FT MBA – 2022-24

Division F (Groups VI to X)
Managerial Communication – I
Dr Varun Rijhwani
Speaking Skills Evaluation Caselets
CASE 1
You are a first generation entrepreneur who has seen his business grow exponentially
in the 10 years of its existence. You feel content where you are today. However, you do
feel that you are merely a shadow of the activist you were in your college days. From
standing up for what is right, activism has somewhat taken a backseat now. The recent
debates around LGBTQIA+ rights with respect to equal job opportunities have set you
thinking. Your experience in college tells you that most of your gay friends had a
creative bent of mind. “Is it a good idea to tap that?” you wonder. As a creative agency,
helping organisations with their marketing and merchandising needs, you feel that
maybe an affirmative hiring policy -- proactively giving opportunities to the “queer”
lot will be double whammy, -- a social initiative with a direct business impact.
Currently you don’t know of a single employee in your organisation who belongs to the
LGBTQIA+ community, though you suspect that there might be one or two closeted
ones. You faced a lot of resistance during the initial discussions with your senior team.
Some voiced that like themselves even the clients will be uncomfortable. Citing that it
might impact business prospects, most gave it a thumbs down. Some remained quiet
and just one member expressed his support.
After much deliberation, you have decided to roll it out. After all, this is your company,
you want to leave your stamp on it and you want to do what is right, not essentially
what is “good” to do. You are aware of the negative sentiment around this idea amongst
the senior members and yet, have decided to address all your employees in a town-hall
meeting, announcing the roll-out.

CASE 2
You are the General Manager of Raj Hotel, Udaipur, the flagship property of one of
India’s largest hotel chains. Two of its properties in other parts of the city is closed for
refurbishment. You are the project leader of the entire refurbishment plan. You called
for bids and after shortlisting three vendors, you selected the company that who had
the most impressive portfolio of working with several heritage hotels. Weeks after you
selecting the company, and just before the contract was signed, your brother-in-law
joined it as its CEO.
Work was progressing well and the executive board was happy with the initial plans.
You set in on roll and got back to managing your own turf. One day, you overhear two
staff members discussing how corruption is rampant and how you have dished out
favours to your relatives to get kickbacks. You are aghast! You check with your trusted
sources within the organisation and reckon that the grapevine is abuzz with such
rumours. You are genuinely hurt. You had always thought that the hotel staff trusted
and respected you. You know you need to set the house in order. Address them in
an SOS meeting.

CASE 3

You are the CEO of a wildly successful lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer. Your
products are targeted towards the stereotypical ‘young, successful, sexy, corporate
woman.’ Lately, you have realised that this imagery is quite out of step with the broader
culture and context. Work from home culture has shifted the narrative from ‘trendy’
to ‘relaxed.’ There are also other international brands that have attempted a brand
turnaround shedding their widely accepted yet dated stereotype of femininity. You
believe it is a good time to lead the change and redefine ‘sexy’ by embracing a more
inclusive approach and focusing on functionality above everything else.

You want to change the brand’s marketing making it more contextually relevant and
maybe expanding the offerings to include more comfortable and functional yet
modern and trendy items. You decide to float the idea of this ‘big change’ to the senior
executives in the next board meeting.

