General Management

Case I - Solution

Executive Time Management

The daily work schedule of Mr. Prabhakar, senior executive Marketing, at the Crystal Co. Ltd., is
as follows:

Time
6.00 a.m. to 9.00 a.m.
9.00 a.m. to 10.15 a. m.
10.15 a.m. to 11.15 a. m.
11.15 a.m. to 12.45 p. m.
12.45 p.m. to 1.30 p. m.
1.30 p.m. to 2.30 p. m.
2.30 p.m. to 3.30 p. m.
3.30 p.m. to 4.00 p. m.
4.00 p.m. to 5.00 p. m.
5.00 p.m. to 5.30 p. m.
5.30 p.m. to 6.45 p. m.
6.45 p.m. to 7.30 p. m.
7.30 p.m. to 8.00 p. m.
8.00 p. m to 8.45 p. m.
8.45 p. m. to 9.45 p. m.
9.45 p. m. to 10.30 p. m.
10.30 p. m. to 11.00 p. m.
Activity
Morning activities (include bath, breakfast, Watching T. V. News,
Newspaper reading and yoga.
Traveling
Going through inward letters, dictations of letters and papers,
glance at the days targets and discussion with office staff.
Visitors (include Customers, agents and dealers, advertisers etc.,)
Lunch Break
Dictation of routine papers and letter.
Meeting with Junior executives and other staff members (mainly
for routine )
Meeting with his boss i.e. General Manager Marketing.
Visitors (same as above)
Dictation for letters of urgency and glance at the days
achievements.
Traveling.
Refreshment, Chitchat with wife, reading of evening newspaper
and family letters etc.,
Glance at urgent or pending office papers, updating of diary and
preparation for the next day.
Discussion and chitchat with children (on their studies and other
activities)
Dinner with T. V. Programmes
Evening walk with wife
Meditation, sundry reading noting prayers etc.,

Now, Mr. Prabhakar who is 40 years old wants to do an evening, part-time, one year diploma in
systems management, to equip him with better skills and knowledge. This diploma requires 3
hours attendance on 2 working days apart from Saturday (2.30 p. m. to 5.30 p. m.) every week.
Mr. Prabhakars company observes a five day week. He spends Saturday for domestic activities
and takes full rest on Sunday.
Question:- Advice Mr. Prabhakar, for an effective time management, to enable him pursue his
studies.
Solution:
Mr. Prabhakar is having a very organized routine that he follows to meet the daily routine task and
there are not much modification that h has made over the weeks to incorporate additional activities.
Now that he has depicted the willingness to pursue a executive management program that will enable
him enhance his skills that will lead to better work management.

We hereby recommend the following steps that needs to be taken by Mr. Prabhakar:

Discuss the matter of his willingness to pursue a Diploma Course in systems management.
On presenting the details about the course to his boss the General manager and what are the
benefits that the course will provide to him on individual level as well at the benefits that the
organization and the entire marketing team that he under him will benefit in terms of
increased productivity and achieving the results that are the targets set by the management.
Upon the approval of the General Manager, seek the permission to present the case to the
Human Resources department that will provide additional information on what will be the
timing of his classes and days of the week that he will be seeking permission. Accordingly
inform the respective training and development department to organize the schedule for the
timing and the general paper works for the enrolment and get the management permission.

Time Schedule - reorganizing:

From the routine schedule that Mr. Prabhakar follows the modification will be only for the 2
working days those days will be on Tuesday and Friday that will be ideal for him as well at the
office as Monday being the first working day of the week where in the marketing department sets
their weekly goal and usually lot of follow-up and reports needs to be submitted to various
departments and the management on the progress made over the previous week and any
corrective measures that will be taken.
Mondays and Fridays the work load will be presumably little less where in 3 hours during the
afternoon can be accommodated for the class between 2.30 pm to 5:30 pm.
The modification will be that the meeting that is held with the General manager will be
conducted earlier between 1:30 Pm to 2:30 PM.
Shifting of the dictation and attending customers on the 2 days needs to be allocated to other
colleague of junior staff to take care and upon the next day schedule the meetings.
The all the correspondence work which is being twice a day needs to be reduced to once in a day
that will help Mr. Prabhakar organize the task and schedule more efficiently.
Also Mr. Prabhakar needs to squeeze his morning routine as a 30 min reduction in reading the
newspaper and watching the TV will have him save time in the travelling and reducing the traffic
time.
Another ideal schedule will be pursue the course class from 4PM to 7 PM, where in he will be
leaving a bit early from the work and has to forgo some of his time with the family that is also
only over the 2 days in a week.
The late evening time he will have to allocate to self study over the evening tea and also reduce
the evening walk time by 15 minutes that will help him prepare for the course as well.
 CASE NO - 2
Maximizing Output

