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/ Seat No. ----

GANP AT UNIVERSITY Ph. D. (MANAGEMENT) EXAMINATION

JANUARY 2012 PRM fof . RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

TIME: 3 HRS. MARKS: 100 Instructions:

1. This is a closed book examination. Figures to the right indicate marks of each question. 2. Calculators are allowed in examination. 3. Substantiate your answer with live example wherever necessary. 4. If require, assume necessary data in answering the questions.

PART A

Q 1 (a) In what kind of research, experimental research design is the most appropriate?

Or

(12)

Q l(b) Which is having more internal validity: laboratory experiment or field experiment? Why? (12)

Q 2(a) Explain forward regression method. ( 12)

Or Q 2(b) Sampling frame is prerequisite of random sampling. Evaluate the statement. (12)

Q 3(a) What is ANOV A? Explain its use. ( 12)

Or Q3(b) Explain the snowball sampling and under what circumstances will it be used? (12)

Q 4(a) What is longitudinal research design? (12) Or

Q 4(b) What is focus group study? How does it conducted? (12)

Q S(a) Explain multiple cross-sectional design and its application. ( 12)

Or Q S(b) Define and explain area sampling method. (12)

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PARTB

Q 6(a) Research Methodology is essential for all the branches of Management. Evaluate the (20) statement in light of current development in the field of management.

Or

Q 6(b) "Data collection tools have no impact on data analysis". Evaluate the statement and give (20) your comment.

Q7(a) Narrate the situation in which structural equation modeling is the most applicable tool for (20) research analysis.

Or

Q7(b) Develop a questionnaire for studying the expectation for the Aakash tablet- an initiative of (20) Government of India.

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Seat No. ----GANPAT UNIVERSITY

Ph.D. (MANAGEMENT) EXAMINATION JANUARY 2012

PHR 102 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

TIME: 3HRS. Marks: 100

Instructions: 1. It is a closed book examination.

2. All the questions are compulsory. 3. Figures on the right side indicate the marks of the questions.

PART A

Q#1 (A) Define and differentiate between Job Analysis, Job Description and Job Evaluation. (12) In the current business scenario, when boundary less jobs are being conceptualized, how relevant is the concept of Job description and Job Analysis in HRM ? Critically analyze.

OR

Q#1 (B) What is the rationale for job evaluation? Discuss the various methods of job evaluation.

Q#2 (A) Define and discuss the objectives of Human Resource Planning at organizational (12) level. How does it help in determining and evaluating future organizational capabilities, needs and anticipated problems? Explain with suitable examples.

OR

Q#2(B) What are the basic requisites of an effective Human Resource Information System (HRIS)? How is computerized HRIS advantageous for an organization at different levels? Discuss with suitable examples.

Q#3 (A) Discuss the scope of Human Resource Audit. While auditing Reward systems for (12) employees in a manufacturing organization, which factors should be taken into account and why? Explain with suitable examples.

OR

Q#3 (B) Discuss the various components of a compensation structure. What are the factors that are usually taken into consideration in determining compensation structure?

Q#4(A) What are the main causes of job dislocation? Discuss the strategies to deal with (12) dislocated employees. Explain with examples.

OR

Q#4(B) What are the salient causes of dissatisfaction and frustration ? How is frustration passed on to others? Explain with example, how a supervisor can cope with the frustration of the employee working with him.

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Q#S(A) How would you formulate the aims and objectives of a training programme ? (12) Explain with an example. How are training needs identified for different levels of employees in an organization? Discuss.

OR Q#S(B) Explain the rationale for developmental approach to Industrial Relations. Suggest a

core programme for developing top management, middle management and unions for Industrial Relations Management. Also discuss the developmental mechanism for improving IR.

PARTB

Q#6 (A) Write short note on following (Any four) (20) 1. Downsizing and VRS 2. Human Resource Accounting 3. Training Methods 4. Need for competency mapping 5. Induction Training 6. Career Planning

Q#6 (B) Read the case given below and answer the questions given at the end of the case. (20)

Ms. Subhashini has graduated with a degree in foreign languages. As the child of military family, she had visited many parts of the world and had travelled extensively in Europe. Despite these broadening experiences, she had never given much thought to a career until her recent divorce from Mr. Srinivas. Needing to provide her own income, Ms. Subhashini began to look for work. After a fairly intense but unsuccessful search for a job related to her foreign language degree, she began to evaluate her other skills. She had become a proficient typist in college and decided to look into secretarial work. Although she still wanted a career utilizing her foreign language skills, she felt that the immediate financial pressure would be eased in a temporary secretarial position. Within a short period of time, she was hired as a clerk/typist in a typing pool at Life Insurance Company. Six month later, she became the top typist in the pool and was assigned as secretary to Mrs. Arora, manager of marketing research. She was pleased to get out of the pool and to get a job that had more variety in the tasks to perform. Besides, she also got a nice raise in pay. Everything seemed to proceed well for the next nine months. Mrs. Arora was pleased with Subhashini's work, and she seemed happy with her work. Subhashini applied for a few other more professional jobs in other areas during this time. However, each time her application was rejected for lack of related education and /or experience in the area. Over the next few months, Mrs. Arora noticed changes in Subhashini. She did not always dress as neatly as she had in the past, she was occasionally late for work, some of her lunches extended to two hours, and most of her productive work was done in the morning hours. Mrs. Arora did not wish to say anything because Subhashini had been doing an excellent job and her job tasks still were being accomplished on time. However, Subhashini's job behavior continued to worsen. She began to be absent frequently on Mondays and Fridays. The two

