reporting by conveying the
advantages of the new style and comparing how it will benefit. Them individually by adopting new styles of
working and increasing their performance and productivity. Action centered leadership model/theory was
developed by John Adair in 1960’s and is a template for the leaders in a company that serves as a guideline to
maintain a proper balance between the 3 main components in an organization using 3 overlapping circles each
representing one component as follows; 1. Task, 2 Team, 3. Individual. By using this theory effectively the
leader at Bajaj Auto for production department successfully maintains a perfect balance between these
components to maintain smoothness in operations, stability within the company and finally keeping the
subordinates happy at work to maintain the quality of work and performance of the individuals. The 3 circles
are fulfilled by Mr. Adarsh Jain using various techniques for each component as follows;

21
1. Task: Mr. Adarsh Jain tries to identify and set a goals/tasks that could be achieved by his team members
leading to profits in the organization. He also shares the ideas and knowledge about the goals and objectives
amongst the team members to ensure maximum participation after which he sets up various methods to ensure
the workers have proper resources to work and a healthy work environment is created for working then he
monitors the progress of his subordinates and reports it to the higher level of management quickly by having
a smooth channel where he reports his supervisors who then forwards the information to the head of the
department who reports to the apex authorities at Bajaj Auto. He also uses various budgetary control
techniques to ensure price optimization is possible and the prices of the products can stay low without affecting
the quality of the product.

2. Team: Mr. Adarsh Jain takes care of his subordinates by communicating very transparently about the
directions to achieve the goals and objectives and giving constant feedback about the progress made to his
subordinates so they can stay updated also this enables the leader to build trust with his subordinates because
they think they are treated as a part of the organization and their employer believes in them which makes them
work even harder increasing the overall productivity.

3. Individual: Mr. Adarsh Jain approaches each and every subordinates frequently to ensure their basic needs
like job security, emotional support, work life balance personal issues this helps the leader to make the
employees believe that their dignity and morals are respected at the workplace and the sensitivity towards the
employees encourages, motivates and inspires them to perform even better and face difficult situations
peacefully believing their leaders have their back if anything goes wrong and would help them to come out of
the situation by working upon it together as a team also the leader takes full responsibility his team if
something goes unplanned and not back’s off when his team needs his support which motivates the employees
to work dedicatedly to fail their leader in front of the company. If the employees face hinderances during work
the leader is always ready to solve their problems by giving the right directions to the employees and
suggestions as per individual basis for more effectiveness.

Mr. Adarsh Jain implements Transactional leadership style when there is a real need for it. It is a form of
leadership style which focuses on an aspect of a business which deals with rewards and punishment to the
employees based upon the quality of the work delivered by them if the employees achieve the goals
successfully they receive a reward and if vice versa if poor performance is delivered. This style of leadership
motivates the employees with reward and punishment method, transactional leadership will fulfill the basic
needs of the employees like being paid, giving proper work environment work life balance etc. As the
employees follows the set pattern of working by the leader there is no scope to use their own mind to come
up with innovative ideas This type of leadership won’t help the employees to have original ideas and grow
personally and will only motivate the employees for a short term.

Bajaj Auto being a manufacturing company is a 60% labor 40% technological dependent organization which
requires its employees to perform with utmost efficiency in order to cope up with the high demands in the
market for their product, this style of leadership helps to achieve optimum efficiency from the employees
because it is a very lucrative way to motivating the employees and the effort to reward ratio is very high
leading to accomplishment of the set objectives making the goals achievable in a given time. The employees
at Bajaj are very comfortable with this style of leadership which makes them happy about that their extra
efforts creates value themselves. This leadership style has proven very fruitful for the company when the true
requirement for it is arise and is implemented in those situations only as their rising revenue speaks for itself.

22
The author has analyzed and critically evaluated as how situations affect role of a leader and function
of a manager in an organization.
There are multiple situations, crisis, issues arising in an organization at various periods of time, it is important
that these situations should be tackled and be resolved as soon as possible to avoid hinderance in the
organizational functions which will lead to hampering the objectives of the organizations. There are two types
of people in an organization to deal with such phase of an organization they are the leaders and the managers,
whenever there is an problem the leader steps up and shows confidence and steadiness by taking charge of the
situation and coming up with various ideas to deal with it whereas the managers at the same time ensures that
they have full control over the employees and make sure the right thing is done by them as directed by the
manager.

The manager tries his level best to mitigate the risks by forming various policies and changing the working
style depending upon the situation or the need. The leaders on the other hand makes the employees calm and
alert by asking them not to panic in such situations and instead think of various solutions to come out of it
with a positive attitude and taking that as a learning experience and be prepared for it in the future. Also the
leaders ask the employees to work as a single unit by building team spirit and coordination so the situation is
overshadowed by the workforce. The managers resolve all the minor issues within the organization which
might have caused such a big situation due to negligence in the past or uninformed about it. The leaders come
up with an emergency plan which is executed by the manager who then instructs all the employees to work
accordingly and ensures effective communication is maintained at all times for solving the situations as soon
as possible without any misunderstandings. At the end both the leaders and managers use various managerial
skills and abilities to handle the situation whereas the leaders use various leadership styles best suited for the
situation arise and act as per it.

The leader Mr. Adarsh Jain(Production Dept. Head), and various other leaders of various departments plays
and various roles and responsibilities like persuading their teams to work as per the decisions made by the
management and direct them and train them to take challenges for upcoming projects and develop their skills
and knowledge to ensure the jobs allotted to them are performed with utmost precision and effectiveness
thereby raising the quality levels of the process and the products as each employees is trained and prepared to
perform their jobs with specialization in it and having good experience and attitude towards the project which
directly affects their outputs and by being clear about their duties and roles the employees don’t face issues in
between the execution of the project as the leaders had prepared them well in advance and smooth operations
and successful accomplishment of goals can be done to make the company more competitive and innovative
in the market as new ideas often come up with specialization in a particular field and willingness to do the
jobs voluntarily without being pressurized.

The operations manager Mr. Joslyn Murzello plays a vital role in maintaining smooth operations at Bajaj Auto
as he performs various roles and responsibilities to ensure it. The manager maintain a healthy levels of goods
and workforce in the company to fulfill the demands in the market and stay competitive. He staffs various
people as per individual department’s needs, encourages the company to stay contribute to their external
environment and stay ethical and legal in their functions to avoid litigations and malpractices in the company.
The manager also co-ordinates with various department heads to source their requirements for raw material
and labor at the cheapest and best possible rates without hampering the quality to reduce the cost of production.
There are many more functions that the operations manager performs at Bajaj Auto to satisfy each stakeholder
of the company and plays a vital role in its success and step up when there is an issue faced by the organization
and look for best possible solutions and combine each departments efforts to work together to diffuse the
situation.

Conclusion: The manager Mr. Rakesh Singh at Bajaj Auto ensure all the organizational functions are aligned
properly and perform various roles like planning, organizing the resources, reviewing the performances of the
departments, reporting to the superiors and setting budgets to execute the objectives. Mr. Rakesh Singh makes
sure that the vision set by the leaders are achieved by breaking down the activities needed to be conducted to
achieve it and accomplish various goals before reaching the vision as a part of progress made towards directing
his team to achieve the vision.

23
Therefore both the Managers as well as leaders at Bajaj Auto work hand in hand and are interrelated to each
other and working towards achieving the common goals and objectives of the organization resulting into
profitability and stability of the company also capturing more market share.

Figure 1.1: Mr. Rakesh Singh Figure1.2: Mr. Adarsh Jain

(Production Senior Manager at Bajaj Auto) (Team Leader Production Dept. at Bajaj Auto)

Figure1.3: Mr. Joslyn Murzello Figure 1.4: Mr. Rajiv Bajaj

(Operations management head manager and leader (C.E.O./ Managing Director at Bajaj Auto)
at Bajaj Auto)

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Situation 1: At Bajaj Auto the rising prices of fuel, raw materials, and equipment’s thereby increasing
their cost of production for the vehicles manufactured by them . (Juneja, 2019) (Ali, 2016) (Russ, 2019)

The leaders ensure that the organization is working towards the desired direction of fulfilment of
organizational objectives. There are various functions of a manager and a leader which helps in smooth
functioning of the organization and prevent or tackle various situations that arise in an organization.

In this particular situation where Bajaj Auto was facing a hike in fuel costs, raw materials and equipment
increased the cost of production which was affecting the budgets of the company for the given activities, at
Bajaj Auto the Manager(Mr. Rakesh Singh) and Leader(Mr. Adarsh Jain) at Bajaj Auto applied various
leadership styles and theories of management using their past experiences and knowledge in order to deal with
the situation and bring back the company to its normal cost of production even better than before. Here is a
list of actions which were taken by Mr. Adarsh Jain and Mr. Rakesh Singh together as a team to ensure the
company was back at its normal production cost which increased the sales and revenue of the company thereby
resulted in good profits. 1st of all the Manager(Mr. Rakesh Singh) applied the contemporary theory of
management is a behavioral management theory which explains that there is no best way to lead, organize and
make decisions for a company in an contingent situation instead the optimal course of action is contingent and
should be taken considering the internal and external situations. With the help of the operational management
department to make sure combined efforts of the employees, leader(Adarsh Jain), the manager(Rakesh Singh)
are put together to bring down the cost of production of the company, the manager(Rakesh Singh) formed
strategies like selecting the suppliers who can supply the raw material, equipment at lower prices in the market
without affecting its quality and deliver them at the promised date of delivery.

Also the manager also formed various strategies in order to reduce waste by 10-15% by implementing Kaizen
and Total Quality Management and utilize the resources optimally to reduce the cost of manufacturing,
Whereas the leader(Adarsh Jain) at Bajaj Auto motivated their employees to work even more efficiently by
adapting to various modern technologies like advanced manufacturing robots for paint job, welding, lathes,
molding machines, and etc. which resulted in better productivity and efficiency of the production department
and ensured the cost of production were lowered down considerably to compete in the market and increase
the sales up 15-20% of the company even in tough times for the company which allowed the company to give
a competitive advantage over other brands.

The manager also took care that there was no resistance in the employees towards the change made in the
organization this only happened because they build a sense of trust amongst the employees as well as with the
managers and leaders that helped in developing effective communication and avoid misunderstandings in the
employees and each employee was aware about the duties and functions precisely and made the functioning
smooth and harmonious. This could only be possible because the managers had effective communication skills
and applied them for the betterment of the company.

Management by objective is a theory which is also a strategic management model that aims to improve the
performance of an organization by clearly defining objectives that are agreed by both management and the
employees as well. The manager at Bajaj Auto used Management by Objectives by following these steps 1st
The objectives of the organization were determined and revised as per the need for that particular situation
which was to reduce the cost of production by improving the production activities and strengthening the
internal environment of the company to cope up with the external environmental changes that weren’t
favorable to the company. 2nd The current objectives of the organization were translated to the employees
which was to lower the cost of the production in order to increase the sales and revenue of the company, the
manager at the same time formed objectives that were SMART (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic,
Time-Bound) this ensured the objectives were achieved with utmost efficiency and effectiveness. 3rd The
managers engaged into activities that consisted of participation of the employees in setting the individual
objectives.

25
As the organizational objectives were shared with the employees completely and to everybody, the employees
were then encouraged to help set their own objectives to achieve the larger organizational objectives this made
the employees less resistant and ensures utmost participation by them due to the sense of trust and importance
given to them by the organization. It also helped the company to make the employees more committed to their
work.

4th Once the employees begin to work the managers tracked the performances of the employees and measured
it using various performance measuring tools one of them being Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). The
managers noted where the employees were lacking and what was the scope for improvement in it by advising
each employee individually. This helped the employees to grow individually as a professional and a person
and perform better at work. Finally after the successful completion of the work the manager evaluated the
performance of the employees and gave honest feedback and inform about the expectations from the employee
as an organization. Also if an employee had shown exceptional progress in his work he/she were rewarded
and felicitated which kept them motivated for the future and even gave them appraisal if needed to help them
identify what was achieved and what was not.

Classical management theory was applicable to Bajaj Auto, where the managers made the policies which
enhanced the productivity of the company by 20% resulting in lower cost of operation and production. This
theory also created an effective communication between the apex level of management to the lower level of
management so each everybody was aware about the activities in the company and tracked them easily and
monitored the progress that ensured the goals were achieved or not. This theory ensured that the division of
labor was done most effectively by breaking down projects into smaller tasks that are fairly easy to achieve
and will deploy the workforce into their area of specialization that resulted in increased productivity by 20%
and lowered cost of production of the vehicles.

Since Bajaj Auto is a mid- large size company it has 3 levels of management, 1. Apex level management
(Board of directors, CEO’s, etc.) who are responsible long term goals and objectives of the company. 2.
Middle level management (Department managers, heads etc.) who are responsible for overseeing the
supervisors and setting various department goals as per the budget allotted. 3. Lower level of management
(Supervisors who manage day-day activities and train the employees at various times), this helped Bajaj Auto
to have a very clear hierarchical structure so that no confusions raised during the time of execution of those
policies set by the mangers and also in day to day working of the company.

Classical management theory focuses mainly on autocratic leadership which means that the major decisions
of the company were made by the top level of management and passed down the hierarchal structure. Classical
management theory also benefited the company by raising the morale and performance of the employees by
giving monetary rewards which had a significant impact on the employees performances and made them feel
motivated and understand that they are being valued by the organization they work for. The managers and the
staff at Bajaj Auto worked as per the policies followed by them known as KAIZEN which means “continuous
improvement” and translates to real world by constantly improving the quality of production over the period
of time which allowed the company to compete effectively in the market and gain reputation in the market.
Also this enabled the staff, managers and leaders to work collaboratively because it required multiple brains
to achieve higher standard of quality and gave the employees a sense of team work and decreased the tendency
of competition amongst themselves due to jealousy.

The leader (Mr. Adarsh Jain) applied participative leadership style which motivated the employees to come
out with creative solutions, acceptance of decisions more readily due to the fact that each one had come up
with the same idea of working towards something finally it helped to raise the morale of the employees as
their voice were heard and considered in decision making which created a healthy work environment and
retention of employees for longer period by building trust in the employees mind.

26
This style of leadership helped in solving the issue of increased cost of production due to various external
reason because both the managers and staff were giving inputs for decision making regarding reducing the
cost of production. This style of leadership is based upon the relationship based approaches used by the leaders
to get the work done by the employees voluntarily and not forcefully by giving strict orders whereas at the
same time maintaining the quality of working style of the subordinates.

Behavioral theory of management was applied by the managers at Bajaj Auto this theory explains how a
person reacts to a particular situation which describes their human needs, expectations, behavior at work,
productivity, skills and area of conflicts, this helped the leaders to allot jobs more effectively resulting in
timely completion of work and achievement of goals and objectives smoothly. By using this theory at Bajaj
Auto the issue of raised cost of production was resolved, as the employees were working as per skills and
abelites in the company as it was necessary to identify each employees behavioral characteristics, job
satisfaction levels and expectations from the company so that jobs can be allotted specifically and to the best
individual for that particular job. This was done by the leader Mr. Adarsh Jain by using transformational style
of leadership by communicating with the employees by defining them the new policies developed by the
managers and convincing them to adapt the new working style as per the new policies developed by the
managers for the betterment of the company and resolving the issue of raised cost of production.

The leaders applied the contingency theory which focuses on the change in strategies according to the various
changing situations, here the leader Mr. Adarsh Jain played an important role to implement this theory because
the leader influenced the employees to bring the changes in the day to day operations in order to compete with
the prevailing challenges in the market and create a competitive advantage in the market after successfully
achieving the given targets the leader Mr. Adarsh Jain rewarded his subordinates monetarily and sometimes
non-monetary rewards which raised the morale of the workers and encouraged them to even perform better in
the future looking at the rewarding nature of the management.

Overall it can be concluded this combination of various roles and functions backed with the leadership styles
& management theories applied in Bajaj Auto ensured the problematic situation of rise in cost of production
of vehicles was resolved so that the regular operations of the company could be back to normal and work
towards accomplishment of the future organizational goals and objectives of Bajaj Auto.

The leaders played an important role by helping the managers to implement various theories and implement
them without resistance from the employees by convincing them about adopting new techniques and giving
its benefits and also conducting various feedback sessions for the management from the employees and for
the employees from the leaders to build a heathy communication which helped to flow down the accurate
information about the company’s objectives and the expectations from the management and built focus in the
employees to achieve it and gave a right direction to achieve it. Which resulted in prevention of confusion in
the employees and duplication of work due to lack of awareness, it also enabled the company to reduce the
cost of production and raise the quality of the products as the employees were prepared and skilled to conduct
their duties with highest priority and efficiency which lead to producing better quality products at lower prices
by utilizing the resources optimally and effectively as they practiced best techniques for production taught to
them by their leaders and the experts.

