Case Studies

Organization Restructuring at family apparel Shopping Mall

Problem Statement
Management of mall was facing issues with Low conversions of sales, tracking of stock transferred to sister concerns, lower employee performance, low customer experience at store. Increase in non-moving stock levels at Mall.

Approach
Kallikrates team had conducted a dip stick study to identify the root cause of the problem.
From our teams study we found that primary issues with the organization was non clarity of expectations to employees on their roles, multiple reporting lines creating confusion in employees on what task to be completed first, no proper data for management to rely upon and work on to identify and improve the causes of lower conversions and nil customer experience in shop. Kallikrates team had spent required time and efforts to listen to each and every employee to understand their look out on the prevailing conditions before suggesting any comprehensive solution to client.

Solution
To help client overcome above stated problems, Kallikrates team had to coach Management team to divide the roles between active participants and not to interfere in others role, which was a tough for them to follow for initial couple of weeks, post this Kallikrates team had initiated organization restructuring activity where proper defined reporting lines were allocated to each and every position of the organization. In this process decision making was delegated to team leaders and above positions. Every member of the organization was educated on their performance expectations and their career path.

Kallikrates team had designed and trained on daily, weekly and Monthly reporting formats to Team leaders and above positions, these reports enable them to track the performance of their reporting staff and take required actions to meet the allocated targets of the section. With this exercise at every level staff were aware of the reasons for customer returns and low conversions. The reasons for customer returns got recorded and rectified by themselves in the inter departmental meetings, post which either section head or store manager used to call customers to revisit the mall. This had improved the customer experience at the store that had directly resulted increase in customer conversion ratio from 60 to 85% in a span of 1 year.

Challenges Faced

  • Management team was adamant to restrict their involvement to specific departmental works, Kallikrates team had tough time in buying in their confidence by communicating benefits.
  • Kallikrates team had initial issues from sales team to agree to the allocated targets, as they were never given specific sales or customer conversion targets to be met.
  • Employees across the floor from Security to Store manager were trained and monitored continuously to fill in the supplied reports format with required data.

Benefits

  • Clarity in reporting lines had resolved most of the administrative issues.
  • Delegation of authority had freed management from routine daily activities.
  • Communication of expectations from employees had enabled them to perform effectively in their allocated roles.
  • Reasons for customer returns are recorded and discussed at all levels, where ever possible those customers were recalled and served with required products. This resulted in increased conversion ratios.
  • Personalised service to customers by sales team had improved customer shopping experience, which in turn improved walk ins and conversion ratio.
  • Implementation of effective stock tracking system had helped in reducing the unwanted stock movements to sister concerns resulting in reduced levels of non-moving stock at mall.

Inventory Management and quality improvement of product at Tea Manufacturing unit

Problem Statement
Management was concerned about the high purchase cost of spare parts, non-availability of spares as and when required and quality of end product of which majority was falling under second and third category resulting in getting lesser price in auction.

Approach
Kallikrates team had conducted a dip stick study to identify the root cause of the problem.
From our teams study we found that primary issues with was establishing proper purchase and inventory policies and procedures in place and non-maintenance of required production related records to have corrective action plan as required to improve the product quality.

Solution
To help client overcome above stated problems, Kallikrates team had done extensive study on client’s current purchase and inventory procedures, with this study we found that there were no records relating to stock was maintained including last purchase date, issues to maintenance and Minimum quantity of items to be maintained based on its usage etc. Kallikrates team had identified a complete list of items that shall be required at one time or the other in running the plant without any break down resulting in loss of production time. On completion of items list compilation, Kallikrates team had spent time in segregating the most common items as per their life span of each item and segregated them as regular spares, Half yearly and rare spares as per their requirement in general maintenance usage. Post this a purchase schedule and the Stock stacking procedures were established that resulted in easy tracking of items as and when required and this also helped them in identifying the items that were running out of stock.

The Procurement process was verified by conducting physical visits to collection points, and found that farmers were mixing all variety of leaves in same bag which was leading to reduced production of A grade tea. We had arranged bins and trained collection executive to segregate the leaves as per quality of leaf and monitored them at regular intervals and retrained them where ever required. Continuing this process had helped us in quality inputs in to scheduled shifts and racks.

Along with this, tea makers were given record formats to be maintained at each stage of production activity, where they were trained and asked to record the temperatures at regular intervals and time taken at each stage to notice the deviations. On getting these records our team found variations in the maintained temperatures which was resulting in low quality of end produce. Tea master was asked to check the temperatures at regular intervals and train maker to maintain temperatures as required, changing this resulted in improving of the quality of product at each grade resulted in increase in revenue from auctions by 5% in a span of 6 months.

Challenges Faced

  • Tea Makers were resistant to work in our presence, as they felt we were trying to replace them with technology.
  • Kallikrates team had initial issues from collection executives to accompany us along with them, as they were under the impression their loyalty towards the organization was doubted by management.
  • Employees were trained and monitored continuously to fill in the supplied reports format with required data.

Benefits

  • Clarity in stock levels had improved in purchase planning from whole sale market and develop regular suppliers at competitive prices.
  • Stock segregation at collection centre helped both the company and farmers with higher income.
  • Data maintenance at all relevant points had helped identifying and resolving issues resulting in under quality product resulting in reduced auction price.
  • Introduction of random testing process of batch manufacturing helped in identifying and segregating low quality product and selling in retail market.

Restructuring Human Resource Department for a client in health care industry

Problem Statement
Management was looking out to replace existing Human Resource Policies and implement policies that can add value and enable them for rapid expansion without deviating from their values.

Approach
Kallikrates team had conducted a detailed study to understand existing policies and procedures of the organization. Our team proceeded with secondary research to understand the policies followed by national level brands in the industry to fine tune them to the client’s business.

Solution
Kallikrates team had conducted a detailed and structured interviews with all the employees who had completed two years of continuous service with the organization to understand the Positive areas and the areas which they felt needed to improve. On completion of the process we found that employees were not given any career plan when they want to continue for long term. The salary structure and appraisals were not competitive when compared to market.

On getting these inputs, Kallikrates team created project road map and presented it to the management. During the process Kallikrates had promised to provide the following deliverables in a span of two years:

Deliverables

  • Proper Organization structure keeping in mind the expansion plans of organization.
  • Clearly defined Roles and Responsibilities along with Competency required for each role and its Key Result Areas and Performance Indicators
  • Refined HR Policies and procedures that enhances existing employees’ satisfaction levels and also attracts best talent.
  • Redesigned Compensation structure to differentiate performers and non-performers.