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hour lunch periods became standard, and her performance began to deteriorate. In addition, Mrs. Arora began to suspect that Subhashini was drinking heavily, due to her appearance some mornings and behavior after her two hour lunches. Mrs. Arora decided that she must confront Subhashini with her problem. However, she wanted to find a way to help her without losing a valuable employee. Before she could set up a meeting, Subhashini burst through her door after lunch one day and said: "I want to talk to you, Mrs. Arora." "That's fine", Arora replied, "Shall we set a convenient time?'' "No! I want to talk now." "OK, why don't you sit down and let's talk?' Mrs. Arora noticed that Subhashini was slurring words slightly and she was not too steady. 'Mrs. Arora, I need some vacation time." "I'm sure we can work that out. You've been with the company for over a year and have two weeks' vacation coming." "No, you don't understand. I want to start it tomorrow." "But, Subhashini, we need to plan to get a temporary replacement. We can't just let your job go for two weeks." "Why not? Anyway anyone with an IQ above 50 can do my job. Besides, I need the time off." "Subhashini, are you sure you are all right?" "Yes, I just need some time away from the job". Mrs. Arora decided to let Subhashini have the vacation, which would allow her some time to decide what to do about the situation. Mrs. Arora thought about the situation the next couple of days. It was possible that Subhashini was an alcoholic. However, she also seemed to have a negative reaction to her job. May be Subhashini was bored with her job. She did not have the experience or job skills to move to different type of job at present. Mrs. Arora decided to meet with the Personnel Manager and get some help developing her options to deal with Subhashini's problem.

Questions I. IdentifY the major issues of the case. 2. If you were Mrs. Arora, how would you tackle the situation?

-END OF PAPER-

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Seat No .. ___ _

GANP AT UNIVERSITY Ph.D. (MANAGEMENT) EXAMINATION

JANUARY 2012 PM M 102 MARKETING MANAGEMENT

TIME:3HRS Marks: 100

Instructions: 1. It is a closed book examination. 2. All the questions are compulsory. 3. Figures on the right side indicate the marks of the questions.

PART A

Q#1 (A) Define Marketing. Explain the nature and scope of marketing management. List out (12) the recent trends in marketing practices in India.

OR Q#1 (B) Explain the term Marketing Orientation. Discuss various characteristics of

marketing orientated origination.

Q#2 (A) Define Market Segmentation. List various bases for market segmentation. (12) Consider yourself to be a brand management at a large beverage company. A senior sales manager says that it is all about aggressive selling to all by hook or crook and as such there is no need for segmentation. What is your reaction?

OR

Q#2(B) Write a short note: Benefit Segmentation

Q#3 (A) What purpose may a product portfolio serve in the context of marketing strategy? (12) What major problems with portfolio approaches have critics identified?

OR

Q#3 (B) Explain the concept of Product Life Cycle (PLC). How to locate the position of product on PLC curve? Discuss the critics of PLC.

Q#4(A) What is brand cannibalization? Discuss how a business unit may avoid problems of (12) cannibalism among competing brands. ·

OR Q#4(B) Explain perpetual map with suitable example.

Q#S(A) Review the five dimensions of service quality. Consider your own recent (12) experiences as a service consumer. On which dimensions of service quality have you most often experienced a large gap between your expectations and your perceptions of the service performance? What do you think the underlying causes may be? What step should management take to improve quality?

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OR Q#S{B) Define Sales Promotion. Describe various tools of consumer sales promotion with

suitable examples.

PARTB

Q#6 Read the case of "SPC Products Company - Project Pops." Answer the questions (40) given at the end of the case.

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SPC Products Company­~~?i~~! r~P~--

Lakshmi Software In the lead-up to the new millennium, an industry emerged that sought to protect companies against computer failures due to clock settings in software. One of the companies that benefited rhe most from the Y2K industry was Lakshmi Software, a company with headquarrers in Chennai, India. The company is named afrer rhe Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, and wealth was what they enjoyed as companies around the globe turned to Lakshmi and its low-cost soft­ware engineering.

Even before Y2K passed, however, the company realized that new markets would be needed. One such market was enterprise resource management, with SAP and PeopleSofr leading the way. Many companies implementing such soft­ware often needed help, particularly as they needed to in­tegrate their current systems into rhe new software. Lakshmi found that to be a good, but uneven, market.