The managers at Bajaj Auto including the operations and production managers ensured the right budgeting
and sourcing of raw material are being done in the company to lower the cost of production and perform lean
cost cutting without affecting the quality of the products and giving targets to utilize the wastage in the
company which led to significant drop in production cost as the resource were utilized optimally and carefully
and the cost spent on wastage due to improper assembly and production were cut down. The managers also
deployed the most skilled workforce to diffuse the situation and increase the efficiency of the company.

27
Situation 2: Bajaj Auto faced an issue where the company was unable to cater to the high demand of
their products by 20%, in the market that had affected negatively resulted in lower output levels of the
company in a phase of high demand of their products in the market. (Lean Manufacturing and Six
Sigma Definitions, 2019)

The issue faced by Bajaj Auto was that the productivity of the company had gone down by 20% due to the
increased demand of their products(Motorbikes and 3-wheelers) in the market. The leaders and managers
played an important role in resolving that situation by addressing it correctly, these are the roles and functions
performed the leaders and manager at Bajaj Auto. The managers analyzed the past performances of the
employees which gave him an clear idea about the drop in performance and what might be the possible reasons
for it. It was identified by the managers by using various performance measuring tools like KPI’s, deadlines,
level of quality expected, timescales etc. After analyzing the performance pattern the manager conducted a
survey about what are the difficulties, demands and expectations the employees were having and necessary
actions about it were taken by the manager(Mr. Rakesh Singh) so that the employees didn’t feel left out and
develop a thinking that they were not cared by their employer which could have led to inefficiency in their
work hampering their performance but this helped the manager to prevent that situation.

After successfully gathering the data the manager tracked the performance of various departments that were
not performing well especially the production department and implement various strategies to increase the
productivity of those departments so the end goal was achieved by increasing the production numbers and
utilize the resources optimally. The manager then formed strategy like adapting modern technologies for
production like bringing in new welding equipment, better cutting tools for metals for improved quality and
faster outputs raising the productivity and efficiency, getting durable molds for better longevity and prevent
frequent need for replacement due to losing of shape quickly this improved the quality as well as the
productivity as less time was spent on replacing and installing molds for metal parts, advances nut and bolt
tightening robotics for increased speed of production and assembly for better productivity and faster output
of assembled parts ready to be sent ahead of the assembly line quickly, bringing in more advanced forklifts
which could transport the goods from place of production to another in the production site by carrying more
loads and reach faster up to 25% that reduced the time needed for shifting the goods in the assembly line to
different places and resulted in better productivity and lower fuel costs as more goods could be transported
using lesser fuel than previous forklifts, and etc.

The managers encouraged the labors to use higher skills for the production process to make the operations
more leaner and efficient also increase the quality of the products, it was achieved using motivational
techniques like appraisals, monetary rewards for exceptional performances, non-monetary motivation like
praising them for their work, forming groups of employees who worked most efficiently and deployed them
where their skills were needed the most, assign jobs as per their skills, performance and specializations of the
employees so each job was done with utmost efficiency. The manager also trained the employees to work
more efficiently by using new technology that led to rise in the production levels gradually to 15% and later
in some days up to 20% which was the actual rise in demand than usual and was catered successfully. The
manager hired new staff for new areas of production that required special skills and made the production
process even smoother.

This was achieve by the help of applying classical management theory that allowed the manager at Bajaj Auto
to clearly define the division of the labor forces as per their specialization, motivate them by giving monetary
rewards, taking decisions for his subordinates individually so he has a strong control over the employees work
and tracked it, and ensure the hierarchical structure of the company is well defined and the objectives at each
level of management were achieved with utmost efficiency and productivity.

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Management by objective was applied which enabled healthy participation from the employees because the
decisions taken were collaborative and mutually agreed by the entire work force involved in that operation.
Management by Objective made the employees work even harder because of the commitments made by them
during the process of acceptance of the policies made by the manager. The leader Mr. Adarsh Jain ensured all
the employees were motivated and focused during the implementation of this policy by using various
leadership skills like influencing, empathizing, team work, building a positive attitude towards work.

The leader used effective communication skills so that each employee was clear about their duties and
responsibilities that helped to avoid misunderstandings amongst the employees so the leader was able direct
them in the right direction of work. The leader also helped the manager to implement the policies as planed
so the targets were achieved in the given time. As it was a tough time faced by the company the leader stepped
up and calmed down every employee and made them think of it as a challenge that will be completed together
as a team that will give them exposure to corporate challenges.

The leader can adapted a combination of democratic and transformational leadership, democratic leadership
is where the employees give individual inputs/opinion to the leaders which gives them an equal opportunity
to speak about their mind which at the end the leader decides whether to go with the employees
inputs/recommendations or take his own decision on a project but this style of leadership make the employees
feel valued by their employer which motivates them to work even better increasing their productivity.
Transformational leadership says that a leader constantly tries to improve the company’s conventions by
pushing their employees capabilities outside their comfort zone and training them to face new goals and
challenges so that they can give their best performance in the organization boosting the productivity.

At Bajaj Auto the leader used transformational and democratic styles during this situation which work out to
be the best for them and got the situation diffused. The manager must applied the strategy of KAIZEN which
helped the company to improve constantly and improve the overall production numbers and efficiency at the
same time ensuring the employees specialize in their jobs with the help of it and reduce the wastage and
lowered the cost of production.

Six Sigma was used by the manager at Bajaj Auto that made the production process lean which and made the
organization functions much more effective and generate higher output levels that solved the problem of low
productivity and high demand faced by Bajaj Auto. Six Sigma is a disciplined, statistical-based, data driven
approach and has a methodology of continuous improvement for preventing manufacturing defects in a
product, service or process. Six sigma works on the variation in data collection of a particular process and the
defect is identified by the set range of the acceptable limits.

Six Sigma is a 5 step process which is abbreviated as “DMAIC”. It stands for Define, Measure, Analyze,
Improve, Control this process helps to solve classic problems. When Six Sigma was applied manufacturing
defects were cut down to 0.75% per batch of vehicles from earlier 1. drastically which reduced wastage
significantly and led to production of standardize products which helped in increasing the output of the
production department also because Kaizen is a tool which is involved in six sigma, that helped the company
to improve their production process constantly and eventually increase the production. It was applied perfectly
by the manager which also helped to increase the quality of the production which that allowed the company
to avoid such situations in the future.

The manager Mr. Rakesh Singh also analyzed the market demands of their products even more precisely and
maintained adequate inventory for producing finished products during that period of time which was done by
monitoring various inventory management software and better communications with the logistics department,
suppliers, operations manager/leader (Mr. Joslyn Murzello) as well as with the frontline workforce for daily
inflow and outflow of the goods.

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In conclusion the managers and leaders resolved the situation faced by Bajaj Auto which was a fall in
productivity due to rise in demand by 20% for their vehicles in the market and helped the company to
overcome this situation and capitalized on this opportunity which needed extra efforts from the workforce and
the leaders and managers of Bajaj. The managers at Bajaj Auto increased the productivity by setting up various
deadlines, measuring performances of his employees, tracking the progress and giving timely appraisals for
letting the employees understand where they are lagging and giving advices how to overcome that issue and
increase their efficiency and productivity. The managers also trained the employees to adopt to use new
machineries brought in the company for fulfilling the demands of the market this helped to reduce the time
spent on unproductive activities like replacements, maintenance of machinery, shifting goods to different
places on the production site etc. thereby increasing the efficiency and productivity in the same number of
working hours but utilizing it in much more effectively than previously. The operations manager constantly
looked for cheap source for raw material and timely delivery to ensure cost cutting is done in an apt way to
compensate for the charges of the new advanced machinery brought in the company for better productivity.

The leaders at Bajaj Auto constantly motivated the employees to push their limits and come out of their
comfort zone and increase their productivity by providing right training and guidance whenever needed for
smoother operations and building effective communications to reduce the resistance shown by the employees
and implement the new changes in the company smoothly which led to better productivity. The leader also
stepped up first during such situations and came up with creative ideas to tackle such situations and capitalize
on them by accepting the challenge and working even harder to overcome it with the help of his team. The
leaders also allocated the jobs as per the most suited individual after inspecting about all his past performances,
experiences, willingness, ability and skills and etc. to delegate jobs to the apt person and get it done due to the
specialize skills used by the employees in completing the job as they are familiar and trained for it and don’t
escape when new type of job is delegated to them as the leader stands by their side if they face difficulty in
executing the new jobs. This helped the managers to implement various new management theories and models
like Management by Objective, Behavioral theory of management, Six sigma methodology/model, Kaizen,
and etc. To improve the productivity and efficiency without much of resistance and the ability to transform
dynamically shown by the employees which helped the company to fulfill the demands of their customers in
the market and successfully accomplish the challenge given to them and met the objectives of the management.

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The author has explained how leadership style can vary in an organization as per the situation:
(Expert Program Management, 2019) (Bioss.com, 2019)

Leadership styles differ from organization to organization and from situation to situation so it is important for
the leaders in an organization to know exactly what leadership style will help the company to tackle the
challenges that comes in between achieving their vision. There are various Leadership styles and models as
listed below;

1.Autocratic leadership, This type of leadership is used when quick decisions need to be made, this situation
require immediate attention and might even lead to failure of the organization so at this moment the leaders
and managers step up and command their subordinates to do as directed by them, no questions asked by the
employees and simple do the job assigned to them in the given deadlines.

2.Democratic leadership, This style of leadership involves participation of employees to give inputs while
decisions making process is being performed. This style of leadership is used in situations which require
healthy working environment and reduce the chances of catastrophic failure due to the group check involved
in the process.

3.Transformational leadership, this style of leadership models the behavior of the employees they like to
see, set goals, and have high expectations, whilst at the same time emotionally supporting the subordinates to
achieve the vision set by the leader.

4.Transactional Leadership, this style of leadership involves the leader who rewards and punishes the
subordinates for promoting the compliance by the employees. This style of leadership helps to keep the
employees motivated for a short term. This style of leadership is suitable when the organization wants to
achieve a short term goal/objective and want the work to be done quickly without understanding the emotional
point of view of the employees.

5.Laissez-Faire Leadership, This style of leadership involves the leader allowing the subordinates to self-
direct themselves and not leading the team himself, this is also known as hands-off leadership style. This style
of leadership is mostly used in top levels of the organizational tree where building a strong bonding with the
team is very crucial and working together as a single unit to achieve a long term vision. For example this style
of leadership can be use when a senior leader appoints another senior leader to administer their respective
departments and use their own skills to achieve the designated vision and goals.

6.Situational Leadership Model, this style of leadership states that there is no best style of leadership and
the actions of a leader must keep on changing according to the circumstances they are facing. For example
this style of leadership can be used in situations like when the company want a particular job to be done in a
fairly quick period of time and direct the employees as mentioned by the top level of management . Here the
task based leadership will be applicable by the leader and may use task based approaches like using a famous
model of leadership i.e. John Adair Leadership theory which says explains that there should be a perfect
balance between the managerial responsibilities towards a the task, the group, and the individual to ensure
maximum
Efficiency and productivity is being achieved in the organization at the same time ensuring the employees are
satisfied with their jobs.

7.Systems Leadership Model, this style of leadership allows the leader to create the conditions where people
at all levels can work productively to as per their potential. It uses powerful principles about human behavior
to produce effective leadership models , organizational strategies, systems design and social process. This
style of leadership is effective in situations which are complex require special attention also serious matters
to be dealt with urgency to avoid incurring major losses in the company.

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8.Contingency Leadership Model, according to this theory, no leadership style is best in all situations.
Success depends upon a number of variables, including the leadership style, nature and skills of the
subordinates, and requirements for overcoming the situations. This style of leadership is used when the
organization is facing an unexpected situation which is hindering the regular operations of the company and
this style of leadership allows to tackle such situations and bring the make the operations of the company back
to its normal position by taking necessary steps that will be applicable to each employee and accepted by them
mutually.

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The author has critically evaluated the leadership styles and models below which are practiced in Bajaj
Auto and has assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and theory:

Situational leadership: It refers to when the leader or manager of an organization must adjust his style to fit
the development level of the followers he is trying to influence. Fiedler’s Contingency(situational) theory
states, “There is no best style of leadership to lead a team. The best way to lead your team will instead be
determined by the situation faced by the organization.” According to Fiedler, task oriented leaders get best
results when they face strongly favorable or strongly unfavorable situations whereas in situations which comes
with mixed favorableness then relationship oriented leaders tend to get better results compared to task oriented
leaders. (Bertalanffy, 1968)

At Bajaj Auto this has been very effective way of leadership style when the company is facing complex
situations and needs input from every employee to come up with creative ideas to tackle such situations
together mutually which motivates the employees to function much better and with a positive attitude towards
their job. As mentioned above there was a situation in Bajaj Auto where the company was facing an challenge
that was the rise in the cost of production which was caused due to hiked prices of raw material, equipment
and fuel. This is an external issue which is faced by the company here the leader of production dept.(Mr.
Adarsh Jain) and manager (Mr. Rakesh Singh) applied various strategies, styles of leadership and management
to overcome this situation.

The manager at Bajaj Auto identified the situation and its cause then he took a meeting with his employees
for the getting inputs from them about the situation this was done by effective communications by the manager
then he took the control over the employees individually so the directions and commands by him are clear to
each employee this avoided misunderstandings amongst the employees and made them focus of their assigned
goals and objectives.

The manager then formed various policies that he shared with the leader to implement by motivating the
employees to adapt to those changes without resistance towards the change, the policies included adapting
modern technologies for the production process like working more efficiently, using the available resources
optimally in order to reduce the wastage and increase the production capacity by reducing the cost of
production also deploying most skilled workers in the process of manufacturing so that the defects can be
reduced significantly that will benefit in saving cost of raw material and increase the production numbers. The
manager then selected the suppliers who can provide the required material at the given price, quantity and
date of deliver to avoid stock error and smooth functioning of the production process which will give the
manager the projected number of finished products.

The manager then used appraisal which helped the employees to understand the requirements of the company
from them as well as the expectations of the employees from the company which proved to be effective as
this process helped the company to fill the need gaps of both the sides and lead to positive outcome. The
manger used management by objective theory to ensure there is mutual acceptance in the decision making
process which made the employees develop a team spirit to work together a single unit to ensure maximum
participation efficiency in the production department for increased productivity. As mutual decisions were
made by the employees of achieving the particular goal/objective their commitment helped the company to
reduce the cost of production by performing more efficiently and increasing the efficiency in the department.

The leader Mr. Adarsh Jain ensured the policies made by the manager is are implemented correctly in his
team so the managers set goals can be achieved within the given deadlines. Mr. Adarsh then applied situational
leadership theory to delegate the duties to his subordinates/workers by analyzing the skills, behavior, traits,
ability of the employees which help him to deploy his work force in the most efficient manner which reduced
the cost of production significantly up to 15% that allowed Bajaj Auto to give a competitive advantage in the
market in terms of pricing in such a difficult condition of the market and helped the company to increase the
sales and revenue.

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The leader Mr. Adarsh influenced his employees by working on this situation with utmost efforts which made
the employees motivated due to the fact that they felt that the work load is not just put on the heads of the
workers instead their leaders are working along with them as a team which raises their morale to work.

Mr. Adarsh constantly trained and motivated his employees whenever he gave them new goals/targets that
made them prepared to achieve their next given goals and objectives and push their limits to constantly
improve their skills, performance and abilities to do their work and develop as an individual also at the same
time fulfilling the company’s policy of KAIZEN that helps Bajaj Auto to constantly innovate and grow in the
market by adapting the most efficient ways of working and use of modern technologies used for production
to reduce the cost of manufacturing and price their products at a cut throat price. The leader at Bajaj Auto also
applies democratic style of leadership which means that whenever a decision is made the employees inputs
are considered and later on decided by the leaders and managers whether to use it or not. This makes the
employees come up with various creative approaches to solve a particular situation and the methods they are
comfortable with which make the goals achievable.

