Category: MBA Dissertations

MBA Dissertation Topic list provided here consists of project reports for ms mba students. Students can use these projects as reference for dissertation projects.

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Questionnaire to IT Company

What types of changes did your company faced when you outsourced your products and services?

 What types of changes did your company

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys 25% of the participants stated that their company is facing some internal changes like employee problems and management problems with their outsourcing companies and 25% answered that their company is facing some external changes like problems and changes with shareholders and stakeholders. Finally, 50% of the participants stated that their company is facing both external as well as internal changes. 

What type of alliances if any is your global outsourcing company providing you?

 What type of alliances if any is your global

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 20% of the participants stated that their company is getting mutual shares as benefits from their outsourcing companies and 20% answered that their company is getting global outsourcing shares as benefits, 20% stated their company is getting global standards to the outsourced services as well as employees and finally 40% stated that their company is getting all the above mentioned benefits.

Do you think globalization process has impacted your company outsourcing standards?

 Do you think globalization process has impacted

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys Company 60% of the participants stated that globalization process has impacted their company, 20% stated their globalization process has not shown any impact on their company and finally 20% stated that they cannot answer to this question. 

Why change management process is important in global outsourcing process of Infosys?

 Why change management process is important

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 30% of the participants stated that change management process is important to their company to identify the external changes that take placeand other 30% of the participants stated that change management is important to identify the external changes and finally 40% stated that change management is important to identify both external as well as internal changes.

What is the change management activities involved in your company?

 What is the change management activities

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 20% of the participants stated that  motivating changes is the major change management activity in their company, 30% stated that creating vision of change is the major activity of change management, 20% of them stated that developing political support is the main change management activity, 20% stated that managing transition is the major change management activity of their company and finally 20% of them stated that the sustaining momentum is the major change management activity involved in their company.

What is the current situation of Infosys Company in global market? 

 What is the current situation

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 40% stated that their company is having good competitive market in the global market and 30% stated that their company has a high market value, 20% stated both competitive standard as well as a high market value to their company and finally, 10% of them stated that they cannot specify their answer. 

Why Infosys Company is facing failures in managing change management process successfully?

 Why Infosys Company is facing

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 20% stated that their company is facing  problems because of lack of appropriate change management plans, 20% answered that their company is facing  problems because of a lack of experienced staff in managing the changes, 10% of other participants stated that the problem is a lack of management interest towards the changes and finally 50% of the participants stated that their company is facing problems because of all the above mentioned reasons. 

Rather than outsourcing the products and services why cannot yourself expand your business activities into different countries over the world?

 Rather than outsourcing the products

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 30% stated that their company is still using outsourcing because every market will not give success to the company, 20% of them stated that they cannot predict all the markets, 20% of them stated that they need to manage finances and finally, 30% of the participants stated that their company is still using outsourcing process for all the above reasons. 

According to your company views is their relation between change management process and global outsourcing process?

 According to your company views

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 95% stated that there is a relation between change management process as well as global outsourcing process and 5% of them stated that there is no relation between these two aspects.

Which continent do you prefer more to outsource your company services and why?

 Which continent do you prefer

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 40% stated that their company will prefer the Asian Continent to outsource their products and services, 30% of the other participants answered that their company will prefer Europe and finally, 30% of the participants stated that their company will prefer both Asia as well as Europe Continents to outsource their services. 

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Rapport Manifested In Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty and Word-Of-Mouth Communication

This section discusses the relationship of rapport, defined as personal connection and enjoyable interaction, with outcomes like customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and word-of-mouth communication.

Rapport with customer satisfaction

Rapport leads to customer satisfaction based on the formation of service relationships. The service relationships are formed by a strong rapport which leads to a state of perceived control where the customers can control and predict the factors leading to service outcomes.  Perceived control enables greater predictability among customers about the service provider which contributes to better satisfaction. It is known that close personal contacts and sharing of personal information are known to be the antecedents for better rapport between customers and service employees.

In the due course of sharing personal information, the service provider gets to know the requirements of customers and this enables the service provider to customise the products according to the needs of customers. As the needs of customers are matched through customization  the customer satisfaction is enhanced, thanks to the dimensions of rapport. Macintosh also states that due to the close personal contacts, the customer awareness is increased about the service or about the goods. This occurs as a result of repetitive business transactions. Given the frequency of visits and the awareness about the products, the customers’ perception of service increases thereby leading to the close alignment between  expectations and the service provided which in turn results in customer satisfaction.

