Pune / Vol. IV, Issue 1 / January - June, 2014 (Half Yearly) / Price Rs. 300/-
ISSN 2231 - 0290
Maharashtra Cosmopolitan Education Society’s
Allana Institute of Management Sciences, Pune
“Origin of Spread Sheet Risk and IT strategies for its control in Enterprise Management”
Dr. Haridasa S. Acharya, Professor, AIMS, Pune
“Quality Circle Tools and Techniques”
Dr. Vinod S. Ingawale, Director, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, School of Distance Education, Pune
“Design and Implementation of “Service Identity” at Dealership Network - A case study”
Govind Hemrajani, Research Scholar, Symbiosis International University, Pune
“Impact of attrition on the quality of software projects”
Prof. S. Bala Subramaniam, Professor, AIMS, Pune
“Problems of implementation ERP in educational institutes : A case study”
Prof. Jawed S. Khan, Associate Professor, AIMS, Pune
Prof. Irfan J. Shaikh, Joint Secretary, M.C.E. Society, Azam Campus, Pune
“Computer mediated communication in Enterprises, need for their classification and algorithmic complexities”
Prof. Priti Kulkarni, Professor, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Symbiosis International
University, Pune
Dr. Haridasa S. Acharya, Professor, AIMS, Pune
“An analytical study of the marketing practices with reference to professional ethics in Pune”
Prof. David Sampat Kadam, Director, Projects & Alumni Affaire, Balaji Institute of Modern Management, Pune
“Human resource enrichment through skills development “ Issues and Challenges”
Dr. Sanjay Kaptan, Professor & Head, Department of Commerce & Research Centre, University of Pune
“A study on implications of financial assistance schemes for the BPL families by the Government of Maharashtra
from 2008-09 to 2012-12 in Pune city”
Dr. Bharat Meghe, Dean, Department of Commerce, RTM, University of Nagpur
Prof. Dhirendra Kumar, Assistant Professor, SIBAR, Kondhwa, Pune
Dr. Vidya Nakhate, Assistant Professor, SIBAR, Kondhwa, Pune
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Hidayatullah Road, Azam Campus, Pune - 411001. Chief Editor - Dr. R. Ganesan
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Allana Institute of Management Sciences, Pune
“Origin of Spread Sheet Risk and IT strategies for its control in Enterprise Management”
Dr. Haridasa S. Acharya, Professor, AIMS, Pune
“Quality Circle Tools and Techniques”
Dr. Vinod S. Ingawale, Director, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, School of Distance Education, Pune
“Design and Implementation of “Service Identity” at Dealership Network - A case study”
Govind Hemrajani, Research Scholar, Symbiosis International University, Pune
“Impact of attrition on the quality of software projects”
Prof. S. Bala Subramaniam, Professor, AIMS, Pune
“Problems of implementation ERP in educational institutes : A case study”
Prof. Jawed S. Khan, Associate Professor, AIMS, Pune
Prof. Irfan J. Shaikh, Joint Secretary, M.C.E. Society, Azam Campus, Pune
“Computer mediated communication in Enterprises, need for their classification and algorithmic
complexities”
Prof. Priti Kulkarni, Professor, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Symbiosis International
University, Pune
Dr. Haridasa S. Acharya, Professor, AIMS, Pune
“An analytical study of the marketing practices with reference to professional ethics in Pune”
Prof. David Sampat Kadam, Director, Projects & Alumni Affaire, Balaji Institute of Modern Management,
Pune
“Human resource enrichment through skills development “ Issues and Challenges”
Dr. Sanjay Kaptan, Professor & Head, Department of Commerce & Research Centre, University of Pune
“A study on implications of financial assistance schemes for the BPL families by the Government of
Maharashtra from 2008-09 to 2012-12 in Pune city”
Dr. Bharat Meghe, Dean, Department of Commerce, RTM, University of Nagpur
Prof. Dhirendra Kumar, Assistant Professor, SIBAR, Kondhwa, Pune
Dr. Vidya Nakhate, Assistant Professor, SIBAR, Kondhwa, Pune
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 001
GENERAL
MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
MANAGEMENT
MARKETING
MANAGEMENT
HUMAN
RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT
ACCOUNTING
& FINANCE
MANAGEMENT
13
18
24
35
40
51
57
67
71
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCHCONTENTS
JANUARY - JUNE, 2014
CHIEF EDITOR
DR. (PROF). R. GANESAN
DIRECTOR, AIMS, PUNE
ADVISOR
DR. A. B. RAO
SENIOR RESEARCH GUIDE & MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT
HEAD, RESEARCH CENTRE, AIMS, PUNE
EDITORS
DR. ASHRAF RIZVI
PROFESSOR, IIM, INDORE
DR. (PROF). ROSHAN KAZI
PROFESSOR, AIMS, PUNE
DR. (MRS.) SURYA RAMDAS
DIRECTOR, II BM, PUNEe
ASST. EDITORS
PROF. ASHFAQUE AHMED PINITOD
ASST. PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF YAMBU, KINGDOM OF SAUDI, ARABIA
PROF. S. D. BAGADE
ASST. PROFESSOR, AIMS, PUNE
EDITORIAL BOARD
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 002
his journal has been marching towards its goal of providing a variety of
Tinnovative, original articles of relevant research contents. Today research
in the area of management is progressively extending towards
technologically oriented allied sciences and thereby becoming multi disciplinary.
However if is the healthy originality with technical refinement that would justifiably
recognise the sanctity of research.
Multi-dimensional research approach to multi-faceted managerial problems can
ensure new trends of thought and thereby usher in opportunities and as well as
challenges.
It is earnestly hoped that the articles in this issue would be quite interesting to the
readers. Suggestions from readers are welcome.
EDITORIAL
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 003
DR. (PROF). R. GANESAN
CHIEF EDITOR
Spread sheet risks are a reality in enterprises. They are an unavoidable
component of any enterprise data processing system. Use of spread sheets
can never be fully eliminated from any enterprise data processing
environment. The only way to counter the problem is to minimize their ill effects
with proper IT policies and data processing strategies.
In this article, to begin with a quick analysis of the data base types and the changing
needs of data processing requirements of any Enterprise, small or big in size, is given.
An attempt has been made to trace the origin of the very concept of 'Spread Sheet
Risk' from historic perspective.
A formal theory is proposed to establish that 'Spread Sheet Risk' is an unavoidable
evil , specially in financial data processing.
Next an attempt has been made to theoretically examine the trend of 'Spread sheet
risk' over the past few years, and estimate the growth rates.
Strategies for monitoring the risk and effectively managing the same have been
suggested , using proofs which are based on the Software Engineering Principles,
established data growth laws, and the dynamics of tiny data to big-data
evolution.
It can be stated that this article conclusively proves that - Spread Sheet Risk is now
an established concept , which is a minimizable evil, but which can never be
eliminated. Hence it is necessary for the Enterprises to train their managers
adequately to be able to select and adopt appropriate control measures.
Dr. Haridasa S. Acharya
Professor
AIMS, Pune
ABSTRACT
“ORIGIN OF SPREAD SHEET RISK AND IT STRATEGIES FOR ITS
CONTROL IN ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 004
13
uality Circle is a small group of 6 to 12 employees doing similar work who Qvoluntarily meets together on a regular basis to identify improvements in
their respective work areas. Quality circles have the advantage of
continuity. Group members are trained by competent persons who may be personnel
and industrial relations specialists trained in human factors and the basic skills of
problem identification, information gathering and analysis, basic statistics, and
solution generation. Employees who participate in quality circles usually receive
training in formal problem-solving methods such as brain-storming, pareto analysis,
cause-and-effect diagrams and are then encouraged to apply these methods either
to specific or general company problems. After completing an analysis, they often
present their findings to management and then handle implementation of approved
solutions. After thoroughly reviewing literature, the author highlighted the probable
reasons behind the failures of the Quality Circle.
KEYWORDS
Quality circle, Problem Solving, Brainstorming, Pareto Analysis, Cause and Effect
Analysis.
Dr. Vinod S. Ingawale
Director
Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University,
School of Distance Education, Pune
ABSTRACT
“QUALITY CIRCLE TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 005
18
he paper delves on the strategies adopted by a key player in two wheelers
Tto emerge as a robust player in the industry after being ridiculed as
complacent by the rivals. To maximize customer convenience, the
organization undertook massive efforts with a mega project named “Service
Standardization” at dealership network. The project covered the development of
service standards in terms of space, layouts and the elements which make the service
experience for potential customers. The paper contributes towards providing the
vital insights to the industry and practitioners into the design and implementation of
the service standards for better planning and control.
Govind Hemrajani
Research Scholar
Symbiosis International University
Pune
ABSTRACT
“DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF “SERVICE IDENTITY”
AT DEALERSHIP NETWORK - A CASE STUDY”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 006
24
ndia being one of the leading software exported in the global market. The
Isoftware industry is also plagued by high attrition of skilled manpower. This
paper tries research into the impact on software projects and how companies
are trying to mitigate it. In this paper a new method of online responses to the
questionnaire collected from the targeted group.
Prof. S. Bala Subramaniam
Professor,
AIMS, Pune
ABSTRACT
“IMPACT OF ATTRITION ON THE QUALITY OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 007
35
esource planning is the prime objective of every enterprise. Production
Rcompanies, business Enterprises are all using ERP to optimize their
resources and keep themselves afloat in this era of competition.
Educational sector, especially Universities and Colleges cannot be exceptions. In
many Educational Institutions administrative work as well Teaching-Learning process
is computerized to some extent through various software, which could be considered
bits and pieces.
A survey was conducted on effective usage of E-Admin (a component of ERP), in a
selected Educational Hub, where information of Students, staff, Employees,
Accounts and Library is handled with the help of a typical ERP software. Currently
three modules namely Library Management, Students information system and
account information system are being used since last seven years. In this paper,
findings of the survey are reported. Analysis of the data was carried out using system
analytic methods, especially module wise flow of data, data distribution, data
integrity in various in educational business processes were critically examined. Flaws
and problems of the E-admin software were identified. Finally solutions are
suggested, based on the system analysis, in this case study.
KEYWORDS
Enterprises Resource Planning(ERP), E-Administration, Educational Institute,
Information Technology, Data Distribution, Data accessibility, ERP implementations.
Prof. Jawed S. Khan
Associate Professor,
AIMS, Pune
Prof. Irfan J. Shaikh
Joint Secretary,
M.C.E. Society,
Azam Campus, Pune
ABSTRACT
“PROBLEMS OF IMPLEMENTATION ERP IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES :
A CASE STUDY”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 008
40
ffective and efficient communication is the heart of business. Computer-
Emediated communication (CMC) has become very common in work life and
has replaced need for face to face (F2F) communication to a large extent.
The high percentage of the total traffic over the internet is the-email, which is the
major component. It has enriched and facilitated business with a fast, efficient and
an inexpensive method of reaching out to a large number of people regardless of time
and location constraints. The exponential increase in the volume of e-mails make the
processing of e-mails tedious and time consuming. Employees at all levels,
managerial or at lower levels, have to spend significant portion of their precious
working time on organizing these e-mails and classifying them, before effective
business decisions can be taken. Some of the business surveys have shown that the
huge volume of e-mails do lead to unintentional ignoring of critical mails,
miscommunication between concerned individuals and enterprises, and avoidable
losses to business.
This paper presents establishes the need for dedicated software solutions for
enterprise level email classification and its strong relation to the network
architecture of the enterprise itself.
KEYWORDS
Email Categorization, Enterprise network, Computer Mediated Communication.
Prof. Priti Kulkarni
Asst. Professor
Symbiosis Institute of Computer
Studies and Research,
Symbiosis International University
Pune
Dr. Haridasa S. Acharya
Professor
AIMS, Pune
ABSTRACT
“COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION IN ENTERPRISES,
NEED FOR THEIR CLASSIFICATION AND ALGORITHMIC COMPLEXITIES”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 009
51
n a survey based market research an attempt was made to find the nature and
Iextent of marketing practices by the marketing managers from various types of
companies. The survey includes the 292 customers whose first hand experience
of the marketing practices & styles w.r.t. professional ethics was recorded. The
observations and records shows some alarming facts regarding this important issues
.The focus on only short term gains by managers will affect the business and Brand
names heavily in the long term. Irreversible losses will be suffered if the companies
do not train, educate and guide their staff though strict monitoring about the policies
and practices. The marketing practices which are detrimental for the future growth
of the companies should be curbed or it will lead to the failure. This paper has thrown
light on this important issue and some appropriate and timely steps are required to
be taken to foster trust and confidence in the minds of the most important stake
holder who should really feel like the King of the business world.
Prof. David Sampat Kadam
Director
Projects & Alumni Affaire
Balaji Institute of Modern Management
Pune
ABSTRACT
“AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF THE MARKETING PRACTICES
WITH REFERENCE TO PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN PUNE”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 010
57
he present paper deals with the role of the development in enhancing the
Tquality of human resources. IT also explains how skill development has now
become a major aspect of economic development of India. There are no
two opinions to the facts that skill development is the key to enhance employability.
The professional and skill requirement of the employees are not rightly met by
educational institution. There is a skill gap that exists in what is taught in academic
institutions and what is required by the employers. Unless and until the skill gap is
met by enhancing the quality of learners by improving their skills and updating their
knowledge to meet market requirements, employability of the youth cannot be
improved. There is no dearth of jobs. However there is a dearth of people with the
desired skills and qualities. To overcome this mismatch, special efforts are required
to be made. The paper focuses on how skill development can help in enriching quality
of human resources.
KEYWORDS
Skills, skill Development, Human Resource Enrichment, Initiatives for Skill
Development, Industry – Institution Interaction.
ABSTRACT
“HUMAN RESOURCE ENRICHMENT THROUGH SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
‘ISSUES AND CHALLENGES’”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 011
67
Dr. Sanjay Kaptan
Professor & Head,
Department of Commerce
& Research Centre,
University of Pune
he state of Maharashtra having the second largest population in India ranks
Tfifth in the country in terms of Human Development Index (HDI). In spite of
that, it is having 24.5% of population below Poverty line (BPL). Though this
figure is below the all India level of 29.8% but questions can always be asked on
various social assistance programmes implemented by the government and its
outcomes. The state has implemented various financial assistance programmes like
Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme, National Handicap Pension Scheme,
& National Widow Pension Scheme, National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS) etc.
This research paper focuses on the various financial schemes of the Government of
Maharashtra and tries to find out its reach to the right beneficiaries and its outcomes.
KEYWORDS
HDI, BPL, Financial Assistance Programmes, NMBS.
