TATA Motors is India’s foremost, and the only fully integrated automobile manufacturer. Established in 1945 as TATA Engineering & Locomotive Company (TELCO), to manufacture locomotives and other engineering products, the company is today among the world’s top 10 producers of commercial vehicles. TATA Motors was also previously known as TATA Engineering. It is today one of the biggest and most prominent companies in the TATA group, with an annual revenue of $1.8 billion in 2001-02. Today TATA motors’ vehicles run in more than 70 countries. TATA Motors use a manual dealer management system, where every dealer managed details. With legacy-based systems, the environment produced inconsistent data, making interpretations difficult and resulting in inefficient planning for capacity and spare parts. The basic challenge was to provide a Dealer Management System (DMS) solution. All in all, TATA Motors required a standardized solution that would provide them with: Increase in sales and profitability Continue reading
Management Case Studies
Management case studies are real-life examples of issues and problems found in particular workplaces or business organisations. Case study assignments give the opportunity to relate theoretical concepts to practical situations. Most case studies are written in such a way that the reader takes the place of the manager whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the problem. In almost all case studies, a decision must be made, although that decision might be to leave the situation as it is and do nothing.
Case Study: Analysis of Organizational Culture at Google
Google Inc came to life with the two brilliant people as the founder of the company. Those two were Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Both of them are a PhDs holder in computer science in Stanford University California. In their research project, they came out with a plan to make a search engine that ranked websites according to the number of other websites that linked to that site. Before Google was established, search engines had ranked site simply by the number of times the search term searched for appeared on the webpage. By the brilliant mind of Larry and Sergey, they develop the technology called PageRank algorithm. PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of document, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of measuring its relative importance within the set. All this in-depth research leads to Continue reading
Case Study: Airbnb’s Growth Strategy Using Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing is a way of promoting and selling products and services by leveraging online marketing strategies such as search marketing, social media marketing or even email marketing. Digital Marketing is known as one of the best ways to help businesses to send their message in front of their best prospects and customers. The idea is to send the right and best offer at the right place and time. Today, customers are found online, on social media, staying updated on news sites or blogs, searching online if there is a need. Digital Marketing is no different than traditional marketing, both seek to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with leads, customers and prospects. But, digital marketing had to change tactics because it’s designed to reach today’s consumers. For example, think about the last purchase you made, regardless of what it was, you probably began by searching the internet to learn more Continue reading
Case Study: Doritos Chips “The Loudest Taste on Earth” Ad Campaign
The Frito Company began operations in San Antonio, Texas, in 1932 and merged with H. W. Lay & Company to form Frito-Lay in 1961. Four years later, Frito-Lay merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company to form PepsiCo, and during the 1990s the snack food division became known as the Frito-Lay Company. In 1997 Frito-Lay expanded its product lines in Europe, Australia, and South America by purchasing salty snack brands in countries there, and in the United States it acquired the Cracker Jack brand of candy-coated popcorn and peanuts. Frito-Lay made nine of the 10 top-selling brands of snack chips in the United States, including Lay’s and Ruffles potato chips, Cheetos cheese puffs, Rold Gold pretzels, and Tostitos and Doritos tortilla chips. The company’s first product had been Fritos corn chips, which were promoted for years by a character called the Frito Kid and later with the tag line ‘‘Munch a Bunch! Continue reading
Case Study on New Performance Appraisal System at Xerox
In the mid-1980s Xerox corporation was faced with a problem–its performance appraisal system was not working. Rather than motivating the employees, its system was leaving them discouraged and disgruntled. Xerox recognized this problem and developed a new system to eliminate it. Old Performance Appraisal System The original system used by Xerox encompassed seven main principles: The appraisal occurred once a year. It required employees to document their accomplishments. The manager would assess these accomplishments in writing and assign numerical ratings. The appraisal included a summary written appraisal and a rating from 1 (unsatisfactory) to 5 (exceptional). The ratings were on a forced distribution, controlled at the 3 level or below. Merit increases were tied to the summary rating level. Merit increase information and performance appraisals occurred in one session. This system resulted in inequitable ratings and was cited by employees as a major source of dissatisfaction. In fact, in 1983, Continue reading
Case Study: Cisco “Self-Defending Network” Ad Campaign
Besides being one of the NASDAQ’s fastest-growing stocks during the late 1990s, Cisco was also the world’s leading producer of switches and routers that directed traffic across the Internet. In 1998 Cisco released advertising that encouraged Internet usage, which in turn increased the demand for Cisco’s hardware. Two years later Cisco’s ad agency, Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc., introduced a $43.8 million campaign with the tagline ‘‘Empowering the Internet generation.’’ The campaign’s television spots, including one titled ‘‘Factory,’’ featured Cisco’s hardware increasing businesses internet usage, which indirectly boosted the businesses profits. After the technology sector plummeted in late 2000, Cisco did not release a campaign for almost three years. In June 2002 Cisco awarded its advertising account to DarkGrey, the technology unit of Grey Global Group. For its first few months doing business with Cisco, DarkGrey developed a campaign with the tagline ‘‘Advancing the human network.’’ None of the DarkGrey Continue reading