This document contains questions from assignments for various Master of Business Administration courses at SMU, including Production and Operation Management, Financial Management, Marketing Management, Management Information Systems, Operations Research, and Project Management. The questions cover a range of topics within each subject area, such as production strategies, capital budgeting, marketing mix, information systems implementation, linear programming, and project scheduling. Students are directed to a website for answers to the questions.

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FALL 2013
Master of Business Administration- MBA Semester 2 Fall 2013
MB 0044 - PRODUCTION AND OPERATION MANAGEMENT
Q1. State the important considerations for locating an automobile plant.
Q2. Explain essentials of Project Management Philosophy.
Q3. Several different strategies have been employed to assist in aggregate planning. Explain these in
brief.
Q4. Illustrate the different methods by which quality is sought to be achieved using various tools and
techniques.
Q5. Explain the basic competitive priorities considered while formulating operations strategy by a firm?
Q6. Explain briefly the four classification of scheduling strategies.
MB0045 – Financial Management Get Answers on www.smuhelp.com
Q1. TCS has emerged as India's most admired company ahead of Hindustan Unilever, ITC, and Infosys,
says global management consultancy Hay Group. TCS replaced last year's winner group company Tata
Steel by scoring highest on parameters such as corporate governance, financial soundness, and talent
management. Two criteria in particular, Leadership, and Creating Shareholder Value separated the
winners. How do you think effective interaction between HR and finance department of a firm helps in
achieving its skills? Do you think that TCS has preferred the profit maximization approach over the wealth
maximization approach?
Q2. A) The current price of an Ashok Leyland share is Rs. 30. The company is expected to pay a
dividend of Rs. 2.50 per share which goes up annually at 6%. If an investor’s required rate of return is
11%, should he or she buy this share or not? B) A bond with a face value of Rs. 100 provides an annual
return of 8% and pays Rs. 125 at the time of maturity, which is 10 years from now. If the investor’s
required rate of return is 12%, what should be the price of the bond?
Q3. a) How do you think the trend of capital structure across the Indian corporates affect the economy as
a whole? b) What proportion of debt and equity should be taken up in the capital structure of a firm? c)
Discuss the theories that are propounded to understand the relationship between financial leverage and
value of the firm.
Q4. HPCL was established in 1952, operates from 500 different locations, including refineries, terminals,
LPG plants, aviation service facilities, etc. They developed a Lotus Notes workflow tool and deployed it
across the organisation so that any capital investment proposal from any operating location in the country
can be routed to relevant reviewers and approving authorities. With the implementation of the new online
system, the total cost savings as a result of reduced man-hours amounts to about Rs 25 lakh per annum.
1. What do you think would have been the complexities involved in implementing this new project at
HPCL? 2. What are the various phases in the capital budgeting process? To what extent do you believe
that automation can ease out the process?
Q5. A) Indicate whether the operating cycle in the following industries is short (less than 30 days),
medium (less than 6 months) or long (more than 6 months) Steel, rice, vegetables, fruits, jewelry,
processed food, furniture, mining, flowers and textiles b) Companies with the shortest working capital
cycles have current ratios much lowerthan the firms with longer cycles. What is your view on this
statement? How do you think the operating cycle affects operating profit margins? c) Discuss the
relationship between working capital management and market performance of a company? Do you think
the kind of relationship varies depending on the type of industry?
Q6. Nirma acquired Core Healthcare Ltd. in FY 2007. To bring about improvement in terms of liquidity in
the script of the Company , it has gone for a stock split because it hasn’t had any buyback in the recent
past. Nirma paid Interim dividend in 2007 to avoid the higher dividend tax announced in that year’s
budget. Henkel, on the other hand, has a very weak Dividend Policy. The major reason being that the
company has weak operations and low margins. There is no record of Stock Splits and Buybacks by
Henkel India in the past. Discuss the dividend polices of these two companies.

