Functions of Management - 1 — Summer 2023

State the factors affecting consumer buying behavior and explain them with one example from the purchase of the product of your choice.

Explain Segmentation Targeting and Positioning in Marketing Management with three examples of different products of your choice.

Briefly explain differentiation strategy with the product of your choice.

Write a brief note on scope, role and functions of Human Resource Management department in global world.

M/s Hitech Laser Private Ltd wishes to introduce a new product – Progressive glasses to be used in spectacles for which they have found the need, however their team is unclear about Product development strategy and it’s stages like product classification , characteristics etc. Help them with that.

Write a note on channel management in marketing. What is multi channel marketing and how they are advantageous and what are its disadvantages?

Mr. Vedang , Marketing head of Gibert and Sons has instructed his Marketing Communication Managing team that he wants all 5Ms of advertisement to be managed well in their new campaign. What does he mean by that ?

Differentiate among various marketing communication tools, Advertisement, Publicity, Sales Promotion and Direct Selling.

What is Human Resource Planning? Explain factors affecting Human Resource Planning and the challenges HRP has in global business world.

Write a note on various Employee Welfare and Social Security schemes prevailing at India. Page 1 of

M/s Vasudev Pharmaceuticals Ltd wants to hire young graduate trainees engineers and masters in business administration executives for their newly upcoming plant. Write a note on their selection and recruitment process to be followed by HR department.

Choc Co. is one of the world's largest confectionery businesses with significant market share in many of the world's biggest confectionery markets, including many emerging markets. It has a long and proud tradition, including a long history of developing its employees, which has remained part of its ethos during its progress to becoming a global company. Despite very positive sales figures over the last 12months, Choc Co. has prioritized streamlining the business to make it more competitive and has placed a strong emphasis on reducing cost over the next 18 months. Despite being keen to preserve its longstanding reputation as a firm that is committed to developing all its employees, in respect of learning and development, this ‘streamlining’ activity has focused on: (1) ensuring a clear return on investment in training activities ,(2) changing the way that learning programmes are delivered and being more creative in developing approaches to learning (3) connecting training activities to the strategic needs of the firm. The most important driver of the assessment of its training provision at Choc Co. is “change”. Whilst performing well in the marketplace, senior management continue to express discontent with levels of productivity and employee performance. Moreover, senior management has determined that the company needs to flexible and adaptable in its market context, for example by an ability to adapt organizational structures to meet new business needs or through the introduction of technological innovation. However, as a traditionally minded employer, and with low levels of employee turnover at shopfloor level, Choc co. appears to have instilled in its workers a mindset of stability and steady progress, which is at odds with competition in a rapidly changing global economy. Therefore, Choc Co. wants to move towards a system of continuous improvement by creating a culture whereby workers are empowered to implement small incremental changes, rather than have substantial change imposed on them from time to time. Identifying training needs. Traditionally, training needs analysis at Choc Co. has been ‘gap-led’. In other words, training tends to be focused where Choc Co. identifies a gap in capability – for example, where the introduction of new technology requires worker skill to be updated, company policy is changed or a key worker leaves the firm, requiring training to be provided to their replacement. Typically this gap-led identification of need is conducted at a local level, with little reference made to the wider national or international workforce. Whilst workers can put themselves forward for training courses, including those provided by local education providers, there is no formal channel for doing this and access to such training often comes down to personal relationships and the constraints imposed by departmental budgets. The culture at Choc Co. is very much one in which training needs are typically identified for workers rather than by workers. Delivery of training Currently, the company runs a number of large training events each year designed to update manufacturing staff on everything from health and safety changes, business strategy and company performance to the adoption of new production technology. This is sometimes coupled with skills training for these workers as and when appropriate. This has traditionally been done at the specialist training centre at their largest production facility, which doubles as the company’s headquarters. This practice partly stems from a time when the company only operated two production facilities in the country. It now operates across six geographically dispersed locations. Workers tend to view these training events as a bit of a waste of time, particularly when they are delivered by consultants with little real understanding of working processes at Choc Co. It is not Page 2 of unknown for workers to claim that the training they receive is outdated and tells them nothing that they don’t already know. The head of training and development, responding to a call to cut costs from the HR director, is now of the opinion, however, that such long training programmes, often of up to three or four days, are no longer the most cost-effective and efficient means by which to develop the staff. Such training has the dual problem of requiring regular investment and repeat sessions to cover workers on different shifts or at different plants, as well as leading to undesirable downtime of certain aspects of production. In particular, the head of L&Dis keen to reduce a reliance on external training providers to design and deliver interventions to different workforce groups, from senior management to shop floor workers. Moreover, the company has historically not evaluated the impact of these events. In the new era of cost-cutting and added value, however, the company is keen to ensure that the impact of all training interventions, however big or small, is measured. Employee development programmes Amajor investment in L&Dat Choc Co. is in its manufacturing apprenticeship scheme and graduate development programme, both of which are widely viewed as models of good practice in the industry and beyond. These programmes are, however, under significant scrutiny by senior management to better understand the extent to which this investment provides value to the firm. One particular area under review is the turnover of employees who complete these programmes and then leave to work at other firms. Ray Barbie, the head of learning and development at Choc Co. recently attended a seminar at a local university on ‘the changing nature of workplace HRD’. He was slightly alarmed to find out that much of the company’s practice was seen as outdated. In particular, he was interested in examining how some more contemporary approaches and techniques in HRD could help the company both reduce costs and better performance through continuous improvement.