Sample Case - 2

IOD - GMBA - April 2010 (Dubai)

Case Incident – Role Conflict among Telephone service employees

All supervisory jobs are not alike. Maggie is just learning this fact. After having spent 3 years as a production scheduling supervisor at P&G manufacturing plant, she recently took a position as manager of telephone services at Ohio Provident Insurance. In her new job, Maggie supervises 20 telephone service employees. These people have direct contact with customers – providing quotes, answering questions, following up on claims, and the like.

At P&G, Maggie’s employees knew they had only one constituency to please. That was management. But Maggie is finding that her employees at OPI have it more difficult. As service employees, they have to serve 2 masters – management and the customer. And at least from comments her employees have made, they seem to think there is discrepancy between what they believe customers want them to do and what they believe management wants them to do. A frequent complaint, for instance, is that customers want the telephone rep’s undivided attention and to spend as much time as necessary to solve their problem. But the reps see management as wanting them to handle as many calls as possible per day and to keep each call as short as possible.

This morning, a rep came into Maggie’s office, complaining of severe headaches. “The more I try to please our customers, the more stress I feel,” the rep told Maggie. “I want to do the best job I can for our customers, but I do not feel like I can devote the time that is necessary. You constantly remind us that it is the customer who provides our paychecks and how important it is to give reliable, courteous and responsive service, but then we feel the pressure to handle more calls per hour.”

Maggie is well aware of studies that have shown that role conflict is related to reduced job satisfaction, increased turnover and absenteeism, and fewer organizational citizenship behaviors. And severe role conflict is also likely to lead to poor customer service – the antithesis of her department’s goals.

After talking with her staff, Maggie concluded that regardless of whether their perceptions were accurate, her people certainly believed them to be. They were reading one set of expectations through their interactions with customers and another set through what the company conveyed during the selection process, in training sessions, and through the behaviors that management rewarded.

Questions

1. What is the source of role conflict here?

2. Are these functional benefits to management from role conflict? Explain.

3. Should role conflict among these telephone service employees be any greater than a typical employee who works as part of team and has to meet the expectations of a boss as well as team members? Explain.

4. What can Maggie do to manage this role conflict?

Sample Case - 1

IOD - GMBA - April 2010 (Dubai), November 2010 (Singapore)

Case Incident – Bill Flower at Blackmer / Dover Resources Inc

Blackmer / Dover Resources plant, in Grand Rapids Michigan, makes heavy duty pumps designed to move commodities such as refined oil and chocolate. The plant employs 160 workers. Historically, management assigned employees to operate the same machine for months or even years at a time. In this way, each worker became intimately familiar with a narrow task. And the workers used their expertise to earn more money. Until 1997, about half the workers at the plant earned a premium, on top of their hourly wage, based on the number of pumps or pump parts they produced. The system gave them a strong incentive to conceal output enhancing tricks they had learned, even for coworkers.

Today, the plant’s workers receive a straight hourly wage. To make the plant more flexible, management encourages workers to learn a variety of jobs and accept moves to different parts of the factory floor. Many of the plant’s older workers, however, haven’t welcomed the change. One of those is Bill Fowler.

Fowler is 56 years old and has worked at the Blackmer plant for 24 years. Fowler doesn’t like changing jobs and he doesn’t like telling anyone anything about what he does. “I do not want to move around”, he says, “because I love my routine – it helps me get through the day”.

Fowler’s job is cutting metal shafts for industrial pumps. It is a precision task: A minor error could render pump useless. And Fowler is outstanding at what he does. He is known for the accuracy of his cuts. His bosses also say he can be hours faster than anyone else in readying his giant cutting machines to shift from making one type of pump shaft to another. Management would love to incorporate Fowler’s know-how into the manufacturing process, but he refuses to share his secrets even with fellow workers, “If I gave away my tricks, management could use (them) to speed things up and keep me at a flat-out pace all day long,” says Fowler.

Employees like Fowler worry when they read about companies soliciting worker’s expert advice in the name of making their plants more competitive, and then turn around and move jobs to lower-wage locations in the US or abroad. Blackmer’s top management, however, says it has no plans to relocate jobs or otherwise hurt workers. It wants merely to pool workers knowledge to make the plant stronger. “We have realized that to get competitive, we need to start asking these guys what they know,” says Blackmer’s president.

Questions

1) Explain Bill Fowler’s behavior in power terms.

2) What, if anything, does this case say about trust and power?

3) What does this case say regarding implementing knowledge-management systems?

4) What, if anything, can management do to change Fowler’s behavior?

