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Spreadsheet Supplement for IMB495.

Larsen and Toubro (L&T) was India's largest technology, engineering, construction and manufacturing company. Construction and Mining Business (CMB) sold equipment such as Dozer Shovels, Dozers, Dumpers, Hydraulic Excavators, Motor Graders, Pipe Layers, Surface Miners, Tipper Trucks, Wheel Dozers and Wheel Loaders. CMB also provided the services of equipment installation and commissioning and other maintenance services. Supply of spare parts was critical, since the customer faced severe losses in case of equipment unavailability. Forecasting was done on an ad hoc basis based on the experience of the planning personnel. The value of each spare part ranged from INR 10 to INR 8 Million. It was critical to maintain a correct balance for the spare-parts inventories, since unavailability led to loss of revenues, decreased profitability, customer dissatisfaction and also gave rise to the fake products industry. Excess inventory led to high inventory carrying costs, working capital lock-in and also a possibility of spare parts becoming obsolete. Vijaya Kumar, Deputy General Manager of CMB, had to arrive at a forecasting methodology with an error of less than 10% for the 20,000 odd spare-parts. This warranted for 20,000 forecasting models, however this was not only very time consuming but also very expensive to develop and manage. Kumar wanted to build the forecasting model quickly so that he could roll out the forecasting strategy on a pan-India basis within a few weeks.

Spreadsheet supplement for IMB499.

The C&D Hotel, the first five-star deluxe hotel in Xiamen, a coastal city in China, needs to improve its service delivery process. In particular, the hotel’s customer service manager needs to present her plans for handling some recent customer complaints and decide how to compensate hotel guests for errors that have occurred during service delivery.

This note provides an overview of the Chinese Internet by describing its leading three companies: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT). While BAT had previously focused their respective businesses on distinct sectors of the online economy-Baidu for search, Alibaba for e-commerce, and Tencent for games and instant messaging-the proliferation of mobile devices in China introduced new territory to be conquered. By the end of 2014, BAT had each made a series of investments and acquisitions to aggressively compete with each other and with other competitors in the emerging mobile space. This note can be used as background for any discussion related to the Chinese Internet industry.

Celebrated as one of the world's premiere luxury hotel brands, Oberoi Hotels attracts and serves some of the most quality sensitive guests in the world. The case considers the challenge of how an organization, with a standardized service model, can repeatedly delight customers whose expectations grow with every interaction. To explore this question, the case details the design elements of Oberoi's complex service operation, including its approaches to employee management and continuous improvement, as well as the dynamics of service competition in a rapidly growing market.

This note offers a brief overview of two techniques used in continual improvement programs: fishbone (Ishikawa) diagrams and Pareto charts.

In 2005, Teruo Yabe is asked to revive Tessei, the 669-person JR-East subsidiary responsible for cleaning its Shinkansen (""bullet"") trains. Operational mistakes, customer complaints, safety issues, and employee turnover are at or near all-time highs, even as the demands on Tessei continued to grow. Given previous leaders' failed attempts to fix Tessei's problems with increased managerial monitoring and controls, Yabe seeks a creative approach to overcome the motivation, capability, and coordination challenges facing his organization. Like many contemporary leaders, he selects transparency as his tool. He is, however, unique in adopting a highly nuanced approach to implementing transparency. In the process, he not only leads a fantastic organizational turnaround but even helps to make otherwise ""dirty"" work more meaningful for Tessei front-line employees. The case therefore presents students, particularly in leadership, organizational behavior, operations management, and service operations courses, with an opportunity to think through how a well-crafted transparency strategy can act as a powerful leadership tool.

The management of the Youreka Hotel in Amritsar, India, was concerned about the hotel’s overall returns relative to its annual operating cost and large initial investment. The new five-star hotel was now up and running and customers had started checking in, but occupancy levels were low. The hotel industry in India was making double-digit margins, but the hotel had not even achieved operational breakeven yet. Of key importance for the operations head was choosing the best seafood supplier — based on selling price, transportation cost and other factors — for supplying the hotel’s restaurants. A poor decision could have a negative impact on room occupancy and profitability. Among management, there were also concerns that the location of the hotel might be unfavourable. When could the operations head expect the hotel to match the profitability of the industry? What could he do to improve the hotel’s profitability?

The chief operating officer at Westridge Cabinets, a Canadian cabinet manufacturer, needs to improve the company’s on-time delivery performance and reduce costs. Customers’ orders vary widely, in terms of both order size and product mix, leading to complications in planning and scheduling the plant. As part of their analysis, students are required to 1) recognize how the company’s order process integrates with production planning and control; 2) understand how manufacturing lead times affect flexibility and delivery performance and 3) calculate capacity in each department to identify and resolve potential constraints.

