Introduction of the Company Ozone supermarket is a U.

S based retail company who has a strong brand image worldwide and follows strict ethics and value. They have presence in more than 30 countries all over the world. Each week, at an average 200 million customers visit their 10,000 stores all over the world. There sales pinned at $ 356 billion dollars last year. They have an employee base of 2.5 million around the world. Innovative thinking, service leadership and above all their superior values and ethics involved in business had made this organisation a retail giant over the years. The company is always looking for innovation and accepts and reshapes its strategy to changing business environments flawlessly. These traits had made the company touch high growth rates consistently. The company sticks on to its core values and gives every possible effort to ensure that these values are followed in all the countries it is operating. There is no relaxation if someone is found to deviate from the core values of the company. These pillars of success have made them a great enterprise in todays world and they dont want ethical issues to seep in and tarnish their brand image all over the world. They are known for its brand and the company is a major force in its own country in the retail sector.

About the Target Market The target market of India has been in developing stages, although it has followed the liberalisation policies since past 10 years the retail segment of market has been opened for foreign players since past 7 years, owing to large young population and subsequent demographic dividend, it is a very attractive market for the consumer goods which is driving organised retail in k. Economic structure of India functions on the line of mixed economy model where private sector coexists with public sector , though market provides attractive avenues for organised retail , the judicial policies are not very transparent which lead to lot of ambiguity for the international players entering the market . Although the existing sectors are manufacturing, agriculture and services the major growth driver is service sector as majority contribution to GDP comes from the service sector, service sector also employs maximum amount of population and hence has emerged as the cornerstone of the development in India. The manufacturing segment has been ignored a little in India due to which the infrastructure development has not been up to the mark and hence the transportation of raw materials poses a challenge for the organised retail.

It is also characterised by a very stable and growing middle class which again is beneficial for the retail segment, the aspirations of middle class have also been on the rise so they want more choices with regard to their purchase of goods. Owing to young population and rising middle class there are no worries with regard to demand of the organised retail segment , but a lot needs to be done to ensure transparency and ethics in the sourcing of materials, handling channel partners , dealing with judicial uncertainties. These pose as a significant challenge for any international player existing in the organised retail segment of India Major competition 8 years back a leading conglomerate AZURE CO. LTD had launched organised retail chain named V4U in India in Mumbai. Although V4U took time in gaining acceptance amongst the consumers of India , in the past 5 years V4U has achieved a market leader position in the organised retail chain segment Apart from having huge no. of suppliers for their sourcing and having the technological infrastructure in place for their transportation they also have developed long time relationships with the judiciary and local politicians which helps them protect themselves from any judicial uncertainty. Any foreign player existing in the market of India has to compete with V4U for ensuring their survival in the highly competitive and price sensitive organised retail market , further being the first player in the market of India , V4U enjoys a huge brand recall and trust advantage amongst the consumers and hence the preference of customers will always be biased towards V4U

Mr . John Patrucci Mr. John Patrucci had been associated with Ozone Supermarket for over three years now. A Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania pass out of the year 1999 with a major in marketing, and a nine year experience in the The Kroger Company which is Americas largest grocery store chain, he was a man who was known not only for his marketing and selling skills but also for his belief in maintaining a strong organizational culture based on ethics and values. In 2008, Mr. John Patrucci left The Kroger Company and joined Ozone Supermarket because the scope for professional growth was higher as the company had a strong base in over thirty countries and was getting stronger with time and also because the company followed strong ethical codes of conduct and maintained a just and a transparent system of functioning, something he felt strongly about.

