Apan Jewelers

Apan jewelers, one of the renowned jewelry shops of Bangladesh, started its journey in

1982 by Abdul Ahad, who is the current chairman of the organization. He was in London

for 10 years and after he came back to Bangladesh, he started a small business of “Saree”

with the capital of one lac. Gradually he saved about 5.5 lac of capital and started the first

showroom in Mouchak market with 120 vori Gold.

Apan Jewelers displays local as well as imported 21 and 22 caret gold jewelry in their all

showrooms. The gold rate is fixed for every organization fixed by Bangladesh Jwelry

Shamitee. Apan Jewelers have some local designers who work in Tatibazar. It is a two way

process. Sometimes the local designer brings designs to them and sometimes they give the

designs to the designers and the designers make them accordingly. Though they do not have

designers of their own under any contract, the designers are so loyal that they never make

the same exclusive designs for any other jewelry firm. The imported gold jewelries are

brought mainly from India and Dubai.

Currently, Apan Jewelers have seven showrooms only in Dhaka. The showrooms are

situated in Mouchak market, Rifles Square, Gulshan D.C.C market, gulshan Suvanstu Imam

Square and two in Baitul Mokarram. It is their family business and each owner from the

family directly handles every showroom. As this type of business requires direct

supervision, they do not expand their showrooms out of Dhaka city.

Organogram of Apan Jewelers

Background Of Ms. Kaniz Fatema

Chairman

Managing PartnerManaging PartnerManaging Partner

DirectorDirector

ManagerManagerManager

Sales ExecutivesSales Executives Sales Executives

The manager selected for the project purpose is Kaniz Fatema who is the director of Apan

Jewelers. All relevant information regarding her personal and professional life is presented

below-

Personal information- Kaniz Fatema was born in Dhaka. She lives in a joint family

of twelve members. She is the elder grand daughter of her paternal family and the

first member to join the business from third generation of the family. According to

Kaniz Fatema, her father has the most contribution behind her today’s position.

Besides she is also grateful to her grandfather and grand mother and mother for

bringing up like a boy from the very beginning.

Educational Information- Kaniz Fatema passes her S.S.C in 2004 and H.S.C in

2006 form Viqarunnissa Noon School and College. She joint North South University

for her undergraduate study in 2007. She did her major in Finance and Marketing.

She was graduated from North South University in 2012. She is planning to do her

Masters in the following year in abroad.

Work Experience- After graduating, she joint Transcom in 2012. She worked there

for two months. After that, her father forced her to join the family business and

apply her knowledge here. So in the same year she joint Apan Jewelers. So, she is

working for more than one and an half years. According to her, she has learnt many

things in this small amount if time only because of the inspiration she got from her

father. She started from the very basic job of counting money and gradually her

father made her work in every sector of the showroom to have enough knowledge

about the business.

Extra-Curricular Activities- She mentioned only one extra-curricular activity that

is dancing. In her school and college life she was very much in to it though she was

not member of any cultural groups of NSU.

Breakdown of a typical day’s work

There are four kinds of managerial work done by a manger of an organization now a

day. Managers normally divide their daily works in terms of traditional management,

Human Resources (HR), communications and networking.

The organization, Apan Jewelers that we have chosen for our project is quite

different than the typical organizations. Here hierarchy is little bit flatter than the traditional

organizations. In this organization directors and managers have to perform and look after lot

of works at a time. This organization does not have too many departments. One director has

to look after all different types of work like financial, HR, and marketing related works,

where as in other organizations we see there are separate managers for each departmental

works.

The director of Apan Jewelers Ms. Kaniz Fatema is very responsible and dedicated

for her work. Normally she starts her day with traditional management. That means after

coming to the office she starts to look at the accounts section of the company where she gets

to know the latest situation of orders and product selling information. This actually helps her

to get an overview of performance at the beginning of the day.