Dr. Bharat Meghe
Dean
Department of Commerce,
RTM, University of Nagpur
Prof. Dhirendra Kumar
Assistant Professor
SIBAR, Kondhwa, Pune
Dr. Vidya Nakhate
Assistant Professor
SIBAR, Kondhwa, Pune
ABSTRACT
“A STUDY ON IMPLICATIONS OF FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE SCHEMES
FOR THE BPL FAMILIES BY THE GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA
FROM 2008-09 TO 2012-12 IN PUNE CITY”
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 012
71
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 013
INTRODUCTION
he
Tpopular financial risk management news and analysis site,
Risk.Net [ 3] , attributes a significant proportion of Financial
risks to use of spread sheets by the employees of the finance
departments. Protivity Inc., a prominent risk and business consulting
agency company confirms this and has presented an exhaustive analysis
of the problem in its publication titled “Spread sheet Risk
Management, Frequently Asked Questions” [1 ]. However most of the
analysts seem to have missed one basic aspect of the problem namely
the 'real cause of Spread Sheet Risk ' . The risk can be attributed to the
presence of Unstructured Enterprise data in almost all cases. Software
solutions acquired by the companies are only capable of handling well
structured data in most cases. The onus of preprocessing the data ,
whenever it is unstructured is on the employees of the organization, and
require a lot of human intervention . Employees are left with no
alternative but to fall back on tools like spread sheets in this respect.
The aim of the current article is to examine the real 'cause' of spread
sheet risk from 'formal theoretical perspective' and to prove that the
solution lies in 'managing the situation' from a integrated-data
management approach and rather than treat the problem as a
'consequence' of 'indiscrete and careless use of spread sheets by
untrained employees .
SPREADSHEET AS AN E-DATA PROCESSING SUPPLEMENT : A HISTORIC
PERSPECTIVE
Spreadsheet was and is a large electronic sheet that organizes data about
transactions for a business person to examine. It spreads or shows all of
the costs, income, taxes, and other related data on a single sheet of
“ORIGIN OF SPREAD SHEET RISK AND
IT STRATEGIES FOR ITS CONTROL IN
ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT”
DR HARIDASA S. ACHARYA
PROFESSOR,
AIMS, PUNE
GENERAL
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 014
paper for a manager to examine when making a decision. It
summarizes information from many paper sources, reports
from other more sophisticated business software , in one
place and presents the information in a format to help a
decision maker see the financial "big picture" for the
company. Spreadsheets have been used by accountants for
hundreds of years, the latest being their electronic forms.
There are reasons to believe that Dan Bricklin of Harvard
Business School as the "father" of the electronic
spreadsheet. In 1978, Bricklin and Bob Frankston co-
invented or co-created the software program VisiCalc. In
fact Prof Richard Mattessich was the first to develop a
computerized spread sheet in 1961. In 1980 with
invention of DIF format, portability between different
programs became a reality. Lotus 123 with its capability
to prepare charts came up in 1983 and since then Excel ,
Appleworks , and Corel Quattro Pro have appeared and are
being extensively used.
By the late 1980s many companies had introduced
spreadsheet products. Spreadsheet products and the
spreadsheet software industry were maturing. Microsoft and
Bill Gates joined the fray with the innovative Excel
spreadsheet. The spreadsheet entrepreneurs were moving
on , so were the business individuals and Enterprises using
spreadsheets were increasing at an alarming speed. Open
source software world offered Gnumeric as a free ,
cross-platform spreadsheet program that is part of the
GNOME Free Software Desktop Project. OpenOffice.org
Calc and the very closely related LibreOffice Calc are free
and open-source spreadsheets, also licensed under the GPL.
With the advent of advanced web technologies such as Ajax
circa 2005, a new generation of online spreadsheets has
emerged. Equipped with a rich Internet application user
experience, the best web based online spreadsheets have
many of the features seen in desktop spreadsheet
applications. Some of them such as Office Web Apps or
Google Spreadsheets also have strong multi-user
collaboration features and offer real time updates from
remote sources such as stock prices and currency exchange
rates. Spreadsheets that can handle big data, are also a
reality [5].
WHY SPREADSHEETS ARE INDISPENSABLE IN THE
ENTERPRISE WORLD
In 2013 Board walk tech had couple of key steps forward with
new integration framework using its 'Super Merge'
technology and advancements to configuring templates that
are used for access and input. Both of which help further
embrace and extend use of spreadsheets. In some cases,
third-party or internally developed dedicated applications
are the right choice. In others, embracing and extending
existing spreadsheet-driven processes is the most practical
approach. If your organization is currently using desktop
spreadsheets for some collaborative business process, it
probably is putting up with a host of issues that are the
inevitable result of the spreadsheet's inherent
shortcomings.
What can replace a spread sheet ? Answer is 'Dedicated
applications', either internally developed or third party
solutions. Numbers in Table 1 throw light on interesting
aspects.
Table 1 Results of Enterprise Benchmark Research (Source
VENTANA RESEARCH)
From the Enterprises perspective the key division happens
to be
Employee Resistance (56%) + Replacement is too
expensive(44%) = 100 .
From the spread sheet users perspective the key division is
Training Required (19%) + Alternative could be difficult
to use (31%) + Business case not strong enough (50%) =
100.
Why would any one say that the business case is not strong
enough. The users must have some reason to say so, the
reason becomes evident when we look at the constitution of
data itself.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 015
ENTERPRISE DATA : ITS CONSTITUTION AND PROCESSING
NEEDS
Most of the analysists who have attempted solutions to
spread sheet risks have ignored the fact that
indispensability of spread sheets has much to do with the
very constitution of the 'Total Enterprise Data'. Fig 1 gives
a graphical view of the continuum of the Enterprise data.
Fig 1. A graphic view of the CONTINUUM of
Enterprise Data
The whole of an enterprise data would always constitute of
three mutually disjoint data sets.
W = U S C
Where W is the Universe of discourse, U is the
unstructured component, S is the Semi-structured
component and C is the core structured component of the
data. We may assume that these are mutually disjoint sets,
or DOMs. Hence
U S = ф , S C = ф , U C = ф
The semi-structured component which is not properly
handled by the dedicated applications is what is subjected to
spread sheet processing by employees out of necessity.
Replacing this usage by providing dedicated software could
really be difficult. This is what is reflected in the fear
'business case not strong enough' , as expressed by users
when replacements are thought of. Thus it is evident that
the very nature of data pose some basic Software
Engineering Problems which need to be addressed prior to
attempting elimination of spread sheet usage.
If one views the problem of data processing needs from the
software engineering point of view we may conclude
1. The Component (C) should be handled by well
designed dedicated applications, and the
processing will lead to Risk Free functionality.
Hence should pose no real problems.
Without loss of generality we may assume that
Enterprises have either procured or would be
procuring well tested applications for
processing of this component of data.
2. Enterprise data would have a semi structured
components. This component poses problems for
proper Dedicated Application development as per
the business rules.
The semi structured nature of data makes the
choice of analytic methods difficult and hence
use of spread sheet becomes unavoidable.
Attempt to reduce this component by using
methods as discussed in [6] [7] [8] could help.
Reduction of size of S and increase of size of C
obviously will bring more and more functionalities
under the dedicated applications which would be
risk free.
3. The Unstructured component requires strong
technology intervention.
Currently the Enterprises have to hope for the
technology to develop and solve the processing
problems, and as such management by itself can
do nothing.
There is ample evidence to show that efforts are on
to improve the situation. Many adhoc solutions
seem to be existing and better solutions are forth
coming ([2], [6], [7])
TRENDS OF GROWTH OF SPREADSHEET RISK
The compound annual growth rates(CAGR) of data as
projected by Industrial Development Corporation (IDC)
estimates 21.8% CAGR in respect of transactional data ,
whereas the estimated CAGR for unstructured data is at
61.7%. There are no reasons to suspect the growth rates but
not all the unstructured data is relevant to Enterprises. A
better picture would be given by archived data, assuming
that Enterprises would not archive data unless it is essential
to them. Table 2 shows the distribution of total archived
data from 2008-2015.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 016
Table 2: Relative sizes of archived U, C, S projected upto
2015 (Petabytes)
Source of data : Enterprise Strategy Group, 2010, USA
A look at the trends shows that share of C is decreasing,
share of U is also decreasing but share of S is increasing.
Implications are very clear. A conscious effort to provide
structures to unstructured data is possibly increasing the
volume of semi-structured data. This would naturally put
additional load on Spreadsheet type of processing in coming
years, potentially leading to more Spread Sheet Risks.
Invention of Trillion-row spread sheet [5] is a strong
evidence of the fact that even big-data is going to be treated
with spread sheet like solutions in the coming years.
STRATEGIES FOR CONTROL OF SPREAD SHEET RISK
So far we have looked into the origins of spread sheet risk.
Our focus has been on aspects which are related with the
basic nature of enterprise data and software engineering
aspects like to what extent lack of structure to data and
resulting weakness in business case prevent dedicated
application developments which can replace spread sheets.
In conclusion it may be stated that control of Spread Sheet
Risk is possible with three pronged approach.
Management must think of reducing Spread Sheet Usage by
increasing dedicated applications development. This
requires efforts to increase clarity in business cases, more
efforts at providing structure to data so that software
engineering becomes possible and affordable. This is an
evolutionary process. Business rules keep changing, more
and more unstructured data enter into business. The rate at
which these things happen will always leave a gap between
actual rate at which dedicated applications are developed
and the rate at which demand increases.
Management must continuously monitor the volume of
Spread Sheet Usage, and properly audit the processes.
Incorporating additional checks at the very stage of
designing the spread sheet solutions and strict quality
control of the logic is necessary. In fact all the Enterprise
spread sheets should be tested and validated as any
dedicated application is tested normally. In addition, since
designs of spread sheets can be changed by Employees at
their end, the process of testing and validation should be a
periodic event.
Employees must be trained adequately. They should be
able to distinguish between transaction processing and
processing for analytics. Multiple validations should be
incorporated in case of spread sheets designed for
transaction processing to reduce risk. In case of analytical
usages sensitivity analysis should be more stringent so
that managers who take business decisions based on the
analytics are aware of the extent to which their decisions
can go wrong.
Enterprises should accept the fact that spread sheet risk can
only be managed and minimized there is only a very remote
possibility that the risk can ever be fully eliminated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Author acknowledges help rendered by Asmita Mer, Ritu
Arora, and Vivek Kumar, students of Bharti Vidyapeedth,
who helped specially in collecting information on
Historic Aspects of Spread sheet Developments.
REFERENCES
1. Anonymous (2009) , Spread Sheet Risk Management, Pub Protiviti
Inc., PRO-0609-101019, http://www.protiviti.com/
2. Anonymous(2013), Global Enterprise Big Data Trends 2013 :
Companes' current Tech. use and Big-Data plans, Microsoft Inc.,
www.microsof.com
3. Anonymous(2014 ) Official Site for upto date financial risk
management information for the global finance industry for risk
management professionals, http://www.risk.net/
4. Anonymous(2010)Trends in the Enterprise Storage Market,
http://rvokal.fedorapeople.org/devconf2012/tomc-storage-
trends.pdf
5. Anonymous (2014) 1010data - Trillion-Row Spreadsheet - 1010
data - Big Data ,
http://www.1010data.com/solutions-and-services/self-service-
analytics-for-big-data/trillion-row-spreadsheet/
6. Dan Feldman_ Melanie Schmidt† Christian Sohler (2014), Turning
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 017
Big data into tiny data: Constant-size coresets for k-means, PCA
and projective clustering, Pub. Collective Intelligence,
http://www.scribd.com/collections/4379975/Big-Data
7. Geoffrey Weglarz, (2004), Two Worlds of Data – Unstructured and
Structured.
8. Peter Buneman, Susan B. Davidson, Many Fernadez and Dan Suciu
(1997), Adding Structure to Unstructured Data, (in Lecture
notes in comp. sci.), Int Conf on Database Theory, Vol 1186, pp
336-350, ( http://repository.upenn.edu/db_research/35)
9. Peter Haggar (2011), Data Growth and Standards, Publisher IBM
Inc.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 018
I INTRODUCTION
quality circle is a volunteer group composed of workers,
Ausually under the leadership of their supervisor (or an elected
team leader), who are trained to identify, analyze and solve
work-related problems and present their solutions to management in
order to improve the performance of the organization, and motivate and
enrich the work of employees. When matured, true quality circles
become self-managing, having gained the confidence of management.
The Japanese description of the effectiveness of a quality circle is
expressed as: “It is better for one hundred people to take one step than
for one person to take a hundred'. Quality circles were first established in
Japan in 1962; Kaoru Ishikawa has been credited with their creation. The
movement in Japan was coordinated by the Japanese Union of Scientists
and Engineers (JUSE). The first circles were established at the Nippon
Wireless and Telegraph Company but then spread to more than 35 other
companies in the first year. By 1978 it was claimed that there were more
than one million quality circles involving some 10 million Japanese
workers. They are now in most East Asian countries; it was recently
claimed that there were more than 20 million quality circles in China.
Quality circles have been implemented even in educational sectors in
India, and QCFI (Quality Circle Forum of India) is promoting such
activities. However this was not successful in the United States, as it (was
not properly understood and) turned out to be a fault-finding exercise
although some circles do still exist.
II. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
Following are the objectives of the study :
a) To understand the Quality Circle concept.
“QUALITY CIRCLE TOOLS
AND TECHNIQUES”
DR. VINOD S. INGAWALE
DIRECTOR
BHARATI VIDYAPEETH DEEMED UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION, PUNE
GENERAL
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 019
b) To know the requirements of Quality Circle.
c) To know the reasons behind the failures of the
Quality Circle.
III. EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF QUALITY CIRCLES
In a structures-fabrication and assembly plant in the south-
eastern United States, some quality circles (QCs)were
established by the management (management-initiated);
whereas others were formed based on requests of employees
(self-initiated). Based on 47 Quality Circles over a three-year
period, research showed that management-initiated Quality
Circles have fewer members, solve more work-related QC
problems, and solve their problems much faster than self-
initiated Quality Circles. However, the effect of Quality
Circle initiation (management- vs. self-initiated) on
problem-solving performance disappears after controlling
Quality Circle size. A high attendance of Quality Circle
meetings is related to lower number of projects completed
and slow speed of performance in management-initiated
Quality Circle. Quality Circles with high upper-management
support (high attendance of Quality Circle meetings) solve
significantly more problems than those without upper-
management support. Quality Circle membership tends to
decrease over the three-year period. Larger Quality Circles
have a better chance of survival than smaller Quality Circles.
A significant drop in Quality Circle membership is a precursor
of Quality Circle failure.
IV. OBJECTIVES OF QUALITY CIRCLE
Following are the objectives of the Quality Circle.
a) Reduce error and enhance quality
b) Inspire more effective teamwork
c) Promote job involvement
d) Increase employee motivation
e) Create a problem-solving capability
f) Build an attitude of “problem prevention”
g) Improve company communications
h) Develop harmonious manager/worker relationships
i) Promote personal and leadership development
j) Develop greater safety awareness
V. CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITY CIRCLE
Following are the characteristics of Quality Circle :
A) CIRCLE MEMBERSHIP
It is more or less homogeneous group of people usually from
the same work areas. However, whenever required experts
may be invited for guidance or advice.
B) CIRCLE SIZE
Usually a group of 6 to 12 members seems quite effective;
however, it depends upon the people employed in a
particular section.
C) VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION
The main characteristic of Quality Circle is attendance and
participation in meetings voluntarily without any
compulsion.