For that reason, rhe company began to seek opportuni­ties in product development, or software that is integrated into products such as video games, telephones, and other electronics. The greatest opportunities for Lakshmi were in manufacturing automation, specialized automation in in­surance and finance, and other areas that enabled the com­pany to make use of rhe same talents that supported SAP of PeopleSoft integration.

The company was reasonably successful in working with European (particularly German) and U.S.-based compa­nies. Parr of the company's success with such clients is that many of the managers at Lakshmi had experience working in either Germany or the United States. But the second­largest sofuvare market in the world is Japan, where the company had only limited success. Because of the impor­tance of the Japanese market and its influence on the rest of the world, Lakshmi management had targeted Japan as an important objective. One of the company's largest Japan­ese cusromers was Sonpan, and it was critical to Lakshmi's marketing objectives that it be able to use Sonpan as a suc­cessful case study when selling to other Japanese companies.

Customer Background Sonpan Products Company (SPC) is a leading Japanese company specializing in providing automating solurions for financial, insurance, and manufacturing applications. It also produces PCs, midrange computers, and peripherals for the Japanese market. Some of these are manufactured under li­cense from world-known companies like HP. SPC is well known in rhe Japanese market as a software producer of very high qualiry. Due to its wide range of hardware, soft­ware, and networking solutions, it is also one of the largest system integrators in Japan.

With rhe economic recession in the country during the last five years, SPC is under increasing pressure to cut down costs. The software division has been looking outside Japan to oursource software development at lesser prices. It has evaluated and chosen a handful of Indian software compa­nies including Lakshmi.

Japan is the second-largest software market in the world and is a focus market for Lakshmi. So far, the company has been doing business rhrough a Japanese business associate. To show its commitment ro the ·market, Lakshmi has re­cently invested in setting up Laksbmi-Japan at an upmar­ket location in Tokyo.

The India Project Team (IPT) In order to streamline the outsourcing procedure, SPC has set up the India Project Team (IPT). It is expected to champion the oursourcing concept with all SPC's di­visions. Its performance is measured by the volume (yens) of outsourcing done to Indian companies . In the past few years, through IPT, SPC has outsourced more than 50 projects to Lakshmi. The projects were mainly in the R&D and embedded systems area. Projects in these ar­eas tend to be of small size (completed by an engineer­ing team size of five or six and short duration four to six months). With an increasing recession in the Japanese economy, the R&D budgets are dwindling. Conse­quently, IPT has been looking for a large end-user pro­ject (where the user is a customer of SPC) to be out­sourced to Lakshmi.

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The end-user projects rend co be larger in size and du­ration. However, chey are "known technology" projects and do nor require the higher value-added engineering of pro­jects using new technologies. Most of these have Japanese screens and Japanese reports, meaning rhar if the engineering is done in English, translations are required.

IPT also helps Lakshmi in understanding the business practices and culture of Japanese companies. Unlike west­ern cuscomers, Japanese companies give very vague spec­ifications and give deadlines that cannot be changed. The Japanese consider their customers as god and agree to re­quired schedules, even when the specifications are nor ready. They generally work around a given budget and expect char their suppliers provide sofrvvare required within the budgets available and within the schedule specified.

The Relationship SPC has been giving business worth a few million dollars every year to Lakshmi on an assured basis. Lakshmi saves on marketing costs and has a guaranteed loading factor from SPC. A loading factor is a profit percentage char Lakshmi is guaranreed. The other major advantage Lakshmi derives from the relationship is that it gets co work on stare­of-the-art tedmology that will give it an edge when it goes to newer markets and other potential customers (especially other Japanese companies). SPC's data-driven project man­agement strengths are well known, and Lakshmi expects co understand chese techniques co help berrer manage irs other projects.

SPC is the largest customer for rhe SBU rhar handles rhe account and is the biggest customer for Lakshmi in Japan, so the customer is important for boch the SBU and the com­pany. In addition, word of mouch is a powerful tool in Japan. Lakshmi has to ensure customer delight and show ability co successfully manage large projects if it wants to expand busi­ness in Japan. It is currently looking for a major success story to help it approach large Japanese corporations.

Realizing that language is a major issue in dealing with Japanese businesses, Lakshmi has invested in forming a Japan desk that rakes care of language translation and in­terpretation requirements. Ir has also invested in Japanese language computers and software. Because rl1e translation volumes are small, Lakshmi has agreed not to pass the cost of Japan desk services to SPC.

Lakshmi has a standing agreement with the customer on the rates to be used for irs project proposals. The prices are negotiated and agreed during March for rhe coming fi­nancial year. The rates for on-site services have not been increased for the past three years, as most projects are exe­cuted predominantly offshore (in India) and the on-sire component is very low.