Every day she needs take lots of phone calls from her customers. In the call most of

the customers want to know about new products and also about the progress of their orders.

Sometimes she needs to give instructions to her sales executive if there is any new policy

and also need to share some information with them regarding the new product so that the

sales executive can describe the features of new products to the customers very efficiently.

This kind of work is basically part of communication.

Though there is no particular department for HR in Apan Jewelers but still as a part

of organization the director needs to see few things regarding HR. In each outlet of Apan

Jewelers there are almost 25-30 employees who perform various tasks. But the majorities

are the sales executives. There are some counters in each outlet and every counter has

different products. One sales executive is being appointed for each counter and these sales

persons are being interchanged with the counter after every one-month so that they can be

familiar with all kinds of products. Moreover there are also some female sales executives

who work side by side with their male counter parts to help female customers. Theses

female employees also been transferred from counter to counter after 1 month. She takes

these all decisions.

Jewelry is an industry where connection, trust and brand image is very important for

selling purpose. To maintain such standard the director needs to keep contact with some

influential and VIP customers. The sales executives treat normally ordinary customers but

the special customers deal with the director directly in her office. They have been highly

cared and given good privileges because the director knows very well that these privileged

customers will ultimately bring lot of new customers. On the other hand the director also

call some VIP customers personally at the time of various festivals just to make sure that

those customers keep Apan Jewelers in their mind. This is how the director Ms. Kaniz

Fatema maintains her networking.

20%

40%10%

30%

Break down of typical days work

Traditional Management

Communication

Human Resources

Networking

From the above information we came to know that the director of Apan Jewelers

concentrate more on communication and in networking. She daily spends almost 40 % of

her time in communication because this is a business where a manager or director constantly

needs to communicate with their clients. Sometimes she receives calls from customers and

sometimes she gives call to her customers on the priority basis. On the other hand she

spends almost 30 % of her time in networking because networking is a key part of this

business. Most of the prominent customers who have huge dealings with Apan jewelers are

very influential and political figures. Huge part of the profit comes from these types of

customers. She also needs to keep contact with some media personalities for the promotion

of their products.

SWOT Analysis

Strength:

Kaniz Fatema is a successful Director and therefore her strengths are not only related to her

jobs. It is how she deals with a certain situation and it reflects her strength. Strength arises

from personal experience in life e.g. family background, hobbies and interests and strategies

learned while taking part in games and sports, events, and functions. Making a list of a

person’s strengths is a time consuming process it’s simply because as long as the person

doesn’t use these inherit skills in difficult situations it may not be considered as a strength.

There also other factors that contributes to a person’s strength.

Educational Qualification:

Excellence in education has given Kaniz Fatema a competitive edge. She has been a bright

student from his early life and he successfully demonstrated that in the S.S.C and H.S.C

examination. Kaniz Fatema passed her S.S.C in 2004 and H.S.C in 2006 She got her

educational qualification from reputed institutions from very beginning. . Her education

helps her take decisions confidently. She has expertise in both finance and marketing that

enables her to take best decisions for the interest of her organization.

Knowledge about customers:

Since she has been working in in Apan jewelers for 1.5 year and it is her family business,

she knows ins and outs of the company. She knows about what ups and downs this industry

has faced in past years and with that experience she can assume about the future situation.

She also knows about consumer preference. And in which occasion which design will be

more preferable to them. In addition to that, her experienced idea about the industry and

consumer is really important to take major decisions.

Motivating Power:

She has an exceptional motivational power that adds up to her strengths. He is always

smiling while talking to any customer that makes any difficult situation easy. She knows

how to inspire his subordinates as well the customers. To keep them motivated she

sometimes allows early leaves in case of emergency. She knows how to give the proper

value to the customers and knows how to motivate them to enhance the brand equity. Beside

this she is also an employee oriented person.

Communication Skill:

The way she communicates with her seniors, colleagues and subordinates is strength of her.