Rapport and customer loyalty

This section discusses the connection between rapport and customer loyalty. Sound rapport between a customer and a service employee results in strengthened relations. A commitment arises from such a relationship. The effects of such commitment were discussed in the previous section about aspects of customer satisfaction. However, the depth of such commitment is a key to repeat custom which symbolises customer loyalty. The marketing literature indicates that there is a positive correlation between rapport and customer loyalty (Berry, 1995). For instance, a good rapport with a hair stylist provides such an environment where the expectations of customers can be understood and the service is delivered accordingly thus prompting repeated visit to the hair stylist, and ultimately fostering customer loyalty.

Rapport and word-of-mouth communication

It is obvious to say that when rapport is positively correlated with customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, it logically follows with positive word-of-mouth. Commercial friendships between customer and service provider enable customers to recommend the service provider to others in a positive way.  Word of mouth communication can be understood as behavioural component of loyalty. 

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The Two Dimensions of Rapport

The two dimensions of rapport

The two dimensions of rapport are said to be enjoyable interaction and personal connection . The overall rapport depends on the effective resultant of these two components. The customers expect these two components in the process of building a strong rapport.

Enjoyable Interaction

The enjoyable interaction is a feeling of care and affection between two persons involved in the interaction. This evaluation of one’s exchange with another person is common to many service encounters, especially between customers and service employees. According to Lam  (2010) the enjoyable interaction component of the rapport is attained from the favourable interaction alone irrespective of the service outcome being negative or positive. As rapport is built from relationships, its effect is predominant on healthy employee customer interaction than the service outcome.

            The service delivery is generally associated with two aspects namely technical quality and functional quality . The technical quality concerns with the delivery of physical goods, service etc while the functional quality of service concerns with the way in which the service is delivered. Rapport is the element of functional quality as rapport determines how the service is delivered. Rapport is a dominant aspect among all the elements of functional delivery as it embraces all other aspects like eye-contact, gestures and language.

It can be argued that there is a noted distinction between technical quality and functional quality in the process of service delivery. But according to John  this is generally ignored. However this distinction is clearly noticed in a supermarket transaction.  For a customer may buy the electric cooker due to the informed advice of the service provider which can be understood as functional component. However, upon the usage of the cooker, the customer may feel dissatisfied with the functioning of cooker. Here the distinction is clearly observed. 

Personal Connection

The second component of rapport is the personal connection. This can be understood as a strong bond between the customer and the service employee.  The reason for this  connection is explained as ‘authentic understanding’ which is generally observed in service relationships based on personal connection. Authentic understanding is an emotional bond charged with emotional energy. The personal connection contributes for the development of service relationships between employees and customers. This phenomenon helps the service provider to make sense of what the customer thinks along the lines of what is important to the customer.  Such process of rapport building involves building personal connections, internalising values, dispositions from the view point of others.

        Understanding the means through which people are connected personally and uses the concept of psychological similarity. Psychological similarity is a state attained between people who possess similar attitudes, values and pre-dispositions. When people interpret a situation in the similar lines and in a similar sense, it is evident that psychological similarity exists between them. This state of psychological similarity tends to have a positive impact on the service relations. In the service context, there may be some repetitive business transactions between customers and service providers which give scope for extended communication.

If a customer and service provider show similar understanding about something, the conclusion is that  the customer has a similar view which is consistent with that of the service provider. Another way in which the personal connection can be established is by developing a sense of interest towards others where  the personal issues are shared and understood, be it in relation to service provision or not. The mutual sense of personal connection establishes a strong rapport between customers and service providers. It calls for a personal interest on what people are saying through intense involvement and commitment towards others.

                 The two constructs of rapport namely personal connection and enjoyable interaction have been explained in brief in the above paragraphs. Now, based on these two constructs rapport is defined in the service contexts. Rapport refers to the perception of the having an enjoyable interaction with the service provider backed by personal connection.

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Concepts of Rapport

Rapport is defined in many ways depending on the context. It can be a rapport between roommates, between a psychologist and a patient, between students in educational framework, between a sales person and a customer.

The objective is to identify the form of rapport involved in the interaction between a sales person and a customer within the framework of service encounters. The relation between the interactants marked by empathy, sympathy and harmony is how rapport is defined in the sales context where the sales person and the customer are engaged . The interaction between vendor and an industrial customer in the sales context can be put as the activity of “hitting it off” and feeling comfortable with each other.

The antecedents included in this context contain trust, honesty and respect. The expected outcomes are institutional customer loyalty and enhancement of the overall quality of the relationship between customers and vendors. Rapport is defined by as the “close harmonious relationship on mutual trust”.