The Current Scenario It has taken time for Lakshmi to get used to rhe Japanese way of working, and che SBU is just about getting handle on what the Japanese customers look for. Due to estimation and pro­jeer management issues in the previous years, Lakshmi and the SPC have recently agreed on guidelines for estimation of project size and quality for all projects. SPC has informed Lakshmi char ir will not be able to give projects unless Llli­shmi's productivity matmes its own. This has been brought in as a standard for all subcontractors (Indian, Japanese, and Chinese) of SPC. Lakshmi has agreed to do estimation based on these productivity figures. -r:vpically, these indicate 40 to 60 percent berrer productivity than Lakshmi's baselin"e. This means that SPC can typically complete a project in half of the person-hours it rakes Lakshmi, so Lakshmi's costs have ro be less than half of SPC's in order to make any profit and in order to make using Lakshmi worthwhile.

Ar the end of May, Lakshmi's top management mer wim IPT IPT stared char to improve the relationship, Lakshmi has to work in a model similar to char of a Japanese sub­contractor; in other words, there must be no difference to the division of SPC between Lakshmi and any Japanese subcontractor.

Lakshmi committed to working in me Japanese sub­contractor modeL The implications of that were that L'lkshmi will be like any other Japanese subconrractor­mey will rake specifications in Japanese, conduct business in Japanese, and have management available during Japan­ese business hours (even though the management will be in India). By commirring to this model, Lakshmi hopes that will help IPT to project Lakshmi as anocher Japanese subcontractor, resulting in additional business from other SPC business units.

SPC has been talking with oilier suppliers because some divisions have raised concerns about the quality of code de­livered by Lakshmi. SPC expects bug-free code, whereas Lakshmi has been delivering code wim a defect density of about 0.1 per chousand lines of code (K.LOC), which is much better than what Lakshmi typically delivers.

Given all these factors, the relationship with the cus­tomer is "delicate" at this juncture. KOS, a division of SPC dealing with end-customer projects, is in the process of bid­ding for POPS-a large system development and system integration project. IPT has been speaking to KOS for our­sourcing this to Lakshmi. KOS has never worked with a non-Japanese subcontractor before and is reluctant to do so now. However, IPT is outlining the cost advantages to

KOS to change their mind. Ir also tells them that Lakshmi would be willing to work like any other Japanese subcon­tractor, so that KOS can feel comfortable.

KOS is almost sure of winning the POPS project and has already starred discussions with Lakshmi and other sub­contractors to prepare them.

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The Preproposal Phase At the end of May, the order plan sent by IPT for the POPS project shows that the person hours for the project is ex­peered to be 17,000 hours. It is not fixed. About 233 ap­plications need co be developed. IPT has indicated that a large number of programmers will be required. There is a larger Japanese language component, so it is necessary to

include Japanese staff. The approximate volume of docu­ments for translation was given as:

User Requirement Specification

Software Specification

Functional Specification (Basic Edition)

Other documents

1700 pages

3400 pages

200 pages

500+pages

All these documents will be in Japanese and will have to

be translated for use in the project. No specifications are available at this stage. Lakshmi is asked to start preparing for the project.

Lakshmi operates by appointing a project manager who then assembles the staff. Each project manager has a group of programmers, and they are divided into teams based on the acmal projects they are working on . In June, the project manager assigned to POPS arranged for rele­vant training for the team members who are likely co work on this project. Lakshmi Japan arranges for two Japanese staff to help in translation and for attending meetings. It later appointS one more program manager-type person (Japanese) for interfacing with customer. It is expected that this person will represent the interests of Lakshmi and also help with the project management techniques used by Japanese.

On June 3rd IPT informs that project size (Lakshmi's portion) has gone up by three to four times, the schedule is unchanged, and derails are still not known. Customer says that up to 60 engineers may be required to execute the project. IPT also says that ifL"lkshmi does not want to take up the project, SPC will never give another project to Lakshmi.

Lakshmi agrees to execute project and asks for more de­tails, skill sets, and numbers required. It requests for infor­mation on how 60 engineers requirement was arrived at. IPT later informs that 60 was arrived at based on budget available.

Lakshmi says that for a project of this size, the customer must plan for sending three or four of its engineers from Japan to Bangalore (India) for the duration of project to

sort out clarifications and technical issues that may come up. It also suggests that one Lakshmi senior person should be available on-site. These are costs that SPC would have to cover.

Lakshmi's business partner in Japan meers with IPT on the 4th June. IPT emphasizes the importance of the proj-

ecr and that it would like co deal with Lakshmi just as it would deal with any other Japanese subcontractor. IPT re­quests that one PM and one engineer (both Japanese) should be placed in Japan for the duration of the project, at Lakshmi's cost, to which Lakshmi agrees.

On June 5th, IPT sends a sample specification docu­ment in Japanese. They stare that the whole document may undergo change later.

