To be discussed in CRM class on 28th July 2020

Guidelines:
1.All students who are briefing the case will be preparing a short PPT in Amity Template
2. All students will need to keep their web camera on while speaking and have to be in
formals.
3.All Students are required to give the inputs in detail as per the questions allocated.
4.Time allocated is already being mentioned for each section. Time for briefing each case
and sharing the inputs will be 3-4 minutes which will be included in the total time limit
mentioned.

CASE STUDY 1: Roll No 1-30 (25 minutes)

THE VIRAL FEVER (TVF)
Arunabh Kumar, founder and creative experiment officer (CEO) of The Viral Fever (TVF), is
one of the pioneers of original online entertainment in India. With the following subsidiaries -
Girliyapa; The Screen Patti (TSP); The Timeliners; Funda Curry; TVF Machi, the TVF has
created several super hit web series. TVF’s original Web series, Yeh Meri Family (IMDb Rating
9.3), Kota Factory (IMDb Rating 9.3), Pitchers (IMDb Rating 9.2), ImMature (IMDb Rating
9.1), Humorously Yours (IMDb Rating 8.7), Permanent Roommates (IMDb Rating 8.6), Tripling
(IMDb Rating 8.6), Bachelors (IMDb Rating 8.4) have clocked unprecedented viewership. All
the shows appear on IMDb’s List of Top 250 TV Shows.
Arunabh Kumar, an alumnus of the IIT, Kharagpur, Kumar, once known as the “Qtiyapa guy",
has spearheaded shows such as Barely Speaking With Arnub and Chai Sutta Chronicles. Born
and brought up in Bihar, Arunabh did his schooling upto class VI from Muzaffarpur and then he
changed 10-14 schools. His father was trying to find the best school for him. He studied in a
boarding school from classes VIII-X and then cleared JEE (the Joint Entrance Examination) on
the second attempt. HE joined IIT, Kharagpur in 2001 and pursued his B.Tech in Electrical
Engineering.

After graduation, he moved to Mumbai and started working with Shah Rukh Khan's production
house Red Chillies Entertainment as an assistant’s position under Farah Khan. He was the
assistant director for the movie Om Shanti Om.

In the year 2010, he got the idea of registering The Viral Fever (TVF), which was a one-man
production house for branded content. TVF made the first branded Web series (for Colgate Plax)
in 2011 which got 20,000 views, which was considered a lot at that time. At that time, everyone
wanted a “viral". That’s how Arunabh got the idea of The Viral Fever. Today TVF had around
70 employees and have finally become an organization with HR and legal departments, air
conditioners, and support for the team.

Rome Was Not Built in a Day

Continuous rejections from youth channels (like MTV, Channel V) set Arunabh off on the
entrepreneurial path. He prepared a few shows which were rejected by several media channels.
But at the time Canon DSLR cameras became cheaper and Google became aggressive with
YouTube, all happened coincidentally made Arunabh to apply his engineering/tech knowledge
and figure out YouTube and build an online TV channel for youth.
Arunabh and his team founded TVF Media Labs in 2010 and in February 2012, TVF released
Rowdies, their first original show. The team thought that if it crossed 100,000 views they would
go to the party, but it crossed 1.1 million views and went on to become the first original video to
go viral.
According to the founder of TVF, the thought behind starting TVF was to reach out to the
younger generation who seldom watch television entertainment, hence their TG (target group)
was 14- to 40-year-old niche, progressive Indians. The Viral Fever was one of the early arrivals
on the Indian digital entertainment segment with videos covering a range of topics on Indian
politics, movies, lifestyle, and emerging social concepts.
After a few years of creating "viral videos", The Viral Fever released India's first web-series,
Permanent Roommates, in 2015. Featuring then-unknown actor Sumeet Vyas and Nidhi Singh,
Permanent Roommates has been watched over 5 crore (50 million) times. Pitchers was lauded as
one of the best shows in recent memory in Indian entertainment for capturing the zeitgeist of the
Indian startup scene. In 2016, The Viral Fever released the smash hit Tripling, and the widely
applauded Humorously Yours. Other TVF network channels like Girliyapa, The Screen Patti and
The Timeliners have also successfully debuted web-series.
The Tough Time
In March 2017, Arunabh Kumar found himself in the middle of a sexual harassment claim that
was posted anonymously via Medium. TVF released a press release via Medium refuting the
claims. Several women have come out with similar stories of harassment.An FIR has been filed
against Kumar in this case.
A second FIR was then lodged against sexual harassment-accused CEO and founder of The Viral
Fever Arunabh Kumar. Mumbai's Versova Police registered the FIR after another woman filed a
complaint against Kumar over an incident she said took place in 2014. On 16 June 2017 Arunabh
Kumar, accused in multiple sexual harassment cases, stepped down as TVF CEO. Dhawal
Gusain now leads the company as CEO, with Karan Chaudhry stepping in as COO and the
creator of Permanent Roommates & Tripling, Sameer Saxena appointed CCO.