Mr. Kapoor, head of the Production Planning and Control Department of BELCO Ltd, Mr. Kapoor
is known for his hard work and involvement in every important decision taken by his bosses. He is
with BELCO for the last twenty years and supposed to retire after and the ten years of service. He is
known for his mild temperament and very friendly nature.

He looks after production planning for both the factories, at Pune and Jamshedpur. He devotes half
of every month for visiting and directly controlling these two factories. He has got a young team of
five engineers, three MBA graduates and one computer graduate.

Unfortunately, Mr. Kapoor doesnt have an effective information system and communication
infrastructure. His subordinates do not report to him properly and in time. Mr. Kapoor always faces a
problem when he has to submit the production plans to his superiors and to the factories.

Market variables have now drastically changed. BELCO does not enjoy any monopoly now.
Ancillary houses can now think alternatively. Suppliers also are demanding timely orders from
BELCO. Sales executives of the company are fed-up with the poor factory supplies.
Mr. Kapoor works for twelve hours in the office, without any concrete support from his colleagues.
None of his colleagues are willing to work beyond office hours. Mr. Kapoors bosses, though they
appreciate his hard work, are not fully happy with him. He has now realized that, because of his
disorganized and untimely approach to work, he is not in a position to deliver the right goods in time.
These days, with increasing pressure of work, he forgets his priorities. He also forgets the
commitments he made to his colleagues, his family members and friends. Sometimes he feels
frustrated. He is afraid that he may not get his next promotion, which is due after six months.

Question:- What are your suggestions for Mr. Kapoor, to maximize his output and give it in time?
Solutions:
Mr. Kapoor has to take certain important steps in order to increase the efficiency of the two factories
and also the reporting structure and also manage the staff accurately.Below are the following steps
that can be taken by Mr. Kapoor:

As Mr. Kapoor has spent 20 years at the company he has the full knowledge of the factories
capabilities and the production capacity and the tools and resources that are available.
1. First get the current status of both the factories in terms of the production capacity. He needs
to ask his team of the Engineers and the MBA graduates to provide the existing details of the
production capacity and the resource available. A proper report pertaining the peak
performance capacity and time duration a human resource that are available to operate the
site: a report format can be as follows:

Factory site name: Jamshedpur

Production capacity: Units
Daily production:
Actual production:
Production per week/ monthly/ yearly
No of working days:
Maintenance days:
Operating staff:
Operating cost per day:
Cost of production per unit:
Lead time:
CPM and PERT method for resources:
Target markets served:
Existing job orders:

Having this report format being prepared Mr. Kapoor needs to ask his computer graduate to
put the data in a computer program which can be updated by each of the factory site and
needs to be updated on a regularly basis lets say by each week that will provide the existing
schedule and production details.
Once the data is put into a computer their various tools can be used to prepare the schedule of
works. Preparing a Gantt Chart will be an ideal to be used. There are various software tools
that can be used to generate the details. An image for the software tools is as follows:

Mr. Kapoor needs to ask his MBA graduates to prepare a forecast based on the data available
from the sales team and in co-ordination with the engineers to project the growth and
production schedule accordingly.
Besides this the two factory sites needs to care to specific allocated markets that can reduce
their delivery time and make the goods reach to the market on time.
The Allocation of staff can be done in the following manner: 2 MBA graduates and 2
Engineers at 2 factories and 1 computer graduate that will be coordinating the all-5 engineers
and 3 MBA graduates. 1 engineer and the 1 MBA graduate will supervise the other
colleagues and oversee their work and co-ordinate in each others absence in order to ensure
the work is in place and in time.
With the help of the MBA graduate Mr. Kapoor needs to put a priority list of task for which
day and for all the staff in line with the duties that are to be assigned to each one of them. He
also needs to create an incentive plan for the employees to keep them motivated in order to
take that extra mile to achieve the company set target as well as the goals of each individuals.
 CASE NO - 3
Avoiding Time Wasters

Mr. Madan, a finance executive in Goodwill Company Ltd., is working with this company for the
last six months. He comes from a foreign management institute, with an MBA in Finance. Being
young, ambitious and hard working, he doesnt want to waste a single minute of his work schedule.