CASE 4
Your company has invested heavily in a customized, comprehensive, user-friendly,
and innovative Sales Force Automation software. The sales team is expected to take
advantage of the system and also upload weekly updates regularly. You are the Area
Sales Manager, of a large pharma company. Five of your bright team members across
the verticals of CNS and Diabetes, have not been uploading the MIS on a regular basis.
You had mailed them about this a month ago and asserted that they need to provide
data every week. Post your mail, they had uploaded it for a couple of weeks but is back
being irregular once again. Informally, you know that they are meeting their targets
and all of them have been consistent in their performance. However, their disregard
for company processes is bothering you and if you don’t take quick action, you know
you will be pulled up by your seniors. You believe you need to address this complete
disdain for company protocols.
Address the employees now.
CASE 5
You're a new hero on Dalal Street. You head a retail chain, which was practically up
for sale a year and a half ago. Today, your customers are making a beeline for your
stores. Those were packed-not like the old days, where customers were merely window
shopping. Products were actually flying off the shelf.
Your work has been rewarded by the company's board of directors. Just a couple of
days ago, they had informed you that your contract had been renewed for two more
years, with an increased salary and more stock options. In just one year, you had
transformed Benazir from a boring, outdated chain that catered to “aging behenjis”,
as you called them, into a fun, chic shopping emporium for the growing population of
the affluent female baby boomers and Generation Y. Company turnover grew by Rs
400 million and there has been a 15% surge in the stock price too.
However, Benazir’s recovery required you to take difficult steps in the form of layoffs.
Turnarounds always do; you had made that clear to your direct reports in his first week
on the job. Your strategy included refurbishing frumpy stores and slashing overhead
to meet the huge remodelling costs. And the strategy emphasized the need for a highly
trained sales force that could execute "link selling," m which shoppers who enter the
store looking for one product end up leaving with five, and feeling happy about it. This
meant the fuddy-duddy workforce have to be cleared out to make room for a new breed
of sophisticated, energized sales associates.
You had cut employment rolls by 20 %. Some layoffs were less painful than others. For
instance, people accepted that in-store restaurants were a thing of the past. Even the
need to rationalise distribution centres was taken well. However, firing several long-
time saleswomen was unacceptable to most. Last week when the pink slips were
handed out, they were compensated with two-month’s pay.
You have been told by the HR Head that there was a discontent amongst the workers
and the middle management. Adding on to it, a newspaper article on your company
this morning talks about the downsizing initiative. It says that people (without quoting
anyone specific) within the organisation is saying that the top management is not
being honest and is just interested in fixing the company without noticing the damage
done. The article also predicts how low morale will contribute to an exodus of old
timers who have supported in steering the turnaround initiatives.
You believe time is ripe for you to address the people in a town-hall meeting
immediately.

CASE 6
Last week your workgroup completed a major internal report on the effects of currency
fluctuations with regard to your international clients. In particular, you dealt with the
problem of a major change in currency value (such as the dollar’s fall against the
client’s currency) which negatively influenced your company’s profit in the deal. Your
group as a whole decided that it could not deal with all international currencies;
therefore, it selected 10 major trading nations and focused the report on those nations.
A senior executive with the company began to fume when he read the finished report:
“Why wasn’t Indonesia included in this analysis?” he roared to everyone who would
listen. The head of your workgroup replied by e-mail, with a copy to you. The e-mail
essentially put the blame for selecting 10 major trading nations and omitting
Indonesia on you. Specifically, the memo said that you “had guided the group in the
selection of which trading nations to analyse” and that “several members of the group
had suggested other nations to add on the list, an option you rejected.” You do not feel
that you were to blame for the omission of Indonesia. In your view, the group mutually
decided which countries to include and which to omit. Decide how to respond to what
you consider a false accusation.

CASE 7
You are the social media manager of a women’s magazine, and you are looking for an
assistant to join your team. You have received many resumes but every time you pick
one, it’s like déjà vu: Tier-I college, great internships, letter of recommendations, etc.
It’s not a bad thing but it’s just exactly what your resume looked like. It’s the same
person over and over again. You’ve been trying to find the right person for weeks now.
Your social media numbers have also plateaued, and you believe it’s because your
department needs a new voice in here.
Few weeks into this process and it struck you that normally people who come in
through HR are the one who know how to get their resumes to HR in the first place.
You decide to go around HR to find your diamond in the rough. As democratic as it
gets, you decide to put out a call on Instagram and Twitter. You receive many
responses but there’s one candidate, Shanaya Chauhan, that caught your attention.
You decide to call her for an interview. On interacting with her you realise that her
voice is a different entry point for your department; it’s valuable and her engagement
rate is huge. You are pretty impressed by her performance in the interview and decide
to forward her application to the HR for approval. Much to your dismay, you learn that
the HR has rejected her application. “She doesn’t meet our company’s college degree
requirement,” the email stated.
You find the reason bizarre. You know that Shanaya is a better fit than anyone you
interviewed with a degree. You approach the editor of the magazine and she is
surprised to learn that such a policy exists. “Well, you’re the only one who knows who’s
right for your team. So, if you think she’s worth fighting for, I’m all for it.”
Later, you meet a board member close to you. He, too, believes that your points are
fair. On further discussion, he tells you that there’s a board meeting this afternoon and
he can buy you a 3-minute window to make a compelling case. Address the board
members now.
CASE 8
You are the CEO of a midsized corporation, and you are one hour into a rather tense
meeting with the top leaders. For the past six months, the company has been on a
mission to reduce costs. Not much has been accomplished till date, therefore you have
called a meeting. You are expecting people to tell you why they haven’t started cutting
costs. You believe you have done everything to foster candid conversations.
You have opened the meeting to questions when a manager hesitantly rises to his feet,
fidgets and asks, will palpable nervousness, if he can ask a very tough question.
He continues: “You have been at us for six months to find ways to cut expenses. I would
be lying if I said that we have been giving you anything but a lukewarm response. If
you don’t mind, I want to let you know that there is one thing that is making it difficult
for us to push for cost cuts.”
You ask him to go ahead. “Well, while you have been asking us to use both sides of our
paper and forgo improvements, you are having a second office built. There are
rumours that the furniture alone will cost Rs 3 crore. Is that right?
(On advice on the marketing team to boost the image of the company and improve
client confidence, you were getting a new office built. While you would use the office,
it would be primarily hosting location for the marketing team. While the figure quoted
by the manager seems inflated, you are not very sure of the actual numbers)
Address the meeting now.