D) QUALITY CIRCLE MEETINGS
An hour's duration is usually quite adequate for a meeting.
Whatever may be the frequency, regular meetings should be
ensured.
E) AUTONOMY
An important ingredient of a Quality Circle is the sense of
autonomy experienced by its members.
VI. REQUIREMENTS OF QUALITY CIRCLE
The problems of adaptation, which have caused quality
circles to be abandoned, are made plain by a look at the
conditions which the two experts think are necessary for the
success of quality circles. Ron Basu and J. Nevan Wright, in
their book Quality Beyond Six Sigma specified seven
conditions for successful implementation of quality circles.
These are summarized below :
1. Quality circles must be staffed entirely by
volunteers.
2. Each participant should be representative of a
different functional activity.
3. The problem to be addressed by the Quality Circle
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 020
should be chosen by the circle, not by management,
and the choice honored even if it does not visibly
lead to a management goal.
4. Management must be supportive of the circle and
fund it appropriately even when requests are trivial
and the expenditure is difficult to envision as
helping toward real solutions.
5. Circle members must receive appropriate training
in problem solving.
6. The circle must choose its own leader from within
its own members.
7. Management should appoint a manager as the
mentor of the team, charged with helping members
of the circle achieve their objectives; but this
person must not manage the Quality Circle.
Quality circles have been tried in the USA and Europe, often
with poor results. For the small business owner, he or she may
actually be in a very good position to try this approach if it
feels natural. An obviously important element of success is
that Quality Circle must be practiced in an environment of
trust and empowerment.
VII. BENEFITS OF QUALITY CIRCLES
Organizations adopting quality circles can benefit in several
ways. Some gains may be tangible while others may be
intangible, but ultimately quality circles will lead to
improved performance.
Direct gains are :
Improving quality and productivity
Promoting job involvement and sense of participation
Creating a problem solving and problem- preventing attitude
Developing creativity and an innovative spirit
Inspiring team work and developing harmonious relations.
Quality circles are an important source of job interest; they
provide a sense of participation and enhance the ability to
work with others. increase productivity, enhance motivation
and improve quality.
VIII. QUALITY CIRCLE-PROBLEM SOLVING STEPS
In Quality circle, problem solving is used as a main process to
achieve its objectives. Members creativity is tapped to solve
their day-to-day work related problems. It is through this
process they get become cohesive team and their
organizational ownership get developed. Hence it is
necessary that the group member should understand this
process and following steps very clearly.
1) IDENTIFICATION OF WORK RELATED PROBLEM
Method
a) Generate a list of problem using Brainstorming
b) Prioritise problems using ABC analysis
2) SELECTION OF PROBLEM (FROM A LIST)
Method
a) Pareto Analysis or Rating based on past data
b) Register the selected problem with coordinator
3) Defining the Problem
Method
Flow Diagram
4) ANALYSE THE PROBLEM
Method
Data Collection of problem on all possible aspects
5) IDENTIFICATION OF CAUSES
Method
Brainstorming and Cause and Effect diagram
6) FINDING THE ROOT CAUSES
Method
Identifying the main relevant causes in Cause and Effect
diagram by data collection and discussion.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 021
7) DATA ANALYSIS
Method
a) Using techniques like bar, pie, areal graph,
histogram, stratification, scatters diagram etc.
b) Why-Why analysis
8) DEVELOPING SOLUTION
Method
Brain storming
9) FORESEEING THE PROBABLE RESISTANCE
Method
Brain storming
a) Identifying the probable constraints and finding
ways to overcome them.
b) Make a presentation to all involved employees to
explain the solution selected.
i.e. Departmental head, facilitator, other officials
and non members involved with implementation.
c) Discuss and evolve a system of implementation.
10) TRIAL IMPLEMENTATION AND CHECKING
PERFORMANCE
Method
a) Data collection after implementation
b) Comparison of old and new data with Pareto,
Histogram, and Control charts
c) Watch process trend
d) Analyse the results
e) Discuss and incorporate the changes needed
11) REGULAR IMPLEMENTATION
Method
Once validity is checked and improvement observed with
data, regular implementation can be done.
12) FOLLOW-UP AND REVIEW
Method
a) Implement evaluation procedure, use control
charts and have six monthly reports for evaluation.
b) Make modification if required.
IX. STUDENT QUALITY CIRCLES
Student quality circles work on the original philosophy of
Total Quality Management. The idea of Student quality
circles was presented by City Montessori School (CMS)
Lucknow, India at a conference in Hong Kong in October
1994. It was developed and mentored by duo engineers of
Indian Railways PC Bihari and Swami Das in association with
Principal Dr. Kamran of CMS Lucknow India. They were
inspired and facilitated by Jagdish Gandhi, the founder of
CMS after his visit to Japan where he learned about Kaizen.
The world's first Student quality circles was made in CMS
Lucknow with then 13-year- old student, Ms. Sucheta Bihari
as its leader. CMS conducts international conventions on
student quality circles which it has repeated every 2 years to
the present day. After seeing its utility, the visionary
educationalists from many countries started these circles.
The World Council for Total Quality & Excellence in
Education was established in 1999 with its Corporate Office
in Lucknow and head office at Singapore. It monitors and
facilitates student quality circle activities to its member
countries which are more than a dozen. Student quality
circles are considered to be a co-curricular activity. They
have been established in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal,
Sri Lanka, Turkey, Mauritius, Iran, UK (Kingston University
and started in University of Leicester), and USA. In Nepal,
Prof. Dinesh P. Chapagain has been promoting this innovative
approach through QUEST-Nepal since 1999. He has written a
book entitled "A Guide Book on Students' Quality Circle: An
Approach to prepare Total Quality People", which is
considered a standard guide to promote Student quality
circles in academia for students' personality development.
X. CAUSES FOR FAILURE OF QUALITY CIRCLE
Some of the common causes for failure are :
Low morale of employees due to autocratic
management and lack of trust.
Lack of training.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 022
Incompetent leadership.
Lack of management support.
Quality circle concept succeeded in Japan, South Korea and a
few other Asian countries, but it was a different kind of
experience in Europe and USA. In Europe and USA, it became
very popular from middle of 70s to middle of 80s,and
subsequently, started its journey of declining from there
onwards.
THE REASONS CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO
In Japan, it was mainly considered as a development process
of grass-root employees, and organizational improvement
was given secondary importance, whereas in Europe and
USA, the focus was given to organizational improvement and
no proper attention was paid to improvement of people.
Work associated to Quality Circle is totally carried out as an
internal process in Japan, whereas in Europe and USA, the
focus was given to organizational improvement and no
proper attention was paid to improvement of people.
Work associated to Quality Circle is totally carried out as an
internal process in Japan, whereas in Europe and USA, it was
left to the external consulting agency. In India too, these
reasons are equally valid and applicable.
XI. QUALITY CIRCLE TECHNIQUES
The most common techniques are :
Brainstorming
Data Gathering (sampling)
Check Sheets
Pareto Analysis
Cause-&-Effect Problem Analysis
Presentation Techniques
Histograms
Control Charts
Stratification
Scatter Diagrams.
BRAINSTORMING
The technique used to bring everyone's ideas out into the
open is “brainstorming.” Each member, in turn, voice on
possible cause of the problem. These ideas spark enthusiasm
and originality, wild ideas are safe to offer because the rules
of brainstorming do not permit criticism or ridicule. All ideas
are recorded for later analysis.
DATA GATHERING
A major function of Circle is to analyze problems. Usually,
before analysis can begin data must be accumulated. This is
frequently done by the Circle members. Thus, training in
data gathering and sampling techniques is necessary to
assure accuracy and save time. Check sheets are convenient
and economical ways to collect data.
PARETO ANALYSIS
Pareto analysis is a formal technique useful where many
possible courses of action are competing for attention. In
essence, the problem-solver estimates the benefit delivered
by each action, then selects a number of the most effective
actions that deliver a total benefit reasonably close to the
maximal possible one.
Pareto analysis is a creative way of looking at causes of
problems because it helps stimulate thinking and organize
thoughts. However, it can be limited by its exclusion of
possibly important problems which may be small initially,
but which grow with time. It should be combined with other
analytical tools such as Failure Mode Effects Analysis and
Fault Tree Analysis.
Pareto analysis helps to identify the top portion of causes
that need to be addressed to resolve the majority of
problems. Once the predominant causes are identified, then
tools like the Ishikawa Diagram or Fish-bone Analysis can be
used to identify the root causes of the problems. While it is
common to refer to pareto as "80/20" rule, under the
assumption that, in all situations, 20% of causes determine
80% of problems, this ratio is merely a convenient rule of
thumb and is not nor should it be considered immutable law
of nature.
CAUSE-AND-EFFECT ANALYSIS
This is a widely used and popular quality circle technique. A
diagram with the appearance of a fish-bone is constructed
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 023
while the problem is being brainstormed for possible causes.
Later, cause-and-effect analysis identifies the most likely
cause.
PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES
The best plan in the world will fall on its face unless it is
properly sold. Several times a year each Circle has to do just
that. The members use a presentation setting to make
recommendations or provide status to their manager. Their
training in presentation techniques includes the basics of
public speaking and the fundamentals of preparing and using
graphs and charts.
HISTOGRAM
A histogram is a graph that display the distribution of
something being measured. Each column in the histogram
represent a certain measurement. Circle members are
taught to interpret the meaning of various shaped
histograms.
CONTROL CHART
Control chart are basically line graph that record the number
of defects each period, (e.g. shift, day, week, etc.). what
makes these charts different are the control limit lines.
These are simply two dotted lines, one above and one below
the solid line that depict the actual defect level. If that
actual defect line stays within these control limits, all is
okay. Circles are trained to use and interpret this problem
prevention tool.
STRATIFICATION
Sometimes a problem is best analyzes by taking it apart and
examining each piece separately. For example, an excessive
number of errors are occurring in one large department. It
may be best to separately analyze what the error rate is
within each group in that department. Perhaps the problem
exists only in one small area.
SCATTER DIAGRAM
A scatter diagram is a useful analytical tool, as it shows
relationships between two variables, e.g., weight and
volume.
XII. QUALITY CIRCLE SUCCESS STORY IN INDIA
Quality Circle took birth in India in 1982 and some of the
industries to launch Quality Circle first were Bharat
Electronics Limited, Bangalore and Bharat Heavy Electricals
Limited, Trichy. However, with the progress of time, Quality
Circle achieved success in a number of industries in India, to
name a few are TATA, TELCO, Reliance Industries Limited
and Kirloskar Brothers Limited .
XIII. CONCLUSION
Quality Circle concept if appropriately implemented in
industries, the results will not only be amazing but it will
also help these companies to stumble on outtide over their
own lacunae and facilitate designing of better system.
Quality circles can be a very useful tool for solving work-
related problems. It helps in involvement of employees in
decision-making, promoting good relationships among
colleagues, encouraging team work and developing
problem-solving skills.
REFERENCES
1. Basu, Ron, and J. Nevan Wright. Quality Beyond Six Sigma.
Elsevier, 2003.
2. Cole, Robert. Managing Quality Fads: How America Learned to
Play the Quality Game. Oxford University Press, 1999.
3. "Imitate Excellence?" Nilewide Marketing Review. 23 October
2005.
4. Robbins, Harvey, and Michael Finley. Why The New Teams Don't
Work : What Goes Wrong and How to Make It Right. Berrett-
Koehler Publishers, 2000.
5. Zimmerman, James P., and Jamie Weiss. "Six Sigma's Seven Deadly
Sins : While the seven sins can be deadly redemption is possible."
Quality. January 2005.
6. www.google.com
7. www.inc.com
8. www.slideshare.net
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 024
1. INTRODUCTION
he
Tcompetitive market scenario today has created a change in
the consumer profile. Organizations more often face with a
customer who is younger, more aware, has access to wider choice
and with higher aspirations and expectations. Fast food to internet
telephony, all have contributed towards creating a changing business
environment that is customer driven. A fervent need for change demands
the organizations to convert customer service as a key competitive
strategy. In after sales service, presentation is validated as very critical
to customer satisfaction process. The tone of the customer demands
service reliability and performance assurance.
The focal point of the paper is the after sales service environment of a
conventional automobile service outlet of an authorized dealership. It
concentrates on the concept of the service identity in the context of an
automobile company and its dealership network (What is service
identity?) and the effective action program for implementing the concept
at their establishments. (How can it be implemented?).The paper
describes the modus operandi which can be adopted by practicing
managers for implementing the project of similar nature.
2. AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY IN INDIA
The automobile industry in India has witnessed a tremendous growth in
recent years and is all set to carry on the momentum in the foreseeable
future. Today, automobile sector in India is one of the key sectors of the
economy in terms of the employment. Directly and indirectly it employs
more than 10 million people and if we add the number of people
employed in the auto component and auto ancillary industry then the
number goes even higher. The automobile sector in India underwent a
“ DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF
“SERVICE IDENTITY” AT DEALERSHIP
NETWORK – A CASE STUDY”
GOVIND HEMRAJANI
RESEARCH SCHOLAR
SYMBIOSIS INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, PUNE
FORMERLY VICE PRESIDENT
MIMA CENTER FOR MANAGEMENT
EXCELLENCE AND NATIONAL MANAGER
BAJAJ AUTO LTD., PUNE
GENERAL
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 025
metamorphosis as a result of the liberalization policies
initiated in the 1991. Measures such as relaxation of the
foreign exchange and equity regulations, reduction of tariffs
on imports, and refining the banking policies played a vital
role in turning around the Indian automobile industry. Until
the mid 1990s, the Indian auto sector consisted of just a
handful of local companies. However, after the sector
opened to foreign direct investment in 1996, global majors
moved in India. The industry is manufacturing over 11
million 2 and 4-wheeled vehicles and exporting about 1.5
million every year. It is the world's second largest
manufacturer of motorcycles, with annual sales
exceeding 8.5 million in 2009. India's passenger car and
commercial vehicle manufacturing industry is the seventh largest in the world, with an annual production of more
than 2.6 million units in 2009. In 2009, India emerged as
Asia's fourth largest exporter of passenger cars, behind
Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Fueled by
government stimulus packages, better demand and lower
loan interest rates, the country's automobile industry has
reported a whopping 26.41 per cent growth in sales in the
year 2009-10 making FY10 one of the best years for the
sector. In the domestic market, the sales were driven by car
and the two-wheelers. While the cars segment posted a
25.10 percent growth in 2009- 2010, the two wheelers
witnessed a 26 percent surge. The SIAM (Society of Indian
Automobile Manufacturers) had forecasted 10-14 per cent
growth for 2010-11. Indian automobile industry has matured
in last few years and offers differentiated products for
different segments of the society. It is currently making
inroads into the rural middle class market after its inroads
into the urban markets and rural rich. In the recent years
Indian automobile sector has witnessed a slew of
investments. India is on every major global automobile
player's radar. Indian automobile industry is also fast
becoming an outsourcing hub for automobile companies
worldwide, as indicated by the zooming automobile exports
from the country.