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Rapport between Customers and Employee in Service Exchanges

This section attempts at understanding one of the main themes concerning the research problem. The major themes pertinent to the research problem are identified in this chapter and existing research is being examined. The literature review discusses the work of various researchers related to management communication. The main contributions to management communication theory and practice are presented below on the basis of various publications. This literature is useful for identifying the main concepts and theories related to managerial communication and linking these to the findings in this research. 

RAPPORT BETWEEN CUSTOMERS AND EMPLOYEE IN SERVICE EXCHANGES

Recently, personal relationships between customers and employees have been credited with contributing to better business transactions.  It may be argued that many organisations succeeded without clearly planning personal relationships between their employees and customers. As this research will prove, such planning of communication is paramount for business success. The research investigates the rapport between customers and employees in the service sector by identifying two dimensions of this rapport. The two dimensions are loyalty, and intent and positive word –of-mouth communication. The research is focused on effect of these two dimensions contributing to customer satisfaction.

                  Customer interactions with the employees of firms vary according to many factors. It is important that the outcomes with regard to the interaction with customers are assessed with great attention as these outcomes are intangible. The contribution employees add to the firm is evaluated in relation to customer satisfaction. Identified good practice in a branch, such as Sainsbury Richmond, has the potential of being disseminated through all branches and thus raising the profile and efficiency of the entire organization.

There are five factors identified that are reckoned as positive influencers in the outcomes of the service firms. These five constructs are the components of an inter-personal bond. They are familiarity, friendship, rapport, care and trust. Rapport is studied in this section as it is a key component irrespective of whether the customer visits once or whether the interaction is repetitive. Moreover, rapport is the factor which has potentially large implications.

The nature of the rapport between customers and employees and its implications are studied in detail.  Also,  evaluated service encounters as they have become salient because of the intangible nature of the service interaction. In the instance of the judgement of a service encounter, rapport is particularly important. The perception of rapport makes the consumer feel satisfied with the service encounter. Therefore, it is important that the firm is proactive in maintaining a rapport with their customers. 

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Questionnaire to Infosys Company Management

Gender Specification of the participants.

Gender Specification

For the above question, within the total number of participants 80% of the participants involved are male and 20% of the participants involved are female. From these statistics it is clear that the majority participants took part in the research survey are male. 

Age Specification

age specifications question

For the above question, within the total number of participants 20% of the participants involved are between the age of 20-25 and 30% of the participants are aged 26-30, 40% of the participants are aged 31-35 and finally 10% are between 36-40.  From this statistics it is clear that the majority participants took part in the research survey are aged between 20-40 years of age.

Being an international company why are you still outsourcing your products and services?

Being an international company

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys 40% of the participants stated that Infosys is outsourcing its services in order to reach target customers from all ends of the world and alternately 20% of the participants stated that they cannot run their operations in all areas and then they are outsourcing their services and finally, 40% of the participants supported both reasons. The statistics revealed that both are the major reasons for outsourcing their services.

Whom do you think as your major competitor in the market?

Whom do you think as your major

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 20% of the participants stated that Microsoft is their major competitor, 20% of the participants stated that Dell is their major competitor, 20% of other participants stated that IBM is their competitor, 10% of the other participants stated that Wipro is their major competitor and finally 30% of the participants stated all these companies as their competitors. The statistics reveal that both are the major reasons for outsourcing their services.

Whom do you think as major outsourcing competitor in the market?

Whom do you think as major

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 30% of the participants stated that Microsoft is their major outsourcing competitor, 20% stated that Dell is their major outsourcing competitor, 30% stated that IBM is their outsourcing competitor, 20% stated that Wipro is their major outsourcing competitor. The statistics reveal that both are major reasons for outsourcing their services.

Did your company aligned change management process with global outsourcing process?

Did your company aligned

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys Company 100% of the participants stated that their company is aligning change management process with their global outsourcing process and the total participants proved that Infosys is aligning its change management and global outsourcing process. 

Do you think is global outsourcing process really important for your company?

Do you think is global outsourcing

For the above question, within the total number of participants from Infosys, 80% of the participants stated that global outsourcing process is more important to their company and 20% of them stated that global outsourcing process is not too important to their company.

What are the major companies you have bonded for outsourcing your products and services?

What are the major companies

For this question 100% of the participants answered that this is a confidential answer which cannot be revealed or answered by them.

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The Identification of Risks in a Project

The risks are the type of aspects that will reduce the project progress levels and in many circumstances; it even leads to the failure of the projects. By making use of the different resources available in the company, the risks are been identified and described. Many companies will try to identity the future risks of the project before starting it and some of the companies will identify them while ongoing project process and many companies will identify the risks of th project after completing it. Each risk might show the major positive or negative impact on the success of the project and the project management process.

