National Institute of Business ManagementIst Floor, Swathandrya Samara Smrithi Bhavan, Nandavanam Road

Palayam P.O. Trivandrum – 695 033E-mail: admin@nibmglobal.com

0471- 4014294, 4014298Assignments of Two Year MBA

Semester - I

1. Students are requested to go through the instructions carefully.2. The Assignment is a part of the internal assessment.3. Marks will be awarded for each Assignment, which will be added to the total marks.

Assignments carry equal marks.4. Assignments should submit in your 'portal' on/before the 'completion date' mentioned.

1. Principles and Practices of Management

How will you influence people to strive willingly for group objectives in your

organization (target based industry)? Apply your interpersonal influence through

communication process towards attaining your specialized goals?

2. Human Resources Management

The present state of recession in the IT Industry - as a Human Resource Manager how

are you going to undertake Human Resource Planning at Macro Level to tide over this

crisis?

3. Financial Management

What will your outlook towards maintenance of liquid assets to ensure that the firm has

adequate cash in hand to meet its obligations at all times?

4. Marketing Management

If you are working in a super market, what techniques/ tools you will use in data

collection. How are you going to analysis the data and make inferences? How will you

finally apply your market research to improve sales and win over customers?

5. Organizational Behaviour

If you are made the campaign leader for a particular political party. How will you use

your leadership skills to motivate your party men to ensure success of the party

nominee in the elections? (Focus on the individual, motivate and apply leadership

style).

6. Principles of Economics

Suppose the price elasticity of demand for text books is two and the price of the text

book is increased by 10%. By how much does the quantity demand fall?

1. Principles and Practices of Management

Question: How will you influence people to strive willingly for group objectives

in your organization (target based industry)? Apply your interpersonal

influence through communication process towards attaining your specialised

goals?

Answer:

To influence people for group objective several organisational factors must be kept

mind to achieve target:

Goal must be common and consistent throughout project and accepted by all

members of group and discussed properly before implementation, So that error

should be corrected and mental capability of team member can be judged.

Team concept must be supported by top management and commitment towards

objective is required by all team members. For that active participation if self is

desired.

To give responsibility in well-defined manner, after judging each member’s ability

and work efficiency.

Both real and perceived power delegated to the teams.

Mutual accountability for team performance.

To recognise and establish reward system for higher target.

Majority team members designated as Manager or Dy. Manager in their

respective role, as mental theory suggest that leadership feeling in individual

improves work efficiency and his will to work hard increases. The leadership

responsibility may be given to team member for specific objective or goal of the

team’s mission. In some cases, leadership may shift to different team members

on a rotating basis.

Proper team building:

Right qualified members

Clear direction to members

Member must be connected and have access to all department of

organisation.

Everyone must agree to basic concept and goal of team.

Everyone must adhere to basic policies.1

Every member has proper training

Every member must be positive for allocated target.

Team or group of people is not always best structure to get desired target effectively.

Manager must decide about work efficiency as a group of employee before making

team structure for particular target. Hence proper communication among team is

must.

Good employee communication is essential to good team work, but few employees

may have “communication anxiety.” To overcome this, proper training, repeated

meeting and communication sessions are require simultaneously with team building

process.

Goal is something which needs to be approached, achieved and moved forward to.

Communication is the passing on the ideas and information. Communication

provides bonding element among team members. Proper and clear communication

at all level of management is must. We can influence our people very much by way

of communication.

Communication is indispensable in any work place. That can be done by face to

face, written, email, voice mail, text messaging and instant messaging. Each

requires involvement by the sender and receiver to be effective. To set up good

communication model in team is prerequisite to maintain team unity. Model must be

easy, precise and language used must be known by everyone. Communication must

flow bi-directional. Higher authority’s message must be reach to root worker and root

worker’s problems, activity and work information must reach to higher authority to

maintain integrity of team and solve any problem quickly. Communication must serve

a purpose related to planning, decision making and evaluation. Communication must

flow to the end without by passing any member. Repetition of message improves the

effectiveness of communication.

To maintain the communication cycle, repeated meeting with team member about

i. Input

ii. Processing

iii. Output target achieved, is required.

By this, we can know any surprising element from process, take an action in further

choice and make better effective change in plan. In meeting, effective group

discussion, suggestion or feedback by members, seminar by member who has

achieved good target will influence final target in positive way.

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2. Human Resources Management

Question: The present state of recession in the IT Industry - as a Human

Resource Manager how are you going to undertake Human Resource Planning

at Macro Level to tide over this crisis?

Answer:

In concepts of management, there are many “M”s i.e. Men, Material, Machines,

Methods, Money, Motive. Most important is MEN (HUMAN) as rest of “M”s are

moves around humans. Human is prime asset of organisation to work uniformly and

to achieve high target. Hence, human as a resource of organisation must be

managed.