This style of leadership allows the leader to build a healthy relations with his subordinates so the work he
assign to his subordinates are not resisted by them as they are comfortable with the working style of the leader
and enables the company to diffuse complex situations together and achieve short and especially long term
vision of the top level management, this style of leadership helps the leaders at Bajaj Auto to ensure the
employees are on the same page as the management in the decision making process as well as while working
on a particular goal/objective. Mr. Adarsh also rewards his employees monetarily as well as non-monetarily
that encourages them to perform even better because of lucrative effort to reward ratio as well as heathy
relations with the superiors. Mr. Adarsh also gives regular feedback to his subordinates after a particular period
of time which help him to understand the performance of his team take future decisions according to the
current scenario of his team which will help them to work more efficiently and effectively reducing the
wastage of time and resources and become more cost effective in production process.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Fiedler’s Contingency Theory:

Strengths:
1. It gives a simple thumb rule for identifying which type of leadership is best for which situations.
2. Unlike various leaderships theories, it considers situations in account in determining the effectiveness of
a leader and the style of leadership implemented.
3. All the situational factors and LPC(Least Preferred Coworker) table are easy to analyze and measure to
ensure what sort of approach is to be applied in various situation considering the actual workers with
whom the leader has to deal with.

Weaknesses:

1. The LPC scale is subjective and there are possibilities that the leader might incorrectly assess his own
style of leadership which may not work as expected an makes this theory a little unclear about the criteria
to judge co-workers based upon the components and how to come to a final rating for an employee. It
requires a leader to know each and employee personally and very well to judge him on the LPC scale as
new employees become a challenge to rate on the LPC scale as the leader does not have any strong past
experience with them and can’t judge precisely to delegate them what kind of job.
2. It becomes very difficult if a leader falls in the middle of the LPC rating scale as he will have no guidance
to adopt which style of leadership and has to maintain a healthy balance between both to get the job done
or use his own expertise to make the best decisions.
3. It is not a flexible theory as if the leadership style doesn’t match with the situations that is it nothing
describes further what actions to take to get an alternative way. This gives the leader very few to none
choices to bring a change in a situation if struck in between the theory.

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Conclusion: Overall situational leadership when applied at Bajaj Auto has helped them to overcome various
unexpected situations and not let them hamper the company’s functions severely and helps the company to
come up with creative ideas to beat the challenges successfully and achieve their organizational objectives. It
has helped the leaders of Bajaj Auto by letting them choose the best style of leadership to solve a particular
situation by analyzing the relations with each of his employees and rate them out of 10 based upon their
experience with them the list for rating between each factor includes; Unpleasant- Pleasant, Rejecting-
Accepting, Tense- Relaxed, Boring- Interesting, Backbiting- Loyal, Uncooperative- Cooperative, Hostile-
Supportive, Guarded- Open, Insincere- Sincere, Unkind- kind, Inconsiderate- Considerate, Untrustworthy-
Trustworthy, Gloomy- Cheerful, Quarrelsome- Harmonious. This helps the leader to allocate the jobs to the
employees based upon their ratings and implement task or relation based approaches to deal with the situation
and analyze which will work better and why?

At Bajaj Auto the leaders use a combination of Task & Relation based approaches to deal with the subordinates
as it helps to maintain a balance between work and personal relations so the productivity isn’t affected and
the employees take formal approach to do their work. Overall this has helped Bajaj Auto to face difficult
situations and come out of it fairly easily by bringing in necessary change in this leadership styles and
approaches to persuade the employees and delegate them the best suitable jobs for most productive outcomes
and avoid confusions and hindrances while executing the jobs. Using the right style of leadership helps the
leaders to build effective communications and relations with their employees and make them work easily in
the future easily due to the rapport they share and things they do for each other mutually to maintain the
relations and achieve the goals of the company. The leader uses task based approaches slightly more than
relation based approach when they need to organize the teams formally and want to achieve goals/objectives
quickly and effectively. Relation based approaches are used when there are conflicts and unexpected situations
arising in the company and needs full support from the employees to ensure team work is applied and the
contingency is resolved and dealt with.

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Systems Leadership: This style of leadership states that systems leadership is a collective act of various
groups of people or an individual head of the systems at a variety of levels in an organization working towards
a common organizational objective in different departments and performing various organizational functions
to achieve the common goals. This theory help to create a link between all the departments and levels in the
organization to ensure the desired goals are achieved without having a blame game scenario where people
point finger at each other for the failure in an operation/project. The theory helps the leader to create the
conditions where people at all levels can work productively at par with their caliber and potential. It uses
sound principles about various human behavior to produce good leadership models, prepare various
organizational strategies, design the system and social process within a company.
(MacDonald, Burke and Stewart, 2006)

There was a situation in Bajaj Auto where the sales of the company was falling whereas at the same time their
competitor TVS motors sales were rising quite quickly due to excellent marketing done by them. This was a
major concern for the management as they were not aware why this was happening because the production
department was working at its current best and the quality wasn’t the issue, later on the managers and leaders
used various methods for finding out reasons for it this situation they found that the customers weren’t aware
about their newly launched products and its features because of marketing department not performing up to
the mark levels which made the finished products unsold in the market and large amount of money invested
in unsold stock. The general manager at Bajaj Auto (Mr. Vatsal Seth) used systems leadership to resolve this
issue by holding a meeting at communicating with various department heads/managers and leaders like
Production dept., Sales, Marketing, HR, Finance, etc. This allowed the manager and leaders to communicate
together on a common goal which they all were working upon to achieve it, but to avoid silos in the company
it was necessary for all the departments and their systems to work as per directed and should be discussed
frequently so the organizational functions can become much more harmonious and avoid blaming in the future
for failure and the dimensions of the organization can strengthen from its core.

Mr. Vatsal took feedback from various departments why they failed to achieve the forecasted sales and many
reasons came out which major reason was lack of healthy marketing budget, and inefficient marketing teams
due to lack of modern marketing skills. This made the finance dept. was concerned about the funds will be
wasted the HR dept. was then directed by Mr. Vatsal to hire skilled marketeers as soon as possible and train
the existing teams to match up with the industry standards of marketing give a last chance to prove themselves
by achieving the projected sales in the next quarter of 2018 that was increase by 15% and performing at their
best potential, Mr. Vatsal also instructed the marketing team to monitor the competitors marketing strategies
and record the customers response towards it and adapt the best style of marketing techniques to create
maximum awareness about their product and make it lucrative by offering various affordable finance options
so that the sales can be made fairly quickly as there was space needed for more products to be stored and clear
the unsold stock.

The finance dept. allocated the needed funds to the marketing dept. to perform their departmental functions
smoothly so the awareness about the product can be made quite effectively and the crisis in the sales can be
solved in the given deadlines. The manager then asked all the departments like Marketing & Sales, Finance,
H.R., Production, and Operations, to communicate more frequently and share about their progress and targets
they are working upon to make the functions synced and avoid clashes and misunderstandings within the
organization due to lack of awareness. On the other hand the leaders of all the departments were instructed to
make their subordinates perform at their best by adapting various style of leadership and resolving the issues
and challenges faced by the employees currently due to any reason.

The leaders of various teams held a meeting with their teams later on to address the issue within their team
and tried to resolve it by using their experience and motivational techniques like verbal motivation, believing
them, building strong team spirit within the team to work at their level best and earn incentives by performing
better than before. The leaders also trained their marketing team for the upcoming task, and how to achieve it
using the most efficient ways and delivering on the deadlines given by the managers.

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The leaders at marketing team trained their employees by teaching in depth about the digital marketing
concepts, which was the area the team was not doing good as traditional marketing was done well by the
marketing team at Bajaj Auto because of the older employees who weren’t that tech savvy but had a technical
background which made it easier for the leaders to train them on digital marketing techniques by showing
various video clips, sending more attractive and persuading emails for advertisements and increasing the
current numbers of senders to deliver emails to more people across the nation, they also made the emails very
short and crisp which was able to be read completely in 10-15 seconds and gave various updates and attractive
finance and price options which attracted more customers and they went ahead to read the emails more fully
as they weren’t descriptive and more header based which grabbed the attention of the readers.

The leaders asked the marketing team to approach various moto vloggers/reviewers and use soft skills to
bring them in an event for promoting the motorbikes and upload videos on various platforms(YouTube, Own
Websites), blogs, social media feeds about the newly launched vehicles and gave their genuine opinion about
the products and the followers of these vloggers were more trusting to make a decision for buying their new
motorcycles based upon these reviewers opinion and advices which gave the marketing department a sudden
spike in the demand levels of the vehicles of Bajaj Auto flagship motorcycles and some mid-level motorcycles
and saved the marketing team by helping them overcome the issue of lack of creating enough awareness and
giving low level of persuasion to the customers but now the team is much more tech literate and used their
own ideas to create more videos about their products and upload on Bajaj’s own YouTube channel which has
around 2.5 lakhs active subscribers who watch daily videos uploaded by Bajaj’s Marketing team and websites
the leader taught the marketing team to make the videos more technological based which could highlight the
advance technology used in the motorcycles and how it’s going to benefit the customers in daily life rather
than just giving the technical information that would not make the customers apply and understand the
practical use of it and may not get interested to buy the bikes.

The customers soon saw the videos with increased active play time and preferred to watch the videos at least
75% of its length(duration) which helped the marketing team to convey its product details to maximum
number of people and create more awareness about the products benefits over other brands in the market like
TVS, Mahindra, Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha and how aggressively they have priced their vehicles which
makes the customers more inclined towards the brand as they got a benefit of affordability with reliability of
the Bajaj Auto as a brand and were convinced choose Bajaj Auto over other brands.

The leader also offered them various lucrative rewards & promotions on performing better than their team
members and delivering more than asked by the company and showing consistency in their performances, the
leader also communicated with the team more frequently so that he can track the live performances of his
team and guide them as soon as possible so no time of the organization is wasted due to the employees being
struck on a process of achieving a particular target, he also gave more realistic and effective feedback based
upon individual skills, traits, caliber, level of dedication towards the work etc.

The leaders and manager of all the departments and units formed a group where each head of the respected
department and team would share about the current projects they are working upon and the approaches used
by them to make the employees work in the desired direction of the organization this majorly avoided the
situation where the department heads were constantly working to improve their respected departments like a
silo and sort of competed with each other to prove themselves whereas after this initiative taken at Bajaj Auto
all the functional units and systems works together as a single unit to achieve the organizational goal by
coordinating and co-operating with each department to avoid the reoccurrence of such situations in the
company this also made the individual departments realize that by working alone even at their best won’t
result positively as a whole to the organization because without the help of other organizational units and
systems the primary goals and vision of the apex level management can’t be achieved without synergy.

37
This resulted quite positively and soon the sales of the company were rising even better than before and they
gave a cut throat competition to their competitors in the market. The above style of leadership and management
used open and closed style of systems perspective by monitoring the changes in the market as well as changing
the style of operations within the organization by improving the current methods of working used to perform
organizational functions.

The marketing team members who performed exceptionally well were given promotions due to their level of
innovations and creative mindset that benefitted the brand significantly. People who worked harder and
smarter got various incentives from the company which motivated them to approach more customers and
advertise more about the products of Bajaj Auto and by reaching to as many customers as possible the
incentives were directly based upon the number of people contacted in a month by the amount per customer
and the marketeers also got commission if the customers actually purchased the vehicles after being convinced
by a particular marketeers advertisement and reverted to buy the products through the sender of the
advertisement from the marketing team of Bajaj.

Strengths and Weaknesses of systems leadership:

Strengths:

1. It helps to increase the company’s adaptability to changes in its internal/external environment, and helps
to study the company as a whole and not through its various parts or specific departments which helps to
identify the root cause of the situation and work together to diffuse the situation. It helps the organization
to adapt to the changes in the environment. All the decisions made taken after considering the micro as
well as the macro environment.
2. It helps the company to practice mutual growth by making the members of the company grow as
professionals and the company to grow by the contributions made by the employees of the company and
maximize profits by increasing the sales.
3. It helps to focus on multiple dimensions of the management in an organization and take decisions based
upon the actual issue faced by the company by analyzing and studying the various aspects of all functional
units of the organization.
4. It gives good control to the management and focuses on the end results rather than the approaches used to
reach the target/goal which allows to practice flexibility in operations and not stick to a rigid process
design of the organization and explore new solutions which are out of the box.

Weaknesses:

1. It is not always practical to use as the process takes a lot of time to implement and may often delay the
results which might sometimes lead to losing of time based opportunities.
2. It does not define the nature of interdependence which does not provide specific clarity while executing
the analysis of various interrelationships in the departments of the company.
3. It is not very much applicable in smaller organizations as the theory works on the principles assuming that
most of the organizations are big/medium in size and have complex and open systems.
4. It consumes a lot of time of the management and the entire focus is upon the single issue faced by the
company and a large workforce is just working on a particular issue which might lead to decline in
efficiency for a particular time being.

Conclusion:
Systems leadership has helped Bajaj Auto to resolve the issue of declining sales due to inefficient marketing
team and lagging of modern approaches towards marketing which made the objective of creating awareness
about their newly launched products in the market. But after successfully applying systems theory of
management in Bajaj Auto with the help of its leaders and managers who helped to implement the theory and
enable the company to come out of a situation which was caused due to some problems in its internal
environment and after successfully identifying the root cause by studying the entire functions of Bajaj Auto
the leaders and managers concentrated on the department/s which were creating the issue.

38
The situation was solved when the leaders and managers communicated more, made the organization work
together and share their progress and convinced the employees to work harder and smarter using various
modern techniques to overcome the situation successfully and achieve the common goals of the organizations
as well as making the employees grow together with the organization by giving them individual benefits like
commissions, incentives, promotions and personalized appraisals for solving the existing issues where the
employees are struck and was hindering their performance.

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Contingency Approach/Theory of management: It is an approach which says that organizations are
different, face different situations and require different ways of managing in order to achieve the
organizational goals and objectives needed for the growth, survival and competence of the organization.
(Tannenbaum and Schmidt, 2008)

Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum is a leadership model of contingency approach/theory of management

which shows the relationship between the level of freedom that a manager decides to give to his team, and the
level of control/authority used by the manager. This theory suggests that the manager should give more
freedom to the employees which he has worked in the past for a long period of time and know them quite well
so they don’t mess up during the time of excessive freedom given to them. The manager should also keep in
mind that if the team performs well the credit goes to the team whereas if something goes wrong
catastrophically by the team the manager is to be held responsible for it.

So the manager should always take recommendations and share about the decision making with the employees
but have a good hold on the authority of his post and allow ideas to come up in form of inputs but take
decisions as per the policies of the company and the best action suitable for the situations and not completely
rely on the employees feedback and to give the level of freedom that can safely be dealt with by the manager
himself if something goes out of control and not affect the managers majorly. This model work very effectively
when the employees are highly skilled, innovative, and have good experience in their field of work.

At Bajaj Auto there was a situation where the company was facing an issue where their productivity was being
able to meet the demand for their products globally because Bajaj Auto was majorly a labor driven company
due to cheap labor available India but after Bajaj Auto stepped into the global market initially they didn’t felt
the need of increasing the production capacity that significantly. Due to this the managers and leaders at Bajaj
Auto got faced a crisis in production department leaving them with no choice but to import modern robotic
equipment which will increase the productivity significantly and at that level which can’t be matched by the
labor working at their best with current technologies so it was necessary for the company to take away jobs
of many unskilled labor who did basic job in the production process that was replaced with robots. This change
was expected to bring objection by various ground staff because their jobs were at risk.

The manager at Bajaj Auto Mr. Rakesh Singh used Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum theory to resolve
this issue by making a decision of buying the latest equipment used by larger companies that are
technologically driven and involve very less jobs only for the skilled labor due to expensive labor in the
western countries. The manger decided to go with this decision, He explained the production staff about how
crucial/critical it was to match with the company’s growing demands in the international market and to cope
up with it for the growth of the company and not to lose the market share because of the competition which is
already ready to take over the opportunity he also explained why the desired level of production can’t be
match only with the help of large labor force and a small amount technology used in the production process
in a modern world dominated by machines he also explained that how new equipment are going to benefit the
existing employees by reducing their work load significantly and make their jobs much more convenient also
he discussed about new people getting jobs due to the operations required for the maintenance of those
equipment and people who will be hired to train the existing employees to work with those equipment.

The manager also conducted a voting poll where the employees voted whether to implement the strategies and
decisions made by the manager or to not implement it, surprisingly a large number of employees which was
more than expected voted yes as an answer and understood the importance of decision made by the manager
and not having any other suitable alternative in their minds to object this decision and were persuaded enough
to not resist the change as innovation is important everywhere. The manager still gave the employees 1day
period if they change their mind about the decisions made by the manager and if they had any better
advise/suggestions for the particular situation this made the employees think that the manager is not doing
something wrong to his subordinates because of greed and instead he is just acting based upon the call of the
situation and encouraged the employees to support the manager completely for his decisions.