3. AUTOMOBILE SERVICING IN INDIA
After sales service operations have been very crucial in the
automobile business. Customers tend to be very sensitive
about maintenance of their vehicles. If they are anyway
dissatisfied with the charges or quality of the service an
authorized dealer provides, they will take their
maintenance problem to roadside garage owner. Customers
have general perception that the service charges levied by
an authorized dealership are higher compared to the next
door garage owner. At the same time, they are also aware
that the authorized dealers' service shop has highly skilled
people and wide variety of sophisticated equipment for
maintenance and repair of vehicles. The automobile
organizations and dealers confront the dilemma of
improving the workshop traffic and retaining the customers
after the completion of mandatory free services for which
customers generally visit the authorized outlet. According
to the experts in the car industry, authorized car service
outlets account for 40 percent of after sales and service
business with the unorganized sector making up for the rest.
Therefore the automobile organizations and their
respective dealers have been consistently undertaking
measures to seek the patronage of their customers. Service
promotion schemes like free service campaigns, discounts
on spare parts, free emission checkup, pick up and drop
facility etc are in vogue at dealers' outlets. In fact, Toyota
Kirloskar has tried to address the problem by introducing
“Express Service” concept in car servicing for customers. On
the other side, with the advent of vehicles with newer
technology and sophisticated features, the majority
customers tend to realize the necessity to follow the
instructions given in the manual & intend to get the vehicles
serviced through authorized dealer network. The
persistence efforts undertaken by the authorized dealers to
prompt the customers to visit their workshops can result in
improvement in the customer traffic to authorized
workshops. This trend may necessitate authorized dealers to
update their facilities to provide top notch service and aim
better planning and control at their dealerships. However, a
new challenge in the form of multi brand service centers in
organized sector is emerging of late. Keen to leverage the
increasing opportunities in vehicle service, several new
players have entered the car servicing business including
Mahindra First Choice Services, a Mumbai based player
backed by Mahindra and Mahinra which has pan India
expansion plans and Carnation Auto, started by the former
Maruti Suzuki managing director , Jagdish Khattar. Multi
brand servicing is now an emerging opportunity in the
country with just a couple of players in this sector but given
the potential there to be tapped, the future may see several
more players enter the field. S Muralidharan, vice- president
(automotive aftermarket), Bosch Ltd, says, “With
technology in the automotive sector changing fast, there is a
need for organized vehicle service.” Indeed, the value of the
vehicle servicing industry is huge. Currently estimated at Rs
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 026
20,000 crore, this could rise to as much as Rs 27,000 crore by
2015, representing a CAGR of 10-12 percent over the next
decade. The result of this turbo-charged growth will clearly
be demand for better and reliable services.
4. SERVICE IDENTITY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE
AUTOMOBILE ENVIRONMENT
The term “Service identity” is synonymous with “Service
standardization” in the automobile industry. It is a subset of
overall dealership identity which broadly comprises of 3 S viz
sales, service and spares parts, three fundamental facet of
an automobile outlet.
The activity of providing vehicle maintenance and care
happens in an environment with the expert skill and training
of dealership personnel. Service identity is the physical
expression of this interaction in architectural, graphic and
engineering context. A good service identity has to maintain
a balance between location, service, productivity and cost
effectively so as to make a good business proposition.
The service identity can be defined as a set of concepts,
standards, service codes, systems and procedures
established by an organization to extend the after sales
service to its existing and potential customers in order to
maximize the customer satisfaction. It involves development
and implementation of a systematic approach to identify the
problems of the customers, designing of various elements,
establishing the systems and procedures to provide the after
sales service in a uniform manner to facilitate efficient and
effective workshop management.
The objectives of service identity are two fold : Brand image
and Problem solving
1) Create the atmosphere, the ambiance for the
customer which complements the service offers,
instinctively tells customers, they are in the right
place.
2) Focus on practical problem solving issues of better
planning, better space productivity, and innovative
presentation methods, better merchandising
facilities, better customer flow.
When the image and problem solving attributes combine well
with workshop and service management, the results can be
successful both in financial and human terms (experience).It
is important to create a bright and unified image in the eyes
of the consumers. It is becoming increasingly difficult for
dealers to create product differentiation and therefore it is
pertinent to create competitive edge by providing service
backup that creates good value for the customer. A more
responsive and value adding after sales service also offers a
great opportunity for dealerships to establish a long term
quality relationship with customers and create overall
differentiation. The practice of auto companies propagating
the workshop standards for their authorized dealers came in
to vogue after the multinationals set up their shops in India.
The workshop manuals detailing the variety of standards in
terms of layout, parking, wok flow, washing area, accident
repairs, color scheme, signage etc were prescribed to the
network members for designing their workshops. However
each organization had its own set of priorities to deal with
respect to their potential customers.
5. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The concept of service identity came in vogue in India during
mid 90s, when petroleum companies embarked on the make
over of the complexion of their petrol pumps &
metamorphosing them into new trendy entities. The old
structures were demolished and totally new structures were
installed to suit international standards. The employees
working at the stations were given crash courses to extend
effective service to their customers. The changing faces of
the petrol pumps were reflection of the changing priorities
of the oil companies to bring in global best practices in
consumer market. Simultaneously the automobile
organizations like Maruti Suzuki, DCM Daewoo Motors,
Hyudai Motors, Tata Motors, Ford Motors, and Honda Motors
have all promoted the modernization and standardization of
their service outlets to bring in the major changes in
customer handling process at their dealerships.
1. DCM Daewoo Motors Ltd (2005) emphasized on
service standards to its dealers through its manual
detailing the guidelines on service facilities to
maintain a high standard of service level and
customer satisfaction. The standards broadly
included the basic concept of layout, scale of
dealership workshop, arrangement of workshop,
arrangement of service front, parts and warehouse
etc.
2. In June 1998, the then Managing Director of Hyudia
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 027
Motors, Yang Soo Kim while releasing its standards
opined that the implementation of dealership
identification standards can result in complete
customer satisfaction and improved internal
management.
3. In Oct 1994, TVS Suzuki , one of the leading two
wheeler company ( now TVS Motors ) discussed
about the creation of “Quality Dealerships” by
implementing corporate identity program at their
dealerships. TVS Suzuki suggested workshop layout
principles in its manual to promote efficient after
sales service by its dealers.
4. Toyota Kirloskar in India has been promoting the
concept of Express Maintenance Service (EMS) at
various dealerships. The service provides a one hour
periodic maintenance service for all models .It
supposes to reduce the servicing time of a vehicle to
one hour by eliminating the stagnation time
between processes. The service requires 3 people at
the maintenance bay and requires specific tools and
equipment that are imported from Japan. EMS is
based on the Toyota production system and Kaizen
methodologies and aimed at increasing
customer satisfaction and retention. EMS is a part of
the TSM (Toyota Customer Service Marketing)
advanced program that was introduced by Toyota
globally. TSM advanced program removes the waste
from the system by redesigning the layout of the
maintenance bays to ensure that no time is wasted
in searching the equipments etc. It supposes to
strengthen the foundation of dealer after sales
service operations, achieving excellent levels of
customer care. The idea of EMS is beneficial to the
busy customers and also for the customers who are
skeptical about visiting authorized service stations.
5. Michael Cusumano, Steve Kahl and Fernaando
Suarez in their research paper “A theory of services
in product industries”, have explained about the
conditions under which services are important to
product firms. In many product oriented industries,
services have become increasingly important. In
case of automobiles, many automakers generate
the vast majority of their profits from a service
activity closely tied to their product activity. The
automobile industry overall generates a large
portion of its profits not only from financing but
from other product-related service activities such
as insurance and repairs (Gadiesh & Gilbert,
1998).The authors argued that despite the seeming
importance of services, there is not much theory to
help researchers or practitioners explain the
conditions under which services matter in
product industries. The general view that emerges
from the services literature is that services tend to
become important for manufacturing firms once
their industries reach a mature stage (Oliva &
Kallenberg, 2003; Potts, 1988).
6. The paper “factors affecting customer satisfaction
in after sales service of Malaysian electronic
business market”, the authors have referred
“delivery, installation and warranty as three
significant factors which are of utmost importance
to build a long lasting profitable relationship with
the existing customers. The concept of warranty
plays equally important role in the context of
automobile industry though majority of customers
nowadays believe it to be part of the extended
product features.
7. The Toyota motor corporation, Japan gives best
Toyota dealer award in the world annually for
excellence in customer care and service. There are
over 1000 odd Toyota dealers in the world who
are judged on customer reception, imparting
product knowledge to the customer, transparency
in dealings, environment policies, and safety
standards and so on. The award winner dealer of
2003, DSK Toyota provides excellent service
experience to its customers. For customers'
chauffereurs, the dealership has a separate rest
room with cots and a television to relax while cars
are being serviced. It offers subsidized food &
toiletries to its customers and their drivers. For
children, there is a special entertainment area
with toy cars in the facility. To be eco friendly, the
dealership follows some interesting policies like
placing a potted plant in each bay, extracting all
fumes from the cars in to exhaust pipes going
underground and forced ventilation in the
workshop so that technicians always get fresh cold
air to breath.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 028
8. Mr. Ramakrishnan (2003) has indicated that the
vehicle servicing business in India is undergoing a
transformation. In early days, the servicing needs of
the vehicles were undertaken mostly by roadside
mechanics and a few organized workshops. Maruti
Udyog limited set up a huge chain of authorized
service stations covering the entire country to
service its vehicles. However, as the competition in
the new car market intensified and profit margins
squeezed MUL viewed servicing as a money spinner
for the entire operation. In the recent years, other
players have entered in the field and the creation of
national chain of organized workshops is underway
and that is likely to change the nature of vehicle
servicing market in India.
6. BAJAJ AUTO – KEY PLAYER IN TWO WHEELER
INDUSTRY
ndBajaj auto is 2 largest player in two wheeler sector. It
manufactures wide range of two wheelers & three wheelers.
The company has about 500 dealers spread across the
country and covers all major cities and towns. The
organization has been experiencing major changes in the
market place since mid 90s and was required to take
measures in different areas like product development,
network expansion, sales promotion, channel management,
customer relationship management to maintain its influence
and share of market. While it could not maintain its position
of market leadership , nevertheless over a period of time
with consistent new product introductions, sales promotion,
implementation of showroom identity program at its network
, dealer training program it emerged as robust player
withstanding the market pressures and onslaught of
competitive forces in the two wheeler industry. In the
beginning of the new century the company was under
massive pressure to overhaul its service strategy and
incorporate radical changes in its after sales service
approach and methodology in extending the after sales
service through its network. The prevailing service standards
and practices were insufficient and did not reap the required
benefits. A necessity was felt to adopt a grass root approach
and establish totally new set of service standards to meet the
changing environment and customer expectations.
Showroom standardization was already in place.
7. ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION
The management of Bajaj Auto formed a task force to work
on service standards relevant to the environment of its
dealership network. The task force comprised the
managers from across section of the organization like
marketing services, sales support, regional & national
service team. The attempt was to follow a grass root
approach to get insights into the day today problems faced
by the potential customers, dealers and the company in
extending efficient after sales service system. The first
phase of the project was to undertake an internal analysis to
ascertain the concerns of key stakeholders viz customers,
dealers and company from the impending standards for the
service identity of the company. The outcome of a
brainstorming session among the key managers from
marketing services, sales support, and service department
of the organization revealed that the team ought to focus on
studying the expectations of customers, dealers and
company and use the relevant perspectives in the formation
of generic design. The team believed that the standards and
design should be seen as problem solving process and not as
exercise recommending fancy elements resulting pomp and
show alone. The perspectives visualized from different
angles are summarized as follows.
PERSPECTIVES FROM CUSTOMERS POINT OF VIEW
1. The service centre should be conveniently located
and easily accessible.
2. The charges levied towards the maintenance and
spare parts should be fair and just.
3. The service extended should be reliable and no
repeat complaints to be experienced.
4. The delivery should be as per the promised
schedule.
5. The staff should be courteous, helpful and adopt
problem solving approach.
6. The staff should have good diagnostic and technical
skills.
The customer focus model can be represented in diagram 1
as follows :
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 029
PERSPECTIVES FROM DEALERS' POINT OF VIEW
1. The space should be utilized optimally.
2. The standards and the processes should result in
high productivity.
3. The generic design and codes once implemented
should result in to better workshop management.
4. The implementation of standards should result in
increased workshop traffic & revenue.
The problem solver approach for the dealer can be viewed in
diagram 2 as follows :
PERSPECTIVES FROM THE COMPANY'S POINT OF VIEW
1. The service centers should transmit good company
and dealer image.
2. The standards once implemented should result in
minimizing the customer complaints.
3. It should effect in dealership deploying trained
manpower and good workshop system.
4. The service standards should convey common
understanding to potential customers.
In the next phase, the team visited select Bajaj Auto and
competitors' dealerships in key cities in India like Mumbai,
Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Salem and
Delhi to assess the prevailing practices in extending after
sales service by different players. Select customers were
interviewed to get the insight into the problems faced by
them at Bajaj Auto dealerships. The broad problem areas
identified by the team were as follows :
1. Lack of distinct visual identity.
2. Display of multiple signages hanging around the
premises creating clutter and chaos.
3. Diluted customer experience within service
station.
4. Communication with customer lacked clarity and
reassurance.
5. No defined areas of parking space for customers
and staff.
6. Service infrastructure was not state of the art.
7. No clear physical distinction of work flow through
the service process.
8. Vehicle care norms continuously flouted during
service.
9. Insufficient lighting and ventilation
10. Unclean environment.
11. Out of touch with the customers.
The field survey also revealed the actions being taken by
organizations like Toyota, Honda and others with respect to
the augmentation of the after sales service at their outlets.
The subject organizations had initiated huge efforts at their
outlets in converting them into truly world class by
incorporating very high standards of service norms .The task
force recommended roping in a design agency to work on the
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 030
project. A reputed design agency from Pune was signed up for working on the generic design and implementation for the project.
The members of the design agency traveled to different regions and studied the service operations of Bajaj auto dealers. At this
stage the organization of the project from conceptualization to finish was also conceived as shown in the diagram 3.
1. Efficiency of the staff and system
2. Strong visual identity with high recall.
The agency was briefed on various aspects like product
classifications of the company, products that are likely to be
reported for service, free service schedule for different
products, average vehicle reporting per day, expected time
required for repairing a vehicle. The generic design was
expected to follow the problem solving approach. The
customer and dealer feedback was converted into design
concerns as follows. Some of the design concerns are explained
as illustrations.
ENTRANCE
The customer should be able to identify the location of the
service station without any hassles. So there was need for easy
cognition through good graphics for easy identification of
service station which will also promote Bajaj service identity
brand effectively.
PARKING
There was need to earmark separate parking areas for
customers and working staff. Hence design has to consider the
aspect of defining areas of parking of vehicles to avoid
inconvenience to a customer. Graphic signages with distinct
identity can facilitate movement of people and vehicles.
8. CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS WITH AGENCY & DESIGN
BRIEF
The discussions with the agency reflected the thought
process that the generic design for the service section of
Bajaj Auto dealers must draw inspiration from the following:
1. Awareness (What is bajaj service)
2. Involvement (What is the activity)
3. Culture (how is the activity carried out).
4. Aim (what is the objective)
The generic design for the service of Bajaj Auto should have
direct relation to the expectations of the target customers
in terms of :
1. Access/approachability
2. Confidence / trustworthiness
3. Efficiency of the system
4. Staff behavior
5. Visual presentation
Apart from happy customers and smooth business flow an
appropriate design would prove beneficial in the following
areas.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 031
CUSTOMER LOUNGE
Customer lounge is most important area and preferred to be
an informative place for a customer with essential facilities
like drinking water, TV & Music. It should reflect warm and
welcoming ambience through judicious use of various
elements like furniture, lighting, color scheme, graphics etc.
RECEPTION
Well designed reception area for enhancing the efficiency of
staff and a better service experience for a customer. A well
thought out layout for efficient and smooth function of
various sections (service advisor, cash sections) is desired.
MAIN WORKSHOP
Activities of various kinds, man and material movements
take place in this area. Various areas according to their
functions/ attributers ( types of vehicles to be serviced), the
kind and extent of repairs , the spare parts areas , work
stations, various equipments, support system for repairs,
washing and drying areas , painting and tinkering areas need
to be assigned adequate and well defined spaces in a well
thought out and logical layout.
The list also included provisions for training/conference
space, space for mechanics, workshop furniture system,
graphics, exterior signs and interior signs.
9. GENERIC DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
The generic design development comprised of different
phases. The first phase expounded the concepts related to
the generic service model, generic layout, concept customer
interaction area, service work bays, quasi workshop, sample
layout, flooring, color schemes, materials and finishes,
lighting, customer utilities, graphics, signage system etc.
The first presentations to the management lead to a distinct
style and direction for deciding the design that would be
further developed. In the second phase, the feedback
obtained during first presentation was incorporated for all
aspects of image, aesthetics, systems, design, production
and implementation. The third stage involved precise
detailing of all the generic elements and creation of
production drawings, specified materials, processes,
technologies and artwork. The outcome of this phase was in
the form of architectural specifications and codes, layout
drawings, decisions on service utilities. Detailed production
drawings of furniture and all other elements such as display,
windows, and kiosks are prepared in this stage. Artworks for
visual elements such as fascia, signage and displays are also
prepared in this phase. Identification of vendors and cost
estimation of each element are done at the end of this stage.
Thus the design agency worked in tandem with the task
force members of the organization and established
standards for the various areas of operations in a workshop.
The formation of standards passed through the series of
presentations to the top management and the task force on
various alternatives layout, materials, and color schemes to
be used for the different elements as mentioned above. The
process of development of the generic design extended over
one year in view the plethora of issues it addressed.
10. PROTOTYPING & APPLICATION OF GENERIC
DESIGN
Prior to the launch of the generic design, it was crucial to
check its applicability and impact. Unless a prototyping
exercise is undertaken, the expected outcome of the
project may not prove as effective. Therefore it was
essential to adapt the generic design to a specific site and
implement it in its entirety. Two dealers, one in Delhi and
another in Cochin showed enthusiasm for implementation of
the intended standards for their workshops as per the new
design evolved. The site available at Delhi was taken up first
for developing it as a prototype workshop. However the
actual inspection & evaluation of the site at Delhi caused
certain problems in terms of space available compared to
the requirement of the generic design. The space limitation
was an impediment in incorporating the various elements of
the generic design and customizing it to suit the specific
site. Nevertheless, the challenges posed turn out to be an
opportunity for everyone involved in the project. It was a
useful exercise in customizing the generic design to suit a
site reflecting severe constraints of space. Furthermore the
workshops located in different parts of the country with
different sizes and dimensions were not expected to fulfill
the space required by the generic design either.
Considering the real estate cost in various metros and mini
metros and reluctance of the dealers for investment in
project of such nature, the design had to be adaptable to
address such issues without compromising the essence of the
design. Therefore after working and reworking on the
layout for almost one month all the parties involved in the
project that are the design agency, the dealer and the
company staff agreed to work on a particular layout. Bills of
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 032
materials for service standardization was prepared
reflecting the details of interior work, electrical works,
furniture elements, display elements, service equipments
etc . Contractors were signed up to expedite the work at the
specific site in Delhi. With continuous monitoring and
supervision, it took four months to complete the prototype stworkshop. Thus 1 new generation workshop of Bajaj Auto
dealership was ready for inauguration.
11. PRESENTATION AND LAUNCH
Through integrated efforts, the organization designed the
new Bajaj auto service standards in order to provide the
service network with distinct visual identity, enhanced
customer experience, state of art high tech equipment
spread over highly functional layouts. The workshop at Delhi
was inaugurated in the presence of the senior executives and
key dealers. The prototype workshop was shown to the key
dealers in the country and feedback obtained.
12. STANDARDIZATION MANUAL
This was most important phase from the communication
point of view. The new service experience was condensed
into a manual to provide Bajaj dealership around the country
with necessary elements which would enable them to
present service reliability and performance assurance
process effectively and consistently to the customers. The
manual documented all the relevant drawings and details of
construction, assembly and installation of all elements and
other codes that go into an outlet. The manual also
documented first outlet as a case study. The manual explains
the a) objectives of service standardization b) design of
service set up's c) elements of service set up's d)
implementation guidelines.
GENERIC SERVICE CONCEPT
The service workshop areas are conceptually divided into the
zones shown in the diagram 4 .These zones indicate
concentrated activity zones. Apart from the above, there are
intangible issues surrounding and affecting a service
dealership like for example, Image and Identity. These are
part of dealership and co exists within and in an area much
larger surrounding a dealership. The layering in the generic
design conceptually prioritizes the zones from the point of
view of the customer and workshop productivity on a given
space layout.
The following list gives details of some of elements as
illustrations of standards for service station.
CUSTOMER INTERACTION AREA
Customer interaction area is the 'Service Interface' to the
customers. It is provided in the front so that it is visible from
the main entry. Enquiry and billing counter is located near
the entrance of customer interaction area. Customer
waiting is provided if the customer wish to wait for his turn.
Facilities like TV, magazine rack, drinking water, toilets are
provided for customer convenience. Service managers' cabin
is located within customer interaction area and is accessible
to the customers. Service manger has the access to the
workshop through the cabin.
SERVICE WORK BAY AREA
The service work bay areas to be located behind the
customer interaction area. The generic design
recommended that the work bay area should be visible
through customer interaction area. This works
psychologically as customers are able to witness the
methodical approach in functioning inside the workshop.
VEHICLE FLOW
The flow of the vehicles should pass certain sequence like
entry, parking, inspection, washing, drying, work bay, final
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 033
inspection, testing, parking for delivery area and delivery.
Refer diagram 5.
QUASI WORKSHOP AREA
The areas, which are difficult to maintain in immaculate
condition, noise producing and involves dispensing /disposal
of water/oil/grease etc like washing, lubrication, painting,
denting should be located away from direct view of the
customers.
SERVICE STAFF AREA
This area should be at the back side of the workshop. This
includes staff parking, locker rooms, toilets, lunch room,
meeting room, training room etc.
LOCATION CODES
Since good service set up becomes an image point, it should
be located on the main road or off main road by not more
than 100 meters.
ARCHITECTURAL CODES
This includes various architectural codes related to the
building construction, expected set back in front of the
building, compound wall , toilets , wash areas, pipes, electric
supply, drain arrangement, generator and compressor rooms,
landscaping ,plantation etc.
FLOORING
Within the workshop space there are a number of varied
functional activities taking place which deserve specific kind
of flooring to derive the maximum benefit for the ensuing
service activity. For example customer interaction area is
high traffic & high aesthetic area. Therefore the subject area
has to be provided the flooring with high aesthetic appeal
which is equally tough and scratch resistant.
SIGNAGE ELEMENTS
A good signage system helps customers to find and be
informed about various activities and facilities. The design
recommended attractive signage, for fascia, spares fascia,
entrance signage, spot signage and door signages.
QUICK REPAIRS CELL
For minor repairs, separate area was earmarked so that the
customers do not have to wait for longer hours in the
workshop.
FASCIA
Fascia is most significant element and first impression of the
service center. It serves the purpose of identification. A
customer forms the impression about the dealership through
the fascia and therefore the execution of the fascia requires
utmost care and attention.
The above list is a representative list and not exhaustive list
of elements prescribed by the generic design as standards of
service dealership.
13. GENERIC DESIGN APPLICATION IN PHASED
MANNER
The introduction of a new concept or activity despite of it
being well thought out takes time for it to be fully accepted.
It even takes longer to establish it as a credible, sincere and
progressive activity. Fortunately the dealer network had
already established the showroom standards and majority of
them experienced its positive impact. The manual
prescribing the standards were presented to the members of
the network. The regional teams of the company chalked out
the plans for their respective regions for implementation of
the generic design in a phased manner. The dealerships with
high service turnover in metros and mini metros were
prioritized for implementation of the standards. The
vendors for the critical elements were developed by the task
force team in consultation with experts in the field to
facilitate smooth implementation and achieve uniformity
across the country. The dealers all over the country
undertook the work in a phased manner. Over years, Bajaj
Auto emerged as robust player in two wheeler industry. An
analysis revealed that apart from range of new products
introduced by the company, its initiative in standardizing its
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 034
showrooms and workshops created a positive visual identity
in the market place. It helped the company create immense
impact on the potential customers thereby maintaining its
thump in the market place.
14. SCOPE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
The vehicle service market is highly unorganized. The
participants in the vehicle servicing market are authorized
dealer's workshops, authorized service centers of vehicle
manufacturers, road side mechanics and some organized
service centers. Most of the vehicle manufacturers have been
gearing up for enhancing the after sales service by programs
like service standardization to attract and retain the
customers. The establishment of chain of service centers
have posed problem for authorized dealers since the
organized service stations can provide service for multi
brands. Therefore there is scope of further research on the
methodology being followed by these service centers to
extend service for multi brands under one roof. The concept,
standards and system and procedures adopted by them can
give new insights in the subject.
15. REFERENCES
1. DCM Daewoo Motors Ltd, New Delhi (2005),”Dealership Facilities Guide”, May 1995.
2. H M T Tractors, Chandigarh, “Dealer Identity Program Manual”.
3. Hyundai Motor Company, (1998) “Hyundai Motor Dealer
Identification Manual”, June 1998.
4. TVS Suzuki Ltd, (1994), TVS Suzuki CI Manual – Oct 1994.
5. Mamata Parhi (2008), Indian Automotive Industry : Innovation &
Growth : India Science & Technology 2008.
6. Michael Cusumano, Steve Kahl, Fernando Suarez (2008), “A theory
of services in products industries”, Paper no. 242, published by MIT
Sloan School of Management in Oct 2008.
7. Auto car professional (2010), “Auto sector headed for servicing
boom”, Nov 8, 2010.
8. V G Ramakrishnan (2003),”vehicle servicing in India th –transformation in progress”, 18 June 2003.
9. Auto servicing, 2009 © http://www.automobileindia.com/
10. Mohd Rizaimy Shaharudin, Khaizir Muzani Md.Yusof, Shamsul Jamel
Elias, Suhardi Wan Mansor, “Factors - Affecting customer
satisfaction in after sales service of Malaysian electronic business
market”, published by Canadian academy of oriental and
occidental culture, Vol 5 No 6 2009, ISSN 1712-8056.
11. Elephant Design (2000), “Proposal for standard design of Bajaj Auto
dealer service centers”, Sep 2000.
12. Toyota kirloskar motors introduce global benchmark in vehicles
servicing in city
http://toyotabharat.com/inen/news/one_hour.asp.
13. Kawasaki heavy industries ltd (2001), “corporate identification
manual applications”, Jan 2001
14. Hindustan Motors Ltd (1995),”Corporate identification manual”,
July 1995.
15. Bajaj auto Ltd (2002),”Bajaj Auto service standards”, 2002.
16. Toyota Kirloskar Motor takes customer service to a higher level
March 21, 2009, posted by PRWIRE.
17. Times of India May 19, 2004 “DSK Toyota rated best dealer in the
world”.
18. http://news.oneindia.in/2010/04/09/automobile-industry-
growth.
19. http://eng.hil138.com/?il50939-54k
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 035
NEED FOR THE STUDY
ne of the biggest challenges faced by the Information
OTechnology companies globally is the increasing rate of
employee attrition. There are many causes for attrition
including, retirement and death. However, most attrition is due to
employee turnover. Staff attrition (or employee turnover) represents
significant costs to technology and business process outsourcing (BPO)
companies. High attrition rates drive up training costs, and increase
human resources, recruiting, and productivity costs. They also increase
the prospect of customer service complaints or quality problems, and
create substantial continuity problems for longer-lived projects.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
An attrition rate, also known as a churn rate, can be a measure of two
things. It is the measure of how many customers leave over a certain
period of time or how many employees leave over a certain period of
time. An attrition rate can also be a combination of these two factors.
CHALLENGES BEFORE INDIAN IT INDUSTRY
At present there are a number of challenges that are facing the
information technology industry of India. One of the major challenges for
the Indian information technology industry was to keep maintaining its
excellent performance standards.
HR CHALLENGES IN THE IT INDUSTRY
As the IT industry moves beyond tapping the talent in the best campuses,
to recruiting large numbers from second and third rung institutes, the
challenge of quality is going to be a major one. Urgent steps are needed to
“IMPACT OF ATTRITION ON THE
QUALITY OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS”
PROF. S. BALA SUBRAMANIAM
PROFESSOR,
AIMS, PUNE
GENERAL
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 036
upgrade the physical and intellectual infrastructure of
colleges, and also the syllabi and teaching materials/
methods.
While the attrition numbers will not be a serious
impediment, the same cannot be said about quality. It is true
that some Indian institutions (the IITs and IIMs, in particular)
have established an enviable world-wide reputation for
turning out top-quality professionals. However, the average
engineering graduate is hardly of world-class, and the
average non-technical graduate is of distinctly inferior
quality.
ATTRITION DUE TO TALENTED FEMALE PROFESSIONALS -
REVERSING THE BRAIN DRAIN IN SCIENCE, ENGINEERING,
AND TECHNOLOGY
Athena Factor survey data show that 41% of highly qualified
scientists, engineers, and technologists on the lower rungs
of corporate career ladders are female. To fill the skills gap,
companies need to turn to the female talent in their own
backyard.
The female drop–out rate is huge. Fully 52% of highly
qualified females working for SET companies quit their jobs,
driven out by hostile work environments and extreme job
pressures.
HIGH ATTRITION RATES IMPACTS QUALITY OF SERVICES TO
THEIR END CONSUMERS
The high attrition rate as high as 20-22% was a major
drawback since the companies suffered with the quality of
services to their end consumers as also the high costs of
recruitment and the costs on training and development.
With the warm-chair attrition gaining concept, it is still a
long way to go before the IT companies stabilize as far as
retention of employees is concerned.
OVERVIEW OF INDIAN IT INDUSTRY
Attrition affects the quality of service, leading to greater
expenditure on training and development, thereby affecting
the overall performance, including improving utilisation
rates of the company.