She maintains a measured level of frankness with them and keeps the environment friendly

in a formal way. Her friendly way of speaking has a great effect on the people around him.

She communicates with the loyal customers regularly to know their liking and preferences.

Customers feel free to communicate with him whenever they want. As she treat them in a

friendly manner. During the interview we got see a glimpse of his tremendous

communication skills.

Appearance and charisma:

Kaniz Fatema has a gift of influencing people very easily and she relates to his customers in

an intimate way while having a conversation. The way she dresses herself up and the way

she talks and convinces people is a big strength in her. Because of her appearance and

charismatic personality, people respect her and like her a lot. This is a reason behind his

popularity among the employees and customers.

Weakness : Weakness is the characteristics that place an individual at a disadvantage relative to others.

The absence of certain strengths may be viewed as a weakness. These may appear to be

easier to identify but it takes far more objectivity. As in the case of strengths, it is essential

to be aware of all your weaknesses while dealing with an issue and also to know which

weaknesses are relevant to a particular circumstance.

Lack of time management:

Kaniz Fatema does believe in doing things at the right time. She does the work effectively.

She has a lack of time management. But time is a very important factor for doing a job

successfully. Because of her lack of time management she faces different problems. And it

may have a negative impact on the business. Apan jewelers may lose its brand equity.

Age:

Kaniz Fatema has achieved her position of director at a very young age. This gives her many

facilities but at the same time this can be a problem for her. Some of her subordinates who

are older than her might feel not to listen to her orders. This might create unfavorable

situations. Moreover, a high position needs a weight of age also and in case of her this

weight of age is probably a little less.

Lack of experience:

Kaniz Fatema has joined Apan Jewelers in 2012. She has only one and half year experience

in this industry. Before joining here she worked for transcom only for 3months. She has less

knowledge about the working environment. Because of her insufficient experience she

sometimes gets confused and fails to handle any unwanted situation. Though she knows

about consumer preference and likings her lack of experience sometimes she does not

understand what difficulties and conditions subordinates and customers are going through.

Sometimes she takes wrong decision.

Over confidence:

She also gets over confidence about the profitability of Apan Jewelers without doing much

research. Being confident about doing the right job is a positive factor but sometimes her

over confidence about consumer perception creates problems and she makes silly mistakes.

Opportunity:

Opportunities are those positive external conditions that one does not control but of which

one can plan to take advantage. This part of the analysis allows one to identify areas that

may present possibilities and prospects for advancement and growth.

Rising sector of Bangladesh:

As gold is a rising sector not only in Bangladesh but also in the whole world being a director

in Apan Jewelers settles her future perfectly. It’s a grand opportunity for her to prove herself

and make Apan jewelers more renowned.

Future promotion:

When it comes to opportunities, the first opportunity that should be mentioned is the

opportunity of his future promotions. As it is a family business and Kaniz Fatema has

started managing a role of a director from her early age she may get promoted to managing

partner in future. She is aware of her potential and she is using all the opportunities to reach

his ultimate goal that is becoming the managing partner of Apan jewelers.

Innovative Ideas:

She is the only girl at this age in the jewelry sector. She gets the appreciation from all the

employees and her immediate employer as a working-woman. She gets many innovative

ideas rather than the traditional one. This is an opportunity for her to sustain.

Threats:

Threats are the negative external factor that one does not control but the person can try to

take steps to reduce the impact. By finding out the threats that exist in one’s life pertaining

to one’s personal growth, relationships, career or whatever area he is concentrating on, he

can head them off and even turn some of them into opportunities. Identifying one’s threats

helps the person recognizes areas where he or she needs to focus a little more and anticipate

barriers and challenges.

More experienced candidate:

Though Kaniz Fatema has impressive degrees, she has lack of experience. Though she is

planning for foreign degrees, she does not have it yet. So she has competition with new

comers with various experiences. So this is a clear threat for her. This might even deprive

her from future promotions.