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Later the manager approached the finance team to gather funds to import the robotic equipment and explained
its importance for the company finally after getting the funds approved by the finance dept. he took quotations
from various manufacturers for getting the best deals and deliver in a very short period of time as it was very
crucial to implement this technology as soon as possible so the sales and reputation of the company isn’t
hampered. He approached the HR dept. to hire technologically literate workers for operating, maintaining and
training the existing leaders, managers & employees to use the equipment. This made the manager to increase
the projected number of production as much as 20% due to fast production and reduced wastage of raw
material by 10% and negligible manufacturing defects which were under 0.75% per batch of vehicles due to
which the cost of production was not hampered negatively and gave positive results by fulfilling the demands
in the international markets increasing the company’s global footprints increasing the popularity and
reputation of the brand globally in 70+ nations.

The leader Mr. Adarsh Jain had to step up with various styles of leadership to implement the changes made
by the manager, he first held a meeting with his new subordinates to get familiar with the team and to build
team spirit as they will be working on a same project. Then Mr. Adarsh communicated with his employees
individually so that they can discuss about their strengths and weaknesses and jobs as per theirs skills,
experience, traits, attitude towards work, level of commitment, stress management, past performance etc. to
ensure the best suited title of job is given to each employee so maximum efficiency can be attained in the jobs
and no misunderstandings arise while working on the project because of the awareness about the jobs each
one is expected to do in the given deadlines. Mr. Adarsh also motivated the employees to push their limits to
achieve KAIZEN and explained guided them individually by using appraisals and giving a road map for
achieving maximum efficiency and ways to tackle stress at work.

The leader communicated about the progress about the project frequently so the flow of the company is not
stopped due to any minor issue whereas at the same time ensuring safety of each member of his team by giving
appropriate safety gears and making sure each one is using it while working to avoid any mis happenings that
could hinder the departmental functions. The leader also reported the manger about the progress made by his
teams so he can report his superiors about the effectiveness of the decisions made by him about the production
department. The leader also ensured that all the employees had effective co-ordination and co-operations
amongst them so the given task is achieved smoothly. The leader gave their employees small breaks while
production process so that they can relieve the stress and not be overloaded with work which will help to
improve the efficiency of the employees as they can work with free mind without high level of stress.

The author concludes that the leaders and managers at Bajaj Auto successful use various styles and models of
leadership and management as per the situations faced by the company and its severity and urgency, also the
leaders and managers adapt various styles of leadership and management based upon the prevailing changes
in the market so the best output can be given by them in the organization and motivate their employees to
work more effectively and efficiently without forcing them until really need to. The leaders and manager at
Bajaj Auto also consider about their existing workforce skills, level of output, past performances, level of
commitment, attitude towards work and level of resistance towards change made in the policies and working
style which helps to apply best leadership and management practices in the company which will help to
achieve the organizational goals and objectives also the vision set by the leaders, for growth of the company
as a whole in the market and acquire maximum market share in the future.

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Strengths and Weaknesses of Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum leadership model:

Strengths:

1. It helps the leader to explore range of ways in which to involve and interact with his subordinates to come
up with various solutions based upon the type of feedback received from the subordinates based upon the
level of openness allowed by the leader and lets the leader to either go with the subordinates advises,
recommendations to solve a situation or the leader can take his own decisions based on his knowledge and
expertise and implement methodologies that suit best for the situation and the company’s well-being.
2. It enables the leaders to experiment with his approaches and improve or change them over the time if they
don’t work or become less effective this way the leader can practice flexibility in his operations without
hampering the company’s performance and constantly try to improve his leadership approaches and styles
to help his organization to overcome a situation and accomplish the organizational objectives.
3. It helps the leader to implement leadership styles that best suit his subordinates and give delegate them
small and less important work to test how much responsibility they can fulfill which helps the leader to
allocate jobs more efficiently also this is a very safe method to test the levels of responsibilities an
employee can handle and if any time the leader feels they are not being able to commit to their
responsibilities the leader takes over from there and take care of it himself. The level of responsibilities
are very low and is completely manageable if the employee fails to fulfill responsibility on the given task
so the company is not impacted negatively.
4. It allows an incremental way to increase or decrease the team’s involvement in decision making as the
leader is completely well verse with each of his employees capabilities and based upon that the leader
chooses style of leadership for a particular situation.

Weaknesses:
1. It only examines the process in which giving of task by a leader to his subordinates are done but the theory
does not explains what happens next if the responsibilities are met successfully or not.
2. The theory sort of ignores the soft factors which are present in organizations such as office politics and
various cultural norms practiced in different offices which sort of restricts the theory’s methodology as it
might not be applicable to each and every organization.
3. The theory does not provide a mechanism to determine which is the most apt approach from the continuum
for different teams and subordinates and leaves the choice up to the leader to move ahead.

Conclusion:
It can be concluded that leaders and managers at Bajaj Auto have played an crucial role in transforming the
company into a majority of technological capital based organization with the help of using Tannenbaum and
Schmidt’s Continuum theory of leadership which enable the company to slowly minimize the resistance
shown by the employees towards adopting more technology as they feared about their job security and tried
to oppose the decision but using Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s Continuum the leaders were successfully able to
convince the existing workforce about the additional benefits that new technology in production process will
bring in the company and how it is impossible for the company to meet the rising demands globally just with
the existing labors, also the leaders took various consulting sessions with the workforce to prevent strikes and
disobedience from the employees and successfully implemented new robotics for production process of the
vehicles and trained the staff to use it to increase the productivity levels and quality standards of the vehicles
as advanced technology reduced defects in the products and reduced the cost of production. The managers
sourced the best resources and set budgets strategically that will allow him to not over spend on buying new
production equipment and only bring in the most useful technology that will help to maximize productivity
specifically for the products demanded in the market.

Overall Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s theory has allowed Bajaj Auto to take most beneficial decisions for the
company’s betterment and prevent contingencies in future by preparing in advance about the expected
contingencies and preparing counter measures for mitigating the effects of it. Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s
theory helps Bajaj Auto to stay dynamic and swift in decision making process which requires quick actions.

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Operations management and the roles leaders and managers play in it:

Definition of operations management: Operations management consists of all the activities involved in
transforming a product idea into a finished product. In addition, operations managers are involved in planning
and controlling the systems that produce goods and services. (Skripak et al., 2016)

Meaning: Operations management is an administration of various business practices which helps to create
the optimum level of efficiency possible in an organization. It is mainly concerned with the process of
converting materials and labor into final goods and services as effectively/efficiently as possible in order to
maximize the profitability of an company. Operations management teams tries to balance the cost incurred
with the revenue to achieve highest net operating profits.

The author has explained various approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and
managers play in it and has evaluated how leaders and managers can improve efficiencies of operational
management to successfully meet business objectives.

Definition of Total Quality Management: Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management strategy
aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. (Shewhart, 1931)

Total Quality Management(T.Q.M.): It is an continuous effort by the management as well as the employees
in an organization to ensure long term loyalty and satisfaction from the customers by the help of improving
quality of the products, services and process/systems constantly and meeting or exceeding the customers’
expectations. TQM also allows the organization to reduce the cost of production at visible margins by using
efficiency as their main tool for achieving it. (Managementstudyguide.com, n.d.)

Objective 1: The objective of Bajaj Auto is to reduce the wastage in the company by 25% and reduce the
manufacturing defects in the vehicles of a single batch from 1.4% down to 0.75% in the 3rd Quarter of 2018
to reduce the cost of production by 5-7%.

At Bajaj Auto the management operations manager Mr. Joslyn Murzello plays an important role in improving
the quality of the products, process systems of Bajaj Auto to achieve the organizational objectives successfully
and timely with utmost efficiency and quality in the production process and products, as he plans out the
budgets required for each department and keeps a track of the needs and requirements of each department so
that the needed resources are allotted to each department as per their demands also if they are performing as
per the given deadline and what process, systems of production dept. and other dept. can be improved to
reduce wastage, increase the quality levels gradually and reduce the cost of production per unit by up to 5-7%
and the cost of operations for better pricing of the products which helps the company’s objective to provide
durable, reliable and affordable motorbikes and 3Wheelers so that a large customer base can own their
products without worrying about the products quality and repairs as less as possible this has made Bajaj Auto
a reputed manufacturer of motorbikes and 3wheelers in India and various other nations because the quality
levels are at par with its international rivals and the reliability and the affordable cost of maintenance after
sales of their vehicles are something the customers pay for happily over any other brands like TVS Motors,
Benelli, Hero, Mahindra.

Mr. Joslyn co-ordinates with the Production manager(Mr. Rakesh Singh) and various other department
manager for initiating and implementing the TQM programs which has been developed by the operations
department keeping the company’s policies and objectives in mind which will help to reduce the wastage in
the production department by 25% and bringing new techniques for encouraging the employees to embed a
culture of producing quality products and raising the standards gradually this is possible because the managers
at Bajaj Auto give extensive training to their employees as per the prevailing changes and demands of the
market so that the industry standards rise and match with the quality levels that are globally accepted.

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For example in the process of welding of metal parts there are several uneven patterns left after in between
the joints but to avoid it being notices by the customers the managers makes their employees to use their skills
to make the surface polished and uneven which truly describes the craftmanship of the company which creates
an impression of the company it doesn’t neglect minor aspects of their produce and demands perfection that
distinguishes their products from the competitors. Mr. Rakesh also assists his employees to improve the
process of TQM as he gains more knowledge about the topic because he himself keeps researching the most
efficient ways for increasing the TQM at Bajaj Auto by reading and learning about various techniques from
books and seminars conducted by TQM experts, videos on various business websites, Corporate Magazines
and etc.

The manager assigns duties to his subordinates and give them needed assistance when they are struck or need
an expert advice while working. Mr. Rakesh also communicates with his subordinates time and again about
the importance of Increasing the overall quality of production and the process of production as well other
organizational processes which will make the company grow in the desired direction and achieve the
objectives of the company down the line not only the organization but the manager explains how achieving
efficiency in work will help to grow as an individual and how it will benefit them their professional carrier in
future by becoming highly skilled in their jobs for getting better job opportunities.

The manager at Bajaj Auto constantly monitors the competition of other competitors products and examines
the quality of the products so that he can identify the scope of improvement that is lacking in the current
products this will help in competing equally or better in the market. The manager Mr. Rakesh applies six
sigma theory and process of lean management which helps him to figure out ways to reduce wastage and has
successfully able to cut down the wastage by 25% depending upon the type of vehicle manufactured and
utilize resources optimally also to produce superior quality products in the current resources available. As
TQM is a tried and tested process Mr. Rakesh applies new TQM strategies in small groups of workers to so it
doesn’t affect the operations at large if the strategies don’t works out as expected if the strategies give the
desired results, the implementation of the new working style is done by Mr. Rakesh which allows the manager
to mitigate risk involved in change of policy and study how the employees react to the change in the working
style and process.

The leader at Bajaj Auto ensures the environment/culture of producing superior quality products is embraced
and embedded in the employees mind so the goals set by the leader can become achievable smoothly also he
uses various leadership techniques to motivate the employees to constantly improve the efficiency by training,
influencing, communicating and co ordinating with the subordinates so he can track their performances and
give individual appraisals by reviewing where the employee is lacking and in what ways he can become more
efficient he also allows his employees give inputs for betterment in existing systems that makes them more
dedicated towards their work because it shows they really care about what they do. The leader at Bajaj Auto
also raises the morale of the employees by rewarding them if they perform very productively and use the
resources optimally that encourages them to follow the right path he also shares various methods to achieve
higher quality in production by using various skills and directs them in the right direction so the focus isn’t
lost.

The leader Mr. Adarsh used some tactics like to reduce the resistance from the employees, like Educating,
communicating and training them before delegating new projects or implement new style of working like
adapting new technologies which makes them prepared about the changes occurring and equips them with
right knowledge by adapting to the modern techniques and use it on their side. The leader uses communication
as a tool because it avoids misunderstandings due to lack of communications so the employees the change in
a negative manner without knowing the positive side of it and the leader does the same by
convincing/persuading the employees by explaining them about the benefits of the improving the quality and
reducing wastage.

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The leader also supports when the employees have high anxiety, he also rewards the high performing
employees with short paid leaves to lower the stress from work and get back with full energy thereby
increasing the quality of working and increasing the overall quality of products and reduce the manufacturing
defects down to 0.75% from previously recorded 1.4% percent which increases the efficiency in the production
department and raises the quality standards as expert skills are used when the resources are utilized carefully
and the outputs are high graded usually.

The leaders also allot the job to his team based upon various criteria like skills, experience, dedication,
punctuality, attitude towards work and level of accountability, team spirit and etc. The leader also monitors
how the employees are performing when TQM is applied and alter the styles constantly to best suit the person
working on a project. If the new strategies of increasing the TQM works successfully the manager contacts
the operation manager to implement the new strategies in various other departments by altering it as per the
available workforce and acceptance of the employees in the other departments.

Finally the mangers and leaders at Bajaj Auto monitor and analyze the response of the end customers after
implementations of new TQM strategies and make various alterations after the feedback data is reviewed and
critically analyzed to help product the apt product which is demand by the customers and ensuring each
customer is satisfied with the built quality of the products. TQM has been very beneficial for Bajaj auto as it
has helped them to successfully meet their business objectives of improving the overall quality standards of
the vehicles produced and reduce the cost of manufacturing by 5-7% and reduce the wastage by a significant
margin of 25%. Due to the employees using high levels of skills of production the manufacturing defects per
batch of the vehicle has gone done to 0.75% from 1.4% which has helped the company to increase their
productivity and satisfy the rising market demands.

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KAIZEN: It is an Japanese term for a gradual/constant approach to higher the standards of quality, waste
reductions, increase the efficiency of the system and the process of production, minimizing manufacturing
defects etc. It involves constant improvements from the apex level of management right till the front line
workforce and is one of the most important factors of Japanese organizations competitive success. (Imai,
1986)

Objective 2: To improve the quality levels of the flagship motorcycle (Dominar 400 and Pulsar RS 200 &
400) in terms of reducing manufacturing defects to 0.75% from 1.4% and prevent the hidden issues and
increase the productivity for these motorcycles by 20% in the 3rd quarter of 2018 and meet the market demands
successfully.

At Bajaj Auto the leader Mr. Adarsh uses KAIZEN as a tool to constantly improve the production numbers
and the quality of the flagship motorcycles of Bajaj Auto that are Dominar 400 and Pulsar RS 200 and 400
with the given resources and utilizing them optimally using various leadership strategies and skill to make the
employees at Bajaj Auto work on their fullest potential and constantly develop their skill to increase the overall
efficiency and reduce the production cost and improve the quality of the motorcycles, production systems and
functions used to manufacture flagship motorcycles to reduce the manufacturing defects in these bikes as they
are focused for premium segment of customers who demand perfection in the products and are ready to pay a
premium for getting the best in class products, so the leaders at Bajaj Auto trained their employees to use best
techniques for making premium motorcycles by deeply inspecting the bike after production and eliminate
even the tiniest defect to ensure best quality is maintained throughout the batch of bikes and consistency is
maintained to avoid product recalls later when it reaches the customers and are sent to service centers for
replacements of spares which results in rise in cost of production.

Mr. Adarsh constantly assessed the KAIZEN methodology and build strong logic in his mind. He also
involved various group discussions and communicated with his employees before taking any important
decision which helped him to get creative inputs in form of suggestions and advice which he then uses to make
his strategies even more effective if the suggestions match with the companies policy. This makes the staff
value the leader because they have the feeling of being heard and not just only the other way around and
working like slaves.
Mr. Adarsh time and again trained his subordinates to achieve KAIZEN in the production department he uses
various motivational techniques to influence and convince the employees to work towards constantly
increasing the quality of products, utilize the resources optimally and reduce wastage in time while the
production process. All the employees were needed to have a strong hold of skills needed to perform their
jobs which helped the KAIZEN process to become applicable even more easily due the support given from
the workers.

Mr. Adarsh also built an environment/culture of constantly developing new styles to improve the quality of
the flagship motorcycles and reduce the manufacturing defects down to 0.75% and systems of production by
coming up with various creative suggestions and work willingly to achieve KAIZEN to which helped to
increase the productivity levels by 20%. If the team performed well they were rewards and felicitated by the
leader so their morale rises and they stay dedicated for constantly innovating themselves and help the company
to achieve their objective of raising the quality levels of premium motorcycles and raising the productivity by
20% and meet with the top management levels objectives.

The leader used strategy of 5 “S” Sort: which helped to eliminate unnecessary items at workplace that are
taking space and are not used to create productivity. Set in order: Bajaj Auto’s leaders ask the workers to
store everything(Tools, Spares, safety gear, etc.) in a particular space which can be accessed easily and
accessed when needed quickly that helped to save time in the production process where the worker had to go
from one rack/shelf to other just to search for different tools which was prevented with the help of setting the
things in order and lead to raise in productivity levels as more time was dedicated purely on productive
activities and increasing the efficiency to cater to the market demand.