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER - DUTIES, BENEFITS, EXPENSES
High turnover can be a serious obstacle to productivity,
quality, and profitability at firms of all sizes. For the
smallest of companies, a high turnover rate can mean that
simply having enough staff to fulfill daily functions is a
challenge, even beyond the issue of how well the work is
done when staff is available. Turnover is no less a problem
for major companies, which often spend millions of dollars a
year on turnover-related costs. For service-oriented
professions, such as management consulting or account
management, high employee turnover can also lead to
customer dissatisfaction and turnover, as clients feel little
attachment to a revolving contact. Customers are also likely
to experience dips in the quality of service each time their
representative changes.
OBJECTIVE
3.1 PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
To identify the attrition rate in IT industry, its
causes and measures to control.
To analyze the impact of attrition on the quality of
the projects and identify measures to control and
retain quality standards amidst attrition.
3.2 SECONDARY OBJECTIVE
To study the impact of attrition on the growth of
the organization and identify measures to control
the cost incurred.
To identify the additional cost incurred to the
organization due to attrition.
METHODOLOGY
DATA COLLECTION
SECONDARY DATA
Response through e-mails
Journals, Magazines
Organization records
Statistics from various sources like media, web,
management books etc
Data was collected from secondary sources to understand
the problem clearly and focus on the problem faced by
various companies in the IT industry.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 037
PRIMARY DATA
Circulation of Questionnaire.
Interview with executives from IT industry.
Data collection by online Survey.
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
The quantitative research was conducted using an online
survey, this option is chosen as it's cost effective. We would
like to select the right population to survey, and thus online
survey provides us a great advantage on both cost and
sampling.
PURPOSE
The purpose of the quantitative research is to determine the
opinion of the sample population on the subject under study
and perform further analysis to derive conclusions.
FOCUS GROUP STUDY
A focus group study was conducted on small sample of 5 IT
project managers and their inputs have been used to prepare
the Questionnaire for further data collection.
POPULATION AND SAMPLING
Sampling is that part of statistical practice concerned with the
selection of a subset of individual observations within a
population of individuals intended to yield some knowledge
about the population of concern, especially for the purposes
of making predictions based on statistical inference. Sampling is
an important aspect of data collection.Researchers rarely
survey the entire population for two reasons (Adèr,
Mellenbergh, & Hand, 2008): the cost is too high, and the
population is dynamic in that the individuals making up the
population may change over time.
The three main advantages of sampling are that the cost is
lower, data collection is faster, and since the data set is
smaller it is possible to ensure homogeneity and to improve
the accuracy and quality of the data.
A sample of 30 respondents was chosen to represent the
entire population. IT project managers who would have a
greater visibility to the IT project delivery from various
companies are chosen to be the sample.
The sample includes a mix of both genders and from various
geographies.
PRE-TESTING
Once the questionnaire was developed in order to ensure the
questionnaire was clear and understandable, the
questionnaire was evaluated by the supervisor of our
research. The suggestions made by the expert was taken in
to consideration and the questionnaire was further modified
to make it, focused, crystal clear, short and easy to
understand. Further, a small group of respondents were
asked to take the survey to ensure that the scales were clear
and that respondents were able to comprehend the
information.
ON-LINE SURVEY
MANAGEMENT STUDY
Impact of attrition on the quality of the project delivered.
Using on –line questionnaire.
SAMPLING TECHNIQUES
The survey was conducted online, thus an online survey
based on invitation was conducted. In order to get high
response, snow ball method was used. Thus, the links of the
survey was forward to project manager in IT industry. Thus,
the response rate was fairly high for the survey. Some other
methods of publishing the URL on social networking sites,
like face book and LinkedIn were used; this helped us
increase the response rate.
SURVEY RESPONSE
The response received from 30 respondents is attached in
excel format
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 038
DATA PRESENTATION
TECHNIQUES FOR DATA ANALYSIS
Data collected will be analyzed using various statistical methods to derive at conclusions.
For practical reasons, a chosen subset of the population called a sample is studied — as opposed to compiling data about the entire
group (an operation called census). Once a sample that is representative of the population is determined, data is collected for the
sample members in an observational or experimental setting. This data can then be subjected to statistical analysis.
Interpretation of statistical information can often involve the development of a null hypothesis in that the assumption is that
whatever is proposed as a cause has no effect on the variable being measured.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 039
Most studies will only sample part of a population and then
the result is used to interpret the null hypothesis in the
context of the whole population. Any estimates obtained
from the sample only approximate the population value.
Confidence intervals allow statisticians to express how closely
the sample estimate matches the true value in the whole
population. Often they are expressed as 95% confidence
intervals. Formally, a 95% confidence interval of a procedure
is a range where, if the sampling and analysis were repeated
under the same conditions, the interval would include the
true (population) value 95% of the time. This does not imply
that the probability that the true value is in the confidence
interval is 95%.
WORK DONE SO FAR
Prepared the questionnaire to be circulated for data
collection.
Identified contacts in various IT companies for the
data collection.
Conducted interviews with the identified focus
groups.
Circulated the questionnaire and collected
response from the identified sample.
High level analysis of the data has been carried out.
WORK TO BE DONE
Perform statistical data analysis.
Identify trends and conclusions.
Prepare the final project report.
LIMITATIONS
The study is specific to IT industry only.
EXPECTED DELIVERABLES
To improve the quality of projects amidst attrition.
To reduce the cost incurred to the organization due
to attrition rate.
REFERENCES
1. “Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and
Technology” by Harvard Business Review - by Sylvia Ann
Hewlett et al.
(http://app.post.hbsp.harvard.edu/athena/athena2/index.html)
2. Challenges before Indian IT Industry by Economy Watch
(http://www.economywatch.com/india-it-industry/challenges.html)
3. “HR Challenges in the IT Industry” by Kiran Karnik
(http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=2205)
4. Overview of Indian IT Industry by D&B
(http://www.dnb.co.in/TopIT_08/overview.asp)
5. Employee Turnover - duties, benefits, expenses by Encyclopedia of
Business, 2nd ed.
(http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Eco-Ent/
Employee-Turnover.html#ixzz16kVbMprb)
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 040
INTRODUCTION
esource
Rplanning is the prime objective of Every enterprise.
Production companies, business Enterprises are all using ERP
to optimize their resources and keep themselves afloat in this
era of competition. Educational sector, specially Universities and
Colleges cannot be exceptions. In many Educational Institutions
administrative work as well Teaching-Learning process is computerized to
some extent through various software, which could be considered bits
and pieces.
In recent years many Educational Institutions have introduced ERP
systems in order to improve their operations and make them manageable
and more transparent. In this study one such attempt is presented as a
case study. Attempt has been made to present a detailed analysis
specially from the system analysis point of view. Problems of
implementation have been identified and possible solutions have been
suggested.
Next section is devoted to discussions on basic definitions followed by
discussions on specific need of Educational ERP. Later sections are
devoted to the findings of the survey and analysis.
WHAT IS AN ERP
An enterprise is a group of people with a common goal, which has certain
resources at its disposal to achieve this goal.
In the traditional approach, the organization is divided into different nits
based on the functions they perform. These departments function in
isolation and have their own systems of data collection and analysis. In
enterprise way the entire organization is considered a system and all
“PROBLEMS OF IMPLEMENTATION
ERP IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES :
A CASE STUDY”
PROF. JAWED S. KHAN
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR,
AIMS, PUNE
PROF. IRFAN J. SHAIKH
JOINT SECRETARY,
M.C.E. SOCIETY,
AZAM CAMPUS, PUNE
GENERAL
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 041
departments are its sub system, each sub system knows what
others are doing , why they are doing and what should be
done to move the company towards common goal. [1]
If the information that is generated is accurate, timely and
relevant, then the systems will go a long way in helping the
organization to realize its goals.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is an integrated
project/software/application which is used for connecting
various departments, business functions and storing their
data at central place for efficient access. This data is
accessed by various departments for different business
functions.
ERP integrates the information system of an organization and
automates most of the functions. The term was minted in the
early 1990s. The activities supported by ERP system include
all core functions of an organization, including financial
management, human resource management and operations.
Increasingly, ERP vendors are offering “bolt-on” products ,
such as business Intelligence (BI), Product Life Cycle
Management (PLM), Advance Planning and Scheduling (APS),
Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain
Management etc [1].
While ERP had its origins in manufacturing and production
planning systems, the functions of ERP offerings expanded in
the mid-1990s to include other back-office functions such as
order management, financial management, asset
management, and human resources management. The range
of functionality of ERP systems has further expanded in
recent years to include more applications, such as grants
management, marketing automation, electronic commerce,
student systems, and supply chain systems. Examples of ERP
systems include those from Oracle, BAAN, PeopleSoft, and
SAP.[4]
Fig. 1 ERP Project Overview
Figure 1 shows the sequence of events in an ERP project. It
usually starts with a needs assessment and requirements
analysis, and ends in the first cycle with training and a
phased implementation.[3]
The continuous circle of development shown in Figure 1
suggests that soon after completion of the first phase or
cycle of an ERP project, we're back to planning the next
phase. Each successive round of development arises from
the need to add functionality and the rapidity of upgrades to
ERP software.
WHY ERP FOR AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE
A typical educations ERP system usually supports student
administration (enrolment procedures and student
enrolment, financial support for students, student data),
teaching and Non teaching staff management (monitoring of
employees) and finance (accounting, fees payments,
payroll, investments, budget). It is possible to include some
other programme add-ons, e.g. assets management
(contracts, subsidies, grants, etc.) or for monitoring student
and developmental services of institutions [4]. The main
advantages of ERP for educational institutions are according
to Educause Center for Applied Research ( ECAR) [6]
organization are
Improved information access for planning and
managing the institution
Enhances workflow, increases efficiency and
reduces reliance on paper
Improved services for the Teachers, students and
employees
Tightens controls and Streamlines processes and
eases adoption of best business practices
Lower business risks, Increased income and
decreased expenses due to improved efficiency.
Provides user-friendly Web-based interfaces
Establishes a foundation for new systems and
integrates existing systems
The main advantage of ERP systems is improved access to
accurate and timely information. As Top level management
like presidents, chief financial officers, or directors want to
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 042
understand Educational Institute's overall performance with
existing systems, they may find many different versions of
the truth. An ERP system creates a single version of the truth
because everyone uses the same system.
Furthermore, some existing systems make developing
reports or tapping into transaction data stored on the
computer quite challenging. Modern ERP systems often
improve upon this process by offering a strong foundation for
moving to a data warehouse that can provide even more
capability to extract data from administrative information
systems.In Educational Institute basic activities are involved
of students Admission, student, Examination and their fees
and their document. Teaching and Non Teaching staff,
Administrative staff are involved with student. Course
curriculum and Library/books, laboratory are also involved in
educational institute. Smooth functionality and efficient
and accurate working is expected from educational ERP. The
objective of ERP is to provide efficient, effective services to
the stakeholder of institutions. Cost and time savings is
expected from educational ERP.
An integrated database shared by different functions and
consequently, different modules of a single integral
information solution is of main importance. Data can be
transferred between individual processes and accessible by
various users in real time. Through educational ERP software
Information sharing is the possible for whole organization.
The use of up-to-date information approaches (web
technologies, mobile phones, on-line services, etc.) is an
additional advantage, not only for the administration within
educational institutions, but also for people who constantly
interact with the institution (students, teachers,
researchers, etc.) [7].
METHODOLOGY
The case study corresponds to a situation where E-Admin (a
component of ERP) is being used since last seven years. Last
few years status was surveyed and System analysis was
carried out, Problems were identified. A brief description of
the methodology is discussed in this section.
The Current study has following phases
4.1 Survey of Current status
4.2 System analysis of Processes using Rational Rose
UML diagram
4.3 Identification of Problems
4.4 On the basis of analysis Possible solution were
suggested
A brief description of each of the phases is given in next few
subsections.
4.1 SURVEY OF CURRENT STATUS
The Campus under consideration has a ERP solution installed
in the year 2005. Over the years /period the number of
institutions in the campus increased from 17 to 28. The
institutions offer education at various levels from primary,
senior primary, higher secondary, to higher education
colleges upto doctoral programs at the campus. The
number of students, potentially targeted under ERP is
approx 25000. (Nearly 20% of the students are not covered
under the ERP implementation span). Nearly 90% of the
stakeholders are covered under the ERP implementation
span.
Modules currently installed and commissioned at various
levels of functionality are
a) The student Modules
b ) Payroll & Fees Modules
c) Back office
d) Library
A dedicated SERVER of high end technology was procured.
The application runs on a campus wide network.
Adequate availability of band width and an appropriate
VLAN design have been implemented to ensure proper
data communication network facility, along with the
Dedicated server for the application to run. Proper security
policy has been implemented and access control has been
accordingly designed. Prior to commissioning of the ERP
solution, most of the work related above modules was done
manually (Registers/note book/files) and some of the work
was done in word processing and speared sheets or Ms-
Office-Word and Excel packages. Tally is being used as
independent accounting software.
Surveys were conducted periodically, to determine the
extent of usage, problems of users, adequacy of reports
and status of data entry, by specifically nominated
committees.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 043
4.1.1 CURRENT STATUS : MODULE WISE VIEW
At the campus, E-Administration (E-Admin) Software basically constitutes of Student Module, Account -Payroll Module and
Library Module. In addition, the accounting package Tally is being used since last many years at the Campus. Out of these
modules, Student module, library module and payroll module were implemented in stages at various constituent Colleges.
A perusal of evaluation rounds conducted by the E-Governance committee over the past three year indicated following status
various Task in E-admin software.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 044
As a sample one year data entry is shown in figure 2, though the survey was done for three years, almost 80% of data entry was done
in this year, data entry of Library is remarkable excellent where as other modules admission, back office fee entry are good.
Payroll data entry is average. Educations level wise Primary school data entry is excellent where as Senior College’s data entry
very good and data entry of high school and junior college is good.
4.2 SYSTEM ANALYSIS OF PROCESSES USING RATIONAL ROSE UML DIAGRAM
A details system diagram was drawn to analysis the activities and data flows. The system diagram (Fig 3) shows the complete
activity from student's first access (enquiry) to his exit via completion of education or exit in the middle due to other reasons.
Critical activities which need to be properly monitored are discussed here.
Figure 2. Shows the percentage data entry module wise and Education level wise (Year 2011-12)
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 045
Figure 3. System Flow Diagram for E-Admin Software
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 046
4.2.1 ANALYSIS OF THE FLOW OF DATA, SEQUENCE OF ACTIVITIES IN THE CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION
A critical look in to how the data flows and the sequence in which activities happen is very important component of the analysis.
As can be seen from the figure 4, data gets distributed in four parallel channels of processing.
Since the E-Admin software is only partially implemented, data flows through multiple channels as shown in Fig. 4. Our Analysis is
based on two major classifications. One is data distributions and other is accessibility of data for various educational stake
holders as shown in Table 1. Channels named i) Manual ii) Spread Sheets iii) Accounting software and iv) E-Admin software as
shown figure 4. The basic principle of parallel processing using distributed data becomes naturally applicable [8].
