Interview session plan with participants of the program on “Operational

Strategies for Competitive Advantage”.

Details would be taken from the Questionnaire, and following pattern would be used in the
interview session:

1. Introduction and explain the purpose (aimed to enable greater understanding of the SME
business environment and operational issues, to help better alignment of program content
and understand areas for mutual co-operation between Industry and University).

2. Describe a situation where you overcome /averted an operational crisis

a. Describe the problem in brief
b. What were the reasons that led to the crisis?
c. What tools did your organization use to overcome the crisis?
d. Did you take external support – if yes, who?
e. Do you think this learning is standardized and will help avoid similar situations?
f. Have you now converted this into a competitive advantage?

3. Describe a recent operational crisis that led to a quality /delivery /cost issue.
a. Describe the problem in brief
b. What shortcomings caused it?
c. What was final outcome- customer lost/financial loss?
d. Do your competitors have similar issues?
e. What tools do competitors use to overcome such issues?

4. Competitiveness
a. Which is the major driver in your organization – Crisis Management, Customer
driven, Competitiveness or Regulatory changes
b. Does your organization assess competitiveness as an improvement tool?
c. Have you identified your competitors?
d. Do you conduct benchmarking or other tools to assess competitiveness?

5. Goal /Strategy setting

a. Does your organization have a vision, when was this last updated?
b. Do you have annual business plan /target setting practices?
c. Are KPAs available for all executives?
d. Does your organization pursue any performance excellence awards or criteria?
 Art Interiors
Owner- Vikash Aggrawal
“Art interiors” is a company that has become synonymous with the word exclusive in the
world of interiors. They have now come to be known as the one stop shop for glass and wall
art. What differentiates them from any other home decor or interior designing store that their
unique range of products.
With the ever increasing problem of skilled manpower, shortage of time and shrinking project
completion deadlines, their products come as a sigh of relief with “ready to use” and
“immediate installation” as their key propositions. Art Interiors provide services that are
created to work through the entire process from early stages of planning through to
completion of project, including supply and installation of products, space planning, project
management, after sales support and services.

The Edge Band Tape

They are having 7 different type of tapes (100*2) Different Colour tapes, which us used for
furniture as well as the decoration i.e. Interior Designing of Homes.
Company Tie-Ups:

Logistic Tie Ups:

Distribution Channel:

Target Customers:

5% 45% 50%
Manufacturing
Carpenters Shops
Industries

Facility:

Warehouse 1000 FEET

1200 FEET

Problem:

 The problem is totally based on the distribution side, where they are looking at 40-50
different size and colour edge band tape SKU which is 40-50%, but currently they are
handling with 10-12 SKU which is Just 25%.
 The targeted service level of an Art Interiors is 40 SKUs out of 200 SKUs, 0f which
remaining 160 Units will be high variability in demand. (MAQ)
 Outsourcing is based on the Manual intervention, which is basically they don’t have
ERP system. They were using traditional system that is Tally based management.
 They are dependent on one and only supplier. They don’t have multiple suppliers as
well as the supplier lead time is around 4-5 days which is usually higher. One more
constraints with supplier is that their production line is fixed as well as production
item will be fixed it’s not depend upon the flexibility of demand.
 The problem observed about the competitor is having more flexible SKU, because
they have multiple product in their inventory.
 Demand forecast. (not having proper research team who can work on existing data,
for future trends)
 Price of raw materials i.e. PVC price is increased by 3 Times, so that they were no
able to predict about the market fluctuation with respect to global market.
 Their Secondary market is Kerala only. So they can focus on other potential customer
in other regions of the country.
 They order on weekly basis from suppliers, because of that they were not able to get
the benefit of full load truck capacity.
 Credit System- they don’t have credit system for both trustworthy suppliers and
customer. If they have credit system so they can be able to acquire more demands.
 Employ strength is 12, they can recruit an analytics team who can work on market
research and demand forecast.