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Shine: It means that to value the place that they work in by cleaning the things they use which makes them
more responsible and fulfills the responsibility of not polluting the environment and reducing the waste created
to clean it also this enabled the workers to work with a healthy mindset as the working environment supported
them mentally and boosted their mood to perform better due to supporting working environment where
everyone was respectful towards their jobs and gave their maximum efforts to increase the quality levels of
the vehicles and reduce the defects in production as they followed the guidelines given by their leaders and
managers to assemble and produce with perfection and sustain the quality levels throughout the process of
production. Standardize: This help to make the above set of rules a habit of the employees/workers and
follow it daily and to accomplish this Bajaj Auto creates awareness explaining the importance of 5’s in Bajaj
Auto. This helped the company to maintain consistency in the set of rules and practices to keep them going
on to maintain the desired levels of production levels and increase them when every required to as the
workforce was trained to perform most efficiently when such situations arise and the wastage of any sort of
resource is eliminated by practicing 5S’s strategy and reduce their manufacturing defects by performing their
jobs most accurately and without being needed to support frequently by knowing the standard protocol for
working.

Sustain: This speaks of self-discipline and at this point every employee of the company should constantly
apply 5s and bring out new ways to improve it even further to increase the quality levels in the entire line of
flagship motorcycles and distinguish them from the normal line of motorcycles and made the premium buyers
satisfied by the quality and the extra features received by them over the normal range of motorcycles
encouraging more buyers to upgrade to premium bikes and feel the difference they have paid for.

Overall this helps the leader to implement KAIZEN in production and helped to increase in the productivity
levels of flagship motorcycles by 20% and cater the market demands and using KAIZEN the organizational
objective to improve the quality of the flagship motorcycles have been achieved and the manufacturing defects
have been cut down to 0.75% which has again achieved the objective of the organization for the production
of flagship motorcycles and has led to prevention of hidden defects as thorough inspection were taken place
in case of premium bikes to boost the sales and the process. The leader constantly pushed his employees to
cross the boundaries of their comfort zone and work more efficiently without creating a resistance from their
side due to the culture practiced of constantly improving and their co-workers accepted the culture happily.
The leaders also conducted a meeting with the employees every morning so each one was aware about the
task/objectives of the day and don’t waste time in getting work for the day during the working hours and
decrease their productivity and quality levels due to working for short time and required to produce more
number of vehicles than possible if quality is a priority, it also helped to build healthy relations with the
employees because of regular interactions, the employees felt influenced and motivated by the leader because
he tried to make their life as an professional easy and more productive and developing them as an successful
individual and making them ready improve and innovate regularly to meet the organizational objectives.

The managers at Bajaj Auto analyzed the performance of the production department as a tool to measure the
improvement levels in the department and conducted personalized appraisals and gave feedback to the workers
where they were lacking and what are their strengths which they can use to overcome their weakness improve
the quality of production of premium motorcycles and increase their productivity significantly simply by
making those changes while working, this worked by a significant margin in Bajaj Auto as the employees had
a positive attitude towards developing themselves into better individual and makes the KAIZEN methodology
quite effective at Bajaj Auto for achieving the business objective as per Bajaj Auto.

The manager also reported about the real time activities of his department to the top management so they can
form future objectives and goals so no time is wasted in getting new jobs after accomplishing one objective
successfully. As per the current growth in the company and effective implementation of KAIZEN for
achieving even higher quality levels of premium motorcycles and improved systems in the company has
helped Bajaj Auto to create an competitive advantage of making maximum sales and catering each and every
customers demand for their products and acquire maximum market share and stay ahead of the competition
one step ahead always.

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The manager Mr. Rakesh made the quality control department to have even more stringent quality checks to
avoid customers facing issues after sales of the vehicles and use it for long periods of time with low
maintenance that will also save cost of the company to replace the faulty spares which might result in large
amount wasted in replacement of faulty products and make the organization ineffective in terms of optimally
utilizing money as an resource.

Mr. Rakesh also analyzed the performance of the competitors production department and shared the stats with
his workers to encourage them to stay competitive and work even better to improve the overall quality in the
products and make them realize that something unrealistic isn’t demanded by the manager and convinced
them to work better than the industry competitors. The manager at Bajaj Auto also rewarded his employees
by giving them monetary benefits and felicitated them in front of the entire workforce by the higher
management which motivates the employees to adopt the culture of improving the products and systems
quality constantly all this initiatives taken by the leader and manager at Bajaj Auto helps the company to truly
stay focused on their goal to innovate and create a reliable/durable vehicles at a very competitive price and
successfully adapt of various changes to accomplish the organizational objectives.

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Just In Time(J.I.T.): It is a demand driven inventory system in which materials, parts, subassemblies, and
support items are delivered only when actually needed (not sooner or later). The objective of JIT is to eliminate
product inventories from the supply chain. As it helps the organization to eliminate wastages, process
simplification, setup time and reduction of batch size etc. It works on rigidly enforced systems window and
includes all the items must be within the specifications with very little or no inspection that saves a lot of time
of the company which could be utilized productively. (BusinessDictionary.com, n.d.)

Objective 3: To reduce the wastage of money spent on inventory ordered from suppliers that isn’t demanded
on that particular period and cut down the defect rates in raw materials down to 0.5% to save time in taking
out defective goods and increase the quality of the vehicles by sorting best quality raw materials.

At Bajaj Auto The manager Mr. Rakesh used Just in Time method as an integral part of the company as it has
helped them in various ways to maintain lean productions, reduce the resources wasted on excess inventory
which is not needed currently, reduce the batch size of shipment, make time management and deadlines much
more accurate, to help improve the quality levels of the products and reduce the overall cost of production
finally it also helps to keep a track of real time inventory and save the company from wasting money on
inventory that might go out of fashion or un demanded in the market. The leaders and manager at Bajaj Auto
uses Just In Time with utmost care due to its extreme nature.

The manager Mr. Rakesh analyzed the demand of the vehicles in the market which was raised by 20% and in
what numbers and for which models to produce vehicles that are actually demanded in the market. Then he
uses the inventory management software at Bajaj Auto that is “ZOHO Inventory” with the help this software
the real level of inventory available at workspace and warehouse can be determined also the duration each
inventory is stocked up in the shelves which helps to decide about the demand for the particular stock is there
or not which helps to clear space in the warehouse to store fast moving inventory and reduce non performing
inventory.

The software also helped the operations manager Mr. Joslyn Murzello to check real time updates about the
orders and shipments with date and time of deliver so he can plan the production process as per it to increase
the productivity and efficiency in the overall organization and in his operations. The system uses barcodes on
inventory to track the levels of the inventory and reduce the rate of error at a negligible level. The manager
then orders for the required raw material from the suppliers giving the best raw materials at the a very
competitive price, but quality remains the number 1 priority because for example if the defect rate of the raw
material supplied was 5% of the entire batch from the cheapest supplier and he can’t deliver on the required
date. It does not make sense to use Just in Time inventory management because a lot of time will be wasted
in inspecting the quality levels of the shipment and affect the overall quality levels of the products produced.

Instead the manager looks for a supplier that supplies raw material at an extremely low defect rate i.e. less
than or equal to 0.5% of the total goods supplied and on the required date of delivery which ensures quality
of the vehicles produced in the company are superior than their competitors and cost cutting is done very
prudently which won’t impact the quality of the product negatively which helped the company to establish
their business in the long term and proudly market their reliability and durability of their products, it also
fulfilled the TQM process of Bajaj Auto by producing superior quality vehicles by improving quality
constantly at an effective cost.

JIT helped the leader Mr. Adarsh Jain to track the fitting time of each component and ensure accuracy in it in
order to deliver on the promised date and keep the supply and demand chain balanced and perfectly aligned.
JIT also helped the production manager to practice lean production by utilizing resources optimally resulting
in high output levels lowering the cost of production. JIT allowed the production manager Mr. Rakesh Singh
at Bajaj Auto to practice flexibility in the production department as per the prevailing demands and changes
of the market.

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The leader Mr. Adarsh Jain helped the manager of the production department to get double verify the inventory
levels by communicating with the ground staff effectively and got real time updates of the inventory and
ordered them from the warehouse or the place where it is stocked this helps to bring in only the inventory
needed for production currently and saved a lot of space in the production site which is very crucial for
stocking finished goods temporarily. The leader co-ordinated with the manager to deploy the workforce based
upon the production of various products and its demand numbers.

The leader also communicated with the logistics department and gave updates to the manager as the products
left the site of production which assisted them to check mark the finished jobs and plan for the future demands
and prepare the workforce in that direction. The leader also made the employees follow the given deadlines
by motivating and communicating with them and keeping the track of their activities to ensure the inventory
is utilized in the given time and the production numbers match the deadlines.

The leader also gave feedback to the employees about their performance and areas where they are lagging
behind and ways to overcome it, he also ensured that the quality levels of the products were maintained or
improved and don’t fall lower than the accepted standard range. The leader prepared various process designs
where he analyzed the performance of the employees and the time gap between the production of each unit in
each stage and the shipping of the products so no errors were made during the time of final productions and
the deliveries were set on the pre decided date and time. Optimum utilization of resources was done to ensure
the productivity was high always and meet the demands of the market and achieve the organizational
objectives of reducing the costs related to inventory stock levels and improvements in the quality of the
products by sorting the best suppliers to ease the process of quality improvement.

Conclusion: The author concludes that the leader and managers at Bajaj Auto play a crucial role in the
improving the operations management efficiency because they are the reason why the company is able to
utilize their resources optimally and reduce their cost of productions even after the quality of the products and
process are improving, they also help the company to create an healthy environment of work, preventing
disputes and misunderstandings it also makes the organization to achieve the required efficiency and motivate
the employees to work towards achieving the organizational objectives using various theories of operations
management which acts as a road map for the employees to reach their targets.

Finally the leaders and managers at Bajaj Auto uses various approaches/theories like TQM, JIT, KAIZEN to
fulfill the organizational objectives of the organization and maximize the profits and increasing the market
share by generating more sales and bringing in more revenue to further improve the operations management
and other functions of the company and will give them economies of scale as they expand which will help the
operations management to become more efficient and cost effective as the company’s raw materials would
cost even lower to source and the production costs would lower down even further to price more aggressively
and sell more quantity of vehicles in the market.

Total Quality Management has proven to be beneficial to the operations management of Bajaj to achieve the
business objective of reducing the wastage in the company and lowering the cost of production by declining
the manufacturing defects by making the quality checks more stringent and through to ensure the labors work
as per their expertise and try to prevent defects by using the trainings and feedbacks to perform more
effectively and accurately. The main focus of the company’s operations was to satisfy the customers and
accomplish the business objectives TQM is a theory that is customer focused and involves training employees,
integrating quality in production, and finally the customer is a judge in this theory and he determined whether
the efforts made were worth or not.

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This theory involves large number of employees to work in teams and accomplish the common business
objectives together. The theory is based on improving the process and involves the operations managers to
select the best suppliers, to get the cheapest raw material in the market and also maintaining the quality
standards at the same time ensuring the focus of the theory isn’t void. The theory believes in continuous
improvements and enables the operations managers to achieve the organizational objectives by increase their
efficiency even more and involves fact based decision making which makes the process much more accurate
and helps to increase the quality levels, reduce cost of production and raise the productivity of the company
and accomplish such type of business objectives.

KAIZEN helps the company to continuously improve the quality of products and production process which
helps to reduce the manufacturing defects and reduce the costs related to the production and ensure the
operations management functions are leaner and much more efficient than before. Kaizen helps to reduce
wastage in the company by helping to develop various techniques to utilize the resources optimally and
maximize the productivity and quality of the product.

Kaizen focuses on team building and participation from the entire organization’s department to improve the
functions from the core and helps to eliminate weaknesses by successfully identifying the problems and
making the operations department to form various strategies to improve the efficiency and deploy right people
at right place to get best results and thereby improving the functions of the operations management by giving
them a controlling spot to make the necessary hangs to make the production process much more lean and
efficient resulting in reduced wastage, improved quality and effective communications in the organization
helping the operations management to increase their efficiency and effectiveness by interacting with right
people for the right job.

Just In Time is a approach used mainly by the operations management to monitor and maintain the right levels
of inventories in the business to reduce the cost of production, maintain the demand and supply balance
efficiently as the real time orders and stock levels are displayed with the help of Enterprise Resource Planning
Systems (ERP’s) to maintain buffer stock and only order the raw material which is actually demanded for
production due to demand for that particular product is available in the market this will help the operations
department to save costs on preventing production of un demanded products and avoid dead stock or unsold
inventory piling up due to lack of knowledge about the market demands.

Selecting the best suppliers with the help of Just In Time, who can deliver the raw material in the promised
date with manufacturing defects of less than the accepted range will increase the quality levels of the products
making the operations management more efficient and reducing the time spent on quality checks of raw
materials which could be used for other productive activities and increase the productivity of the entire
organization by managing time much more efficiently and utilizing it optimally to create maximum customer
satisfaction and work dedicatedly for achieving the business objectives and improving the overall efficiency
of operations management functions to make the organization grow and sustain its position in such a
competitive environment.

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Introduction to the functions of Operations management: Operations management is the administration
of business activities to create maximum efficiency possible in an organization. Operations management is
concerned with converting raw materials and labor into products and services with utmost efficiency as
possible to enable maximization of profits in the organization. Operations management also involves
producing goods that satisfies the customers and the quality is industry leading with the help of assessing
feedbacks from the customers and making necessary changes/improvements in the needed departments for
achieving various business objectives. It also involves various revaluations in the systems and process of the
departments of the organization to achieve maximum efficiency and increase the quality of products and
process.

Operations management also ensure all the resources are utilized optimally and the waste is reduced
significantly in the company to ensure lower cost of production and lean production management. There are
various functions of operations management like, transformation of raw material into finished goods/services
at a lower rate, process design, logistics and inventory management, to achieve the business objectives. For
example Process design helps the company to achieve the objective of increasing the efficiency of the
departments of the organization and reducing the cost of production so affordable pricing can set to compete
in the market to achieve it the operational management strategizes various design to make the production
process and the other process of the organization to become more efficient and effective to produce superior
quality of goods and services using advance technologies and reducing the delivery times in order to achieve
maximum customer satisfaction and reduce wastage significantly which leads to lowering the cost of
production and price the products at an affordable rates to increase the sales figure.

As new process is designed in the company it helps to improve the quality of the products using various skills
and techniques and reduces chances of failure in the systems as they are implemented in small groups and
later standardized in the entire organization. Inventory management systems is important to achieve various
organizational objectives like reduction of wastage, improving quality of the products/services constantly by
using efficient ways in production to increase the quality of the products and using suppliers who provide
superior quality raw material at a very competitive price. Logistics and inventory management helps to achieve
business objectives like satisfying the customers’ demands on the required time, increasing the efficiency and
production department by reducing the production time and tracking the live levels of inventory in the business
and maintain sufficient stock to meet the demands in the market and deliver at the promised date of delivery
and create high quality products at affordable prices.

Bajaj Auto has various organizational objectives that are set by the managers to help the company grow and
function in the desired direction and satisfy the customers’ needs and requirements in a product an deliver it
to them when there is demand for that particular product in the market. The objective of the management of
Bajaj Auto are: To utilize the organizational resources optimally. To produce quality products that are durable,
reliable and affordable to the customers for maximum customers satisfaction. To increase the net profitability
and quality of the products produced by the company by attaining maximum customer satisfaction. To make
time management and deadlines as accurate as possible in the organization for achieving Kaizen. Here are
various organizational functions used by the operational manager at Bajaj Auto for achieving the overall
business objectives.

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The author has evaluated and analyzed the importance and value of operations management in
achieving business objectives:

Process and Product design: At Bajaj Auto the process and product design plays and important role to reduce
the wastage of in the company and utilize the resources to its fullest and increase the productivity and
efficiency. It plays an important role in improving the production quality and process by implementing and
revaluating new strategies and designs for improving the production process and deploying the best skilled
workers at apt job positions based upon their skills, past performances, level of commitment, behavior, and
resistance to change. This helps to give the best suitable jobs to the employees there by increasing the
productivity and quality levels of products constantly fulfilling KAIZEN.

It plays an important role in mitigating risks involved in implementing new strategies and policies by testing
on a small unit of the company and monitoring the response and change in productivity of the department
which helps to avoid mis happenings at large an only if the changes work then the policies and strategies are
altered as per the departments to be implements which helps to increase the production quality, reduce wastage
and become more greener for betterment of the environment fulfilling environmental responsibilities. It also
helps to improve the profitability of the company because of better communications and co-ordinations with
the staff and track real time activities and implement small changes to increase the productivity by improving
the process styles.

