RETAINING PROFITS AT APNA BAZAR - CASE 3

Rahul Jamwar returned to his office from the Malayasian trip after one week, full of enthusiasm about

his work. There had been developments at the headquarters lately. It appeared that he was a strong

contender for the role of Marketing Head for Shaukeen’s international division – and his interventions

at the MG Road store would further add to his credentials.

However, within a couple of days, Rahul noticed that something was amiss. Despite the new system

being in place, the queues before the counters were still there, and the ill-dressed mannequins

remained an eyesore. Rahul spoke to the supervisors, who committed to make their best efforts to

motivate the workers – but things hardly improved. Rahul took it upon himself to personally make

rounds of the store and speak to the workers falling short of their duties. Every time, the workers

agreed to his requests and undertook to work hard. But it seemed as soon as he turned back, things

went back to where they were. The training programmes for the counter staff had been started by the

firm’s training team visiting the store – but they too reported the workers to be unenthusiastic and

slow to learn.

Rahul decided that what was lacking was probably a punitive element that would motivate floor

workers to stick to the new rules. He designed a demerit system that would deduct a nominal amount

from the worker’s salary every time the allotted section of the store was found to be below

expectations. As it was a system that was alien to the MG Road Store, although common in the

northern region stores, Rahul called the employees for a meeting and explained it well to them before

launching the process.

Another week went by. As Rahul entered the office on a Monday morning, he received the news that

six people have resigned from the jobs. Among them were four shop-floor workers and all of them

were in the top performers’ bracket. But he stared with disbelief at the top two names on the list. Mr.

Vinay Singh and Mr. Aditya had both submitted their resignations and are currently serving their one-
month notice period. Rahul decided to seek the CEO’s advice, as matters were spinning out of control.

The same evening, Rahul sent an email to the CEO seeking his time to discuss issues at Apnabazaar

store in Indore.

Q. Is the outcome entirely unexpected, or can it be traced back to what Rahul has done before?

What could have been done differently? If you were Rahul, what would you do?

Q2. If you were Rahul, how would you communicate the developments to the CEO?