CASE 9
A recent policy announcement sent to General Managers by the HR department has
got you worried. You manage a robust team of investment managers at KBI Bank. Your
team has been performing well and the average age of your team is 28. The bank’s
talent retention and attraction policies has held you in good stead, even during the
economic downturn when substantive raises were unforeseeable. One such policy is
the subsidized low-interest car loans offered to eligible employees. With the
government encouraging promoting of atmanirbhar Bharat, KBI has decided to tweak
its internal policies to help in Nation building. The car loans policy will now be limited
to only buying Indian-make cars. Many of your team members, especially the younger
lot, have shared with you about their first dream vehicle and you know for certain that
none of them are aspiring for a Tata or a Mahindra car. The policy change portends a
dampening of employee morale and you are fearful of talent hawks waiting in the
wings to poach. You have worked hard to develop every single member and now they
fit in as pieces of a puzzle. You wouldn’t want anything to change the current dynamics.
You gave it a thought and decided that it is your responsibility to share the news with
your team and attempt to ensure the damage is minimum, before the grapevine is
abuzz. You call them all to the conference room to break the news.
CASE 10
Your company Datatron Systems, Inc., has decided to install a new medical insurance
program. Although the fees to employees are reasonable – Rs 2450/- a month for
complete coverage of individual employees and their immediate families – the
program will not cover their visits to private physicians. Instead, they must see doctors
at a medical network. Many employees have expressed their dissatisfaction with the
proposed plan, arguing that they will be treated like objects on an assembly line, never
seeing the same doctor twice. You have been assigned the task of convincing them to
accept the proposal. Prepare a speech to be delivered at the next union meeting.

