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COVER FEATURE
"Our overall objective is to be the premier supplier of Lean transformation services on a global basis.''
-- Mark DeLuzio
Lean Horizons Consulting (LHC) partners with enterprises in all industries and all parts of the world in unleashing the full power of Lean. Its founder Mark DeLuzio dramatically shifted the balance in an increasingly competitive environment on the basis of his experience as an architect of the Danaher Business System.
©2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
HR
The causes and consequences of employee turnover
-- Dr. Gurpreet Randhawa
The employee turnover has been a focus of investigation in several disciplines (e.g., psychology, economics, sociology) for a number of years. Employee turnover means the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal of employees from the organization. A high employee turnover rate results in increased recruiting, selecting and training costs. Moreover, it disrupts the efficient functioning of the organization. This article discusses the major causes of employee turnover in the organizations. It also examines the possible consequences of employee turnover.
© 2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
STRATEGY
An all-round tool : Balanced Scorecard
-- Manishankar Chakraborty
Strategic thinkers, planners and executers were often at sea when asked to think about considering all the aspects of an organization to ideate, implement and monitor strategic development in consonance with vision, mission, and objectives with a measured approach. This handicap was removed once Kaplan and Norton brought to the fore their pioneering works on Balanced Scorecard. This article tries to explain the concept of Balanced Scorecard with the help of story and illustrations.
©2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
CSR
Corporate social responsibility : The level next
-- Indranil Banerjee
These days Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a buzzword across the corporate circle. It remains a point of debate whether corporates should shoulder such a cause. People expect the organization to act as a good citizen. In keeping with these expectations, corporate entities are pronouncing their generosity by extending its activity to the social cause by moving beyond the bottom line consequence. If the governance issue of CSR is properly addressed, the organization could be benefited by harvesting the investment on CSR as it helps in building good corporate branding and competitive advantage for long-term sustenance.
© 2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
STRESS MANAGEMENT
Stress at the workplace and ways to combat it
-- Jayashri Shetty
Lifestyles are undergoing a radical change. The work environment around us is also changing very rapidly and a person is left with very little choice but to learn to adapt quickly or to perish. It is not uncommon these days to hear people say that they feel stressed out. Sometimes, it sounds like a fad. Scientific ideas to define and combat stress factors exist in plenty. They are `gospel truths' and find most symptoms in our being. We know them for sure, as we all seem to possess them. It is as if someone had voiced our feelings aloud. Not going too deep down into scientific factors that cause stress, this article discusses some such factors in our immediate surroundings that we can easily recognize and are definitely under the purview of our control.
© 2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
BRAND MANAGEMENT
Commoditization of brands and branding of commodities : Emerging paradoxes in the Indian market
-- Anurag Dugar
This article is an attempt to bring together the concept of life cycle of products, product class and market evolution. It tries to answer the question as to how the life cycle of product class and market evolution affect the product life cycle of any product? The case of an emerging paradox in the Indian market, where because of the changing stages of market evolution and life cycle of product forms and categories, some of the brands are gradually adopting the features of commodity and certain commodities are gradually availing the advantage of branding is also discussed.
© 2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
CASE STUDY
Vodafone exits Japan
Vodafone, a UK-based mobile telecommunication company, entered the Japanese cellular market after it acquired a 26 per cent stake in J-Phone, through the acquisition of Airtouch. J-Phone was the third largest player in the Japanese cellular market. Vodafone went on to acquire a controlling stake in J-Phone in 2003. This case details the problems that Vodafone faced in the country due to competition from local players like NTT DoCoMo and KDD, who provided better services and a superior range of handsets. It also talks about the problem faced due to a delay in its rolling out of 3G services and attempts to analyze the reasons for Vodafone's poor performance in the Japanese market. It concludes with a brief discussion on Vodafone's agreement with SoftBank under which it can continue to have access to one of the most developed cellular markets in the world.
© 2008 ICMR. All Rights Reserved.
SHORT BOOK REVIEW
Engineering Services Outsourcing: Emerging Trends
-- Rajmanohar T P and Balaji V
The Engineering Services Outsourcing (ESO) business is worth around $15 bn but keeps on increasing every year. The ESO business started only about 10 years ago and has been growing very fast. India is a major player in ESO and is likely to grow to about $40 bn by 2020. The other players in ESO are China, Taiwan and Philippines. Every year the industry is growing at around 12%. The main industries using ESO are automobile, aerospace, utilities and high-tech/telecom.
© 2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
BOOK REVIEW
Redefining Global Strategy : Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter
-- Pankaj Ghemawat Reviewed by Swarup Kumar Dutta
In Redefining Global Strategy, Prof. Pankaj Ghemawat disputes the popular notion that the world is `flat' and contends that the world is in a state of semi-globalization. A Multinational Company (MNC), expanding beyond its home country's borders will find success only when it recognizes and manages the critical differences among the different countries that it has set up business in. To help businesses create value by operating across borders, the author suggests a CAGE framework for measuring differences among countries and AAA triangle framework as broad strategies for dealing with cross-border differences. Using detailed examples of the successes and the stumbles of the world's most powerful companies, Redefining Global Strategy provides practical management tools to help businesses create value by operating across borders.
© 2008 IUP . All Rights Reserved
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