TVF Revenue Model

TVF works closely with brands and thinks deeply about brand integration. With brand
integration it can be budgeted at $100,000-200,000 (around ₹ 66.5 lakh to 1.3 crore). TVF does
not charge a subscription fee from viewers. Some revenue comes in from YouTube. But those
were small for such a big-scale set-up. TVF has a creative gene, they create web-series for
Netflix (Yeh Meri Family, Inmates) or Amazon (Panchayat, Hostel Daze).

Roll Number 1-5: share the case facts

Roll Number 6-10: Analyse the case from Leadership perspective and identify the gap
areas
Roll Number 11-15: Identity the Leadership competencies and how they are being shown
through different behaviour indicators
Roll Number 16-20: As a Leader/Manager share your action plan to minimize the gap
areas
Roll Number 21 – 25: Analyse the case from Team Building perspective and identify the
gap areas
Roll Number 26 - 30: As a Leader/Manager share your action plan to minimize the gap
areas
Roll Number 31-35: Design a leadership style framework to increase organizational
effectiveness

Case Study 2: Roll No 31 – 60 (25 Minutes)

Mrs. Bhatia has been associated with Shreepal Management Institute, as Asst. Professor (HR)
since 2008. Prior to that, she had been associated with various Corporates in the field of
recruitment. Mrs. Bhatia is a sincere, punctual and professional Faculty. She always dedicates
extra time and efforts for students’ development. She is always ready to understand students’
problems and try solving them. She believes in dedicating time to these constructive activities,
than in Office politics and Organizational power games. Six months ago, she had been handed
over the responsibility of Examination Department as “Controller of Examination”. She was
given the charge without being asked or even discussed upon by the Head of the Institute! Also,
this time she was assigned the Exam department for Part Time students, which was segregated
till this term!
Mrs. Bhatia, a hardworking employee, took the charge as assigned without complains! On taking
up the charge, she found there were many loopholes in the systems and processes. Students had
many complaints against previous Exam controller in terms of numerous re-exams, the levy of
fees, etc. Gradually she brought in more discipline in the Exam Department. She designed and
executed the exam-related processes and procedures in place. No undue fees was charged. She
gave the necessary flexibility and autonomy to faculties and staff so as to ensure the smooth
functioning of the dept. Her efforts paid off in terms of an excellent feedback from the students.
They appraised the positive changes in the Exam Department, like transparency in exams, no
undue levy of fees, regularization in the process, time to time communication from the exam cell
and most importantly Exam Controller being approachable for the students. However, this
positivity did not go well with her faculty colleagues-Prof. Sharma, Prof. Sinha and Prof. Lal.
The trio were mostly busy with the most unproductive activities of the organization – gossiping,
creating obstacles for others to work while taking the maximum benefit from the Institute! They
manipulated their lectures, went out of the Institute during the office hours for their personal
work etc.
Since, they thought that Prof. Bhatia will not be able to handle the Exam department, they
initially remained quiet. But, as the positive results and the feedback started coming in, they were
surprised! In order to malign her good image and the work done, they started finding faults with
her. During the common faculty meetings, they opposed everything that she proposed for the
betterment of students. They stopped cooperating and coordinating with her. She brought this
errant behavior of colleagues, to the Director. Director wanted her to give in writing hen only he
could take an action. There were a couple of incidences, wherein Prof. Sharma and Prof. Sinha
raised their voices beyond the level of decency on her. All the limits were crossed, when one day
Prof. Sharma was given an invigilation and a student came a bit late. The student had not
submitted Prof. Sharma’s assignment and hence the Professor did not wanted him to write exam.
Prof. Bhatia, politely told Sharma, to allow the student to write the exam and also that student
will submit an apology letter to Prof. Sharma. To the horror of everyone in the Exam Hall, Prof.
Sharma threatened Prof. Bhatia of dire sequences if she allows the student to write the exams and
also behaved arrogantly with her. Finally, the student himself told Prof. Bhatia not to bother, he
will attempt later. Prof. Bhatia became quite perturbed of all this incidence. She was pursuing her
PhD from a reputed University. She always cooperated with everyone, but now what is
happening is certainly not acceptable. She once again went to the Director and gave him an
account of what had happened. He sent her back saying he will not take an action unless the
complaint is given in writing.
Roll Number 35-40: share the case facts (Leadership and Team Role Perspective)
Roll Number 41-45: Analyse the case from Leadership perspective and identify the gap
areas
Roll Number 46-50: Identity the Leadership competencies and how they are being shown
through different behaviour indicators
Roll Number 51-55: As a Leader/Manager share your action plan to minimize the gap
areas
Roll Number 56 - 60: Analyse the case from Team Building perspective and identify the
gap areas
Roll Number 61 - 65: As a Leader/Manager share your action plan to minimize the gap
areas
Roll Number 65 onwards: Who is a Leader according to you? And Why