Mr. Kumar, a senior colleague of Mr. Madan, is working for the last twenty years at Goodwill Co.
Ltd. He is to retire after six months. Mr. Kumar handles only the payroll and therefore has got
considerable leisure time. These days, he has started visiting Mr. Madans cabin too often. He visits
him without any notice.

Mr. Madan feels that Mr. Kumar is wasting his time. It is difficult or rather impossible for Mr.
Madan to tell Mr. Kumar directly that he should not disturb him. Mr. Madan has thought of many
alternate solutions, but could not decide on anything.

Mr. Kumar makes political stories about the internal environment within the company and also
about, gossips while sitting in Mr. Madans room. Of late, Mr. Madans colleagues have started
teasing him and also having suspicious looks.

Question:- How would you avoid Mr. Kumar, if you were Mr. Madan?

Solution:
The steps that Mr. Madan an take to avoid the time waster person like Mr. Kumar is as follows:

He needs to tell him politely that he respects his views on the various aspects but he needs to
allow him to work and finish his daily tasks and additional duties that are assigned to him.
He can ask Mr. Kumar rather to help him in his work in a very diplomatic way where in he
assigns some work instead to Mr. Kumar in such way that he does not feel bad and that will
allow him to keep him busy and allow space for Mr. Madan to work properly.
Another resort will be to inform his immediate boss about the activity of Mr. Kumar
disturbing him in his work during the office hours and his senior manager can take care of the
issue.
Another resort will be to inform the Human Resources department about the inconvenience
that he is facing from Mr. Kumar and the HR department will take care of this aspect through
a official memo to be issued to M. Kumar.
 CASE NO - 4
Know the Limits
Mr. Prabhakar is a design manager with Tex Maco Limited, for the last six years. He holds a diploma
in arts from a reputed institute. He is known for his creativity and hard work. (Recently, one of his
designs got an international award at the exhibition in Frankfurt.)

A team of four junior artists work under him. He and his team are responsible for the new product
designs and the commercial launch of new designs. The companys General Manager (Production),
to whom Mr. Prabhakar reports, is a close friend. This friendship has made their office relations also
informal.

Informality of this relationship made Mr. Prabhakar over ambitious. He now started thinking of an
early promotion, extraordinary treatment and more facilities from the general manager. He started
taking important decisions without informing his boss.

This new development irritated the general manager and he advised Mr. Prabhakar to behave within
his limits. Mr. Prabhakar had not expected such an advice from his boss.

These days, Mr. Prabhakar is terribly upset. He is not in a position to analyze the reasons for his
stress. He thinks that certain medicines could make him all right.

Question:- Analyze the reasons for Mr. Prabhakars stress. Discuss the remedies for him.

Solutions:

Mr. Prabhakar has been a very significant employee of the company and has been a hardworking
emlployee for years and that has lead him and his team to achieve international recognition for the
company. In the meantime the appreciation that he has receive from his superior, general manager
and closeness has led to misunderstanding in his ownself and has made him assume that he is in a
senior position and can take decisions on his own without informing the management.

Mr. Prabhakar has assumed that his closeness with the boss gives him all the rights to take
decision with out informing
Having friendly informal better relation after work give him rights to take decision at work
He has not been able to distinguish between the work life and the personal informal life.
He has taken things for granted.
Mr. Prabhakar needs to realize that there are certain duties and responsibilities that needs to
be followed.
All the work that are being carried out in the organization has certain protocols that needs to
be followed.
The stress that he is facing can be overcome by visiting the HR department and discussing
what he has been going through and they can help him over come his stress.
Another thing that he can do is by consulting an psychologist that can help understand the
work and personal life behavior and the limitation that he needs to draw a line on.
Mr. Prabhakar can also go and speak to his Boss who is also a very close friend of his who
can guide him that what are his limits and where he needs to take care of his behavior.
 Mr. Prabhakar also needs to look back at his work contract and can revise his duties and
responsibilities that will give him additional rights to do certain things and that will also not
concern his superior about why a certain action was being taken by him.