Today is the phase of global economic crisis. Hence there is a recession period in

the major field. This recession affects almost all the fields especially IT field. To

overcome this situation, we should plan and to undertake an effective human

resource policy at macro level.

Focussing on IT industry:

We should plan human resources to overcome the crisis

1) To decide objective and goal:

For IT organisation, we should plan long term objectives and goal.

We should match employee’s salary with estimated income.

To expand the market with encouraging the employee to launch new product to

increase income from extended market coverage.

We should recruit quality employees by short out process, this will help rapid

growth of company.

2) Estimate the future man power requirement:

This is the most important step, we must estimate future requirement of man

power roughly to over employment as this will lead to investment unnecessary

and lead to recession in future. Proper balance between investment and outcome

is must to gain profit without affecting quality of product.

Forecasting also based on factor of economic cycle such as inflation, raw

material cost etc.

It should be done periodically.

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3) Auditing human resources:

We must gather data about present employee’s skills, experiences, qualification,

salary, work.

This will help to analyse the future requirement, unskilled employee, and

unqualified employee as IT industry need updated employee.

4) Job analysis:

After gathering all data of current employee, we do their job analysis.

What they are doing? What work they have given for organisation’s growth?

What wages they are paid? Anyone require to be trained? How many are burden

to company?

From this we can plan future requirement and present up gradation for new

vacancies.

We can judge which particular skill or qualification is lacking and to be recruited

on priority basis like software maintenance, software development, antivirus,

cyber security, hardware maintenance, service delivery to customer etc.

5) Develop final HR plan:

Final step is to develop effective human resource plan to recruit new employee or

to train existing employee.

Utilise local man power to reduced high pay burden for service delivery to

customer for particular product.

Check availability of part time labour.

Plan good recruitment process to get best and deserving candidate.

The economic crisis has touched every industry and profession, thoroughly

altering the hiring setting. Increased unemployment, and lowered profits have

change the way workers are hired, and considerably demand the need of human

resource planning.

We can conduct primary research among HR and recruitment professionals to

come out with a picture of how companies have acted and reacted, as well as

recommendation on how leaders can take a proactive approach to staffing for the

future.4

3. Financial Management

Question: What will your outlook towards maintenance of liquid assets to

ensure that the firm has adequate cash in hand to meet its obligations at all

times?

Answer:

Liquidity means that:

1) Firm has adequate cash to pay for the expenses.

2) Firm has enough cash to purchase unexpected large purchases.

3) Firm has cash reserve to meet emergencies at all times.

For this, regular cash flow is must and it can be done by maintaining ratio between

expenses and profit.

Determine the source of finance:

Long term finance in the form of shares is good option, it can be sold and buy

back as and when required without much loss.

Short term finance must be used for emergency and for higher profit expected

project.

Plan some of regular profit amount in safe way in the form of deposit, company

infrastructure, property which can be a future source of cash.

Manufacturing cycle must be faster so that final furnished product can be sold early

and get working cash back to reduced debt interest.

Estimation of working capital to optimum level as it balances risk and returns. For

this Working Capital Policy Index (WCPI) can be calculated by the ratio of current

assets to fixed asset. Higher ratio indicates conservative policy and low ratio indicate

aggressive policy. Conservative policy gives greater liquidity and lower risk and

returns and opposite for aggressive policy. Current ratio should be at least 2:1.

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CASH MANAGEMENT:

Controlling level of cash balance by preparing cash budget monthly basis, finding

alternate source of cash, for seen situation like strike, recession, flood while

preparing cash budget.

Controlling the inflow of cash by using techniques which helps in speedier

collection of cash.

Controlling outflow of cash by creating centralised system for disbursement,

effective payments only on the due dates, float system for cheque payment.

Optimum investment of surplus cash in short deposits.

The higher short term assets and the less your short term debt: make your ability

better to pay the debt (short term liquidity ratio / liquidity ratio help you determine

this). The short term creditors of a company like supplies of good of credit and

commercial banks providing short term loans are primarily interested in knowing the

companies’ ability to meet its current or short term obligation of a firm can be met

only when there are sufficient liquid assets.

Therefore, a firm must ensure that it has sufficient liquidity or the capacity to pay its

current obligation due to good liquidity position. The current asset should either be

liquid or near liquidity. These should be exchangeable in to cash for paying

obligations of short term nature. If current assets can pay off current liabilities, then

liquidity position will be satisfactory.

The ideal current ratio is 2:1 means if company’s current assets are reduced to half,

then also the creditor will also be able to get their payment in full. The firm has to

maintain core current assets which is easily realisable at all times. The laid down

bench mark ratio to maintain the ratio of core current assets to current liabilities is

1:1.

The ideal liquidity ratio is1. This indicate short term solvency of company.

Hence, adequate cash planning, cash budgeting, financial fore casting is required to

maintain liquidity.

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4. Marketing Management

Question: If you are working in a super market, what techniques/ tools you will

use in data collection. How are you going to analysis the data and make

inferences? How will you finally apply your market research to improve sales

and win over customers?