2. MB0046 – Marketing Management Get Answers on www.smuhelp.com
Q1. Explain the stages in the new product development process.
Q2. Explain the various types of retailers and wholesalers.
Q3. Describe the steps in business buying process.
Q4. Explain the product mix pricing strategies with examples.
Q5. Advertisement is a media which conveys message about the product. It is important to understand
different types of advertisement to attract the attention of the people to a product and service. Find out the
various forms of advertisement.
Q6. Explain the forms of customer relationship and the reasons behind losing customer by organization.
MB0047 –Management Information System Get Answers on www.smuhelp.com
Q1. A waiter takes an order at a table, and then enters it online via one of the six terminals located in the
restaurant dining room. The order is routed to a printer in the appropriate preparation area, the cold item
printer if it is a salad, the hot item printer if it is a hot sandwich or the bar printer if it is a drink. A
customer’s meal check-listing, bills the items ordered and the respective prices are automatically
generated. This ordering system eliminates the old three-carbon-copy guest check system as well as any
problems caused by a waiter’s handwriting. When the kitchen runs out of a food item, the cooks send out
an ‘out of stock’ message, which will be displayed on the dining room terminals when waiters try to order
that item. This gives the waiters faster feedback, enabling them to give better service to the customers.
Other system features aid management in the planning and control of their restaurant business. The
system provides up-to-the-minute information on the food items ordered and breaks out percentages
showing sales of each item versus total sales. This helps management plan menus according to
customers’ tastes. The system also compares the weekly sales totals versus food costs, allowing
planning for tighter cost controls. In addition, whenever an order is invalidated, the reasons for the
invalidation are keyed in. This may help later in management decisions, especially if the invalidations are
consistently related to the food or the service. Acceptance of the system by the users is exceptionally
high since the waiters and waitresses were involved in the selection and design process. All potential
users were asked to give their impressions and ideas about the various systems available before one was
chosen. a. What is the type of information system the above scenario is referring to? b. How does this
system helps later in management decisions related to food or service based on the reasons for the
invalidation which are stored c. How this system does helps in finding out the performance of the hotel
form year to year?
Q2. a. With the increase in technology the business processes have been frequently changed and
modified based on the upcoming requirement of the organization. What is this type of concept called as?
b. Explain reverse engineering. How do you improve a process in BPR
Q3. a. While implementing MIS in any organization change can occur in number of ways. List and explain
the steps in the process as suggested by Lewin’s model. b. Compare between prototype approach and
Life Cycle approach
Q4. Quality is abstract in nature. It varies among users and across industries. List and explain the quality
parameters with suitable examples. Also explain the effect of each quality parameters on information
processing.
Q5. Write short notes on a. Neural Networks b. B2B model with an example c. DSS Models d.
Administrative control e. Distributed database
Q6. A project is composed of 9 activities the three estimates of time in weeks for the activities are given
below in the following table. 5
Activity Immediate predecessors Optimistic time Most like time duration Pessimistic time
A
--
5
8
10
B
--
18
20
22
C
--
26
33
40
D
A
16
18
20

3. E
A
15
20
25
F
B
6
9
12
G
C
7
10
12
H
D
7
8
9
I
F, E
3
4
a. Draw a PERT Network b. Determine the expected time and variance for each activity c. Determine
earliest and latest occurrence time of each event d. Determine the critical path for the network
MB0048 –Operations Research Get Answers on www.smuhelp.com
Q1. Discuss the methodology of Operations Research. Explain in brief the phases of Operations
Research.
Q2. a. Explain the graphical method of solving Linear Programming Problem. b. A firm produces three
types of products viz., A, B and C, which are processed on three different machines viz., M1, M2 and M3.
The time required to process on unit of each of the products and the daily capacities of machines
available per day are given in the following table. The profit earned by selling one unit of type A, B and C
is Rs.10, Rs.15 and Rs.20 respectively. It is assumed that what all is produced is consumed in the
market. Formulate this as Linear Programming Problem to maximize the profit.
Machines
Time per unit (minutes)
Product A Product B Product C
Machine capacity available (min.)
M1
5
3
2
400
M2
4
-
3
500
M3
5
2
1
300
Q3. Explain the steps involved in finding Initial Basic Feasible solution by the following methods: a. North
West Corner Rule method b. Vogel’s approximation method
Q4. Explain Monte Carlo Simulation method. What are the advantages and limitations of Simulation?
Q5. Explain the Characteristics and Constituents of a Queuing System.
Q6. a. What do you mean by dominance? State the dominance rules for rows and columns. b. What are
the differences between PERT and CPM?
MB 0049 - PROJECT MANAGEMENT Get Answers on www.smuhelp.com
Q1. Describe the CPM model. Briefly explain.
Q2. Define risk management. What are the different types of risks that can affect a project?
Q3. Briefly discuss the steps to close the project.
Q4. Discuss the various steps of PMIS planning
Q5. What are the important approaches to project control?
Q6. Describe the project planning process and explain it in detail.