Paanch Mathlab!!!

Our college had a project with Grand Valley State University, Atlanta, USA was a matter of great help for our students in understanding the present global scenario of bussiness.the Hindustan coca cola India Pvt Ltd was facing a huge problem in Plachimada, Kerala.
Since the company’s Head Quarters was also situated in Atlanta, the company also took the case writing seriously. There are some situations in corporate life that we fail keeping up our companies aspirations, the case is one of them.
The team consisted of me, Prince,my class mate and a dozen students from my junior batch. We took the leadership and the other dozen took a little time coping up with us. They really didn’t like we joining the team. At that time we were having a little quarrel between our batch and their batch. But in a short time we became friends.
The target was to study the problem and put it in front of the students in the form of a case. The problem existed between the local people of Plachimada, the tribal people mostly and the company. The problem of water scarcity was huge in the area and the starting of the factory made the situation worse. This was the much talked about problem.
The team first met with the problem affected and anti Coke agitators. Then we met the management. These meetings, controversial in nature made a wave of conflicts in our mind.
Mr.Arun, the Librarian of DCSMAT and myself went in between to see many bureaucrats and know their opinion. Many, almost all were indifferent to us. At last tired one afternoon we went to the famous Palakkad Fort and sat on the historical and archeologically important fort, beneath a papal tree and we had a huge discussion over the issue and at last we redefined the problem from water scarcity to water pollution. We smelt an international conspiracy behind tarnishing the image of the company.
But we couldn’t understand the reason for it and didn’t understand why our people are so innocent. We went back and saw the factory and the plant manager gave a jumbo treat for us. He made a presentation as well. After that there was a question answer session as well we asked scores of question .I meanwhile asked a question as to why coke cannot stop running a factory which is not giving them any return for the last couple of years. The plant manager was upset over this question. He pretended to be over smart and answered very diplomatically that being MBAS you tell me why I shouldn’t close down.
But I felt that my question was not answered and I re- framed my question (thanks to Sreekumar’s Research Methodology Case studies) and asked. Sir, you have invested Rs 80 crore and for the last two years you don’t get a single paise out of it. This means that you return on investment remains zero and considering the inflation rate and the level of depreciation don’t u have any other option? even then his reply was the same as before.
Preliminary lessons of my Post Graduation in journalism had taught me that unless there is clarity, never stop asking questions. I didn’t give up, I asked the question again, but a little harshly, you are not able to solve a problem for two years and why don’t you close down a factory that doesn’t give you any return? This mode of my questioning annoyed him and he shouted at me that why I was asking the same question again and again. I told him that I need to ask him because I didn’t get a satisfactory answer from him. I was still calm and he wanted me not to ask questions any more. But I was determined to ask. When we are students we feel that all professionals should be ideal and none should be in a level below our expectation. When we come across such a person, we get irritated and try to thrash him. Here also same thing happened and we were irritated by him. Whatever question we ask he would just rebound it on us telling that you people tell me what should be done. Any way we squeezed him and we got what ever we wanted.
The first step in the case, an outline was written successfully and the process is continuing with new and new students entering the project.