Using product design it enables the company to launch products that are well suited for the market demands
and compete with the rivals, product design helps Bajaj Auto to produce quality products which are reliable,
durable and affordable that meets the objective of the business and helps to increase the market share and after
successful production and analyzing the market demands process design helps to reduce the deliver time to
the customers and meet the demands successfully by fulfilling time management and deadlines using
efficient/productive ways of production process and systems.

Bajaj auto’s motorcycle Pulsar Ns 200 has received the award for the best product design across the entire
automobile industry in India in the year 2015 and they have redefined the economic sports segment
motorcycles in India as the engines designed by Bajaj are very powerful at the same time give better fuel
efficiency compared to its direct competitors like Yamaha, Kawasaki, Benelli, and etc. and the bikes are
significantly cheaper due to being a domestic brand and competitors have to pay and import duty due to foreign
manufactured vehicles have high import duties in India and Bajaj Auto takes utmost advantage of this law by
pricing their products very aggressively in front of the competitors as they don’t have to pay hefty import
tariffs and duties and royalties this increases their competitiveness and gains market share. Bajaj Auto is the
second largest auto maker of India with a market share of 32% only below the largest moto company of India
Hero MotoCorp Ltd. which has a massive market share of 41% in the Indian market.

Logistics and Inventory management. Transformation of raw material in finished goods and services
at low cost: Inventory management and logistics play an important role at Bajaj Auto by reducing the wastage
of money, space and time by tracking the real time levels of the inventory available and ordering based upon
the actual demands from the dealerships and purchasing the raw materials only that are needed to be converted
in finished products which help the company to increase the productivity of the production department and
lowering the cost of production because of exact number of inventory purchased and get the deliveries on the
required date by the company it is done carefully by the manager of production/operations department by
calculating the time gaps between manufacturing of each units and the production capacity of the department
which helps to reduce the batch size and maintain a balance between demand and supply of the company, the
manager also maintains buffer inventory of 7 days as the inventory can’t be transported instantaneously
between the place of supple and the site of demand.

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The orders given by the dealers are punched in daily accounts of the order received from various dealers and
regional offices, the inventory management system has a customized software that checks for the credit limit
for each dealer and only then the orders are followed up the system to give the final order and packed for
delivery and sent.

The credit limit is preset into the system depending upon the dealer’s track record in terms of repayments and
time taken to repay and the usual batch size of the order placed. Bajaj does not own logistics instead they
outsource it to various companies like OSL Jamuna transport, Sumit transport etc. And their fleet of trucks
are specifically designed for Bajaj’s vehicles to deliver them safely also the operations dept. has decided to
not charge the dealers freight charges separately and are included in the cost of the product itself and gives
them a major relief as costs for fuel and transport are very high but this keeps the suppliers of Bajaj Auto
satisfied. Bajaj also gives training to the staff of the dealership and service center to make sure the vehicles
are assembled finally after reaching the dealership and placed carefully.

The local dealers who are near the manufacturing plants of Bajaj Auto have an option to pick up their vehicles
directly from the plant and save the time for logistics that helps them to maintain a healthy stock anytime due
to easy access to the delivery of the products even the dealers who don’t take logistics services are given
additional benefits like first preference to buy vehicles than the ones that are being delivered thorough logistics
which helps to satisfy the demands of the locals near the manufacturing plan. The orders are transported with
all the legal formalities applicable in India like Waybill, Tax paid Invoices, etc. These are sent to the dealership
where the product is going to be delivered through the logistics services.

Logistics and inventory management also enable to achieve the deadlines and make the time management
process much leaner by increasing the efficiency of department by utilizing each and every minute of the
company productively increasing the productivity and quality levels using more skills to fulfill the production
demands. Inventory management helps the company to prevent dead stock as far as possible by constantly
studying the prevailing change in the market and demands for particular product. Inventory management also
helps to build team spirit to achieve the deadlines together as a single unit and make the employees work in a
harmonious manner.

Inventory management is important for the company as it involves assistance to the Methodology of
KAIAZEN which helps the company to improve their products quality and process for achieving maximum
productivity and efficiency thereby reducing the cost of production and bringing in more innovative ideas in
the company to make better products and create a competitive advantage to stay ahead of its competition. The
inventory management also enables the company to save costs on reordering the goods that are still in stock
but are not visible due to error in the communications to avoid this situations they use an inventory
management software “ZOHO Inventory” to reduce the stock error significantly and lower the cost of
production by utilizing each inventory ordered for transformation into finished goods.

Capacity management: It is an activity that ensures a business maximizes its potential activities and
production activities and production output- at all times, under all circumstances. The capacity of the company
measures how much a company can achieve, produce, or sell within a given time period. For example, a call
center can field or attend 9,000 calls per week with a employees strength of 750, a café can brew up to 100
cups of coffee a day, an automobile production line for a car company can assemble 9000 vehicles a day. A
restaurant has the seating capacity of 100 diners. Proper implementation of capacity management helps the
company to maximize its potential activities and increase the production outputs at all the time, under any
situation.

Bajaj Auto’s operations management takes special care about their capacity to produce maximum number of
vehicles by utilizing each and every resource of the company most optimally to meet the market demands and
raise the quality standards of their products constantly and gain more market share currently which stands at
32% and the demand for their product is expected to rise by 20% in order to meet the rising demands the
operations management at Bajaj auto has taken various measures to increase their productivity of their
production department by reducing the cost of production using strategies like choosing the suppliers who can

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deliver raw materials at a very cost effective price so that the production cost doesn’t hikes up also if there is
additional demand which is forecasted by the company, they check the existing machinery, equipment and
labor strength to calculate whether it is sufficient to satisfy the demand and if not the operations management
decides how much more resources will be required to stay productive for match the demand and supply of the
company.

The manager Mr. Joslyn Murzello hires more labors for the time being, who are already trained to work in the
industry and are paid for the number of work hours they give to the company as they are not the fixed
employees of the company and are hired temporality to match demands and increase the productivity of the
company. Mr. Joslyn outsources and hires equipment and machinery for a particular period in which the
demands are higher than usual this saves cost in production cost and operations cost later when the demand
settles down to normal as the additional machinery, equipment and labor are sent back and purchased and paid
monthly accordingly as it would just be a waste of resources as higher productivity than the demand will create
issues like unsold inventory, capital blocked on un demanded inventory for the time being which could have
been used for betterment in the existing functions of the company or funding day to day activities.

The manager Mr. Joslyn also uses the extra space that used for storing raw material and giving training to the
employees, for short period of time to utilize utmost resources available in the company and deploy the
additional machinery rented for the particular duration and provide space for labors to work and increase the
productivity without raising the cost of manufacturing significantly because the owned premises is used
optimally and no need is created for renting a new commercial space for the situations that require more space
in the plant to increase the productivity and maintain the cost of production. The raw materials and labors are
shifted to open field with a large tin shade to store the raw material carefully and safely and also train the
employees in that area until the demand goes back to normal.

The operations’ manager also hires specialized professionals during such situations as they teach the
employees to make use of the technology to its maximum productivity levels by teaching them techniques and
skills for utilizing the existing technology in a much more efficient and productive manner and reduce the
wastage created by the technology in terms of raw material, consumption of energy and etc. The professionals
also teach how to reduce the consumption made by the machinery and equipment by giving more technical
knowledge about them and explain how energy can be saved during the process of production as to what levels
of power are required to get a particular job done and how not to overuse the power that will be wasted due to
it being required in that high amount to perform that job and result in lower consumption bills and more
efficient use for resources of the organization. Bajaj Auto has various manufacturing plants across India in
various locations such as Akurdi Pune, Maharashtra. Chakan, Pune, Maharashtra. Waluj Aurangabad,
Maharashtra. Pantnagar, Uttarakhand.

Each plant is dedicated to some models of 2/3 wheelers and the list describes the capacity of production for
each plant. Bajaj Auto employs 12000+ employees and are allocated effectively across these manufacturing
plants to improve the productivity, as the employees are hired as per the production capacity and types of
manufacturing activities the plant is majorly involved to achieve the high production capacity across the plants
in India. The operations manager also transfer labor cross cities to increase the productivity in a particular
plant due to rise in demands of that particular vehicle which makes cross operations smooth and efficient
thereby increasing the efficiency of the operations in the company.

1. Akurdi, Pune manufacturing plant is the oldest manufacturing plant of Bajaj Auto and has a production
capacity of manufacturing 0.6 million units of vehicles/annum and is now used to produce 3 wheelers
specifically.

2. Waluj, Aurangabad manufacturing plant has a production capacity of 0.86 million units of vehicles
specifically 2 wheelers/annum and produces medium powered motorcycles over there due to average
amount of technology deployed and the level of skills of workers in that plant which helps the company
to save cost on deploying additional technology which won’t result a drastic improvement.

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 As the demands are met with the existing production capacity of the plant and the operations manager
checks constantly to improve the productivity constantly to reduce the cost of production, this plant is
very cost effective due to very less overhead expense on the site.

3. Chakan Industrial Area, Chakan, Pune manufacturing plant is the largest plant of Bajaj Auto and has a
production capacity of producing a huge number of vehicles per year i.e. 1.2 million vehicles/annum only
by a single plant.
4. Pantnagar, Uttarakhand manufacturing plant is the most advanced plant of Bajaj Auto and has a massive
production capacity of 0.9-1 million vehicles/annum. The plant is majorly involved in manufacturing
flagship motorcycles of Bajaj which includes models like Bajaj Dominar 400, Pulsar RS 200/400, Avenger
220, 350 etc. The state government of Uttarakhand has lowered the tax rates on manufacturing of vehicles
to boost industrialization in the state and bring in more industries and raise the standard of living of the
people and raise the revenue of the state government.
Operations manager at Bajaj took a decision to produce maximum number of models at this production
plant to reduce the cost of production and create more profitability for the company.

The plant is deployed with latest and greatest technology as the operations management and the manager
believes that the flagship motorcycles of Bajaj will help them to create a better reputation in the market
by escalating the brand image to a premium segment and will create diversity in their products and have a
capacity to cater every segment of customer and compete with international competitors who product high
powered engines motorcycles and create strong core competency by availing a benefit of benefit of being
a domestic brand and price their products aggressively due to less import duties paid in terms of importing
only raw materials that are purchased from foreign manufacturers like disc brakes calipers, Anti-Lock
Braking System Units, Digital Instrument/Information cluster for displaying speed and RPM of the motor
cycles and other general information, and etc.

The plant has four assembly lines which operates in 2 shifts with a manpower of 2000+ people and
manufacture 6000+ vehicles per day and the efficiency of the plant is 94%, which brings in true optimum
utilization of resources. The manager check for quality levels and wear in machinery as they operate
continuously and give appropriate maintenance timely to increase the productivity and maintain the quality
levels of the vehicles due to healthy machinery conditions. The employees are pushed harder to perform
better constantly but the operations management checks the stress levels of the employees and bring
necessary actions to not affect the quality of the products due to exhaustion of labor which has a direct
impact on quality of the vehicles produced.

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 Figure 6.1:Pantnagar, Uttarakhand Manufacturing Plant.

Figure 6.2: Chakan, Pune, Maharashtra Manufacturing Plant

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Figure 6.3: Waluj, Aurangabad, Maharashtra Manufacturing Plant

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 Figure 6.4: Akurdi, Pune, Maharashtra Manufacturing Plant for 3 wheelers.

Scheduling: Scheduling can be defined as, “Prescribing of when and where each operation necessary to
manufacture the product is to be performed.” Basically it establishes times when to begin and finish each
activity or operations which comprises of various procedures. The main aim of scheduling is to plan the
sequence of the work to be executed which will help to make the production systematically and arranged and
synchronized which will be arranged towards the end of completion of all products by the due date.

Scheduling helps maintain a optimum task size which will lead to achieving of achieving maximum efficiency
when the tasks are divided in smaller parts and helps in achieving it much more easily and with greater focus.
Scheduling can be of 2 types i.e. forwards scheduling or backward scheduling.

Forward scheduling is used in businesses like job shops or artisans based businesses like bakery, hand woven
textiles etc. where the customers place their on “needed as soon as possible basis”. It determines the start and
finish times of the next job that is on priority and by assigning the jobs in the earliest available time slots and
from that time, it helps to determine when the job will be finished in that particular work center as per the
capacity of the workplace. Since the job activities component start as early as possible, it will be completed
before they are due at the next work center in the routing of the production process.

The forward method generates in the process inventory that are required in the next successive work centers
and involves higher inventory costs as there is no time to order inventory based upon the demand levels as the
customers want the products and services as early as possible which limits the business to maintain higher
levels of inventory levels to finish the jobs as early as possible and be prepared in advance for any incoming
demands which are unknown to the business and needs sufficient inventory to fulfill the unexpected demands.

Forward scheduling is simple to implement and use by the operations managers as it does not require complex
activities like forecasting, ordering the inventory based upon the levels of demands as to completely fulfil
them and not lag behind time to deliver as backward scheduling aims to deliver on exactly the due dates which
makes the operations much more complex and the control is much more higher due to the commitments made
by the company to deliver on time.
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Generally forward scheduling gets the job done in shorter periods of time compared to backward scheduling
as the products are ready much more quickly as the inventory are already present in the business and only
needs to be processed and not required to be ordered generally which rises the costs in maintaining the
inventory as there is no surety of it being transformed into finished goods and services as the demands are
unexpected and could be present very high or very low.

Backward scheduling is often used in assembly and manufacturing type industries which commit in advance
to specific delivery dates. Backward scheduling helps to determine the start and finish times for the waiting
jobs assigning them to the latest available time slot that will ensure each job is finished just when it is due and
but before due date. The jobs should not be finished way before the due dates as it will just create higher
inventory costs. By assigning jobs as late as possible, backwards scheduling helps to minimize the inventory
levels since the job isn’t completed until it needs to go directly to the successive work center on its routing
process.

Bajaj Auto’s operations department uses backward scheduling methods to design their process systems for
production which helps them to reduce the inventory levels in the business that aren’t useful and has high cost
involved in it for maintaining it. Using the backwards scheduling method helps Bajaj’s operations
management to have smoother functions as there are no hurries to deliver as soon as possible and benefits
them to maintain a standardize quality levels across their line of products and use techniques to improve the
quality even more are there are less wastage in the business and allows more funds to be spent on activities
that will help the company to grow and improve its overall quality in functions and products.

Backward scheduling enables the company to not exert high efforts to deliver before due date or on as soon
as possible basis instead the target is to deliver the vehicles on the mentioned delivery dates and the business
is not obligated to deliver before due dates which helps the company to reduce the chaos in the production
and assemble line and smoothens its functions.

Operations management at Bajaj combines Just In Time and Scheduling to increase their efficiency and reduce
the wastage and improve the quality levels by ordering only the most required inventory and in limited
quantities thereby reducing the batch size and reducing the manufacturing defects in the raw material and in
finished goods as less time needs to be spent on checking the delivery of raw materials for defects which is
also benefited because the operations manager to choose the best suppliers in the market who can deliver
quality goods with punctual delivery time as per due dates and with minimal defects in the raw material
delivery. The operations manager Mr. Joslyn Murzello uses the following steps to use backward scheduling
at Bajaj Auto.

As Bajaj Auto is an assembly and manufacturing type industry of who makes 2/3 wheelers it uses backward
scheduling in its process to deliver on the due dates and give the best quality products when demanded. The
assembly line at Bajaj Auto is working constantly to meet the market demands successfully and deliver on the
promised date to the multiple dealerships of the company. Bajaj Auto does not use forward scheduling system
as the management purchases inventory which is actually required to be converted in to finished products of
one work center and pass it to another work center successfully. The manager of the operations department
uses the following steps to implement backward scheduling successfully with negligible error in delivering
products on the due dates.

1st Mr. Joslyn checks the level of demands of various products in the market and how much inventory will be
needed to fulfill it successfully but at the same time without wasting funds on unwanted inventory. So by
calculating the exact quantity of the inventory based upon the current level of stock present in the company
and the existing machinery’s output levels the exact batch size is made to increase the efficiency and save cost
on maintaining the right levels of inventory.

2nd Mr. Joslyn then decides the optimum task size to achieve maximum efficiency because when the tasks are
small in size which will motivate the workers to achieve them more effectively due to not overloading of
information and commands to execute.

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3rd The manager calculates the capacity of each plant of production and distribute load of work depending
upon the efficiency and capacity to produce the required products in the given time. Bajaj has 4 production
plants across 4 locations in various states of India and each one has different efficiency and levels of
technology to produce the vehicles and dedicated to different products the company offers.

4th The manager calculates the machine hours needed to complete the finished products and deliver them on
time, the factors include the workforce numbers in each plant, levels of machinery and equipment in different
quantities and level of modern equipment.