As Mr. Pattruci had a strong academic and professional background, Mr. Edward Martin, CEO Ozone Supermarket was certain that he would be able to fulfil his duties as a country head of the Ozone Supermarket group very effectively and efficiently. Thus Mr. Pattruci was made the Country head -France of Ozone Supermarket where he performed extremely well and made Ozone Supermarket, one of the leading companies in retail in that country. In 2012, Mr. Edward Martin thought that Mr. Pattruci had pretty much contributed enough to the France division and made it strong enough name in that country. He needed someone with the same expertise to look into the Indian division as it was relatively a newer branch which was full of potential and also because the previous country head- India had to be shifted to the Brazil branch due to some issues. The Company Operations in India Thus in late 2012 began the journey of Mr. Patrucci as the Country head India of Ozone Supermarket.There were three regional managers reporting to Mr. Patrucci namely, Mr. Kishore Negi RM North, Mr. Utpal Ghoshal RM East, Mr. Shankar Ravi RM South . Mr. Patrucci was known for following strict ethical measures of business practices along with sales and profit targets. Mr Patrucci was a person on a mission and he had been considering the option of opening up the companys operation in the West which had been elusive to the company till now. One of the reasons of it being elusive was the extend to which the competitior V4U had established its operations in the west as it was headquartered in Mumbai itself and being an Indian company understood the Indian market and mentality of people and how business is being run. When Mr. Patrucci checked the company records, he saw that Vipul Mehta, GM (North) reporting to Mr Kishore Negi was the star performer and maximum sales was done by the team under him. So in consultation with the regional managers he decided that Vipul Mehta should handle the operations of West. Mr. Vipul Mehta on being promoted to RM(West) was too excited with the new assignment. and they started with their functions with Pilot operations in two cities. Within a month , Ozone Market set up itself. The Internal & External issues Being the country head , Mr Patrucci would not be available most of the time as he would be travelling and would not be easily accessible to spend time and know how things were being done. However the west region being Mr. Patruccis mission, he kept a tap on the functioning . He found out that Mr. Vipul Mehta was found to be taking bribes and carrying out things outside of the ethics of what the company believed in. During the monthly review , Mr Patrucci although happy with the way things had started cautioned in general that he had zero tolerance for unethical practices. Inspite of being cautioned , Vipul Mehta was still found to be following unethical ways. The final nail in the coffin for Mr. Patrucci was when he got to know that

Mr. Vipul Mehta had taken a major decision in dealing with V4Us contractor to secure a deal. This was not tolerated by Mr. Patrucci and he confronted and reprimanded Mr. Vipul without seeking an explanation or understanding the ground reality and cautioned of serious consequences if it was found the next time. During the next monthly review , Mr. Patrucci checked the records to evaluate sales performance, he was shocked to see a major dip in sales and profits by all three regions and the West region Expansion a total failure. What he was more appalled about was the fact that the star performer was the one who had faltered the most. Therefore to discuss what went wrong with Mr. Vipul Mehtas team and why the performance of the region went down so drastically, Mr. Patrucci arranged for a one on one meeting with him. During that discussion, a very disturbed and irked Vipul Mehta dismissed the ethical codes of conduct and behavior that Mr. Patrucci had kept as a parameter for appraisal and openly claimed that such measures are effective in a place like USA only and to make sales and profit happen in India, there needs to be some unfair measures taken up. As such measures were more prominent in the western markets of India, his team got affected the most. He also mentioned that he had tried to explain the same earlier to Mr. Patrucci but he was never allowed to. He also went further in mentioning that if he needs to get things done , he would need to follow the way he used to function earlier By interacting with his team of RMs, he realized that the previous work culture followed by the country head before him was more sales and profit driven and not much attention was paid to ethics or code of conduct. A perplexed Mr. Patrucci then looked over all the accounts of various regions and saw that such a scenario was prevalent in every region and the early country head was fully aware of the way things were being carried out. Mr Patrucci set up a core team to understand the functioning of V4U and its operations in India. A SWOT analysis indicated that V4U had good distribution network , good number of suppliers , local political support. These was all well supported by the way bribing was being done and unethical practices they used to establish themselves and expand and how they had an upper hand in making decisions go in their favour. Opportunities for Ozone market was the amount of offerings it had giving customers more options , the brand value it had and service leadership. It had its sales going well in the remaining three regions which had resulted in increased sope of it succeeding in the west The Decision at Hand Now he was wondering what should be done next. Should such a behavior be tolerated as it was generating sales and profits and also because these were the norms followed by almost every organization in the retail industry in India.or should he stick to the values and ethics of his own and Ozone Supermarket. Should he consider going ahead with the expansion in the western region given the level of unethical approaches required along with the competition of an already

going strong V4U. Should he consider setting an example of zero intolerance for unethical ways in the organization through taking action against Mr. Vipul Mehta

Organizational Hierarchy of Ozone Supermarket Country Head (India) Mr. John Patrucci

Regional Manager (North) Mr. Kishore Negi

Regional Manager (South) Mr. Shankar Ravi

Regional Manager (East) Mr. Utpal Ghoshal

Regional Manager (West) Mr. Vipul Mehta