Political Situation:

In our country the influence of political parties is really high. As a result, management often

gets pressurized to appoint recommended people instead of the ones who really deserve the

positions. Since higher and more respectable positions tend to face this situation more often,

her future is more likely to be influenced with the change of political environment.

Economic fluctuation:

The economics condition of our country fluctuates all the time. So as a director Kaniz

Fatema has to take flexible decisions all the time. This economic condition has an indirect

impact on her job. This is also a threat for her to sustain properly.

Managers Personality Characteristic’s

There are some established models that are used to analyze and evaluate the personality

characteristics. These models give clear idea about the personality of the manager. A

manager’s personality has a tremendous impact on his/her work performance. To have a

basic idea about the personality of our selected manager’s and to know whether her

personality goes with her work type or not we have applied those models and these are- The

five model, Locus of control, personality type, self-esteem, self-monitoring, personality-job

fit theory.

The Five Models:

1. Extraversion: It means the degree to which someone likes to meet new people and

make friendship with them. Our manager is a very extrovert person. She likes to

interact with her employees and customers. She regularly provides guideline to the

employees and she also has the ability to convince her customers.

2. Agreeableness: It measures to what degree a person’s opinion is different than

others. Highly agreeable people will not argue with anyone. They will always agree

with you. Our manager’s agreeableness is in a moderate level. At first she likes to

know the suggestions of employees and then she thinks about it. If she thinks that

their suggestion is logical only then she agrees with them otherwise not.

3. Conscientiousness: Highly conscientious people do not take too many goals at a

time. They like to do one by one. When they do something they fully focus on that.

She has high level of conscientiousness. She doesn’t prefer many goals at a time.

She likes to do one by one. According to her, if she focuses on few things, it let her

do those jobs perfectly. From her past experience, she got to know that focusing on

too many things at a time can bring harmful results.

4. Emotional Stability: it means, to what degree someone can handle his/ her emotion,

nervousness. Emotional stability is very much needed for some jobs. Our manager is

very much emotionally stable. Sometime she has to hear a lot of harsh words from

her customers but she never faced emotional breakdown. She takes it as a challenge,

so she keeps her calm and deals positively. She does the same thing with her

employees.

5. Openness to Experience: To what degree someone is open to experience new

things. Those people are very eager to do new thing. They are very imaginative. Our

manager scores high in open to experience new thing. She tries new, innovative

things to cope up with the demand of the time. While interviewing her, we got to

know that technical innovation is going very fast and that is why they can no longer

be dependent on the traditional way of doing business. So, she is also changing with

the time for the sake of the business and trying and implementing new way of doing

business.

Locus of control: There are two types of Locus of Control-

1. Internal Locus of Control: it refers to those people who believe that they have the

master control over everything. They do not blame their luck or any other factor for

their failure. They believe it’s because of them. They have high personality. They

have strong state of mind.

2. External Locus of Control: People who believe that they are pawns of their fate.

Their personality is not that strong. If they faced with any failure, they blame it to

other things rather their own effort.

Our manager has internal locus of control. When she fails to do something, at first she

identifies who is responsible for the task. If she thinks that she is responsible then she

doesn’t hesitate to take the blame. According to her, she is human too and if employees can

go wrong so can she. So, instead of blaming the other factors, she tries to find out where she

has done the mistake and try to correct it as soon as possible.

Personality Type : There are two types of personality-

1. Type A Personality: People who want to achieve more and more in less time. They

are always in hurry. They are always in a mission to do something. They are quantity

focused not quality.

2. Type B Personality: People who are not in any time urgency to do anything. They

believe time is there. But when they need to do anything they do it seriously.

She has B type personality. She is always relaxed. In her job she has to face a lot of

problems. But she never gets too much excited or worried. She remains calm but does her

work properly when needed. She always tries to devote her effort when it is necessary. She

think that being worried and tensed for a task decrease the level of perfection and the

ultimate result does not come out up to the mark. So, she keeps her relaxed and try to do her

best in due time.