5th The manage tries to push the limits of the each production plant as per previous history about how well
each plant has performed under high workload and based upon that the jobs and quantity of products to be
produced by each plant is decided to increase the efficiency and distribute jobs effectively and increase the
productively.

6th The manager calculates the effective capacity of each assembly line and work center to break down the
jobs within the company and allocate jobs most efficiently and produce maximum productivity by making
very customized jobs for each and every category of workforce.

7th The sequence to produce the products and the process for production is designed by the operation’s
manager using the principle of optimum sequence, for different work centers and from which point the job
will begin and at where the job will end passing through specific work centers in a perfect sequence which
will help to increase the efficiency by directly assembling the finished products of each work center and put
together the most relevant successive spare part and machinery which will save time in organizing the finished
products in the end and assembling them together at a single work place, But at Bajaj each and every part is
assembled as per the next most suitable spare and produces a finished vehicle at the end of the last work center
rather than putting a completely different work center to assemble all the spares together at one place which
would not result in that high productivity and efficiency as time would be consumed a lot.

8th The manager foresees the demand pattern and decides the extent of flexibility to be provided for various
products and their order levels.

9th The manager plans individual job schedule to assign tasks to each groups of workers and based upon the
nature of the work they do. The manager also overlaps various operations together to strengthen the core
functions and increase the productivity and reduce the time involved in various activities of different work
centers.

10th Finally the operations manager analyses the various job scheduling strategies used by him and what could
have been possible improvements in it to further increase the efficiency of the operations management and
reduce the time needed for the production for each unit of product to increase the capacity of the production
plants and reduce the wastage furthermore and reduce the cost of operations and production. Analyzing the
scheduling strategies used by the manager helps him to decide the level of stringency to apply for each work
center and what levels of controls are needed for each job to make them perform even better. By applying
more feasible and practical approaches based upon the existing resources, capacity and the past performances.

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 Figure 6.5: Scheduling Process Diagram (Forward Scheduling and Backward Scheduling)

Conclusion:
The author concludes that operational management function plays and important role at Bajaj Auto by
reducing the wastage and saving money on unproductive things, making the company go
greener(environmentally) and efficient by utilizing the resources optimally and increasing the productivity. It
also helps the company to adapt to the prevailing changes in the market demands and requirements and to
cope up with it to acquire maximum market share and increase profitability. Operations management functions
also helps the company to utilize maximum productivity of the company by motivating the worker to use the
skillset as good as possible and utilize each resource to its fullest. Operations management helps to maintain
the demands and supply balance using supply chain managements which makes the process of manufacturing
much leaner and cost effective. Operations management also fulfills the objective of Bajaj Auto that is
KAIZEN which means constant improvement made in products quality and the process of production.
Operations management helps to build an efficient sequence for all the work centers to improve each unit of
the business and raise their productivity levels and control the supply chain quantity and satisfy the rising
demands of the produces successfully. Operations managing functions help to reduce the cost of production
and improve the quality of the products

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Contemporary business environment factors affecting the operations management and decisions
making of the leaders and managers at Bajaj Auto:

Political factors: These are government laws and regulations that influences the business operations
positively or negatively. There are various aspects of it like change in corporate policies, political stability,
FDI, Foreign Trade Regulation and change in tax or economic policies, etc. These factors affect the operations
management by needing them to change the process of the company and restructuring the process in order to
comply with the latest laws and regulations and ensure to make it beneficial for the company and the leaders
and managers change their decisions based upon the new changes in the political environment affecting their
industry.

Economic Factors: These are the factors that affect the daily operations of the business, like change in interest
rates, exchange rates, recession in the economy, inflation, taxes etc. All of the above factors affect the
operations of the company and decision making of the leaders and managers of that particular organization.
The operations management must consider these factors before framing new policies and strategies for
complying with the local laws and regulations and avoid legal litigations and run the business smoothly the
leaders and managers must ensure that all the decision taken by them comply with the regulations and make
sure the subordinates follows and adapts to the new changes made.

Social Factors: Social factors are the factors which impacts the company operations by making the relevant
strategies and policies in the organization to fulfill their responsibilities towards the consumers behavior like
change in taste, fashion, demands, income per capita, personal beliefs the products services offered etc. This
affects the operations manager by implementing new strategies to produce products and services at an
affordable rate and improving the quality gradually, also they need to keep a track of the prevailing changes
in the market demands and produce the most demanded product in the market at the required period of time
the manager and leaders must adapt the new strategies and instruct the employees to produce the new products
and services and train them regularly for attaining utmost efficiency and making the jobs understandable and
avoid confusions.

Technological Factors: These factors include change in external factors that brings change in technology in
the market like in production or marketing or sales, the change in production equipment as per the latest
technology to improve the productivity and quality levels. Latest technologies used in the products by the
competitors, change in systems or software used in an organization to perform day to day functions, change
technologies used to making payments to the business etc. The operations manager get affected by it because
in order to achieve efficiency and productivity and cope up with various changes in the products sold in the
market the manager must adapt new technologies and systems as per the industry standards to compete and
make the company one step ahead of the competition always by implementing most advanced technologies
prior to the competition. The leaders on the other hand must ensure the employees are trained effectively to
make the best use of the new technologies implemented in the organization and reduce the cost of production
and increase the productivity levels and quality of the products.

CSR: Corporate Social Responsibilities are the responsibilities of an organization to make their customers
using various ways to fulfill it like philanthropy, volunteering, volunteering efforts to create awareness about
a good cause and at the same time subtly boosting the brand itself. CSR includes giving back to the society a
small part of what the business has earned from it which help the business to stay ethical. CSR can impact all
aspects of the society like social, economic and environmental. This means the company is spreading
positiveness in the society and not spreading negativity by being selfish and utilizing all the profits alone and
being greedy, because each company needs the growth of the society to survive in the market and grow.

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Ethics: It refers to the moral principles and of an individual and contain set of rules of conduct which are
acceptable groups of human actions all these actions of moral principles helps in the process of judging what’s
wrong and what’s right. All of the ethical actions make the operations management come up with various
styles and methods to ensure fair practices are followed in the process of the company as well as ensuring the
productivity isn’t affected by such actions and the organizational goals don’t get hampered due to it, and
create a system and culture where both the employees and the organization have a win-win situation by
agreeing on some mutual agreement.

The leader and managers play and important role in implementing the actions based upon ethics to make their
employees happy at work place and give them a feeling to being a part of a family and not treat them like
hardcore labors who are made to work without considering their emotions and safety. The leaders also play
and important role in maintaining ethical activities in the company to retain their interest in the company
which will boost their morale and make them work more efficiently willingly without much of insisting to do
so.

Values: Values are a set of principles or belief that an organization or a person views as being at a central
importance before taking any decisions, values help an organization to distinguish itself from the other brands
in the same industry and shows the true focus and motive of an organization which helps the company to
survive and grow in the market if the values are apt and morally correct.

Bajaj Auto is an auto company that manufactures 2/3 wheelers and believes in values that focuses on
enhancing life of their customers and up lifting the lifestyle of the people of the economy by providing
products that are innovative, reliable, empower the citizens and constantly improve the quality of their
products and services so the end customer can gain the benefits. Bajaj is driven by its core values that states
that the company will function practicing various ethical functioning in the organization to stay true to their
customers and sustain the trust towards the brand which has been there in the people’s mind for almost 80
years. Bajaj Auto believes that if the company respects and satisfies all their stakeholders, protect the human
rights in the company and care for the environment, will bring in profits and sustainability as trust towards the
brand will be more by the people and will be supported by the stakeholders at every phase of the company.
These values have allowed Bajaj Auto to look beyond profits and focus truly on the product and services they
create which will reward them for their hard work without worrying about profits.

The values of Bajaj Auto has made its operations management to constantly satisfy their stakeholders by
fulfilling all their duties towards them and staying completely transparent with them in various ways. The
operations managers have also takes various decisions to protect the environment and the society from the
industrial waste they create by minimizing the waste and treating it correctly so it can be disposed safely in
the nature without any real negative impact. The operations management at Bajaj Auto have provided their
employees with a proper work environment and supportive members who work together as a team to grow
together. The leaders and managers constantly develop various strategies that help the company to reduce
their waste and make their products more superior by using techniques like KAIZEN, TQM, JIT, and etc. all
these theory are applied by the leader and mangers at Bajaj Auto to encourage their employees to develop
various specialized skills that will benefit mutually to the company and the employee as well. The operations
managers constantly try to reduce the cost of production and increase the efficiency of the company to cater
to more people in the society for making their services reach even to the most unpenetrated markets and make
the lifestyles of the people much better and easier. The leaders and managers use various cost cutting
techniques to reduce the operational costs to price their products much more aggressively as it will help to
make the brand reach one step closer to their vision of making the society a better place to life by bringing
various innovations in the market at affordable rates.

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The author has critically evaluated the operations management and factors that impact on the wider
business environment.

At Bajaj Auto the operations management plays a crucial role in its success and acts as an heart of the company
which supplies vital resources to the entire organization and satisfy the needs of the customers to achieve
maximum customer satisfaction and create quality products and reduce the overall wastage of the company
and taking care of various activities like monitoring functioning of each department and form new strategies
to improve the systems and process and make them much leaden to reduce the cost of production. It is also
related to activities like marketing and finance for better sales of the products, but there are various
environmental factors within the business which affects the operations management department and the
decisions taken by the leader and managers of the organization.

Like political factors in India which include reduced rate duty on exports of 2/3wheelers which boosts the
vision of India’s PM Mr. Narendra Modi that is “Make in India” which helps to boost the Indian economy by
relaxing the duties on the exports from India and hiked the import duty on import of auto parts which again
will help the Indian economy to retain the currency in the country itself and give business within the nation
as far as possible. But this affected Bajaj Auto’s operations management in both negative and positive, due to
slash in export duties on vehicle manufactured in India it gave Bajaj Auto a huge benefit for increasing its
global footprints and expand as and organization globally thereby increasing the sales internationally resulting
in more profits.

The management operations manager Mr. Joslyn Murzello decided to grab this opportunity to increase the
profitability of the company by increasing the exports of the motorcycles at more affordable rates in the
international markets due to less duty imposed which made the company increase its production capacity and
focus on the international markets for better customer base and market share globally in the industry. The
reduction of export duty helped the operations manager to invest more in advanced technologies to increase
the productivity of the company to meet global demands.

The leaders tried to implement KAIZEN even more effectively because of competing with global corporations
with huge area of operations and high economies of scale. The leader constantly trained the workers to come
up with superior quality of products and give inputs to reduce the cost and improve the quality of the products
to match/surpass the international quality standards to expand in more nations as a successful business.

The political environment has benefited operations management at Bajaj Auto but has proved to be negative
as well because of the fact that the import duties on auto parts had been increases which would lead to hike in
production costs but the operations manager took a crucial step to avoid such situation arise in the company
by intensively researching the next best alternative suppliers for raw material in the local market which can
provide similar levels of auto parts matching international standards at a cost effective price and deliver
products on given date of deliver and keep the defect rates as low as possible without affecting the quality.
This helped Bajaj Auto to source the raw material up to 85% from the domestic market that helped the
company to avoid hike in pricing of the products and negative mitigated the negative impact of import duties
on auto parts without compromising on quality. The leader at Bajaj Auto ensured that each employee is trained
to implement such change in the company and produce products of superior quality by using the new auto
parts carefully and motivating them by influencing using various styles of leadership to resist change and
embed the culture of improving the process and systems gradually to stay competitive in the market.

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Economic factors that affect the operations management decisions of leaders and managers at Bajaj Auto are
increased income level per capita and decreased interest rates on vehicle loans in India which means that the
customers would require more on mediocre luxury products which raises the demands of motorbikes whereas
at the same time due to higher disposal power makes them demand higher quality of products that are feature
rich as well and pack latest technologies and safety features: The operations manager at Bajaj Auto made use
of various skills and techniques to ensure that change in the economic environment impacts the company
positively to grab the opportunity and raise the profitability of the company and acquire more market share to
do that hired more research and development team members who can create various technologies that are not
offered by any of their competitors and distinguishes their products from the competition and implement best
in class safety features in the motorcycles in order to match the customers demand and satisfy their needs at a
very affordable price.

Seeing the demand for more powerful engines and city touring motor bikes he instructed his research and
development team to produce a 400CC engine that is both economical in fuel consumption and produce
enough power to make the customer use it whenever he needs that extra power to accelerate briskly and
overtake on the roads quickly. The team came up with an product that had all the latest safety features and
technologies and a very stylish looking design of the motorbike names BAJAJ DOMINAR 400. He also
monitored the competitors products and marketing strategies carefully to see the response of the customers
towards it so that he can direct the production team to produce the best in class motorbikes and improve its
quality by sourcing best suppliers and buying raw material in required amounts to reduce wastage and have
flexible operations for coping with changing demands and requirements of the customers.

The manager also made changes in production department by installing new machinery to improve the quality
level of the products and to install latest technology features in the products and produce motorbikes with
advanced technologies and latest safety features, and price the products competitively and giving something
extra to their customers so they stay loyal towards the brand and don’t shift their brand loyalty. The operations
management leader motivated the research and development team to come up with creative and innovative
ways to start a new line of motorbikes and as a which are more powerful and fuel efficient at the same time
so maximum number of customers can own the product.

The leader also motivated the employees to improve the overall quality and functionality of the products by
encouraging them to not avoid minor defects in their products and hidden problems in the components which
might affect the reputation of the brand and ensure each part of the product is used of superior quality and is
integrated to work as good as possible. The leaders also monitored the capacity of the production to ensure
the resources are utilized optimally and the production is not lower than the expected numbers and if the
demand is higher than the production capacity of the site the leaders coordinated with the operations manager
to for increasing the area of operations for better output levels to match with the demands and also install
machinery or deploying more workforce to ensure the supply chain management is as accurate as possible.

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Social Factors affecting the operations management and decisions of leaders and managers at Bajaj Auto:
There are various social responsibilities/factors that affect the operations and decision making of the managers
and leaders. There is a strict regulation about the safety of the workers and reducing the environmental waste
produced by manufacturing, producing quality products at affordable prices, ensuring that the employees get
paid fair wages/salaries as per the industry standards and local labor laws and providing fair working
conditions to work in the organization. The operations management at Bajaj Auto considers the above factors
and created various policies and strategies to ensure the waste produced by the company is safe to dispose
outside the company and doesn’t affect the human life negatively and are well under government standards to
avoid legal complications.

The manager Mr. Joslyn Murzello took great care of it by implementing various upgradations in the air filters
and catalytic converters of the of the chimneys and water treatment plants to ensure the emission levels are
well regulated and under control so it doesn’t impact the nature and human life around the industry. The
managers also implement various changes in the use of chemicals and gases used for production of the vehicles
and tried to communicate with the suppliers to provide best alternatives that are cost effective and safer for
the environment to dispose and doesn’t affect the quality levels of the production. The manager also picked
raw materials that were easily recyclable protect the environment and reduce the pollution levels by increasing
the levels of dump yards which are already full of trash this enabled the company to go greener one step ahead
and they also made sure they use various sources of renewable energy like solar energy using solar panels,
hydroelectricity by using the currents of water in nearby dams and installing wind mills in some parts of the
manufacturing site which helped to make use of clean energy and reduce cost of production because of
producing the products with renewable energy.

The manager also ensured that the customers get the products at a very affordable price and get a little more
than their expectation in that price range of products and satisfying their needs much better thereby increasing
the brand loyalty. The leader ensures the employees are trained to work with the equipment’s like fork lifts,
working near furnaces wearing proper insulated safety gear top to bottom and make sure the working
environment is inspected daily to avoid accidents in manufacturing. The leaders also try to imbibe the skills
of producing higher quality products using as less resources as possible and reduce the waste generated by the
company to ensure the environmental norms are met and the interests of the stakeholders/shareholders and the
customers are satisfied by fulfilling their needs.

The leaders constantly encourages his employees to become more transparent to the management so better
future decisions can be taken considering current level of performance in the organization. The leader also
motivated the employees to produce durable products and don’t have hidden defects and to ensure this the
leaders personally track each employees working styles and level of interest shown in producing the products.
The leaders also conduct and one to one communication systems where each employee is free to describe their
expectations and issues faced by them in the company to create a healthy work environment for better future
for the company.

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Technological Factors affecting Operations at Bajaj Auto are rapid growth in the technological industry, new
inventory management software in the market which are constantly improving the functionality and play a
huge role in reducing the wastage by the company and reducing the cost of production by maintaining healthy
levels of stock as per the demand and supply chain. Use of social media to advertise and brand sponsorship in
online streaming platforms(YouTube etc.), Increase in the expectations of the customers by due to the
influence of international exposure of products. Creating awareness by focusing more on online modes more
than offline methods which helps to reach more people at once and quickly.

