Management & Organizational Behavior

Case Study
Mastering-the-Plan-Priceless


Submitted to
Dr. Md. Abbas Ali Khan
NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY


Submitted By
Abdulla Al Amin
ID# 1411794 060
Nitul Saha
ID: 1411826660
M. A. Hashib Rahman
ID: 1330476660



Date of Submission
March 13, 2014


Company Background
MasterCard Incorporated or MasterCard Worldwide is an American multinational financial
services corporation headquartered in the MasterCard International Global Headquaters, New
York, United States.
Throughout the world, its principal business is to process payments between the banks of
merchants and the card issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the
"MasterCard" brand debit and credit cards to make purchases. MasterCard Worldwide has been a
publicly traded company since 2006. Prior to its initial public offering, MasterCard Worldwide
was a cooperative owned by more than 25,000 financial institutions that issue its branded cards.
Several California banks created MasterCard, originally known as Interbank/Master Charge, as a
competitor to the Bank America issued by Bank of America, which later became the Visa credit
card issued by Visa Inc. From 1966 to 1979, MasterCard was called "Interbank" and "Master
Charge".







Summary of The Case
An initial public offering in May 2006 completed the gradual transformation of MasterCard
Worldwide from a private association owned by member banks to a public corporation. For
MasterCard's 4,600 employees around the globe, however, the IPO was not an ending but the
start of a new way of life.
To guarantee that every employee understood what the change would mean, MasterCard staged
the largest single learning event in its history--a series of intensive, 4.5-hour seminars conducted
under the name, "Road Map to the Future." The 110 workshops ran in 36 cities, reaching the
employee within a three-week window beginning shortly after the IPO. At corporate
headquarters and more than two dozen other cities employees gathered to learn, face-to-face with
local managers, what the new state of affairs would entail.
To make these meetings happen at all, never mind ensuring that they would work as intended,
the key was to prepare dozens of human resource specialists and hundreds of local managers
around the world to act as effective trainers and facilitators. If ever a learning event required a
carefully designed train the trainer strategy, this was it, says Rebecca Ray, MasterCard's senior
vice president for global learning and organizational development. The goal of RoadMap to the
Future, Ray explains, was to see to it that every employee understood the (corporate) business
strategy and how MasterCard would be different after the IPO.
The training program was anchored by three large, colorful learning maps or topics. The maps
titles corresponded to the programs three main topics. The first, titled Universe of
Opportunity, described Mastercards competitive landscape including changes and challenges
on the horizon for the payment industry. The second maps straight-forward title was How We
Make Money. It anchored a business-literacy discussion of MasterCards financial models, the
pieces of the payment industry in which MasterCard participates, and how those pieces fit
together. The final map was called New Climate, New culture, New Company. Here, the
training went into detail about MasterCards business strategy as a public company and the
competencies and actions required pursuing that strategy.

Q1: What role do you think goals would play in planning for this training event? List some
goals you think might be important. (Make sure these goals have the characteristics of well-
written goals.)
Q1: Answer: Goals are the desired outcomes for individuals, groups or entire organizations.
Goals are of two types basically:
1. Stated Goals: Official statements of what as organization says and what it wants its various
stakeholders to believe, its goals are. Stated goals can be found in an organizations charter,
annual report, or public relations announcements or in public statements made by managers.
2. Real Goals: Goals that an organization actually pursues, as defined by the actions of its
members.
Goals play a vital role in planning, it is considered as source of inspiration, a motivation that we
need to make our company worth to Rs 1bn in 2020. In plans, documents that outline how goals
are going to be met including resource allocations, schedules and other necessary actions to
accomplish the goals. In the case training event have been taken place and Rebecca Ray
Companys Senior Vice President wants an effective plan to proceed with the training event.
Here Rebecca Ray needs to proceed with Real Goals as because they are actually going to
conduct an intensive 4.5 hours seminar consisting of 110 workshops in 36 different cities over
three week time frame.
List of some goals which might be important for the above event:
1.SMART goals: The November 1981 issue of Management Review contained a paper by
George T. Doran called There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives.
Ideally speaking, each corporate, department, and section objective should be:
Specific: Target a specific area for improvement. A specific goal will usually answer the
five "W" questions:
What: What do I want to accomplish?Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of
accomplishing the goal.Who: Who is involved?Where: Identify a location.Which:
Identify requirements and constraints.
Measurable: Quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress. A measurable goal will
usually answer questions such as:
How much?How many?How will I know when it is accomplished?Indicators should be
quantifiable.
Assignable: Specify who will do it. An attainable goal will usually answer the question:
How can the goal be accomplished?
Relevant: State what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources. A
relevant goal can answer yes to these questions:
Does this seem worthwhile?Is this the right time?Does this match our other
efforts/needs?Are you the right person?
Time-related: Specify when the result(s) can be achieved. A time-bound goal will usually
answer the question:
When? What can I do six months from now?What can I do six weeks from now?What
can I do today?
2. Single use goals: A set of activities aimed at achieving a specific goal within a
particular budget and time period that is unlikely to be repeated in future. Examples of a single
use goal that could be employed by a business might be an advertising campaign for a
new product launch or an integration plan for a recent acquisition.
Q2: What types of plans would be needed for actually doing the event? (For instance,
strategic or operational or both? Short term, long term, or both?) Explain why you think
these plans would be important.
Q2: Answer: There are 8 plans which are elaborated as under:
1. Strategic Plans: Plans that apply to entire organization establish the organizations overall
goals and seek to position the organization in terms of its environment.
2. Operational Plans: Plans that specify the details of how the overall goals are to be achieved.
3. Long-Term Plans: Plans with a time frame beyond three years.
4. Short-Term plans: Plans covering one year or less.
5. Specific Plans: Plans that are clearly defined and that leave no room for interpretation.
6. Directional Plans: Plans that are flexible and that set out general guidelines.
7. Single Use Plans: A one-time plan specifically designed to meet the needs of a unique
situation.
8. Standing Plans: Ongoing plans that provide guidance for activities performed repeatedly.
Strategic plans &Operational plans both are necessary for the event as because company is
going to its Initial public offering (IPO) and training programs which will enhance their
employees motivation level, skills, and ultimately profitability. These plans would help in
developing a good organization culture and where company is empowering its employees which
seems like working on the principles of Behavior theory that human are assets invest in them
companys training program which is anchored by three Learning Maps are as under:
1. Universe of opportunity which will describe companys competitiveness.
2. How we make money which explains that focus on MasterCards financial models and how
it fit into the industry.
3. New climate, new culture, new company would be detailed about the companys strategy as
a public company and what it would take to successfully pursue that strategy.