Initially, almost all the Data is living in the manual system , where as other part of systems are waiting for data. In the second
stage data gets distributed in two channels.ie Spread sheets and Manual. In third stage data is distributed in three channels i. e.
Manual, Spread sheets and accounting software and partial in E-Admin software. In the fourth stage data gets distributed in all
four channels. From this data distribution chart, it is clear that data is not available for admin software most of the time and
hence software is waiting mostly for further processing of data . The matrix DD1 represents the data division pattern :
Figure 4. Current data flow : distribution in to four channels
2
0
22
31 32 33 34
41 42 43 44
232
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 047
Table No.2 Current status of availability of data of E-Admin software to various Educational stake holders
(Legends: Fully Accessible = FA, Partial Access = PA , Not Accessible=X A).
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 048
TABLE NO 3. REPORT ON CURRENT STATUS OF CRITICAL DOCUMENT GENERATIONS & ASSOCIATED PROBLEMS
However this would be the case in general in any e-
governance environment, specially due to the slowness of
data feeding. Employees avoid data feeding at the initial
phase, maintain parallel records on spreadsheet (Ms-Excel)
and update the records only after few months. During the
intermediate period data is not available for other work.
This leads to lot of duplication of work. One common
complaint about the software is that it is slow at the time of
data feeding.
Hence the data in E-Administration (E-Admin) is not
available in time for its productive use where it is most
needed. Though the data entry is being done currently but
there is a necessity to monitor data entry through a
systematic audit. So that data can be made available for
productive purposes.
4.3 IDENTIFICATION OF PROBLEMS AND REASONS
The information need of different people would be
different. Our analysis is aimed at providing a clear insight
into the needs of problems keeping these differences in
mind. Our stake holders can be classified into four
categories as under
TOP_ MANAGEMENT
Office bearers of the Education Society, Directors , Dy.
Directors and Principals.
MIDDLE-MANAGEMENT
Head of the Departments, Library In-charges, Sports In-
charges, Placement officers, Accounts heads, Network
administrators, Hostel Managers etc.
TEACHERS
Professors, Associate Professors, Visiting Faculty,
Demonstrators and Examination section In-charges.
STUDENTS, PARENT AND ALUMNI
Students themselves and Parents are a very important
component who need information. Alumni of any
institution form a very important stake holders who render
help in many ways.
People in all above categories have their own needs of
accessibility to data, timely availability of data, and a
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 049
reasonable assurance of integrity of data.
Our analysis, as detailed in Table No. 2, and Figure 4,
shows that the current status of implementation, data is
distributed and stocked into many independent channels,
hence not meet above requirements of accessibility and
timeliness availability of information with various degrees
at various levels. This is because end users or stake holders
not enthusiastic or not motivated in using this facility of
e-admin software. End users or stake holders attitudes may
be a problem.
There is also small data integrity problem at some places
like Payroll data and Fees data. Data that is input and
processed in Tally is not integrated with database of
E-admin software. Integrations of various department or
modules is a another problem. The care for data validations
and cross references is not taken in the software. In many
institutes Bio-metric devices are being used for monitoring
attendance of employees, attendance data, but the data
generated is not integrated with the database of E-admin
software.
Educational ERP data is categorized stake holder wise,
module wise, into department wise and institute wise.
Security of data will be a problem in future as partial access
for network drive is available for all users. Partial access of
data is available for all users of all institutes. User access
control matrix is not defined in the software. Due to lack of
interfacing with tally the productivity of Account module in
E-Admin software is effectively less. At best it is a record
keeping exercise and not a resource planning activity.
REASONS FOR THE ABOVE PROBLEMS ARE
i) Distributed Data
The multiple channels, as shown in Fig 2. , into which data
gets distributed is one of the major reasons for lack of
timeliness and non availability
ii) Partial Implementation
Partial implementations or partial implementation of some
of the modules has been one of the reasons why information
does not completely processed and lot many
synchronization gaps are generated.
iii) Lack of interface between Tally and ERP
Manual processing become mandatory since the two
software components do not share information. This leads
to lot of repeated work leading to significant inefficiency
and exposes the system to serious human errors and Spread
sheet Risk.
iv) Users attitude
This is a common problem in all software implementation
efforts. Extensive use of spread sheet which is module
independent, and not properly integrated are frequent
reasons for errors.[11]
v) Infrastructure and Network Problems
There are some problems/issues of speed which could be
attributed to IT infrastructure and E-Admin software itself.
4.4 Solutions suggested
To make educational ERP effective , remedies for above
lacunae need to be found and implemented. Most of the
problems can be managed with a combination of technical
changes and better implementation policies.
1) Reduction of multiple channels of data
distribution
This is the first thing to be managed, need to remove
conventional methods of storing data and motivate the end
user to use available modules of e-admin software.
2) Complete and full implementation
Critical dependent module should be fully implemented , so
that piecemeal processing approach is stopped. It should be
enforced and facilitate by executive management.
3) User Motivation and Education
Most of the trainings, generally given by the software
suppliers, are focused on how to use the software. They
are a must. However the mental block of employees can
only be removed if trainings focus on demonstrating the
benefits. Case studies including success stories of
implementations and involvement of Senior officials during
the training highlighting the future visions is a must.
4) Awareness of Spread Sheet Risk
Users need to be made aware of benefits of the risk involved
in processing data externally using spread sheet risk, when
the software has dedicated modules doing the same work.
They should be made aware of the time lost in duplicate
processing efforts , and future integrity problems which
may arise.
5) E-admin software and Network performance
Monitoring
In any enterprise the usage pattern is always dynamic. When
a software is implemented the number of users is initially
very small. With passage of time the number of users are
known to increase exponentially. Hence a flexible dynamic
VLAN design is a must so that network performance can be
tuned as the usage increases. At the same time there is need
to monitor software and network performance.
CONCLUSION
The case study discussed in this paper is a typical scenario in
many Educational campuses. In conclusion it can be stated
that a proper implementation of the ERP or at least a
restricted e-Admin is possible if problems as identified
in section 4.3 and solutions as suggested in section 4.4 are
taken care of.
REFERENCES
1) Alexis Leon, (2008), ERP Demystified, Pub: Tata McGraw Hill Inc.
2) Anonymus, New Analysis Reveals Best ERP Systems for Higher Ed.,
Nonprofit Business Advisor 2002;5(154):11–13.
3) Dave Swartz and Ken Orgill,(2001), Higher Education ERP : Lessons
Learned , Educause
4) Donovan R. M (2005) Successful ERP implementation the First
Time, Process improvement
5) Guha I. B.,(2006), Moving outside the ERP comfort Zone, Express
Computer, Dec., 2006
6) King P. (2002) The promise and Performance of Enterprise Systems
in Higher Education, Respondent Summary. ECAR Respondent
Summary 2002.
7) Murphy C. (2004) ERP: The Once and Future King of Campus
Computing. Campus technology. Syllabus Media Group. 2004.
8) Poonahiya P. (2009), Data Warehousing Fundamentals, Willy
Eastern Inc., India
9) Shahin Dezdar,(2011), 3rd International Conference on Advanced
Management Science IIES, Tehran, Iran 2011 IPEDR vol.19 (2011))
IACSIT Press, Singapore
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 050
10) Shivani Goel, Ravi Kiran and Deepak Garg (2011), African Journal
of Business Management Vol. 5(34), Academic Journals,
December, 2011, pp. 13197-13204,
11) Blaustin R. E(2009), Eliminating Spreadsheets Risks Internal Audit
Report(IAR), Protivit Inc.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 051
I. INTRODUCTION
omputer-mediated communication (CMC) has become very
Ccommon in work life and had replaced need for face to face (F2F)
communication to a large extent. Email communication is one
dominant component of CMC. Chat and voice and video mails are also
important. In the business domain e-mail is most frequently used in an
information-gathering and communication function (Kettinger & Grover
1997). Email has also led to the emergence of on-line communities by
supporting asynchronous communication (Sproul and Kiesler 1991). Kidd
(1994) , Landsdale (1988) and Malone (1983) have portrayed email as a
virtual file cabinet. It is a means of storage to use, and organise
messages. Classifying the messages in terms of their contents, for
effective retrieval for proper business use of the messages is the next
step, hence there is a need for proper structured filing. Malone, Grant
and Turbak (1986) developed a computer based system which helps
employees to filter, sort and prioritize messages at individual levels.
Mackay et al., (1989) revealed that newer computer users can effectively
sort and prioritize emails to some extent. Landsdale (1988) emphasized
that two problems faced by uses persisted :
a) How to define categories to use.
b) How to remember these categories later, at the time of
retrieval.
He concluded that information retrieval based on recall-directed search
is always followed by reorganisation based scanning. Another dilemma for
classification is about sorting and categorizing email is that if user spends
“COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION
IN ENTERPRISES, NEED FOR THEIR
CLASSIFICATION AND ALGORITHMIC
COMPLEXITIES”
PROF. PRITI KULKARNI
ASST. PROFESSOR
SYMBIOSIS INST OF COMPUTER
STUDIES AND RESEARCH,
SYMBIOSIS INTERNATIONAL
UNIVERSITY, PUNE
DR . HARIDASA S. ACHARYA
PROFESSOR
AIMS, PUNE
MARKETING
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 052
time to categorize an item less likely categorization will be
done. If this process is automated the fewer users will able
to recall it. This suggest that automatic filing and message
folders two ubiquitous features in contemporary email
software and intended to help email overload problem.
In this paper, evidences from few prominent international
surveys are given to indicate the extent to which
enterprises rely on emails, next different purposes and
approaches to categorization are discussed. There are a
few network infrastructure related intricacies which cannot
be ignored when Enterprises go for dedicated applications to
be deployed for the purpose of monitoring and
categorization of emails. Most of the researchers seem to
have ignored this aspect while discussing the categorization
problems. We focus on this aspect of email categorization
in the later part of this article.
2. INTERNATIONAL SURVEYS
Radical group ( Anonymous, 2012, 2013 ) has conducted
survey in mid of 2011 to study corporate and business user
preferences, deployments, attitudes and behaviour with
regards to email with 100 businesses and a total of 228,068
email users. The survey indicated that
a. 44.8 billion Emails are delivered each day.
b. 112 daily emails are received and sent on average
by business professional causes an overflowing inbox.
c. 42% of corporate email is ignored. (Due to inbox is
overflow).
d. 50% of emails are misunderstood. (Without these
visual/auditory cues)
e. People switch between applications 30 times an h o u r.
(Leeds to loss of focus and working time).
3. SURVEY BY INFOCOMM
According to a survey conducted by Infocomm In 2012, the
usage of computers, Internet, broadband has increased. The
proportion of enterprises that used computers and the
Internet increased from 79% in 2010 to 84% in 2012 and from
77% in 2010 to 82% in 2012 respectively. The most common
Internet activities were sending and receiving emails (95%)
and information search (92%).
Fig 1 : Internet activities on computer (Annual Survey on
Usage by Enterprises 2012)
The results show that usage of internet for communication
dominates practically every other usage.
4. TRENDS AND PREDICTIONS
According to statistics published by Radicati Group,
estimates for future indicate(Table1) :
An average annual growth rate of 6% over the next four years
is indicated.
a. ESTIMATES OF SPAM EMAILS
Spam mails are a real problem. Statistics as on Week ending
November 18, 2012 by Trust wave indicated 67.8% Spam ,
and Spam cop reports 2679044 spam messages per week.
Hence the top level categorization is always spam vs no
spam.
b. EMAILS ON A BUSINESS STRATEGIC NETWORK
A study by Markus (1994) based on 549 emails sent from the
hub of the strategic network during six months in 2002 and
2003 , are classified in Table 2. The respondents have
reported that they have not deleted any job-related emails,
the content of their out boxes can be expected to be a good
representation of typical communication behaviour in the
strategic network. As most emails have been classified as
having more than one communication reason, the total
number of registered reasons exceeds the number of emails.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 053
Table: 1 Email traffic and Accounts 2013-2017 (Extracted from: Radicati Group survey -2013-17)
Table 2: Category wise analysis of emails from a Business Strategic Hub
Fig 2 The Layered Concept of Security in an Enterprise Network
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 054
Fig.3 Typical (simplified) Email classification framework at enterprise level
Classifier 1
Classifier 2
IT
HR
Accounts
Finance
Email Server
Incoming email
Spam
or
Nonspam
Spam
Block Email as per defined
set of rules.
Nonspam
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 055
5. EMAIL CLASSIFICATION AT ENTERPRISE LEVEL
According to AMA 43% of companies monitor email, 96% track
incoming and outgoing messages. Only 58% monitor internal
traffic sent from internal staff. Employees assigned to read
and review employee e-mail are employed by the following
departments: IT (73%), HR (34%), legal (18%), compliance
(17%), outside third-party (4%), other (17%).
In order to classify the emails, first decide on useful
categories that represented the whole of emails. When email
hit email server first it is checked for spam or non spam , and
is discarded. If email is non-spam it is classified on basis of
different users.
6. NEED FOR MULTI LEVEL CLASSIFICATION
As we mentioned earlier need for classification though is
well recognized most of the surveys have focussed on
identification of business reasons for categorization.
However it is necessary to recognise that dedicated
classifications and monitoring require huge cost to be
incurred. Most of the time Infrastructure designers do not
understand the needs and hence do not create appropriate
provisions for multi-level . Let us have a look at the security
setup in a typical Enterprise level network. For simplicity we
have shown a LAN, but the principles remain the same when
we are looking at a global network.
An Enterprise network will have varied security setup,
possibly separated by multiple firewalls. The information
need will be different in different layers.
Email monitoring and categorization needs at each layer
certainly would be different. The stringency of censorship,
importance of decision making needs, risk associated with
actions associated with each layer will dictate the type of
email classification applications to be used in each layer.
Most of the surveys have focussed either on total volume and
traffic of email communications. However a strong coupling
of the network design and dedicated categorization
applications customizable to varies levels of accuracy of
classifications would be needed in any enterprise.
The quick access to records and other documents helps for
sound decision-making. According to the Australian Standard
for Records Management, AS ISO 15489, best practice in
records management classification is on a rigorous analysis of
business functions and activities. Similar standards would
exists in most countries as this is essentially a business
requirement.
A natural corollary of these standards specification is that
such policies should have natural extention to Email
categorization and monitoring as well.
The process of information classification describes, organize
and control information. It creates order in understanding
what an organization does and how it does it. Government
and other organization have invested heavily to protect
their system from virus, worms and other threads. Users
often have cluttered in boxes containing hundreds of
messages, including spam, Unsolicited marketing messages,
outstanding tasks and conversational threads. Also the
exponential increase in the volume of e-mails can make the
processing of e-mails tedious and time consuming. The e-
mail user spends most of the time on organizing these e-
mails to reduce their size of inbox. Sometimes important
messages get overlooked, or "lost" in archives. Also another
risk includes loss of proprietary information violation of
record retention and privacy laws. Email is considered as a
weak link in organizational security. This rapid growing
email requires proper classification with less user
interference.