The operations at Bajaj Auto constantly tries to implement various new inventory management software
because it helps them to achieve the organizational objectives like reduction of waste, lean manufacturing
process and avoid dead stock, deliver to the customers on time to maintain healthy customer satisfaction. The
company has partnered with Ecommerce website PAYTMTM to sell their scooters online by connecting the
nearest dealership to the customers and filling all the paperwork and delivering the vehicles right to their
doorstep which helps to achieve the market share by using better sales and marketing techniques. The
operations manager also monitors the specifications and pricing of their products and the marketing techniques
used by them to ensure a heathy competition is given and increase awareness about their products by show
superiority in the products and grabbing the attention of the customers.

The manager tries to implement international standards of quality and technology advancements in the
company to compete globally and stand equally and better than the giants. The manager also asks the IT team
to make sure their website is up to date with current activities and launces of the company to keep their
customers interested and getting aware about the latest creation of the company without going to the physical
dealership. Technology has also made the managers more susceptible to greater competition which requires
them to improve their style of management greatly time and again making them learn and check out various
upcoming changes in the industry to make sure the company stays ahead of the competition always. The
leaders adapt various style of leadership to train their team for becoming future proof and work in such a
competitive market by improving their skills and innovation levels significantly to meet the organizational
goals and objectives on time.

The leader also motivates the employees to use the best techniques for production for achieving KAIZEN and
upgrading their experience and skills. The leaders allocate the jobs that are more complex to experienced and
skilled employees to achieve efficiency and make the best possible use of resources. The leaders makes
motivates the employees to adapt new technology and not to run away from it instead use it as a tool for their
success. This ensures the company is future ready and can function in an era of technology and make the best
use of it.

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Ethics, Values, & CSR are the basic fundaments and grounds for Bajaj Auto that helps them to distinguish
from its competitors using best practices and delivering quality the customers deserve and fulfill their needs
and satisfy them completely. These factors affect the operation of Bajaj Auto as it requires them to use very
acceptable ways to create policies based upon the social wellbeing of the society, shareholders/stakeholders,
customers and the environment which makes them concerned about the way profits are obtained rather than
the quantity of profits are achieved.

The operations management helps to implement best working practices in Bajaj Auto as they imbibe a culture
in the company to have fair practices in the organization and not to exploit the people connected with the
business directly or indirectly. CSR enables Bajaj Auto to spread positivity in the society by giving away
small part of its profits(5%) for the welfare of the society and help to improve the life quality for people
around. But CSR needs to be done carefully to ensure the company doesn’t suffer in terms of operations and
liquidation of cash to smooth running of the firm. The operations management at Bajaj Auto creates various
policies and strategies to ensure that the company is grow together as a family by benefiting itself as well as
all the people connected to like, the shareholders, customers, society, suppliers, employees etc.
The manager at Bajaj Auto makes sure the company is maintaining all the ethical standards during it operations
and functions in each and every department.

The managers produce accurate financial statements for the shareholders which also highlights the progress
made by the company over the time and the returns on their investments are fair as per the current financial
conditions of the company keeping their interests alive and maintaining utmost transparency for boosting the
investments made by the investors having an positive attitude towards the company, the manager and leader
also ensures the safety of their workers as number one priority and keep a check of their training before letting
them work with dangerous machines and equipment’s and keep an eye on safety gear conditions and its use
when required to prevent fatal accidents. The managers also give various compensations to the employee/their
families if something wrong goes with the employees due to the working in the company to make the life of
the employee a bit easy and cover their medical expenses which motivates them to work in the company by
trusting their employer that they have their backs covered when needed in unexpected situations.

The leader of the production team Mr. Adarsh constantly motivates and influences his employees to improve
the quality of their products constantly and prevent hidden defects in small parts especially and double
inspecting them so the products sold in the market are without defects and doesn’t creates and issue for the
customer. The leaders constantly develop various strategies to reduce the emission as low as possible and
motivating their employees to make efficient use of the available resources. The operations manager ensures
the customers are aware of the products offered by the company and don’t have a wrong impression about it
because the marketing manager at Bajaj Auto makes sure realistic claims about their products are made by the
company in its advertisements and promotions which can be met by the real product and maintain trust of
their customers.

The leader also tries to fix the issues of this workers as quickly and effectively as possible so that their focus
stays on work and they have a sense of reliability towards their leaders. The managers ensures that all the CSR
are fulfilled by Bajaj Auto to comply with legal regulations and also to spread positivity in the society by
sharing happiness with others.

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Stakeholders: Stakeholders are the people who have close relations with a particular business and are closely
associated to contribute in different ways also it is a moral responsibility of any business to keep its
stakeholders satisfied. This helps the business to sustain and survive in such a competitive market and grow
with the help of these people who will help the brand to create its distinct identity and reputation from the rest
of the competition for capturing more market share and create core competitiveness. The responsibilities
towards the stakeholders of Bajaj are fulfilled by its operations management to achieve their goals and
objectives on time with smoothness in operations and achieve maximum satisfaction of every associate of the
business.

Suppliers: At Bajaj Auto the operations manager Mr. Joslyn satisfies their suppliers by paying them fair
amount for the raw materials and machinery as per the industry standards and not delaying their payments
after successful delivery of the raw material which boosts the confidence of the suppliers as they are not being
negotiated extremely and are being paid on time that makes them supply the raw material to Bajaj on priority
basis and on the deadlines given for the delivery to ensure proper supply is maintained in the company and
the demands can be catered successfully. The operations of the company is also benefited as they receive
negligible defects in the raw materials and machineries as the suppliers are share strong bond with the
company and only deliver handpicked raw materials and machinery that are completely fine and have
negligible defects percentage in the entire order to reduce the time spent on quality check of the company and
on returns of the purchases. Bajaj Auto’s operations manager constantly co-ordinates with the suppliers to
provide the most accurate list of products required in the company which helps the suppliers only to deliver
useful and demanded goods and avoid returns later which makes them save costs which was wasted on sales
return activities. The operations manager at Bajaj gives constant feedback to their suppliers about increasing
the quality levels of their products and where to improve which helps them to improve their business and grow
and raises their morale towards the brand as they build a strong relation where they support each other’s
weakness and make it their strengths together.

Employees: The operations management at Bajaj Auto ensures each employee has proper working conditions
and use all the safety measures while working with dangerous activities in production like working near
furnaces and wear proper heat resistant clothing, waring proper eye/face protection while welding, wearing
gloves which are heat resistant smelting, monitoring safe distance is maintained by the labors from those
machines and only the raw materials inserted in the machines not any human limb as an error while cutting
metal with sharp industrial tools, and etc.

The operations manager constantly encourage the employees to come out of their comfort zone and built them
as specialize professionals that will help them to grow in their fields and bring in more productivity in the
company and use various techniques to constantly increase the quality levels of the products. The employees
at Bajaj Auto are trained before any new project to give them a proper idea what is needed to be done by them
and how? It helps the operations management to satisfy the employees by building a mindset to work willingly
as they the employees don’t panic after seeing new job and try to escape it.

The operations managers and leaders at Bajaj Auto hire employees without discriminating them by their caste,
creed, color, language, beliefs, culture the place they come from, and etc. This has helped Bajaj Auto to create
diversity in their work environment from various people across India and Abroad which promotes a healthy
work environment and satisfies the employees by ensuring they are hired based upon their skills and ability
rather than the judging and hiring them on discriminating basis by considering factors like caste, color, religion
and etc. Diversity create more innovative ideas on the company as each employees come from various parts
of the nation and with a different mindset which enables the company to create a competitive advantage and
core competency.

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All the employees at Bajaj Auto are paid above industry or equal to it and follows all the salaries and wages
act by the Indian govt. applicable to Auto industry. The employees at Bajaj are given additional support by
their leaders in terms of flexibility in working, paid leaves for emergency situations where the need for the
employee was more than the company and it was crucial for him/her to be on such situation Bajaj Auto
understands their employees and does not penalize their employees by deducting their payments for their
absence on such events if formally reported after getting back to work and proved the reason was genuine for
the leave.

Customers: Bajaj Auto gives utmost importance to their customers as they are the sole reason why the
company exists and was established. Bajaj believes that if their customers are satisfied with their products and
services the brand will automatically grow and prevent itself from shut down’s as there will be a constant
demand for their products in the market. The operations management of Bajaj Auto constantly takes various
actions and decisions for improving the customer satisfaction levels from the brand as it is their first priority
to achieve maximum customer satisfaction in terms of the products and services availed by the customers
from Bajaj Auto.

Due to excellent operation management team at Bajaj they have been able to produce vehicles that are way to
superior in terms of reliability and quality from its competitors as proved by the decision of the company to
give a 5 year warranty on all their vehicles sold which satisfies the customer by having a hassle free buying
experience and not worry about unexpected failure in their vehicles as the brand will give 100% customer
support and fix the issue for free if the issue is caused by a manufacturing defect or error. This builds a sense
of trust and reliability in the customers mind to buy Bajaj’s vehicles over other brand.

Due to the operations management at Bajaj constantly developing new approaches to reduce wastage, increase
productivity, improve quality constantly of their products and improving their supply chain has made the
company cut down costs on various unneeded activities and has resulted in setting the prices of their products
up to 25% lower than its international rivals and up to 15% from its domestic rivals which has made the
customers happy to buy the vehicles produced by Bajaj knowing that they are getting superior quality products
at a very affordable price and the brand earns its customer satisfaction.

The operations management at Bajaj uses Total Quality management to ensure the quality of their products
are improved constantly and the minor manufacturing defects hidden inside the vehicles are prevented so the
customers receive superior quality vehicles which don’t require high maintenance and big service costs as
producing the spare parts using the best production techniques allowing the company to price their products
very cost effectively and gives the direct benefit to the customer in terms of after sales services.

The leaders and managers at Bajaj constantly trains new staff at the dealership who can help the customers to
make the right choice of vehicles which suits their requirements and budgets and provide them with the best
options to help the customers invest their money in the right product and not regret their decisions later. This
increases the customer satisfaction as the products are created as per the customized category of people.

Due to extensive market research and analysis of the competitors’ products deeply the brand has been able to
make its products at the right price i.e. better than its competitors and try to give more than expected by the
customers hereby making them satisfied by achieving their expectations successfully. The leaders and
managers play an important role to make it happen and constantly boost their employees and use the right
management techniques to improve the efficiency of the organization to cater to a wide range of customers.

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Government: The operations management at Bajaj Auto has been constantly adhering to the laws and
regulations laid by the respected governments of the nations where the brands are present and fulfills the
expectations of the government by following the laws and regulations set by various levels of the government
which includes Local government, State government and the central government. The operations management
helps the company to pay all their taxes regarding the goods and services produced by the company and sold.
The GST returns and invoices are maintained to maintain transparency with the government and run the
business legally and avoid litigation which helps to improve the relations with the government. The operations
management buys their raw materials only from genuine and authorized suppliers from the government who
provides invoices for each of their goods and services availed and helps Bajaj Auto to stay ethical and legal
in their operations.

The government of India has made it compulsory for all the goods that are transported through road ways
needs to have a WAYBILL and Transit invoice which helps the government to monitor all the trade related
activities to ensure no illegal goods are being transported in the name of legal goods also the tax applicable
on the goods are paid and not moving across the country illegally. Bajaj’s operations manager only deals with
reputed logistics and suppliers to ensure there are no malpractices and illegal activities going on which could
impact the brand’s image in the market.

The leaders and managers at Bajaj auto constantly monitors the activities of their employees/labors to make
sure they are following the regulations set by the government and policies based upon them in the company
and if any employee is caught conducting malpractices they are dealt with highest priority and are handed to
the government for the further prosecution as Bajaj’s management does not support, encourage or practice
any malpractices and illegal activities to ensure they adhere strictly with the current government’s guidelines
and build a healthy business environment and heathy competition in the market which has helped the brand
to stay into existence from such a long period and carry forward their legacy with pride and confidence as
they have no bad legal history and have always stayed clean in their operations. Operations managers at Bajaj
auto always tries to reduce the industrial waste created by them and treats it properly so that the waste can be
disposed safely into the environment without harming the nature.

The company uses renewable resources to power their plants and reduce the wastage in the company as low
as possible to ensure the environment laws are complied and the cost of production stay low which also helps
Bajaj Auto to reduce the cost of production and utilize their resources optimally. The leaders and managers at
Bajaj Auto constantly motivate the employees/labor to reduce the organizational wastage to become more
efficient in their operations and utilize the resources optimally and improve the efficiency within the company
and raise the productivity of the organization and comply with the environmental laws. The operations
management at Bajaj auto uses only the permissible grade and type of chemicals and raw materials for
manufacturing their products even if the cost goes a little higher it does not concern Bajaj Auto as being legal
in operations is a priority above production costs.

The operations at Bajaj Auto ensures all the import and export duties are paid respectively on the applicable
products and spare parts which helps the government to increase the revenue collected in taxes for growth of
the economy and maintain the balance in the foreign trades and make the GDP even stronger with the help of
increasing exports and reducing the imports or collecting taxes on imports so the economy stays stable.

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Conclusion: The author concludes that various factors affect the operations management functions at Bajaj
Auto, and there are various roles and functions the leaders and managers play in the decision making as per
the contemporary business environment changes. The business environment also impacts the efficiency of the
employees which can be controlled by the operations management of Bajaj Auto. Various factors like Political,
Economic, Social, and Technological and Internal Factors like CSR, Ethics and sustainable policy
development makes the operations management form various strategies to fulfill and adapt according to these
factors, to do that the operations management creates various policies, strategies, process designs, inventory
management, scheduling and capacity management, and modeling based upon the changing environment use
the above functions to meet he objectives of the business like reduction in waste, lower the emissions and
pollution form the company, increase the efficiency and productivity of the production department and
increase the quality of products and systems gradually by implementing process and systems designs and
maximize the productivity of the organization.

The operations management at Bajaj Auto plays a crucial role to satisfy its stakeholders which includes the
government, customers, employees and the suppliers associated with Bajaj Auto. The operations management
tries to keep their customers satisfied by making more reliable, affordable and superior products to help them
invest in the right product and not waste their money on wrong products, the operations management at Bajaj
Auto satisfies their suppliers by paying them as per the industry standards and giving constant
recommendations to improve their goods quality to help them grow their business. Operations management
at Bajaj Auto does all the legal formalities to adhere to the laws of nation they are functioning and ensure they
don’t harm their environment by creating excessive industrial waste due which also helps them to reduce their
cost of production and increase the efficiency of the company buy utilizing the resources optimally.

The employees at Bajaj Auto are taken good care of and are paid well as per the industry standards and even
a bit more than it to keep their needs satisfied and support their livelihood much better. The employees are
provided proper working conditions and breaks to help them relax and get back to work with full energy. The
employees are supported by the operations management if they are facing severe emergencies and can’t come
to work due to those reasons the management does not deduct their pay for such events thereby raising the
morale and positive attitude towards the company as they are very satisfied with the work culture of the
company and are supported when they need the most. The operations management also gives advances to their
old employees who have worked for them for more than 24 months and are in some emergencies and need
advance to overcome the situation Bajaj Auto acts as a savior for them in these situations which motivates the
employees to work even heartedly for the company as they stand by their side even in their personal life crises.

73
 Author’s conclusion.
The author has analyzed and assessed and also learned that the leaders and managers are different people and
perform various roles and responsibilities and possess various traits to make the organizations functions more
efficient and effective and finally achieving the goals and objectives in various situations in the organization
by using various styles and theories of leadership and management. The author has also learned and explained
about how the leaders and mangers apply various approaches of operations management(JIT,TQM, AND
KAIZEN) and what are their roles and responsibilities and decisions taken by them in such situations to
achieve maximum productivity and efficiency in their respected department and achieve the organizational
objectives successfully. The author has also described how important operations management are in order to
achieve business objectives and how leaders and managers apply its functions to implement it in the
organization and achieve the business objectives. Finally the author has realized about the importance of
internal and external environment of the business and how it affects the operations management and how the
managers and leaders takes decisions based upon it to make the company more competitive and increase their
sales numbers using various approaches of operations management that will help the company to set the
pricing at a very aggressive level due to the elimination of unnecessary costs while the production of the
products . Operations management helps the company to survive and comply with local laws and regulations,
it helps the company to make use of ethical and fair practices for the functioning of the company to make the
people related with the business benefitted and not to exploit them by using unethical. Understanding the
external and internal environment help the author to understand how it helps the organization to create
products and services that creates value to its customers and satisfy them.

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