Q3: What challenges might there be in doing such an event? How about doing such an
event in different global locations over a short time frame? How could they best prepare
for those challenges?
Q3: Answer: Challenges may be confronted while doing s uch an event is as under:
1. Political instability:Political instability is used to describe political turmoil or unrest within a
certain country. Political instability can create loss of control of a countries territory, inability to
provide public service and erosion of legitimate authority.
2.Shortage of skilled workers: Shortage of skilled workers is an economic condition in which
there are insufficient qualified candidates to fill the market-place demands for employment at
any price. Such a condition is sometimes referred to by Economists as "an insufficiency in
the labor force.
3. Time management:Time management is the act or process of planning and exercising
conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase
effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.
4. Infrastructure management: Infrastructure management is the management of essential
operation components, such as policies, processes, equipment, data, human resources, and
external contacts, for overall effectiveness.
5. Uncertain illness of managers: Managers are responsible for the main activities of providing
services in the event. Any kind of uncertain illness of managers can create obstacle in the service
providing system which is challenges for the event.
While doing this kind of event in different global locations will increase the cost first of all and
other diversity challenges. In short period of time globally this event is not much effective idea
to be conducted as the companys reputation and performance can be confronted and vice versa
so therefore it is not feasible to go globally for this event for a short period of time, on the
contrary for long term purpose company can pursue this kind of event globally.
They can best prepare for their challenges by having proper manpower backup specifically
alternate line managers, paramedics, skillful infrastructure developers and other myth busters in
order to meet any uncertain calamities while conducting above event.
Q4: What did this case story teach you about planning?
Q4: Answer: This training event story teaches us that how the time and its accuracy is valuable
and proper delegation of work and authority is necessary to achieve your goals. Planning gives
you vast directions to move and achieve your desired objective for making ones mark in every
walk of life. After the learning event Rebeca Roy described it as widely successful as all the
preparations paid off for this event. In evaluation afterwards, more than 90 percent of employees
agreed the program had expanded their knowledge of MasterCards financial structure and its
business strategy. So, this case study taught us any project that needs to be executed must has to
be properly planned. A plan is like a map. So, a well-executed plan saves time, efforts and leads
to the success. Any tasks that was begun without proper planning and due diligence is almost
always a failure. Be planned, be successful!




References
1. "Master Card Milestones". Milestones/Mastercard. MasterCard. Retrieved September 20,
2011.
2. Jay Loomis (June 28, 2006). "MasterCard changing name".The Journal News.
3. www.inrevisacheckmastermoneyantitrustlitigation.com. Retrieved July 13, 2011.
4. MasterCard under EU fire over payment card fees. Fox Business (2013-04-09). Retrieved
on 2013-10-30.

5. Priceless Travel. MasterCard. Retrieved from http://www.mastercard.co.uk/travel/ July
13, 2011.

6. MasterCard Priceless Cities. Retrieved from Mastercard.co.uk (August 30, 2012).

7. MasterCard Corporate | Investors | Board of Directors.
Investorrelations.mastercardintl.com. Retrieved on 2013-10-30.