COVER FEATURE

Reliance Money Ltd.

-- Sudip Bandyopadhyay

"We are committed to provide cost-effective, secure and convenient transaction capabilities to the clients, irrespective of their personal wealth or status to ensure a risk-free transaction environment."

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

SCM

Transforming business through supply chain excellence

-- S Jaya Krishna

Delivering exceptional `customer value' by way of supply chain innovation and excellence helps organizations achieve a sustainable competitive edge, which can transform their businesses. Such distinctive supply chain capability created through remarkable innovations in its operations drives towards sustained market leadership and dramatic growth. Innovative Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices, focused on establishing a seamless integration, visibility and execution capabilities, enhance operational efficiency, agility, resilience, reliability and Efficient Customer Response (ECR), essential to achieve supply chain excellence. A range of proven best practices and state-of-the-art SCM technologies lay the foundation for operational innovation across supply chain and optimize customer value.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

HRM

Successful expatriate management

-- Sumati Reddy

Considering that expatriation is on the rise around the world, HR professionals are faced with the challenge of providing as much consistency and clarity in their expatriate policies as is possible, while taking into account the unique requirements that expatriates are likely to have in different locations. This article outlines some of the key aspects that they need to keep their fingers on so that the goals of the organization, as well as the specific requirements of the expatriates are met within certain predictable parameters. Adopting these measures can play a key role in enhancing the effectiveness of expatriate management.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

MANAGEMENT

Trusteeship : The foundation for capitalism

-- Dr. Bharti Thakar

The article attempts to highlight the issues of capitalism, socialism and communism and brings forth an argument of how trusteeship is the basis and foundation for capitalism and the global movement as it exists today. Trusteeship is not a theory, it is a way of working. In the contemporary age, it is also reflected in corporate social responsibility or as per the Companies Act 1956, which suggests that a director act as a trustee. Trusteeship has also been a way of some capitalists. Trusteeship may have many meanings and connotations; it can also be perceived as a non-profit approach, but it is not necessarily so. When we see it as an alternative or foundation for capitalism, we mean the soul behind the method. Trusteeship essentially means to act and to take decisions without a sense of ownership or absolute right to possession. The ills of capitalism appear when they impede democracy; capitalism in its ideal form is when the owners look upon the company as a trust.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Crisis makes the companies stronger

-- Shirshendu Ganguli and Harsh Arora

Crisis situations are inevitable in the business domains. Companies can handle crisis situations easily if they behave in a proper manner and take planned actions. This article tries to explore the steps that are necessary to control the crisis situation; it discusses the importance of information and communication in crisis, how to leverage on strengths and opportunities, how to handle customers and thus be in control of the situation instead of panicking. In fact, handling crisis efficiently makes the companies grow stronger than before.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Automobile sector in India : Current trend and future prospects

-- Abhilas Kumar Pradhan

This article makes an attempt to analyze the production trend of automobiles in India, between 1994-95 and 2005-06. It also addresses how the composition of various vehicle types has changed dramatically over the study period. Specifically, in the two-wheeler segment, Indian customers have exhibited a shift from scooter to motorcycles. The motorcycle segment enjoys the largest market share among the two- wheelers and has evidenced an exponential growth rate. In the prevailing economic environment, the overall growth prospect of the Indian automobile sector appears to be quite promising. The automobile sector has the opportunity to create employment and redistribute income and wealth so created. It has also the potential to generate huge employment opportunity in other key sectors of the economy through its strong forward and backward linkages. Keeping in view the growth potential, linkage effects and employment opportunity, a strategy needs to be formulated for the all-round development of this sector.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Crisis management Handling the bad situation the good way!!

-- Sandhya Hotchandani

Organizations in any business are vulnerable to crisis situations. Managing the crisis has become essential to come out of such situations the right way. This article sums up the idea of crisis management and draws lessons from some well-known organizations which have wriggled out of such situations. The article identifies communication as the most important component of crisis management.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

LEADERSHIP

Ten leadership : lessons learnt

-- Dr. Patrick Low Kim Cheng

Much has been spoken and written about leaders from the Western world and the leadership lessons gleaned. More needs to be written about the Asian world/leadership with valuable lessons and applications drawn. In this article, through the story of Hang Tuah, the legendary Malay hero of the Malacca Sultanate, a university don discusses several universal leadership lessons learnt.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved

CASE STUDY

Wal-Mart : Implementing RFID

-- Bindu Kannan and Minita Sinha

In 2004, Wal-Mart announced its plan to implement Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) technology. RFID was to be pilot-tested at its three distribution centers at Dallas before being fully implemented. The top 100 suppliers were given a deadline of January 2005 to be RFID-compliant. Wal-Mart wanted to revolutionize the supply chain through real-time tracking of products. According to an analyst, Wal-Mart would save around $8.4 bn annually once the project was completed. However, during the initial phase of implementation, various issues like cost of compliance, consumer privacy and insufficient knowledge of RFID tags made the suppliers skeptical about the system. Industry observers in general and suppliers in particular doubted whether Wal-Mart's RFID implementation was a wise decision.

© 2005 IBS Case Development Center. All Rights Reserved.

BOOK REVIEW

Thinking for a living : How to get better performance and results from knowledge workers

-- Thomas H Davenport Reviewed by Prof S N Mookherje

It is apparent that firms with the highest degree and quality of knowledge work tend to be the fastest growing and most profitable firms in their respective sectors. Nevertheless, many companies fail to maximize the productivity of their knowledge workers due to inappropriate management techniques and processes, and thereby pay the price in the form of lower performance and slipping competitiveness. In today's complex environment, firms need a new insight into how knowledge workers think, how they accomplish tasks and what motivates them to excel. There is a need to develop a new matrix, with one management system for its knowledge workers and another for its more traditional workforce.

© 2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved