MAKS SERVICES LIMITED (MSL): MANNING WITHMONOPOLY?

This caselet helps introduce the students/participants to the concepts of imperfect competition and monopoly.

MAKS Services Limited (MSL) is an organization setup by Nandu Kumar to cater to the market demand of

semi-skilled or unskilled workers (domestic help/office attendants, etc.) in Karimnagar, Telangana in India.

MSL registers semi-skilled and unskilled people who are on the lookout for employment, provides training

and employment as domestic helps, office attendants, facility staff, etc., in various government and private

offices, business setups, homes, apartments, etc., within the city of Karimnagar. The customers as well as the

recruits find it satisfactory and safe to use MSL’s services. However, as MSL was the only player in the city with

organized services in this field, the services were priced steeply, in fact much higher than the intermediaries and

similar service providers in other cities. While customers vouched for MSL’s services, they were wary of its

costs. Can higher costs for the services provided by MSL be justified?

Pedagogical Objectives

• To understand how the market conditions lead to imperfect competition and the various types of imperfectcompetition

• To examine monopoly as a case of imperfect competition, different types/reasons for monopoly andevaluate the special case of ‘competitive monopoly’

• To understand the monopoly behavior of MSL and analyze the costs and output relationship in a monopoly

Case Positioning and Setting

The caselet can be used in MBA, Executive MBA or Executive Development Programs, for the following

module/topic:

• Imperfect Competition and Monopoly – To understand the patterns, varieties of Imperfect Competition,sources of market imperfections and the concept of Monopoly and Monopoly behavior

ABSTRACT

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