In December 2014, Brad Hirsch stood on the gaming floor at Harrah's Metropolis Casino and Hotel in Metropolis, Illinois, where he had recently been assigned the position of General Manager and Senior Vice President. The property was part of Caesars Entertainment, the world's most geographically diversified provider of casino entertainment. Evidence from customer surveys and data on loyalty-card usage patterns, as well as competitive pressures across the casino industry, indicated a general need for process improvement at the Metropolis facility. Hirsch had successfully led employee-centered efforts to apply LEAN operating principles to improve customer service in three of his company's casinos in Tunica, Mississippi. He believed what he learned from those experiences would be applicable in the Metropolis location, but wondered if he should consider a modified approach that could potentially produce results more quickly with the help of a team of internal experts.

In 2012, Compass Group (Compass) was on the verge of closing a $2 billion deal with Ascension Health (Ascension), one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States. Under the deal, Compass would provide foodservice management and cleaning services for 86 of Ascension's hospitals. Compass employs a "sectorized" approach to deliver service through a portfolio of focused brands, each of which targets focused groups of customers with specific needs. After months of negotiating, the deal had come down to a single request: Could Compass provide these two services through a single operation? Compass must weigh the benefits of operational focus against the prospect of a very lucrative contract. The case details the strengths and limitations of a sectorized strategy. It also provides a window into the complicated and time-intensive supplier selection process inherent in many business-to-business service relationships.

This note examines the evolution of the thermostat industry as it transitioned from analog to digital technologies. It presents an overview of key industry participants and the shift in value creation and value capture models for firms.

Joe Smith, senior director of merchandise management at Beautiful Bags (BB), was about to place a large order for the upcoming winter season. He had to decide how many pieces he should order of each product. But another big question whether BB should source the product from its domestic manufacturing facility, its Chinese suppliers, or some combination of the two given the timing needs, labor costs, minimum order requirements, and BB's expanding product assortment?

This case has been taught successfully in a second-year MBA elective, "Management of Service Operations," in a module on service system design. The material works well to unfold with Frances Frei's service model framework. Ari Straus, a former customer of Monticello Motor Club (MMC), brought that customer perspective with him to take on the roles of CEO and president. MMC was a high-end service business with an exclusive clientele. As much as the asphalt track, racecars, and clubhouse facilities attracted members and guests, the staff's professionalism and personal touch kept them coming back and kept them recommending the club to their acquaintances.

Student Spreadsheet for case W14346.

Mid-India Construction Private Company Limited (MICC) was awarded a refurbishing project for INR30 million from the National Institute of Management. The project had to be completed in eight months. MICC's project manager observed the dismal pace of work execution and the limited resource deployment on-site in the first monthly review meeting for the project. This situation warranted the manager's immediate attention to acquire more resources and to find ways to fast-track the project. Given the nature of the project site and the project work, MICC began to explore the possibility of running parallel work-fronts to expedite the project while considering various financial and operational implications.

Mid-India Construction Private Company Limited (MICC) was awarded a refurbishing project for INR30 million from the National Institute of Management. The project had to be completed in eight months. MICC’s project manager observed the dismal pace of work execution and the limited resource deployment on-site in the first monthly review meeting for the project. This situation warranted the manager’s immediate attention to acquire more resources and to find ways to fast-track the project. Given the nature of the project site and the project work, MICC began to explore the possibility of running parallel work-fronts to expedite the project while considering various financial and operational implications.

The case is about the emergence of the virtual contact centre, which employs a geographically dispersed workforce in the cloud. LiveOps' 'home-shore' business model combines the following innovations: (1) it allows agents to work when they choose to, but pays them only for the time they are serving customers, and (2) it is based on meritocracy, i.e., better performing agents get more work and are paid more. The virtual contact centre is evaluated against traditional contact centre solutions in the context of a relief operation helping storm evacuees connect with relatives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

In early 2014, the senior vice-president of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan is considering two investment opportunities in the oil and gas industry brought forward by his team. He is trying to understand how to ensure that the principles underpinning responsible investing are incorporated in the decision about which to choose. Each investment looks very attractive, but a growing stream of controversies surrounding oil sands extraction, pipeline safety and environmental protection has raised concerns. He faces multiple questions: How can the impact of these environmental, social and governance issues be quantified precisely? Can they be translated into an informed investment decision that the organization’s stakeholders will accept? What approach to responsible investing is appropriate for a pension fund? What alternative methods of incorporating these issues into the investment decision process should be considered?