Kaizen – Understanding the Japanese Business Philosophy of Continuous Improvement

Operations Management

Role of Leaders in Shaping Organizational Culture

Management Principles

Organizational Culture – Development and Importance

Management Principles

Five Important Organizational Cultural Models

Management Principles

The Customer Satisfaction Model – Based on American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

Marketing Management

Building Strong Brands: Why Is It Hard?

In today’s competitive market, a brand can only achieve success if it can connect with consumers and effectively communicate its unique qualities in a way in which they create a positive impression in the minds of consumers. The brand builder who attempts to develop a strong brand is like a golfer playing on a course with heavy roughs, deep sand traps, sharp doglegs, and vast water barriers. It is difficult to score well in such conditions. Substantial pressures and barriers, both internal and external, can inhibit the brand builder. To be able to develop effective brand strategies, it is useful to understand these pressures and barriers. 1. Pressure To Compete On Price There are enormous pressures on nearly all firms to engage in price competition. In all industries from computers to cars to frozen dinners to airlines to soft drinks, price competition is at center stage, driven by the power Continue reading

Abey Francis

Store Positioning in Retail Management

Attracting the customers is the crux of the issue of retail trade. How and where the store is positioned on the site affects the retailer’s ability to attract the customers. Therefore in evaluating the existing store facilities or planning future site layouts, the retailer should answer effectively and satisfactorily these three questions. These are: How visible is the store? Is the store compatible with its surroundings?   Are store facilities placed for customer convenience ? 1.  Ensuring the Store Visibility The customers must see the store if the retailer wants to achieve the goals of stopping, attracting and inviting the customers. A visible store becomes a part of the consumers mental map of where, to shop for certain product as service. Visual awareness of a stores existence has the  short-run  benefit of alluring impulse shoppers and the long-run benefit of attracting the future customers who develop a particular need for Continue reading

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The Competing Values Framework

Competing models of management refer to those models that attempt to explain the competing value framework of organizational management. The organizational management sometimes faces the management challenge of balancing between two or more important processes that affect the operation of an organization. The competing values framework is a model that was developed by Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron to assess the organizational culture. The theory of competing values framework, in essence, shows the interrelationship between processes that enable the organization to focus on the internal environment or external environment. The area of focus of an organization leads to the development of the organizational culture and often results in a balancing of two or more competing value factors. This implies that the organizational competing values framework models have a role in the success of an organization. The competing values framework can be used in constructing an organizational culture profile. An organizational Continue reading

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Ten Personality Factors in Organizational Behavior

Personality is a complex, multi-dimensional construct and there is no simple definition of what personality is. Salvatore R.  Maddi  defines personality as, “A stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine those commonalities and differences in the psychological behavior and that may not be easily understood as the sole result of the social and biological pressures of the moment”. All individuals have some universally common characteristics. Yet they differ in some other specific attributes. This makes it difficult for the managers to assume that they can apply same reward types or motivation techniques to modify different individual behaviors. The definition, however, does not mean that people never change. In simple terms, it asserts that individuals do not change all at once. Their thoughts, feelings, values and actions remain relatively stable over time. Changes in individual’s personality can, however, occur gradually over a period of time. The managers should, therefore, attempt Continue reading

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Margin trading at stock exchanges

Margin Trading (MT) is an arrangement whereby an investor purchases securities by borrowing a portion of the purchase value from the authorised broker by using securities in his portfolio as collateral. Since April 1, 2004, SEBI has allowed member brokers to provide margin trading facility to their client in the cash market. Only corporate brokers with net worth of at least Rs. 3 crores would be eligible to participate in Mragin Trading. The brokers interested to provide margin trading facility to their clients have to seek approval from the stock exchange. The broker may use his own funds or borrow from scheduled commercial banks/NBFC regulated by the RBI. The total exposure of a broker shall be within self imposed prudential limits and not exceeding 50% of networth. The margin arrangement has to be agreed upon between the broker and the client, subject to SEBI Guidelines, 2004. Initial and maintenance margin Continue reading

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Investment Diversification

Diversification is the strategy of combining distinct asset classes in an investment portfolio in order to reduce overall portfolio risk. In other words, investment  diversification is the process of selecting the asset mix so as to reduce the uncertainty in the return of an investment portfolio. Diversification helps to reduce investment risks because different investments may rise and fall independent of each other. The combinations of these assets will nullify the impact of fluctuation, thereby, reducing risk. Most financial assets are not held in isolation, rather they are held as parts of portfolios. Banks, pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, and other financial institutions are required to hold diversified portfolios. Even individual investors – at least those whose security holdings constitute a significant part of their total wealth – generally hold stock portfolios, not the stock of a single firm. Why is it so? An important reason is the lowering Continue reading

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