On June 7th, Lakshmi receives an e-mail from IPT in­dicating that the project size may not be that big, but KOS (the division of SPC that has the POPS project) has to make the decision . KOS may feel it is not possible to or­der offshore.

On June 8th, Lakshmi informs KOS that in the absence of details of skill required, Lakshmi will assume following manpower requirements:

10 associates for at the PM, PLs, MI, and DBA levels

30 associates with COBOL/Oracle and Tuxedo skills

20 associates with VB skills.

On June 9th, IPT thinks it requires 30 to 40 people for three months. Lakshmi suggests gradual ramp up for bet­ter control and states the start date as July 1st.

IPT informs SPC that specification for 45 functions must come by the end of June, the rest by mid-July. They expect to be able to explain the sample program by mid­July. Specification for common components will be pro­vided by July and the associated stubs (software compo­nentS that simulate functions with which Lakshmi software has to interact) will be provided by the end of July. IPT in­forms that the system rest should happen in the beginning of October.

IPT provides the expected COBOL productivity figures for the Coding and Testing phases as 45 hours/KLOC, which uanslates to approximately 180 lines of code per day. IPT also informs that most programs are same, and only 20 percent will be different in each program. The produc­tivity expected by IPT is about 60 percent better tha.n La.k.­shmi's baseline.

On June 8th, Lakshmi informs that given the "template" nature of programs, it may be possible to achieve the pro­ductivity. Lakshmi suggests development of sample func­tions to check environment, complexity of development, and validate rhe estimate. Also, as one of the major risk fac­tors was the Japanese: language screens and reports, Lakshmi suggests on-site screen design.

On June 11th, IPT sends an e-mail saying that their previous communication stating that if Lakshmi does not accept this project, no future projects would be given ro Lakshmi, was a miscommunication. It was rhe individual opinion of only one member of IPT.

Lakshmi requests KOS not to commit dares to the end customer unless Lakshmi has had a chance to review spec­ification, make an estimate, and review schedule.

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While this was going on, the project manager began building a ream. Associates from other SBUs were being interviewed, shortlisred, trained, and transferred. The SBU receiving the project picked up the costs of training and transfer.

IPT, by mid-June, still cannot confirm scope and sched­ule. They inform that internal design progress is slow; specifications are going to have many changes. They also communicate that the Functional Specification is being made by a third party, another subcontractor.

On June 15th, Lakshmi informs IPT that team ramp­up plan has been put on hold based on IPT's inputs. And that instead of 60, Lakshmi was now planning only for 25 programmers. Lakshmi further explains that if the number needs to be increased to 60, four weeks lead time is re­quired. Similar lead rime is required for other resources like workstations, space, Japanese software, etc.

IPT comes back saying delivery is pushed by two months and asks Lakshmi to wait until June 18th before proceeding. It says sample program development is post­poned to mid-July.

Design progress is slow, and schedule will be decided shortly. It also says that it is not required to translate all pages, but only about 150 to 200 relevant pages.

IPT says that in line with the Japanese subcontractor model, all communication will be in Japanese. This in­creases Lakshmi's dependency on the on-site Japanese PM, as all meetings will be held in Japanese.

IPT confirms the project size on June 22nd. They say that there are 360 software components. The estimated scope of translation is 850 pages. At this juncture, IPT shifts the total responsibility of the project to Lakshmi and Lakshmi Japan. Lakshmi asks for more derails before commitment.

On June 28th, customer specifies part of the schedule, with delivery required by October. No specifications have been received so far.

Based on the suggested platform (hardware and soft­ware) by the customer, the software costs were calculated and communicated to SPC. This software is software needed to write and evaluate the programs. SPC says soft­ware is not their responsibility. However, a few days later, they agree to share costs.

On July 1st, IPT sends an e-mail saying that they feel the project size is 106 person months (18,600 hours) and gives the calculation based on their productivity figures. This estimate is significantly less than half ofLakshmi's own baseline and calculations.

On July 2nd, another IPT person estimates the same scope at 16,000 hours, justifYing the reduction in time as attributed to even higher productivity. Later the same day, IPT says there was a mistake in productivity figures used. The new IPT estimate is now II ,600 hours.

Lakshmi's PM points out his fears on estimation-the productivity figures were not realistic, translation effort not added, and some software components not considered at all.

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On July 7th, the project start is officially postponed to July 15th.

The Proposal The formal request for proposal (RFP) was received by Lakshmi in September after the project was in full swing. The RFP contained derails of each function, and the PM estimated that as per Lakshn.i standards, the project size would be about 25,000 hours.

Lakshmi's senior management opines that given the new subcomractor model and risks associated with such a large project, Lakshmi should use slightly discounted Japanese rates for the quotation. Based on several considerations, L'lkshmi finally decides to quote USD 600,000.

KOS and IPT are shocked beyond words.