Answer:

In super market, we are selling different product of different brand to

customer/consumer. We are basically dealing with consumer goods. So consumers

satisfaction is must to increase sales.

In data collection, we should focus on various factors affecting consumer behaviour.

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Study of above factors, output and finding out the buyer’s demand and requirement

leads to growth. After deciding about above factors, input, output and process for

supermarket, we do randomised control trial by selecting random consumer residing

nearby store, coming to the store as per decided sample size.

After selecting sample (group of random people/consumers), we ask them different

question related to above model. For example:

1) Religion, way of festival celebration, tradition, culture, social class, economic

status.

2) Age, sex, occupation, income.

3) Family members, role in society, role in company, group activity.

4) Product choice, brand choice, important of branded product, quality assurance,

price affordability, mode of delivery from shop or home, technological equipment

in store, store design, product arrangement etc.

After collecting data from group of people, we short out them accordingly age group,

sex, and income groups. We then prepare excel sheet to fill data, prepare charts.

From that we analyse the mind set of consumers, their sense about brand, their

requirement of product category, service requirement, and technology up-gradation

requirement by statistical interpretation,

1) Multiple regression.

2) Cluster analysis.

3) Factor analysis.

After interpretation, we make effective marketing strategy and build a plan according

to consumer response. But research does not end here. We will start experiment of

the new ideas. We do continuous observation on strategy. Study goes on.

Consumer friendly environment, consumer friendly services and consumer friendly

products in super market let consumers to make regular entry. Proper advertisement

as per research interpretation leads to good outcome.

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5. Organizational Behaviour

Question: If you are made the campaign leader for a particular political party.

How will you use your leadership skills to motivate your party men to ensure

success of the party nominee in the elections? (Focus on the individual,

motivate and apply leadership style).

Answer:

Leadership skill is something that influences other member of group/party/people

towards a goal decided by a leader. Manager tries to set effective planning and

policy, but leadership quality required to implement policies and to be adopted by

employee or follower.

If I am a campaign leader of particular party, then my goal to ensure success of that

particular party and to motivate their party nominee for effective strategy for success.

To be a good leader,

I have to adapt myself to situation and local condition.

I have to adjust myself to any condition for local campaign.

I have to give dominant and assertive speech.

I must be aggressive towards goal.

I have to control my emotion.

Decision power

My speech should be to the point and fluency in speech.

Self-confidence.

I have to boost my intelligence level by reading history and latest books and

novels.

Social participation.

First I have to set up a meeting with party nominee, give them effective, confident,

motivating speech and good discussion about current situation. Then I have to

suggest them which topic should be used in which way to get attention of people. My

body language will remain strong in every speech that will make my image stronger.

I have to connect with people in their traditional way, so that they will feel homely

with me. I have to find out local problem by interacting with the society. I have to

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assure them about their problem that they will look after. I have gather information

about weaker side of opponent strictly related to public life only.

Then I have to direct my party nominee to raise the point of local issue, connect with

them, stick to your decision and not change frequently. I have to find out local

problem and one common problem for country for each nominee and ask them to

spread effectively and this will bring their win definitely. I have to adjust myself to

local culture for local nominee campaign.

In modern era, there are few new concepts in leader ship those are branding,

technology and rough decision.

Branding means I have to make my image popular by my work, showing my good

work to people by constant advertisement, by local conference, seminars-in which I

have to show my activity and goal for future.

Technology is one by which people connected easily as a human. I can’t reach each

and every place frequently, but by technology I can connect many human beings

simultaneously. That will also show my intelligence level in understanding of

technology.

Rapid decision making ability in any situation makes the leader powerful and popular

among the people.

I can use branding and technology simultaneously to show my intelligence level as

well as to ensure my party men that I am strongly working for campaign. That will

create belief in them that if they work as I suggested, they will surely wins the battle

of election. I can connect to each party nominee by means of conference call

frequently and guide them for local problem.

In short, an energetic, intelligent, fluent, highly technical and motivational speech

among party nominee electrifies their working capacity and ensures them win.

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6. Principles of economics

Question: Suppose the price elasticity of demand for text books is two and the

price of the text book is increased by 10%. By how much does the quantity

demand fall?

Answer:

Price elasticity of demand (Ep) = Percentage change in demand

Percentage change in price

Hence here,

2 = Percentage of change in demand

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Percentage change in demand is 20 as per formula.

So, quantity demands fall by 20%.

Here, quantity demand falls, because text books are the things which are not used

for life long and there are many substitutes available for text books. If price

increases, some may use old book instead of newer to save money. People might

copy it to use, though it is illegal. Many text books alternative also available online.

For example, ABC Company has made some text book production about social

science. His text books in market now in demands. But if he increases cost, then

consumer ask about low cost alternative for same book which was easily available

as so many companies doing the social science text book related publication.

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