Degree

Master of Business Administration Executive

Faculty / School

School of Business Studies (SBS)

Year of Award

2025

Advisor/Supervisor

Mr. Faisal Jalal, Adjunct Faculty, Department of Marketing

Project Type

MBA Executive Research Project

Access Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

Warranty Management System (WMS); Asset Management; Procurement; Preventive Maintenance; Automation; ERP Integration; Claim Processing; Digital Transformation

Executive Summary

Problem Description:

Habib University (HU) is a liberal arts institution that continues to expand its program offerings and student enrollment. To support this growth, the university is upgrading its existing facilities and opening new campuses, which involves significant material procurement, including appliances and equipment. With this large-scale procurement, each item comes with distinct warranty terms, such as start dates, warranty periods, and coverage details. Managing these varying warranties can present a significant challenge for HU, which necessitates the discovery of an efficient solution to handle the complexity of warranty management.

Significance:

  1. Organizational - Given the volume of materials, the absence of a warranty management system at HU would lead to a frustrating after-sales experience. Employees may struggle to access warranty details and secure timely support, resulting in inefficient service processes. This lack of coordination could cause prolonged wait times and require repeated follow-ups, further complicating the resolution of warranty-related issues. These can lead to inefficient use of resources and additional costs.
  2. Economical - Without a warranty management system, HU risks incurring additional expenses due to missed warranty claims and delays in obtaining proper repairs. For example, time and money may be wasted on follow-up calls, transportation, and temporary replacements if issues aren't resolved promptly. Moreover, the lack of clear and accessible information could result in missed opportunities to take advantage of warranties and associated benefits, ultimately increasing financial costs and causing frustration. This goes both ways and equipment manufacturers and vendors may also not be able to provide adequate services to HU, which may result in additional costs, or loss of trust.
  3. Social Aspects - Employees encounter challenges when requesting appliance servicing from manufacturers, given their sheer volume and separate operating procedures. Additionally, they endure long wait times, repeatedly answer the same questions from customer service representatives and sometimes face disconnections, leading to frustration and a reliance on unauthorized service providers. Inefficiencies can cause morale to go down and employees to lose focus. Managing physical warranty cards presents additional difficulties. These cards are easily lost or damaged, and tracking expiration dates while manually filling out claim forms is time-consuming. Such inefficiencies can delay warranty claims and increase costs. Moreover, physical cards contribute to environmental waste, raising concerns in HU where preservation of the environmental is among its core values.

Approach:

Our group will propose a solution for HU that enables them to efficiently manage warranties for various materials. At a minimum, HU employees should be able to store and manage warranty card information through a database that consolidates and organizes this data. With such information, valuable trends and analytics can also be extracted that may benefit the organization.

We will begin by conducting secondary research to evaluate existing warranty management solutions and analyze how other organizations handle warranties. To better understand the problem, we will gather insights through interviews, surveys, focus groups and observations across relevant functions in HU, focusing on the specific needs of end users and the varying requirements for materials under warranty. By conducting both qualitative and quantitative analyses, we aim to propose a viable solution that aligns with HU’s future expansion plans.

Pages

xii, 70

Notes

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those who have supported us throughout the journey of completing this project, especially our mentor and supervisor, Mr. Faisal Jalal, without whose continuous support and guidance, it would not have been able to develop this report. This report is the result of valuable insights, guidance, and encouragement from various individuals and organizations.

We would like to extend our deepest appreciation to our esteemed faculty at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) and for their continuous support and expertise. Their insightful lectures and constructive feedback have played a significant role in shaping our understanding of warranty management and its strategic implications.

We are also grateful to the management of Habib University for arranging interviews with the relevant individuals and for facilitating the application of our proposed solution. Special thanks also to our colleagues and industry experts who shared their practical experiences, data, and perspectives, which have greatly enriched this report.

Most importantly, a heartfelt thanks to our families and friends for their unwavering encouragement and patience during this journey. Their support has been instrumental in helping us stay motivated and focused.

Lastly, we acknowledge the various authors, researchers, and industry professionals whose work has contributed to the understanding of warranty management. Their valuable research and insights have served as a strong foundation for this study.

This report is a culmination of collective efforts, and we sincerely appreciate every contribution that made it possible.

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