Postproposal

IPT asks for details on how the price was arrived at. Lakshmi explains the fiXed bid subcontractor model and derails the on-site Japanese costs, idle rime cost of engi­neers, offshore translation costs Qapanese into English and back), infrastructure costs, and software devclopmenc costs. IPT is very unhappy with the costs and says that it expects Lakshmi to usc KOS's productivity figures, use agreed off­shore rates, and refuses to pay separate rates for Japanese on-site resources. It says rates can be negotiated only in March. It refuses to recognize translation costs, as no Japan­ese subcontractor charges this cost. Lakshmi pleads that the on-site Japanese managers cost a lot of money and their ser­vices cannot be given at earlier agreed costs, which repre­sented only expenses for Indian engineer coming ro Japan. IPT requests L1.kshmi to rake those m;magers away and that IPT will help in interfacing.

The Project Execution The project starts with 25-engineer team. KOS and IPT send one engineer each to help the team in India. IPT en­gineer decides which pages need to be translated. Due ro the dynamic nature of clarifications, plans are changing on a daily basis, as work cannot stop while clarifications are awaited from Japan. Schedule has to be met. Programmers have to switch from one unfinished program to another while awaiting clarifications. They have to work on unfa­miliar screens and reports, which are in Japanese.

Lakshmi project manager is comfortable that the KOS representative is providing clarifications and that IPT is helping mark out the pages for translation, which is re­ducing the workload for Japan desk. He is grateful to IPT and KOS for all the cooperation in the process of transla­tion and technical clarifications.

The project manager submitred regular project reports in KOS format, which showed that the project was on schedule. All relevant data like lines of code completed, to

be completed, number of unit rest cases, and so forth were collected. All the test cases and errors reported met SPC's quality criteria. The project itself was completed with about a week's delay, which was considered as acceptable by SPC.

Questions 1. Was SPC the right cuscomer for Lakshmi's growth

plans in Japan?

2. Did IPT help or hamper Lakshmi's growth within SPC?

3. From the customer relationship viewpoim what things should Lakshmi have done and at what points? Where did the major challenges occur?

4. In such a changing scenario, what should have been Lakshmi's customer communication srracegy?

5. What are the customer's responsibilities in building and maintaining a relationship?

6. Was Lakshmi justified in irs costing strategy for the project? What assumptions did it start with and what was in the customer's mind?

-END OF PAPER-

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GANP AT UNIVERSITY Ph.D. (MANAGEMENT) EXAMINATION

JANUARY 2012 PPM 102 FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

TIME: 3 HRS. MARKS:lOO

Instructions: 1. Five questions in Part A and two questions in part B are compulsory. 2. Marks are indicated at the end of each question.

PART-A

Q#1 A Explain the rule of 72 and Rule of 69 and explain three basic differences between these two rules.

OR B What is the relationship between efficient interest rate and the stated interest rate

Q#2 A Explain the silent features of Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange.

OR B Discuss the Profit Earning Ratio Approach to Stock Valuation.

Q#3 A What are the impact of liberalization of cash discount policies on a firm? Explain OR

B Explain the shortcomings of inventory management in India and suggest the measures to remove these shortcomings.

Q#4 A Describe the concept of Just-in-Time Inventory Control system and its usefulness for any business organisation.

OR B Describe the structure of the Financial System in India.

Q#S A "Working Capital Policy and Shareholders value creation are inter connected". Describe various approaches in working capital policy formulation and its implications on return, risk and share prices.

OR B "Economic growth of any country depends on the growth of financial system"-

Explain

[12]

[12]

[12]

[12]

[12]

(12]

[12]

[12]

[12]

[12]

Q#6 A Write Short Notes (Any Four) I. Call Money Market

II. Derivative Market III. Treasury Bills

PART-B

IV. Weighted Average Cost of Capital V. Sources of Working Capital

OR

[20\

B Alpha Company Ltd. consumes 25000 units of input per year to maintain its [20] production at the current level. The cost of its input is Rs 125 per unit. The cost of placing an order for Alpha Ltd. is Rs 4000 per order while the carrying cost of inventory for the firm is 12.5% per annum.

The purchase manager with a view to maximize the inventory of inputs that would reduce the frequency of purchases has been advocating for bulk purchases. The reason being stated by the purchase manager is the discount of 2.5% on bulk purchases that the firm would be able to get from its suppliers in case the finn orders for entire 25000 units of inputs required at one go.

You being a purchase manager have be convinced with the argument by making comparison of bulk purchase option and EOQ purchases and find out whether EOQ purchases is lesser that the cost of bulk purchases.

Q#7 A Differentiate between the following (Any Four) I. . NPV and IRR

II. NSE & BSE Ill. Money Market and Capital Market IV. Bank and NBFC V. Leasing and Higher Purchase

OR

[20]

B GCPC is a fast growing profitable company located at Banaskantha district. Its sales [20] are expected to grow about three times from Rs 3602 millions in 2011-12 to Rs1100 million in 2012-13. The company is considering of commissioning a 35 km pipeline between two areas to carry gas to a state electricity board. The project will cost Rs 250 million. The pipeline will have a capacity of 2.5 MMSCM.

