CIA-1

COURSE NAME- MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES

COURSE CODE – MBA232

Video- The Profit in 10 Minutes: Vision Quest

(MBA BATCH - 2020-22)

COURSE INSTRUCTOR – DR. ARCHANA SINGH MA’AM

GROUP MEMBERS

NAME REG. NO.

RAGHUL B 2027526
DEEPALI DEEPTI 2027536
RITIKA 2027539
SEBASTIEN SILVA 2027528
YASH JAIN 2027504
ARITRA 2027565
 INTRODUCTION TO THE VIDEO-

Vision Quest is a Lightening Manufacture Company and is America’s one of the

biggest Company. The Company was facing a darker phase where it seemed that the
Company will have to face Bankruptcy due to major decline in the sales. The Company’s
Owner Larry micromanages the employees due to financial crisis and a lot of work is handled
by a single Individual which is leading to the continuous loss in their business. In the
particular video, Marcus Lemonis is a helping hand who has been called out to prevent their
business to be lights out. So, he invests $ 37,500 and owning 50% of Larry’s Business.

Human Resource Management is the art of procuring, developing and maintaining a

competent work force to achieve the goal of an Organization. The major HR functions
identified in the video includes-

MANAGERIAL FUNCTIONS:

 Planning - Planning is an essential function for any type of organization to

achieve the objective of the Organisation. From the video, we can observe that Marcus
has set up his plan that how will be leverage the profitability, will hire new employees for
the respective tasks, and will pay down the debt of the Business and how to utilise the
left-over money as the working capital which will be required in the day-to-day
transactions.
 Organising- Organisations establishes relationship among the employees so
that they can collectively contribute to the Company’s goals. In this video, Larry’s
Business was facing substantial decrease in the sales for which the major reason can be
the lack of transparency between the employees, Owner and Co-Owner of the Company.
Marcus ensured that co-owner is also updated about the entire financial matters and about
how they are managing crisis and so called her up for the discussion. He organised all the
flow of the business and ensured that every task had the particular Manager to perform
their specific roles.
 Directing- The willingness and effective co-operation of employees for the
attainment of organizational goals is possible through proper direction. Direction is an
important function in building sound industrial and human relations securing employees
contribution. In the video we can see how Marcus directs Larry about how they would
work together to make the business run smooth and sustain its profit earnings in future.
He directs Larry to appoint Bob as production manager for his business so that he will be
looking after the production things and Larry can then focus on creative side of their
work.
 Controlling- Controlling involves checking, verifying and comparing the
results with that to the plan so that if there is any kind of deviation, it could be corrected
within time. The actions and operations are then adjusted to the pre determined plans and
standard controls. In this video we can see that Larry could see that his business was not
having good sales and was supposed to face loss soon. He then meets Marcus who takes
over the control of his business and does all the major functions that helped Larry to get
over the losses. Marcus plans about how to invest and work and does exactly the same
with keeping a proper track of the activities that were going on in Larry’s business.

OPERATIVE FUNCTIONS:

 Human Resource Engagement and Utilisation- It includes Motivation,

Leadership, Communication and Participation of employees. In the initial part of video, it
can be seen that Vision Quest lacks in the direction of leadership as there are two people
who looks the shopfloor requirements of their business, When Marcus joined their
business, it was observed that the employees got a particular direction and a specific
goalto increase the sales of their Business.
 HR Management Development- It is the process of assigning suitable
executives to develop managerial and human relations skills of employees. In the video,
Jason who is the Purchasing Manager is doing multi-task such as handling purchase,
shipping, receiving, inventory dealings of the business. But later, Bob is hired as a
Production Manager in the Company who is handling the production of lights that will be
required by the Customers.
 HR Acquisitions/Employment- It refer to the recruitment and appointment of
the employees to their suitable positions in order to achieve organizational objectives.
 Job Design and Job Analysis- Designing a job in terms of duties and
responsibilities and analysis involves collecting information regarding the operations and
responsibilities of a specific job. In this video we see that we Marcus meets Larry and his
employees for the very first time he is very much keen about knowing the job role of each
of the people working there. He asks Larry to appoint a production manager so that the
process could be better looked after. He also collects all the information of the business
like the debt it has, the collaterals for the debt, assets and liabilities of the business etc.
After analysing the complete information, he talks about investing into Larry’s business.
 Human Resource Planning- The main focus of planning is on having
sufficient no. of employees with right skill sets who would be better for the job. Marcus
feels that the no. Of employees in Larry’s business are very less and this creates
mismanagement of work as these employees have to perform several roles at a time. Due
to these multiple roles, the essential functions are sometimes missed. He feels that there
must be at least a production manager along with a general manager working in his
business.
 Recruitment and Selection- Recruitment refers to the searching of a person
who will best suit the job role and selecting him for that position. In the video Marcus
sees that due to multiple job roles Gotham misses up one deadline and he feels that there
is needs to a production manager who would look after the process and such discrepancy
won’t happen again. He asks Larry to appoint Bob as his production manager since he
finds him most suitable for that job.

