12/26/2019 0 Comments Bata Lockout Case Study EssayFor Bata, labor had always posed major problems. Strikes seemed to be a perennial problem. Much before the assault case, Bata’s chronically restive factory at Batanagar had always plagued by labor strife. In 1992, the factory was closed for four and a half months. In 1995, Bata entered into a 3-year bipartite agreement with the workers, represented by the then 10,000 strong BMU, which also had the West Bengal government as a signatory. On July 21, 1998, Weston was severely assaulted by four workers at the company’s factory at Batanagar, while he was attending a business meet. The incident occurred after a member of BMU, Arup Dutta, met Weston to discuss the issue of the suspended employees. Dutta reportedly got into a verbal duel with Weston, upon which the other workers began to shout slogans. When Weston tried to leave the room the workers turned violent and assaulted him. This was the second attack on an officer after Weston took charge of the company, the first one being the assault on the chief welfare officer in 1996. In February 1999, a lockout was declared in Bata’s Faridabad Unit. Middleton commented that the closure of the unit would not have much impact on the company’s revenues as it was catering to lower-end products such as canvas and Hawaii chappals. The lock out lasted for eight months. In October 1999, the unit resumed production when Bata signed a three-year wage agreement. On March 8, 2000, a lockout was declared at Bata’s Peenya factory in Bangalore, following a strike by its employee union. The new leadership of the union had refused to abide by the wage agreement, which was to expire in August 2001. Following the failure of its negotiations with the union, the management decided to go for a lock out. Bata management was of the view that though it would have to bear the cost of maintaining an idle plant (Rs. 3 million), the effect of the closures on sales and production would be minimal as the footwear manufactured in the factory could be shifted to the company’s other factories and associate manufacturers. The factory had 300 workers on its rolls and manufactured canvas and PVC footwear. In July 2000, Bata lifted the lockout at the Peenya factory. However, some of the workers opposed the company’s move to get an undertaking from the factory employees to resume work. The employees demanded revocation of suspension against 20 of their fellow employees. They also demanded that conditions such as maintaining normal production schedule, conforming to standing orders and the settlement in force should not be insisted upon. In September 2000, Bata was again headed for a labour dispute when the BMU asked the West Bengal government to intervene in what it perceived to be a downsizing exercise being undertaken by the management. BMU justified this move by alleging that the management has increased outsourcing of products and also due to perceived declining importance of the Batanagar unit. The union said that Bata has started outsourcing the Power range of fully manufactured shoes from China, compared to the earlier outsourcing of only assembly and sewing line job. The company’s production of Hawai chappals at the Batanagar unit too had come down by 58% from the weekly capacity of 0. 144 million pairs. These steps had resulted in lower income for the workers forcing them to approach the government for saving their interests. PS: Weston resigned on January 30, 2001. This came as a severe setback to the Bata management.
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12/12/2019 0 Comments Marketing of Central Heating System Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 wordsMarketing of Central Heating System - Case Study Example
They can do a better job of choosing their market, developing their offerings and executing their marketing plans. Company needs a strong marketing information system to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate and distribute needed, timely and accurate information to marketing decision makers. This information in developed from internal company records, marketing intelligence, marketing research and marketing decision support analysis. Marketers find many opportunities by identifying trends in the macro environment. A trend is a direction or sequence of events that have some momentum and durability. According to futurist Faith Popcorn (1992) a trend has longevity, is observable across several market areas and consumer activities and is consistent with other significant indicator that occur or energy at the same time. A new product or marketing programme is likely to be more successful if it is in line with strong trends rather than opposed to them. Companies and their suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customers and competitors all operate in a macro environment of force and trends that shape opportunities and pose threats. Within the rapidly changing global picture the firm must monitor six major forces: demographics, economics, natural, technological, political-legal and socio-cultural. Now we will analyze the there markets i.e. Poland Hungary and Czech republic on the basis of six macro- environments forces and analyze their needs (Market needs and Customers need) for central heating system. After analyzing markets trends the launch product in the said markets could be prioritized. During analysis we also take care of financial analysis of the product through Return on investment analysis. This process is called target- return pricing for the product. The firm determines the price that would yield its target rate return on investment (ROI). Many firms use target pricing. The target-return price is given by formula, Target return price = unit cost + desired return * invested capital/unit sales. After fixing the desired return company could easily analyze and perform break-even analysis so that it could assess that how many minimum numbers of units of product selling is essential to match their investment (Kotler, 2003). (For data see appendix) Poland: It is one of the Central European countries having population of 38.6 million. After world war -II until 1989-90 it remained under communist control as well as members of Warsaw pact. During the last decade Poland has made the transition to democracy and to market based economies. Now it becomes EU member state. Poland was the first economy in Central and Eastern Europe to recover to pre-transition level of economic output. Growth in GDP since 1993 has been very strong averaging over 5% annually and making the polish economy between the fastest growing economies in Europe. However, GDP per capita (measured in terms of purchasing power parity) remains very much lower than the other western European union members. The most notable features of Poland's energy sector are its heavy dependence on coal and the depth of power sector restructuring both to date and planned for the future. The total installed power generation capacity in Poland amounts to approximately 33GW while peak demand is about 24GW. So it is energy surplus country. Annual electricity consumption stands at around 124 TWL of which about 63% powers the industrial sector (including |