The company will enter into a contract with a State Electricity Board (SEB) to supply gas. The revenue from the same to SEB is expected to be Rs 120 million per annum. The pipeline will also be used for transportation of LNG to other users in the area. This is expected to bring additional revenue of Rs 80 million per annum. The company management considers the useful life of the pipeline to be 20years. The financial manager estimates cash profit to sale ratio of 20% per annum for the first 12 years of the project's operation and 17% per annum for the remaining life of the project. The project has no salvage value. The project being in the backward area is exempt from paying any taxes. The company requires a rate of return of 15 % from the project. Find out the following:

a. The payback and return on investment (ROT) b. The NPV and IRR c. Should the project be accepted ? and if yes state the reasons.

----- The End -----

Seat No. ----

TIME: 3 HRS. Instructions:

GANP AT UNIVERSITY Ph. D. (MANAGEMENT) EXAMINATION

JANUARY 2012 POM 102 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

MARKS: 100

1. This is a closed book examination. Figures to the right indicate marks of each question. 2. Calculators are allowed in examination. 3. Substantiate your answer with live example wherever necessary.

Q # 1 (A) Explain latest trends in the area of operations management.

OR Q # 1 (B) Operations strategy must be in line with the corporate strategy. Explain with live

example.

Q # 2 (A) Explain latest research trend in the area of operations management.

OR Q # 2 (B) What is independent and dependent inventory management system? Explain with

examples.

Q # 3 (A) Why supply chain management gets importance in operations management?

OR Q # 3 (B) Technology is the driver for operations management. Evaluate the statement.

Q # 4 (A) Explain control charts with its practical significance.

OR Q # 4 (B) Narrate importance of Deming's wheel.

Q # 5 (A) Elaborate practical significance of the concept of six sigma.

OR

(12)

(12)

(12)

(12)

(12)

(12)

(12)

(12)

(12)

Q # 5 (B) Maintenance and Quality are two non value added activities. Critically evaluate the (12) statement.

Q # 6 (A) Read the case of Kristen ' s Cookie Company and answer the questions given at the end (20) ofthe case.

11<.5

OR

Q # 6 (B) At colour processors limited ' s Varanasi plant, the set-up costs on colour-mixing (20) machines depend upon the sequence in which the colours are processed. This is so because, according to the ' following ' job's colour, the thoroughness with which cleaning has to be done, the items to be cleaned, the parts to be changed and the amount of initial rejects obtained may differ. Thus, it is important to decide the sequence of various colour-jobs. The following matrix furnishes the various set-up costs.

~ B G y R w r

B ------ 1 5 3 9 G 4 ------ 2 4 8 y 3 1 ------- 2 4 R 4 6 5 ------- 9 w 1 2 1 3 ----(Note : the set-up costs are in hundreds of rupees)

B = Blue, G = Green, Y = Yellow, R = Red and W = White.

The following jobs have arrived at a colour mixing facility . The time to process the jobs and their due time from now are as given in the following table.

Job Processing time Due time (colour and job number) (hours) (hours from now)

Blue No. 88 1.0 24.0 White No. 10 4.5 6.0 White No. 11 5.6 12.0 Green No. 69 3.9 7.0 Red No. 77 2.5 14.0

Yellow No. 55 2.3 16.0

(A) Suppose a job, Green No. 68 , has just been completed, then based on set-up costs given, suggest the least cost sequence of the jobs that have arrived now. What are the total set-up costs for the six jobs?

(B) If the cost of the late completion of a job is Rs. 100 per hour of delay from its due time, what would be (delay + set-up) costs for sequence obtained in (A) Above?

(C) Using SPT rule and EDD rule, sequence the six jobs. Compute the cost of delay for these sequences. Which rule gives the lowest cost of delay? Which one of the above two rules gives the lowest total cost (Delay + Set-up) cost for the given six jobs?

2 X.)

Q # 7 (A) Community Hospital orders latex sanitary gloves from a hospital supply firm. The (20) hospital expects to use 40,000 pairs of gloves per year. The cost to order and have the gloves delivered is $I80. The annual carrying cost is $ O.I8 per pair of gloves. The hospital supply firm offers the following quantity discount pricing schedule.

QUANTITY PRICE

0-9999 $0.34

I 0,000-19,999 0.32

20,000-29,999 0.30

30,000-39,999 0.28

40 '000-4 9 '999 0.26

50,000+ 0.24

Determine the order size for the hospital so that the total cost is minimum.

OR

Q # 7 (B) A manufacturer of automobile carburetors is considering three locations - A, B and C (20) for a new plant. Cost studies indicate that fixed costs per year at the sites are Rs 30,000, Rs 60,000 and Rs 1, I 0,000 respectively; and variable costs are Rs 75 per unit, Rs 45 per unit and Rs 25 per unit respectively. The expected selling price of the carburetors produced is Rs 120. The company wishes to find the most economical location for an expected volume of 2,000 units per year. Calculate range of units for various locations.