Quality Control

Quality

Quality is the extent (sigma value of the process) to which a firm’s product or service consistently (again and again) conforms to customer’s requirement and expectations.

Textbook definition – Ability of a product / service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectation (Should be an integral part of product / service).

Quality may be defined as the extent to which a firm’s product or service consistently conforms to customer’s requirements and expectations. To manage quality, it should be specific and measurable – what can’t be measured, can’t be managed.

Voc TO CTQs (Critical to quality factors that are specific and measurable)

Product Quality parameters

Performance – Main characteristics of the product / service

Aesthetics – Appearance, feel, smell, taste

Special features – Extra characteristics

Conformance – How well a product or service corresponds to design specifications

Reliability – Consistency of performance

Durability – The useful life of the product or service

Perceived Quality – Indirect evaluation of quality (Example – Reputation)

Serviceability – Handling of complaints / repairs

Service Quality parameters

Convenience – The availability and accessibility of the service

Reliability – The ability to perform a service dependably, consistently and accurately

Responsiveness – The willingness of service providers to help customers in unusual situations and to deal with problems

Time – The speed with which service is delivered

Assurance – The knowledge exhibited by personnel who come into contact with a customer and their ability to convey trust and confidence

Courtesy – The way customers are treated by employees who come into contact with them

Tangibles – The physical appearance of facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials

COST OF QUALITY

Cost of Quality: Any cost that would not have been expended if quality was perfect (It is not the price of creating a quality product or service). Every time a rework is done, the cost of quality increases.

The price of non-conformance (Philip Crosby) and cost of poor quality (Joseph Juran)

· Cost of Conformance

o Preventive costs (Proactive): The cost of all activities specifically designed to prevent poor quality in products or services. Example- Periodic preventive maintenance of machines, training, product/ process design effort.

§ New product review, quality planning, supplier capability survey, process capability evaluations, quality education and trainings.

o Appraisal costs (Reactive): The costs associated with measuring, evaluating or auditing products or services to assure conformance to quality standards and performance requirements. Example- Policy cost (Inspection), Inspection of raw material, external inspection / audits, debugging.

§ Incoming and source inspection / test of purchased material

§ In-process and final inspection / test

§ Calibration of measuring and test equipments.

· Cost of Non-conformance

o Internal failure cost: Failure costs occurring prior to the delivery or shipment of the product, or the furnishing of a service, to the customer. (Producing defective product, but I detect the product before it goes out of company’s premises).Example- Rework / Repair before dispatch, overtime work, scrapping defective output.

§ Scrap

§ Rework

§ Re-inspection

§ Re-testing

§ Material review

§ Downgrading

o External failure costs: Failure costs occurring after delivery of the product or during or after the furnishing of the service to the customer. (Defective product reaches the customer). Example: Toyota recall, i-phone antenna problem, products falling within warranty, litigation with customer, loss of goodwill.

§ Processing customer complaints

§ Customer returns

§ Warranty claims

§ Product recalls

Critical to Quality factors

· Factors of CTQ

· Metric

· Unit of measurement

· Target Value

· Tolerance (acceptable)

· Definition of defect

CTQ

They are derived from customer needs. Customer delight may be add-on while deriving CTQ parameters. For cost considerations, one may remain focused to customer needs at the initial stage.

They are key measurable characteristics of a product or process whose performance standards or specifications limits must be met in order to satisfy the customer. They align improvement or design efforts with customer requirements.

It represents the product / service characteristics that are defined by the customer (internal / external). They may include the upper or lower specification limits or any other factors related to the product or service.

Definition: They are the spoken needs of the customer…..what customer expects from the product. The customer may express it in plain English, but it is upto the CTQ expert to convert them to measurable terms using tools such as DFMEA (How can product design fail in real world)

Expense Details	Notes
Legal expenses to handle customer complaints / notices	External failure costs
Overtime	Internal failure costs
Inspection of incoming materials from vendors	Appraisal costs
Consultant’s fees for advising on latest quality systems	Prevention costs
Product rejections by customers	External failure costs
Product inspected out of delivery consignments by quality inspection staff	Appraisal costs
TQM and 6-sigma training	Prevention costs
Poka Yoke process design development (Mistake proofing device)	Prevention costs
In-house laboratory testing of materials, WIP, finished goods	Appraisal costs
External agency testing and certification of finished goods	Appraisal costs
Transportation of rejected products from customer’s premises	External failure costs
Transportation of reworked products back to customers (means customer already received defective product earlier)	External failure costs
Rework – materials, labor and overheads – after defects noticed in final product	Internal failure costs
Servicing of defective products within warranty period	External failure costs
Printing of quality training manuals	Prevention costs

Mobile Banking trends

Introduction – Trends in Banking and technological advances

Rapid growth has increased job opportunities across the globe for the new generation and the profile for the working has changed considerably. The youth have the money to spend and they have become an economic force worth reckoning.

