Question

1. In the event that an entity’s records reflect a slowing down of performance in terms of profitability, what strategies can be best adopted to produce immediate results?

2. What kind of management does a company need in order to thrive in the changing business environment? Which management style is the most appropriate? Which style is the least appropriate? Why?

3. Describe a bottleneck situation in the organization as experienced during the Quarantine period due to the COVID19 Pandemic. How was this situation resolved? Do you agree with the way the management have handled the situation? (explain your answer)

4. If you were the middle manager of a certain manufacturing company, how will your company be benefited or affected if you base your strategies on the following statement "you don't produce anything, anywhere, for anybody, unless they ask for it somewhere downstream. Inventories are the evil that we're taught to avoid.

Answer 1

Answers to all four questions:

Question # 1. The immediate measure that needs to be taken is to reduce the fixed expenses and cost-cutting measures wherever possible should be initiated.

Question # 2. If the business is the environment is changing very frequently then more ideas will have to be generated in order to thrive and fight with the competition, Under such situation, a democratic management style where managers will retain the decision making power but the ideas will be asked from all employees. Authoritative or Hierarichal management style will not be very suited as lowering the participation of lower strata of managers in decision making will impact the performance in a highly changing business environment.

Question # 3. The biggest bottleneck during the quarantine period was the availability of workers at the workplace. Business immediately took the challenge and transformed the workplace with digital connectivity and the work which was possible to be done from Home was being done from home. This approach was most suitable as per the situation.

Question # 4. Depending on the kind of business I am dealing with. Let me take the example of an Aircraft manufacturer for them this strategy will be the best fit because the production value is very high and it does not make any sense to keep the inventory. That is why they only begin manufacturing based on the order in hand. But for the products which are not of high value and have very huge daily demand like food products we can not do good with this strategy and will loose the business opporunity far more than saving in the inventory minimization.