Self-Esteem : Self-esteem is what people think of them. People, who have high self-esteem,

have high self-confidence. Our manager has a high level of self-esteem. So her confidence

and expectation for success is high.

Self-Monitoring : It means to what degree someone can adjust his behavior based on the

situation. She also scores high in self-monitoring, because she can rapidly adjust her

behavior to external situational factors. So, she can behave differently in different situation.

Leadership Styles

Kurt Lewin conducted IOWA leadership studies in 1930s. The democratic style states that

the employers are very friendly with their employees and allow participation. The leader

involves the employees in the decision-making process but retains the final say. Many

employees like the trust they receive and respond with cooperation, team spirit, and high

morale. The democratic leadership style is most effective when the leader wants to keep

employees informed about matters that affect them and wants to provide opportunities for

employees to develop a high sense of personal growth and job satisfaction.

The Ohio state leadership studies were carried out in 1945. The goal was to analyze

leadership in numerous types of groups and situations. The consideration style says that

leaders are very caring and concerned about the human needs of their employees. They build

teamwork, help employees with their problems and provide psychological support. This is a

people-oriented leadership style. It is the degree to which job relationships are associated

with mutual trust, faith, respect, friendship, support from subordinates and informal

communication.

Max Webber introduced the transformational leadership style. Under this leadership style,

the subordinates view leaders as a charismatic person who can inspire and motivate their

employees to do things. They take the time to listen to each and every employee that works

for them to develop a spirit of cooperation. Employees will also get considerable amount of

recognition as this leader is going to know what their accomplishments are.

Transformational leadership is a vital role for effective managers because leader

effectiveness determines the success level of the organization.

While interviewing the director of Apan Jewelers, I observed that she follows all the

employee oriented leadership styles while taking sales in consideration. The democratic

leadership style allows her to bring employees together to solve common problems of the

organization, open up communication channels and build a strategy around the overall

agreement. The consideration style also helps her to understand her employees’ mentality

and their needs. For example, if an employee is facing personal problems she permits them

to take leave from work and come back when the problem is solved. Employees must show

good performance. She shifts the employees from one counter to another in order to make

them multi skilled. If an employee faces difficulty, say in the diamond section, the person

would be shifted to the section where he or she feels comfortable. This is how she earns

their trust, respect and friendship. She believes that the solution of a conflict depends on the

conflict itself. Therefore if she thinks that the problem is too controversial then she permits

them to solve it secretly so that the employee is not embarrassed. However if the employees

feel that the problem needs to be solved in front of everyone, they are welcomed to do that.

Transformational leadership style gives her some kind of charisma, which encourages

employees to listen to her. She is able to motivate them to perform well. She empowers her

employees to some extent that works in the best interest of the organization. Her employees

see her as a leader acting as a strong role model with high values.

Motivation

Motivation is the best way to make the employees productive. Only money cannot keep an

employee for a long period of time. To be successful a manager must know how to motivate

their employees and for that she/he must know what interests the employees. If a manager

knows the basic tactics of motivating his/her employees, then it will be easier for her to keep

her employees moral high in the workplace.

In Apan Jewelers they follow some basic techniques to enhance employees motivation.

They have found from their past experience that recognition of the employees effort is the

best way to increase motivation. Apan Jewelers provides briefing to employees in every one

month, which guides and recognizes their effort. It increases the employees’ moral and

increase enthusiasm in their work field. According to Kaniz Fatema recognition is the best

way to motivate her employees. When an employee is recognized by his work and effort,

she will put more effort in future without any doubt.

In addition, Apan Jewelers giveaway full one-month bonus to those employees who have

100% attendance. Such effort leads Apan Jeweler’s employees to increase their attendance

at work and thus increase the employee productivity. This one-month bonus is given after

the year-end to the employee of the year. While interviewing her, we got to know that the

last employee of the year title was given to their cleaner. By this she wanted to tell us that

they recognize effort of employees from cleaner to sales executive.