Risk responsibilities

Every individual involved in the project process will have his or her own roles and responsibilities by which they will be capable of managing the entire risks and problems that takes place in the project. The managers and the stakeholders are the key persons who will play the major role in fulfilling the risk management responsibilities. The major responsibility of any individual involved in the project process is to manage and run the company successfully without any risks and problems. Even though the risks arise, the individual should be capable of rectifying them according to the project requirements and should fulfill their own responsibilities. There are more possibilities for the occurrence of risks and for this reason they are having many risk management responsibilities on them to run the company in a successful manner.

Obstacles and Milestones

In order to complete this research process the research haven’t faced any difficulties, within the entire research process even though if there are any future obstacles or problems the researcher will overcome them and complete the research process successfully. The major limitation of this study is that it includes the significant information on the innovation technology and change management process according to the research requirements, but it doesn’t include the entire available on these aspects which can be considered as the limitation of this research. Researcher will contact the participants through emails and phones and will gather their valuable opinion on global outsourcing and change management process.

Outcomes and Benefits

The information on impact of change management aspects on global outsourcing process of Infosys companies is explained within this research study. The major beneficiary of this research study is Infosys Company, as this study helps them to identify their global outsourcing change management problems and suggests them effective change management strategies through which they can overcome the change management problems facing in global markets. By viewing this research study, Infosys Company can use these strategies and methods to overcome the change management problems in their global outsourcing process.

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Seminar Topic on Risk Management

The risks are been considered as the aspects that take place in any process that shows its affects on the project process. Generally, the risks are common in any type of business especially in the projects that are been related to the business.

The risks occurred in the process might show positive or else negative impact on the outcomes of the project. For this reason the organizations can use different types of the risk management tools in order to overcome the risks. The risk management process are been considered as the continuous process that will take place within the entire project process.

There is a need of appropriate risk management plan that includes different aspects such as the risk identification, risk analysis, risk maintenance as well as the risk control. The risks and threats are common in any type of process and for this reason every company should be ready with their own risk management plan by which they will be capable of managing the total risks that takes place in the project process.

The main task of risk management plan is to reduce the risks and problems that take place in the organizational processes.

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MBA Literature Review on The NEW Economics of Global Outsourcing

Author has detailed every aspect of outsourcing in this article. Article describes the true aspects of outsourcing and even involves the consequences of bad outsourcing and reasons for it. Author has checked every basic about the outsourcing it has even measured the cultural differences between the two countries which can affect the days of work and can cause certain loss due to lack of availability of workforce on certain days of work.

Author has discussed the negative point of outsourcing i.e. if it goes bad what will be the consequences and has suggested the methods to check it. Article also tells the next step involved or required to overcome the problems. It also speaks about the financial earnings from the outsourcing and analyzes the long term effects of outsourcing.

Author also speaks about the future of outsourcing in various countries and in the capital gain achieved by them with the help of outsourcing.

After reviewing the article, the researcher believes that the author has done a lot of groundwork to get the details about outsourcing and has discussed about the every practical point and detailed them in a well manner.

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The Role of Management in Improving the Communication between Employees and Customers

The Role of Management in Improving the Communication between Employees and Customers.  An analysis of barriers to communication in customer-employee interaction.  The case of Sainsbury’s Richmond branch

Background to research

Communication has turned out to be an indispensible pre-requisite in this era of globalisation for the successful running of any business. Its role cannot be undermined in any of the business functions as it is the key driver for the smooth functioning of an organisation. So, organisations now days are spending ample time and resources in improving their capability in the direction of communication.

Objectives

  • To investigate what communication strategies managers can implement to improve the performance of international students who are part-time employees in a supermarket
  • To compare the customer satisfaction levels from engaging with local supermarket staff versus engaging with employees who are part-time international students
  • To investigate the major barriers in the communication style of supermarket employees who are part-time international students 

Significance of employee customer interaction

Face-to-face interaction is the “reciprocal influence of individuals upon one another’s actions, when in one another’s immediate physical presence. 

Rationale of the research

There are quite a lot of international students working in supermarkets and similar businesses in order to support themselves while studying in the UK. Apart from supermarkets, many students work in petrol pumps, restaurants etc. These establishments are all service-oriented where customer service is the key driving factor for their business. Many of such establishments employ students as part time employees. So, it is important that students who work as part time employees have the required communication skills to engage with customers. As an employee in Sainsbury, I observe many students working in such establishments. The question arises how these international students manage to get to terms with the local customers in terms of communication as well as how they can overcome certain barriers in communication in order to achieve customer satisfaction. Related to such questions is a wider one, namely the implications for business productivity of international students who are part time workers and are often placed at the fore front of customer services.