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

National Income Accounting in India

According to the First report of the National Income Committee, “National income estimate measures the volume of commodities and services turned out during a given period, counted without duplication.” This means the total volume of goods and services produced in a year in a country is valued in monetary terms to obtain the National income of the country concerned. Regarding the measurement of National income, it could be done in three different ways depending upon the interpretation of concept of national income. If National income is considered as a flow of goods and services, then the method used is called Product method. If National income is treated as a flow of income then the relevant method of measuring it is called Income method. Alternatively, if National income is treated as a flow of expenditure, the method used is called the Expenditure method. Apart from these traditional methods of measuring National Continue reading

Abey Francis

Trends in Foreign Portfolio Investments

While Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) has traditionally been concentrated in developed markets, new  interest has been sparked by the so-called “emerging” capital markets. The  emerging markets have at least three attractive qualities, two of which are their  high average returns and their low correlations with developed markets.  Diversification into these markets in expected to give higher expected returns  and lower overall volatility. Many individual investors, as well as portfolio and pension fund managers, are  reexamining their basic investment strategies. In the last decade, fund managers  realized  that significant performance gains could be obtained by diversifying  into high-quality global equity markets. These gains are limited, however, by the  fairly high cross-correlations returns in these markets. The resulting investment  strategy reflects current information.  In terms of portfolio theory, adding low-correlation portfolios to an  optimized investment portfolio,  enhances the reward-to-risk profile by shifting the mean-variance frontier to the  left.  The portfolio  optimization  problem Continue reading

Abey Francis

Six Sigma – A Business Process Improvement Methodology

Six Sigma is a methodology that provides businesses with the tools to improve the capability of their business processes. This increase in performance and decrease in process variation leads to defect reduction and vast improvement in profits, employee morale and quality of product “It’s the only program I’ve ever seen where customers win, employees are engaged and satisfied, and shareholders are rewarded.” – Jack Welch Historical Background of Six Sigma Around 1980 Robert Galvin, at that time CEO at Motorola, realized the importance of working systematically with variance reduction as the Japanese had done for a prolonged period. Together with Bill Smith, Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder, he created an improvement program that was given the name Six Sigma. Bill Smith came up with the idea of “inserting hard-nosed statistics into the blurred philosophy of quality”. The program was inspired by Japanese work, but also strongly influenced by Juran’s thoughts. Continue reading

Pages: 1 2
Abey Francis

Modes of Entry into International Markets

A foreign market mode of entry is a channel which enables the enterprise’s product, human skills, management, technology or other resources, to enter into a foreign country. The choice of market entry mode is a vital strategic decision for firms intending to carry out business overseas. A number of definitions of different modes of entry exist. The major modes of international entry is classified as indirect export, direct export and alternatives to export. Most models of foreign market mode of entry is due to limited resources, therefore enterprises initially penetrate a foreign market through indirect export methods. Indirect paths to internationalization are those whereby small firms are involved in exporting, sourcing or distribution agreements with intermediary companies who manage, on their behalf, the transaction, sale or service with overseas companies. Export intermediaries play an important middleman role in international trade, linking individuals and organizations that would otherwise not have been Continue reading

Abey Francis

Organization Development Interventions

Organization Development Interventions  refer to various activities which consultant and client organization perform for improving organizational functioning by enabling organization members to better manage their team and organization cultures. French and Well have defined Organization Development  interventions as “sets of structured activities in which selected organizational units (target groups or individuals) engage with a task or a sequence of tasks where the task goals are related directly or indirectly to organizational improvement. Interventions constitute the action thrust of organization development; they make things happen and are what is happening.” Organizational Development Intervention Techniques Sensitivity Training: Sensitivity training is a small-group interaction under stress in an unstructured encounter group, which requires people to become sensitive to one another’s feelings in order to develop reasonable group activity. In sensitivity training, the actual technique employed is T-group. T-group has several characteristic features: The T-group is generally small, from ten to twenty members The Continue reading

Abey Francis

Takeover – Definition and Types

Acquisition can be undertaken through merger or takeover route. Takeover   is a general term used to define acquisitions only and both terms are used interchangeably. A Takeover may be defined as series of transacting whereby a person, individual, group of individuals or a company acquires control over the assets of a company, either directly by becoming owner of those assets or indirectly by obtaining control of management of the company. Takeover is   acquisition, by one company of controlling interest of the other, usually by buying all or majority of shares. Takeover may be of different types depending upon the purpose of acquiring a company. A takeover may be straight takeover which is accomplished by the management of the taking over company by acquiring shares of another company with the intention of operating taken over as an independent legal entity. The second type of takeover is where ownership of Continue reading

Abey Francis