Apan Jewelers believes that applying “Theory Y” is the best way to increase motivation of

their employees. As Theory Y states that they should enjoy their work, deliberately taking

responsibility of the organization and leadership style is participative

(http://www.managementstudyguide.com/theory-x-y-motivation.htm). These give

empowerment to their employees. Apan Jewelers believes in moderate level of

empowerment and they can only use it at the time of bargaining to a certain level.

In Hertzberg Factor 2 he said that, “There are some factors if it presents in an organization it

will build high level of motivation and job satisfaction. But if these conditions are absent,

that do not mean a high level dissatisfaction. They are called as motivational factors or

satisfiers.”(Robbins & Judge, 2001). In Apan Jeweler’s every year they held picnic and

football match among employees. All the jersey, sneakers and other accessories for the

football match are provided by the Apan Jewelers.

In Apan Jewelers there are some female employees who are students. At the time of their

exam, Apan Jewelers management allows them to take leave for their examination and does

not give absent if it is for attending their exam. Apan Jewelers clearly understand that the

values of exam to those part time employees are very important.

Furthermore, there is a tradition in Apan Jewelers to giveaway a new set of uniforms to their

female employees after every six months. The new uniform is always well designed and

crafted luxuriously so, that employees not only loves it but wear it with pride. Apan Jeweler

believes if employees look beautiful self-esteem among themselves. They also get the

feeling that they are valued by the organization.

Communication Styles

Downward Communication- According to Judge (2012-2013), “ Communication that

flows one level of a group or organization to a lower level is downward communication”

(p.387).

While interviewing Kaniz Fatema we got to that they apply the downward way of

communication regularly to facilitate their daily work. She uses this way communication to

let her employees know about any current issue regarding the business. The sales executives

are made aware of the ways of dealing with customers, any change in business procedures,

or newly added rules and regulations through this communication style. As Apan Jewelers

has its own owner for every showroom, so owners and sales executives work in the same

office. So the downward communication takes place mostly face-to-face through briefing.

Upward Communication- the communication that moves from lowers level to upper level

is known as upward communication (Judge, 2012-2013, p.388).

Apan Jewelers also have the tendency to use upward way of communication as it let the

management know about any problem faced by the sales executives. Through this style sales

executive can let her know about any conflicts going among them. This helps them to solve

the conflict as conflicts make employees unproductive. So, upward communication helps in

this regard. Employees in lower levels can also let them know about any problem faced by

them while dealing the customers. So, management can take necessary steps to facilitate the

dealing process. Apan jewelers have the system that allows the employees to directly go to

the management and tell any problem regarding the work.

These two ways of communication actually help the organization to be more productive as

there are fewer barriers between the higher and lower level of employees.

Manager recommendation toward future leader

Kaniz Fatema, our select manager for the project recommended and gave some suggestion,

which are very important to be a future manager of an organization. They are listed below-

She told us to strive for our realistic dreams and focus only on that. She also

mentioned that people will talk a lot to demotivate you but if we think that our goal

is right then we should listen to ourselves.

She suggested us “ Be first in Life, rather than in studies.” She meant that ensuring a

good CGPA should not be our focus. Our focus should be to learn and gain

knowledge so that we can apply it to our real work life and become successful

The manager also recommended us to explore the world as much as we can.

“Through exploring you will gain valuable knowledge that will last forever.

Understand the difference between cultures, get to know their livelihood and analyze

how it will help you in your business or in your own career” said by Kaniz Fatema.

She recommended us be knowledgeable regarding technology. She suggested to stay

updated with the latest technology.

Finally, she told us to be presentable all the time so that others do not know how

much we are stressed out. She also told us to be relaxed at work. And be “quality

focused rather than quantity.” (Interview Intext Citation)