CASE 11
You are the CFO of a popular retail chain called Musketeers. You have worked in the
organization long enough to surmise that the CEO wants to create value for all
stakeholders in the medium term. However, he, backed by the Chairman and the
Board of Directors, has chosen to go slow in expanding the business. A retail business
requires scale and the plan of 80-100 crores in two years is not enough to build a
national brand, especially in a country like India. A company that wants to build a
national brand needs to be more aggressive in its business plans and look at 100 stores
in one year and then double that in the next. Should he want comfort, he should take
a look at the statistics of the food business in India. Cafes and milkshakes stores are
part of the overall QSR – quick service restaurants – industry in India; A Technopak
report from 2018, with inputs from the Credit Rating Information Services of India
Limited (CRISIL), show the overall industry (organized and unorganized) to be at
approximately Rs 2.5 lakh crore and with an 18 percent compound and annual growth
rate (CAGR) to reach approximately Rs 4 lakh crore by 2022. Clearly there is a market
potential for Musketeers. There is also the example of other players who have had
business successes. One example that Musketeers could look at is Café Chocolate Day.
This milkshake chain started with just one outlet and now has almost 2000 outlets;
but more importantly, it has a private equity (PE) funding of over 200 million dollars.
It is also a listed company. Your expertise and experience tells you that Musketeers
can be aggressive in expanding the brand. Moreover, rather than use the next couple
of years to open 80-100 stores, it should immediately look for external funding to grow
the business. You know that this idea will meet with stiff opposition at first blush, so
you need to keep your argument and propositions ready in your first interaction.
The CEO has called for a review meeting to discuss organizational growth and you
know this is a good opportunity to make a pitch for external funding.
CASE 12
As the VP-Procurement of a fairly large automotive company, Grandeur Motors, you
have 4 regional heads of procurement and multiple procurement managers at different
plant locations. Your company believes in being a good corporate citizen and therefore,
to provide the much needed fillip to the indigenous manufacturing sector, it has
decided to change the procurement mix to of the company to source about 60 per cent
of all spares from Indian makers in the next two years. Currently, the figure stands at
20%. You believe that the senior management has taken the Prime Minister’s call for
atmanirbhar Bharat a bit too literally! This not only means that the company has to
forgo relationships with vendors established over the years, but also includes
negotiating new deals with Indian vendors who will be willing to and capable of
matching prices and delivery efficiencies of the current foreign vendors. First, this
means more work. Secondly, and more importantly, you foresee difficulties in being
able to achieve that. Indian auto parts manufacturers are already under pressure to
invest in technology to become Bharat VI compliant, and they would ideally like to
pass on these costs to pass on to the customers. Also, you are no Tata Motors to arm-
twist them with economies of scale.
You have called all procurement managers for a meeting at the corporate headquarters
to break the news. Walk into the conference room and address them.

CASE 13
The compliance report has come negative for the business you are handling and you
know very well that there is something wrong in the way the report has been generated.
The key point is that the data picked up for reporting was of 2018 when there was a
case of document forgery and fabrication. This had happened before you were
promoted to head this team. The issue had been addressed and the perpetrators were
laid off with immediate effect.
The third-party audit staff, erroneously perhaps, picked up the data being unaware of
the case of forgery and fabrication. Apparently, even after having a detailed discussion
with leader of the audit team, they seemed to have missed the point of not including it
in the report.
Now, the compliance report has been broadcast for your line of business along with
the others – yours and the accounts team report show the colour – RED – means that
it’s an alarm.
The whole company now knows about this. It’s been a year since you started leading
this line of business. The VP has called you to present an explanation for the negative
reporting.
You have prepared your presentation and now would like to debate the findings of the
compliance report.
Consider the presentation done, and the audit team called – you now have to talk to
the team in the presence of the VP about the errors and how their incorrect reporting
has tarnished your and your team’s image. Also, you need to firmly state that all the
reports need to be rechecked, re-verified, and released with an apology.

CASE 14

You are the CEO of a client servicing organization that have stayed in business last
20 years. With 1000+ employees and centres across India currently, you have
established yourself as the leader in the market.

Your organization has remained profitable since the beginning, but you are
particularly proud of the fact that even during the 2008 recession, you had registered
growth. You have trained, nurtured and created a thriving team over these years,
taking pride that you have never ever laid off any of your staff.

Now you again face a disruption, much worse than the recession - the Covid19
situation. Your industry needs to go digital to maintain client relations, since the
traditional methods are obsolete.

The challenge is, your team of successful executives need to make this quick shift to
digital marketing and a digital way of operation. You want to invest in them. Your
CXO clearly has hinted that the office let go of a few old hands, hire a younger team
and move on. But you want to continue your tradition of nurturing.

You have gone ahead and registered with a renowned education portal - subscribing
a course on digital marketing for every executive level employee. It is a short,
intensive 3 month course, and needs great many hours in a week beyond your
regular hours to complete (you operate the regular 40 hrs). Every week, the course
has submissions and clear milestones for assignments.

You are going to ask your employees to register and perform well. The course would
be monitored for performance, and god forbid, if someone slacks, you may not have a
bandwidth to absorb it in the current situation for another opportunity. In the last
weekly meeting, you had encountered discussions about limitations of working from
home, work spilling over into regular life, stress and anxiety already. Now this course
is going to make the situation a bit more difficult for them.

You have decided to announce the new programme, the requirements and in a sure-
fire way, motivate them to take up the challenge. Do you want to mention the risks of
not upgrading? You are not sure.

Give the speech.