Challenging HR functions faced by Vision Quest Lighting company

Larry's Vision Quest lighting company initially was enjoying success. But from
the past February, the company faced a massive slump in the profit. That made Larry exit
from his business. Marcus Lemonis joined his hands with Larry to uplift Vision Quest
lighting company. The lacking HR functional skills found to be a challenging task for
Larry in managing his business. Some of them are listed below.

Leadership skills:

Larry lacked leadership qualities like self-confidence developing himself and his
team due to a lack of skilled workforce, Vision, risk taking ability, communication skills,
self-awareness. That leads to a disorderly and non-systematic path of the company.

Workforce planning:

Jason, the Purchasing Manager, bears the overall responsibility of dealing with the
sub-contracts, supervision. Due to the void in the General Manager position, he also does
a GM's role that is an added burden to him. Janelle, Vice president of the sales single-
handedly, handled the sales and said that she also does the task of coding, drawing, and
initiating the design concepts. Therefore, Larry manages an insufficient workforce with
just two people in cost-cutting, but he ultimately fails to address the operations.

The climate of Trust:

When Marcus Lemonis inquired Larry about the company's debt, he knew that
Larry's wife is unaware of the situation that their house has been pledged to repay the
debt. It showed Larry's lack of transparency to his wife, both a life partner and a business
partner. Therefore this created a climate of distrust among the couple.

Decision Making:

Larry also lacked in his decision-making ability to take calculated risks in

investing for his business, which would otherwise lead to high ROI. The position of a
Production Manager also remained vacant with the view of cost-cutting that ended with
the crises of inefficient operation of production and productivity. It shows Larry’s
inability to decision making.

From the Episode of “The Profit in 10 Minutes" Vision Quest, we find the above
HR functions problematic in the company.
Recommendation
 Since there was no general manager, there was an absence in executive
who deals with the overall responsibility of sales and revenue, Vision Quest must
enhance their leadership skills by recruiting a general manager, who can supervise
their marketing and sales operation and also the day-to-day operations. A general
manager can identify specific fault and can take certain measures to rectify it.
 There was only one executive retained for sales operation, sales
operation comprises a set of business activity and requires a team for effective
functioning of the operation, Vision Quest will have to hire many personnel to
reinforce the sales operation and bring the business back on track.
 Larry has invested a lot of money in Vision Quest and to his
misfortune he did not get much back and eventually decided to apart himself from the
business, he has lack of determination and does not feel motivated, Larry must know
that he has control over their actions, and how important it is to keep himself self-
motivates, as he is the face of the business, and any actions done by him will
eventually impact the entire business.
 Larry’s partner did not know that their house was pledged with their
business, there was lack of disclosure and transparency among the partners, a very
vital keystone in business is that, each partner must know about what is going on in
the business, there should be transparency, the ability to see what’s truly happening in
the business.
 Missing deadlines is another drawback of Larry and he missed their
first meeting with Gowtham. Also finishing the job in the last minute at Sweet Pete’s
is also risky as Larry could have missed the deadline. Larry must know how to
manage time properly and finish off things well before time. Larry could also employ
a personal assistant to guide him through the deadlines so that he doesn’t miss the
important meeting.