CASE STUDY

SAGAR PVT. LTD. Is a small company, which manufactures plastic products such as mugs, buckets, and other household utility products. This company which is situated in an industrial belt in new Mumbai has typical labour needs. Since quite a few operations including packing of products are done manually, the company employs 80 workers on the shop floor. The company supplies its products to retailers in and around Mumbai. It has a long production run and longer product life-cyles and therefore the management believes that the company is making fewer profits because of this. As a result, the top management, which comprises of the members of Maheshwari family, since this is a family managed business, decided to invest resources on automation to have shorter production runs and shorter product life-cycles. It has decided to introduce packaging machines to reduce semi-skilled and unskilled labour.

The company has a bad record in industrial relations since workers in the past have had several problems pertaining to wages and working conditions .Rajnathdube, a worker who I soften pampered by management to get their way, dominates the company union. Rajnath is a man who ranks very low in personal and professional ethics but has a way with people and is good at politics. He has a substantial clout with the workers who trust him and would act on his advice. But the management is fully aware that rajanth may not be able to help much if the company thinks of retrenching workers. However the management decided to speak to rajnath regarding their decision to introduce automatic machines and subsequent lay off of workers. Rajnath immediately sensed a good opportunity to make a big sum so he pretended that convincing the workers was a herculean task and he would need at least 6 months time to do this. The management was however impatient to introduce automation and told rajnath to convince workers within 3 months to help them implement the decision. Of course rajnath

Played his game and asked for a huge sum in reciprocation of his effort.

The maheshwari brothers were shocked at the price that rajnath wanted. They however knew that things would only get worse if they refused rajnaths proposal.

CASE QUESTIONS;

• Was the maheshwari familys method of introducing change in sagar private limited appropriate? Please substantiate your response giving suitable reasons.
• What was the tactic used by top management to overcome resistance to change? What tactic would you have used to overcome workers resistance to change if you were in the top managements position?
• Howwouldyouhandlerajnathifyouwereinplaceofthemaheshwaris?

Each question required 500 words. thanks