The young and affluent customer:

Ø Is more knowledgeable, tech savvy, demanding

Ø Would like to have a wider range of financial services and sophisticated products

Ø Look for convenience of anytime anywhere banking

Ø Demands a bouquet of financial services from banks and also,

Ø Demands financial advisory services to help choose from the large choice of product offerings by various service providers

Businesses can no longer ignore the younger generation and have to offer products and services that address the needs of the young

Technological advances – Multiple channels like phone banking, mobile banking, ATMs and internet banking have eroded the uniqueness and limitations of branches

Customers using these channels are now able to transact business anytime, anywhere. They have access to not only account information but also on investment opportunities at their convenience.

Mobile Banking

What is mobile banking – A system where customer can send the request for a standard product of the bank in the form of a standard SMS. This is referred to as Pull request where customer demands a service / product from the bank by sending SMS. The cost of sending the SMS is normally borne by the customer who is sending it. Another form of mobile banking is the Push SMS request sent proactively by the bank which informs the customer of the fulfillment of request and mentions the dispatch details of the physical product (if any). Apart from that, all sales and marketing request are covered under it.

How the SMS is sent by the customer – In case customer wants to send a mobile banking request for a deliverable (either in physical or softcopy form), then he / she can send it as follows:

ISOA LBMUM00000123456 ssc_1982@yahoo.co.in

Meaning of the above text – Customer is demanding a statement of account of a retail home loan (which contains details of bounces, paid EMIs) for his / her loan account number - LBMUM00000123456 (LB is a Home loan, MUM indicates loan has been disbursed from Mumbai) in soft copy at his / her email id which is ssc_1982@yahoo.co.in.

On receipt of the SMS, the bank’s system either sends back a delivery confirmation with a promise to deliver the required in next few days or a message stating that the code of request (which is ISOA here) is wrongly sent and does not exist in bank’s database.

Purpose of mobile banking –It aims to migrate customers to alternative banking channels (like internet banking) in order to reduce the branch walk-ins of the customer or their calls at the call-center. Other channels include Internet banking, Branch-free banking, use of i-mobile etc.

Whether mobile should be registered or not – Mobile banking services can be offered into 2 broad categories based on whether online requests are being received from registered or non-registered mobile

For registered mobile numbers - Cases where customer sensitive information relevant to customer assets (like Deposits, Demat A/c details etc) is sent from the bank, the norm is only to send it to the registered user of the facility, who have opted for mobile banking. For example – In case a customer types - IBAL 032301300551 and send it to the mobile banking number of the bank, the balance of the savings / current account will only be sent in case the request

Ø Is correct (correct code, proper bank account number)

Ø Is coming from the registered mobile number, which is registered for the same account

If above conditions are fulfilled, SMS will be sent to the registered mobile

In case, the user wants to change his / her mobile number, it takes atleast 3 working days to get the number reflective in mobile banking software due to security issues to avoid any fraudulent transaction. After 3 days, customer can then place request from the new mobile number.

For non-registered mobile numbers – Many retail loan products like Repayment schedule, statement of account, Income tax return form – Provisional and Final (Form 60/61) only contain information relating to loan repayment and is not prone to any fraudulent activity related to customer or bank. Hence, many banks accept requests from non-registered mobiles mainly to reduce the number of walk-ins into retail branches. The final deliverable though is dispatched to the address updated in bank’s records.

Services currently offered in Mobile Banking - Many banks offer services under mobile banking which are as follows:

Type of Product	Asset / Liability product of bank	Whether Push or Pull Alert	Feature
Balance in Savings / Current / Demat / Credit Card Account	Retail Assets and Liabilities	Pull	Code used - IBAL, IBALDM, IBALCC
Account Credit / Debit / Salary credit / Bounce details / Debit card purchases	Retail Assets and Liabilities	Push	As set by customer via internet banking or via placing request in retail branch
Online Bill payment / status enquiry	Retail Liabilities	Pull	Code used - IVIEW
Cheque book request for Demat / Savings / Overdraft	Retail Assets and Liabilities	Pull	Code used – ICBR, ICOD
Marketing alerts	All products	Push	New product information
Payment Due date for loans / Credit Card / Overdraft	Retail Assets	Push	It is sent before 3 working days of payment due date
Transaction enquiry	All retail products	Pull	Gives details of last 3 transactions

· All Push transactions are proactively pushed to customers, whereas all Pull requests are sent by customers for a service / product request

Advantages and disadvantages

Ø The advantage of mobile banking is the SMS, which is easily sent, immediately received & read and can be accessed even during a meeting without disturbing others.