KRISTEN'S COOKIE COMPANY

Kirsten and her roommate are preparing to start Kristen's Cookie Company in her on-campus apartment. The company will provide fresh cookies to starving students late at night. She needs to evaluate the preliminary design for the company's production process to figure out many variables, including what prices to charge, whether she will be able to make a profit, and how many orders to accept.

Business Concept

Kristen's idea is to bake fresh cookies to order, using any combination of ingredients that the buyer wants. The cookies will be ready for pick up at her apartment within an hour. Several factors will set her Kristen's apart from competing products such as store-bought cookies. First, Kristen's cookies will be completely fresh. Kristen will not bake any cookies before receiving the order; therefore, the buyer will be getting cookies that are literally hot out of the oven.

Second, Kristen will have a variety of ingredients available to add to the basic dough, including chocolate chips, coconut, walnuts, and raisins. Buyers will telephone/SMS in their orders and specify which of these ingredients they want in their cookies. Kristen's guarantees completely fresh cookies. In short, Kristen's will have the freshest, most exotic cookies anywhere, available right on campus.

The Production Process

Baking cookies is simple: mix all the ingredients in a food processor; spoon out the cookie dough onto a tray; put the cookies into the oven; bake them; take the tray of cookies out of the oven; let the cookies cool; and, finally, take the cookies off the tray and carefully pack them in a box. Kristen and her roommate already own all the necessary capital equipment: one food processor, cookie trays, and spoons. Kristen's apartment has a small oven that will hold one tray at a time. Her landlord pays for all the electricity. The variable costs, therefore, are merely the cost of the ingredients (estimated to be Rs 60/dozen), the cost of the box in which the cookies are packed (Rs I 0 per box; each box holds a dozen cookies) , and her time (what value do you place on Kristen's . ?) tune . .

A detailed examination of the production process, which specifies how long each of the steps will take, follows. The first step is to take an order, which Kristen's roommate has figured out how to do quickly and with I 00 percent accuracy. (Actually, Kristen and her roommate devised a method using the campus electronic mail/communication system to accept orders and to infonn customers when their orders will be ready for pickup. Because this runs automatically on her personal computer, it does not take any of Kristen's time.) Therefore, this step will be ignored in further analysis.

Kristen and her roommate have timed the necessary physical operations . The first physical production step is to wash out the mixing bowl from the previous batch, add all of the ingredients, and mix them in her food processor. The mixing bowls hold ingredients for up to 3 dozen cookies. She then dish up the cookies, one dozen at a time, onto a cookie tray. These activities take six minutes for the washing and mixing steps, regardless of how many cookies are being made in the batch. That is, to mix enough dough and ingredients for two dozen cookies takes the same six minutes as one dozen cookies. However, dishing up the cookies onto the tray takes two minutes per tray.

+-><5

The next step, performed by her roommate, is to put the cookies in the oven and set the thermostat and timer, which takes about one minute. The cookies bake for the next nine minutes. So total baking time is I 0 minutes, during the first minute of which her roommate is busy setting the oven. Because the oven holds only one tray, a second dozen takes an additional 10 minutes to bake.

Kristen's roommate also performs the last steps of the process by first removing the cookies from the oven and putting them aside to cool for 5 minutes, then carefully packing them in a box and accepting payment. Removing the cookies from the oven takes only a negligible amount of time, but it must be done promptly. It takes two minutes to pack each dozen and about one minute to accept payment for the order.

That is the process for producing cookies by the dozen in Kristen's Cookie Company. As experienced bakers know, a few simplifications were made in the actual cookie production process. For example, the first batch of cookies for the night requires preheating the oven. However, such complexities will be put aside for now. Begin your analysis by developing a process flow diagram (chart) of the cookie-making process.

Key questions to answer before Kristen launches the business

To launch the business, Kristen needs to set prices and rules for accepting orders. Some issues will be resolved only after she gets started and tries out different ways of producing the cookies. Before she starts, however, she at least wants a preliminary plan, with as much as possible specified, so that you she can do a careful calculation of how much time she will have to devote to this business each night, and how much money she can expect to make. For example, when she conducts a market survey to determine the likely demand, she will want to specify exactly what her order policies will be. Therefore, answering the following operational questions should help Kristen:

I. What are key characteristics of the product that drive the design of the production process?

2. What is the capacity of the system? (Assume each order contains 1 dozen cookies.)

3. What is the throughput time of the system? (You may develop a Gantt chart.)

4. How long would it take to deliver a rush order?

5. How many orders can Kristen fill in a night, assuming she is open four hours each night?

6. How much of her own and roommate's valuable time will it take to fill each order?

7. What happens if she is trying to do this by herself without a roommate?