Ø The length of SMS though poses a constraint (for old Nokia mobile models, it can be max 120 alphabets) which needs to be worked out by the bank (Else cost of 2 SMS needs to be paid instead of 1)

Challenges faced by banks

Ø The main drawback of this product is where customer mobile number is old, incorrectly updated or is not present in the bank’s record. Hence, the challenge for the bank is to make the customer update the contact details as and when it changes (good opportunity to execute the same when there is a branch walk-in)

Ø As on today, many customers have 2 mobile numbers instead of one and they want both of them to be updated with the bank under mobile banking (like in case of joint account holders). The challenge lies with the bank as to which number, SMS should be sent (they can give choice to customers when they visit the branch or when they call up the call-center)

Ø To what extent, banks can take up and pass on the cost of the SMS to the customers is a bigger challenge (in order to save on operating cost of the bank)

How to educate customers in mobile banking

Customer education is a must as customer tends to forget the code & prefers to walk-in into a branch for a standard request which can be fulfilled easily sitting at home.

Whenever a customer walks-in with a standard request, customer service officer should understand the purpose of visit. In case, it is a simple request for a standard deliverable (like cheque book), then customer service manager should check in the bank’s system whether customer is eligible for mobile banking (contact details are correctly updated). If not, activate the facility, capture customer’s latest mobile number (increasing contact-ability), place request for deliverable in the system for which customer has come and give a simple handout to make the customer familiar with the process of mobile banking.

New Services offered

Mobile shopping services, as offered by ICICI Bank, India is a unique way of making payments for the purchases from the mobile handset. The service though is only for registered mobile banking customers only.

Backend / Internal Process followed to cater to request received for account statement via mobile banking

Whenever a correct mobile banking request hits the banking database, the following steps are followed internally at the backend (most of them are done in excel, which can be automated)

Ø The processing team downloads the dump of requests from the server and sort it based on product line like savings account, home loan or a consumer loan product

Ø The downloaded requests are then checked in the system and all the repeat request which came in the last 7 days are removed (SMS is sent to all these customers stating that the request is duplicate and their original request is under process)

Ø For the rest of the requests, either physical copy (requested item like statements) is dispatched to the updated communication address in the bank’s system. In case, customer’s e-mail address is updated, only soft copy (mainly PDF) is sent. After sending, customer is informed via an SMS that the request has been fulfilled, giving the details of delivery

New Face of Mobile Banking (I-Mobile)

Main Theme – Doing a financial / non-financial transaction effortlessly with online security -anytime, anywhere - a feature similar to internet banking.

Services Offered currently in many Indian Private banks (ICICI, HDFC) are:

Ø Bank Account – Funds transfer, Bill payment, balance enquiry, cheque book request, last 3 transactions, stop cheque request, change primary account, cheque status enquiry

Ø Credit Card – Balance Details, Last payment details, Payment due date, Reward point status

Ø Loan – Final IT certificate, provisional IT certificate, ROI reset letter, Loan reschedulement letter, request for loan agreement copy, repayment schedule

Ø Demat – Holding enquiry, Transaction status, Bill inquiry, ISIN

Ø Other Services – Status of service request raised, prepaid mobile recharge, movie ticketing

Scope of the Project to be conducted for SBI

Ø To study the trends in mobile banking offerings in Singapore – The same can be achieved via

o Customer survey – Mostly Quantitative in nature (minimum 30 sample size). 4-5 in-depth interview can also enhance the project impact by gauging the expectations of the customer

o Studying the websites of banks in Singapore (Foreign and domestic)

o Studying the banks in India (Private banks like ICICI and HDFC, who have successfully implemented these ideas)

Ø To study the service offerings of SBI in Singapore – For the same, the team needs to understand

o For what all products, SBI Singapore currently offers mobile banking service

o Whether any new projects for the same is in pipeline for SBI

o What other products and services SBI offers in India or other foreign countries

Ø To recommend a detailed strategy to SBI for launching Mobile banking service offerings in Singapore

o Need to decide who all service providers can provide the best service at the cheapest price

o What are the regulatory limitations of implementing such a project

o Final decision on feasibility of the project to be taken by the mentor. The team will though give all the observations encountered during the course of the project