An E-mail filter is personalized and the knowledge used by
each personal filter is subjective. Therefore, classifying
personal E-mail messages is more challenging. A rule-based
system provides a way to semi-automate e-mail
classification. Such a system requires users to define a set of
instructions for the e-mail application to sort incoming
messages into existing folder. (Bekkerman et al., 2004)
showed applications in spam filtering of automatic e-mail
classification extraction of e-mail threads and automatic e-
mail foldering, as per user-defined folders. Ishmail
automatically sorts messages into folders and orders them
by importance, based on user-defined classification filters.
Procmail, Elm Filter works on same concept. Most popular
commercial e-mail clients such as Eudora, Mozilla
Thunderbird, and Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook
Express also support message filing according to user-
defined rule sets.
These types of systems are challenging for nontechnical
users because writing the rules requires some level of
programming experience, folders defined by individual
users can be a tiresome and time consuming task if it is not
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 056
done regularly. Email data normally does not follow any fixed
structure. The use of machine learning techniques would
certainly be required. Examples of such systems are PEA-a
Personal mail Assistant with Evolutionary Adaptation
(Werner Winiwarter,1999), MailCat(Richard et al,1999),
Re:Agent (Gary Boone,1998).
7. NEED FOR DEDICATED EMAIL CLASSIFIERS
Personal classification , organization and sorting can never
be eliminated at the employee level. But an enterprise
should go for better dedicated and standardised classifiers
to eliminate business risks. The situation is almost similar to
what we observe in the form of Spread Sheet Usage Risk ,
which is common in case of financial data processing .
8. CONCLUSIONS
The evidences about and the discussions on the network
designs indicate that
a. Emails are heavily used by business as a Computer
Mediated mode of communication.
b. Problems of lost mails, ignored mails and
misunderstood mails are a reality.
c. Proper dedicated classification softwares will
certainly reduce dependency on employees using
personal classification strategies and hence reduce
these problems.
d. Generally a multi layered security setup would be
available in any enterprise network. Email
categorization policies should also be parallel .
9. REFERENCES
1. Anonymous (2012)ANNUAL SURVEY ON INFOCOMM USAGE BY
ENTERPRISES FOR 2012.
2. Anonymous (2012),The radicati group, inc. A technology market
research firm, “Survey : Corporate Email, 2011-2012”
http://www.radicati.com
3. Anonymous (2013) The radicati group, inc. A technology
market research firm, “Survey: Corporate Email, 2013-2017”
http://www.radicati.com
4. Anonymous( 2007), The 2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance
Survey from American Management Association (AMA) and The
ePolicy Institute.
5. Bekkerman, R., McCallum, A., and Huang, G.:(2004) Automatic
Categorization of Email into Folders: Benchmark Experiments on
Enron and SRI Corpora. Center for Intelligent Information
Retrieval, Technical Report IR-418, 2004
6. Derks, D., & Bakker, A. (2010). The Impact of E-mail
Communication on Organizational Life. Cyberpsychology: Journal
of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 4(1), article 1.
7. Edith Andresen, Anette Bergeman, and Lars Hallen (2003), th ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION IN STRATEGIC NETWORKS , 19
th Annual IMP Conference 4th–6 September 2003
8. Kidd, A. (1994). The marks are on the knowledge worker.
Proceedings of the CHI 94 Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems. New York: ACM.
9. Landsdale, M. (1988). The psychology of personal information
management. Applied Ergonomics, 19, 55–66
10. Malone, T. W. (1983). How do people organize their desks?
Implications for the design of office information systems. ACM
Transactions on Office Information Systems, 1,99–112
11. Mackay, W. E., Malone, T. W., Crowston, K., Rao, R., Rosenblitt,
D., & Card, S. K.(1989). How do experienced information lens
users use rules? Proceedings of the CHI 89 Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems. New York: ACM.
12. N. Ducheneaut, L. Watts, In search of coherence: a review of
e-mail research, Human-Computer Interaction 20 (2004) 11–48.
13. Nicolas D.,and Palo A., “In Search of Coherence : A Review of
E-Mail Research,” HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION, 2005,
Volume 20, pp. 11–48
14. Richard B. Segal and Jeffrey O. Kephart, ”MailCat : An Intelligent
Assistant for Organizing E-Mail.”, In Proc. of the Sixteenth
National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 925–926,
Orlando, Florida,USA, 1999
15. Rennie, Jason (2000) “ifile: An Application of Machine Learning to
Mail Filtering.” Proceedings of the KDD-2000 Workshop on Text
Mining, Boston, USA, August 20, 2000.
16. Radicati Group,(2013) The Ineffectiveness of Email
Communication, Radicati Group, Message Mind Survey, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, Communications of the ACM,
Marketing Sherpa https://vingapp.com/ving-improved-
communicat ion-technology/5-shock ing- facts -emai l -
communication/#more-6717
17. Sproull, L., and Kiesler, S. (1991) Connections. MIT Press,
Cambridge,Mass., 1991
18. Walther, J. B., & Tidwell, L. C.(1995). Nonverbal cues in
computer-mediated communication. Journal of Organizational
Computing, 5, 355-378
19. W. Kettinger and V. Grover, 1997. "The Use of Computer-Mediated
Communication in an Inter organizational Context," Decision
Sciences, volume 28, number 3, pp. 513-555.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 057
I. INTRODUCTION
he
TGlobalization and liberalization has led to fierce competition
since it has made the dream of becoming an overnight billionaire
possible. The sky is the limit for expansion, improvement and
profit making. The world has witnessed paradigm shifts in marketing
function like never before. Marketing is interlinked to other functions in
business world. The customer is supposed to be a king but are the business
activities and functions really customer oriented? Or they are just
commercial ventures and profit making opportunities with a quick –buck
style.
The world has witnessed the success stories of business Icons such as
Mittal in Steel, Dhirubhai in Textiles, and Tatas in Automobile business
.But at the same time the companies such as Bofors and Satyam reveal the
negative aspects. Of business. We also know the stories of fast rise and
fall of notorious Stamp business by Telgi and the stock exchange scandals
by Harshad Mehta.
The total of this scams is coming upto Rs. 910,603,234,300,000, which is
equal to USD 20.23 trillion. With this huge amount, India will become a
super-power overnight and can permanently kill all social problems
mainly poverty and unemployment.
This study aims at exploring the cause and effect of effective marketing
(Ethical and Non-ethical) for the long term benefit or success.
The effects of different styles in marketing will be studied, so that it can
serve as a guideline for upcoming entrepreneurs in future. Man is a social
animal and can not live like an Island in isolation. Along with the personal
“AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF THE
MARKETING PRACTICES WITH REFERENCE
TO PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN PUNE”
PROF. DAVID SAMPAT KADAM
DIRECTOR
PROJECTS & ALUMNI AFFAIRE
BALAJI INSTITUTE OF MODERN
MANAGEMENT, PUNE
MARKETING
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 058
growth /gains he must also achieve social change as he
grows in every field to achieve balanced growth in business
all the three i) Profit making, I) customer satisfaction, and
iii) Social responsibility can achieve complete success. The
marketing function in business should be in congruence and
in accordance with the other business activities. The ethical
marketing practices in marketing and its impact will be the
main focus of this present study.
Marketing, like Human life is all about relationships and for
today's marketing firms, the relationships with customers,
dealers, suppliers, government agencies, and other
marketing people are shifting the focus from mere profit
maximizing to maximizing mutually beneficial relationships.
Marketers have to be in constant touch with their customers.
They need to understand the changing and growing needs of
the customers. It is no longer enough to just satisfy
customers, but equally important to delight those by
meeting their expectations and at times provide them with
unexpected products, sales promotion schemes, and other
marketing activities. Marketing means managing markets to
bring about profitable exchange relationships by creating
value and satisfying needs and wants. In the words of Philip
Kotler, “A social process by which individuals and groups
obtain what they need and want through creating and
exchanging products and value with others.”
The societal marketing concept calls upon marketers to
build social responsibilities among society into their
marketing practices. It stresses the need for an organization
to balance three factors while taking marketing decision:
Consumer satisfaction + Company's profit + Society's well-
being. In other words, firms should not just make consumer
satisfying goods but also 'environmental friendly' and
'consumer health oriented products'. Firms are established
largely to offer goods and services to people and their aim is
to maximize profits. In their profit maximizing efforts, their
responsibilities towards society are almost forgotten. As
consumers now realize the need to protect environment and
society, companies are also supposed to realize their
responsibilities towards society and environment.
Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the social
commitments of organizations and some prefer to buy
products of that firm that are socially responsible.
Organizations are gradually realizing that following
unethical practices for short-term gains, would spoil a
company's image in the long run and the costs incurred in
becoming socially responsible would improve organizational
sustainability in the long run. Firms must give maximum
importance to the customers they are serving. Consumers'
needs and their purchasing power should be kept in mind
while developing products and services. Products should
satisfy the quality requirements of target customers.
Companies must also ensure that they deal with customers
in a fair and respectful manner at all points of contacts.
Several companies have been criticized for misleading
customers through advertisements, pricing and packaging.
Many organizations have begun to realize their responsibility
towards society. For example, Companies need to be
environment conscious, and sensitive towards issues like
global warming and ozone layer depletion. Till recently, CFC
(Chloroform Carbon) that damages the ozone layer was used
in most countries to manufacture compressors for
refrigerators. However, of late, many companies have
developed alternate ways of manufacturing and have
banned the use of CFC in any product and processes.
They should also adopt fair practices of employment like,
giving equal opportunities to both men and women of the
community, and provide a safe and healthy work
environment for employees along with adequate
compensation packages.
The characteristics that define acceptable conduct in
marketing are called Marketing Ethics. Practicing ethics in
marketing means deliberately applying standards of
fairness, or moral rights and wrongs, to marketing decision
making, behavior, and practice in the organization. In other
words, Ethics in Marketing is a sub-set of business ethics and
examines the moral issues relating to marketing decisions
made by organizations. In a market economy, a business may
be expected to act in what it believes to be its own best
interest. The purpose of marketing is to create a
competitive advantage. An organization achieves an
advantage when it does a better job than its competitors at
satisfying the product and service requirements of its target
markets. Those organizations that develop a competitive
advantage are able to satisfy the needs of both customers
and the organization. According to Kotler, in recent years,
people have started questioning the value of marketing
concept, when the world is faced with environmental
degradation, resource shortages, hunger and poverty and
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 059
neglected social services. Ethics are a collection of
principles of right conduct that shape the decisions that
people or organizations make. Those organizations that
develop a competitive advantage are able to satisfy the
needs of both customers and the organization.
Marketers must develop ethical standards that are followed
by the entire organization and ensure that these standards
are never compromised. A firm which strictly adheres to
these standards without compromising on them for short-
term benefits would definitely find itself in a profitable
position in the long run. Though it might be legal to use
children in advertisements, it may be unethical to use them.
Similarly, a Pharmaceutical Company can provide technical
details about its products in advertisements, but can hide
critical information about their side effects. In such a case,
the Company might not be breaking any rule, but it will be
morally incorrect to deprive customers of the information
which may affect their health adversely.
A salesperson of a financial services company can sell a
product to a customer, which does not best suit his needs.
There is a myth that if a Company acts ethically, its profit
objective will be adversely affected. It actually adds to
profitability in the long run. For example, good safety
standards and employment policies can improve
productivity.
Because not all managers have fine moral sensitivity,
Companies need to develop corporate marketing ethics
policies-broad guidelines that every one in the organization
must follow.
Organizations following the best business practices are
being encouraged through awards like Business Ethics which
include 100 best corporate citizens who adheres marketing
ethics and its responsibility towards society. One of the
leading organization among the list of 100 best corporate
citizens is Hewlett – Packard (HP). HP's started its tradition
of serving the community from the year 1939, when its
founders Hewlett and Packard donated $ 5Mns to charity in
their first year of business. HP's have gained people's faith
and goodwill of the organization by getting involved in social
welfare activities, thus reflecting the concept of
responsibilities towards society.
After a detailed study on this topic we have come to know
that there is a great impact of social responsibility and
ethics on marketing. This impact not only reflects its
negative side but also its positive side on marketing a
product.
Marketing done in ethical manners following the societal
responsibilities side to side shows a positive flow of business
which enables a marketer to not only maximize his profit but
also increase the credit worthiness of his organization,
gaining goodwill. And on other hand, marketing done in
unethical manners, not following the laws and regulations
results in losses, poor reputation, which takes a long time for
a marketer to retain its goodwill because business standards
and practices vary from country to country. The issue of
social responsibility and ethics poses challenges for
marketers. The growing consensus among today's marketers
is that it is important to make commitment to a common set
of shared standards worldwide.
Ethics are a collection of principles of right conduct that
shape the decisions people or organizations make.
Practicing ethics in marketing means deliberately applying
standards of fairness, or moral rights and wrongs, to
marketing decision making, behavior, and practice in the
organization.
The American Marketing Association, for example, has
developed a code of ethics (which can be viewed on its Web
site at www.ama.org). Self-regulation not only helps a firm
avoid extensive government intervention; it also permits it
to better respond to changes in market conditions. An
organization' long-term success and profitability depends on
this ability to respond. When a product or service does not
provide expected value, customers will often seek a
different source.
Several product-related issues raise questions about ethics
in marketing, most often concerning the quality of products
and services provided. Among the most frequently voiced
complaints are ones about products that are unsafe, that are
of poor quality in construction or content, that do not
contain what is promoted, or that go out of style or become
obsolete before they actually need replacing. An
organization that markets poor-quality or unsafe products is
taking the chance that it will develop a reputation for poor
products or service. In addition, it may be putting itself in
jeopardy for product claims or legal action. Sometimes,
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 060
however, frequent changes in product features or
performance, such as those that often occur in the computer
industry, make previous models of products obsolete. Such
changes can be misinterpreted as planned obsolescence.
Ethical questions may also arise in the distribution process.
Because sales performance is the most common way in which
marketing representatives and sales personnel are
evaluated, performance pressures exist that may lead to
ethical dilemmas. For example, pressuring vendors to buy
more than they need and pushing items that will result in
higher commissions are temptations. Exerting influence to
cause vendors to reduce display space for competitor's
products, promising shipment when knowing delivery is not
possible by the promised date, or paying vendors to carry a
firm product rather than one of its competitors are also
unethical.
Research is another area in which ethical issues may arise.
Information gathered from research can be important to the
successful marketing of products or services. Consumers,
however, may view organizations efforts to gather data from
them as invading their privacy. They are resistant to give out
personal information that might cause them to become a
marketing target or to receive product or sales information.
When data about products or consumers are exaggerated to
make a selling point, or research questions are written to
obtain a specific result, consumers are misled. Without self-
imposed ethical standards in the research process,
management will likely make decisions based on inaccurate
information.
Children are an important marketing target for certain
products. Because their knowledge about products, the
media, and selling strategies is usually not as well developed
as that of adults. Children are likely to be more vulnerable to
psychological appeals and strong images.
Thus, ethical questions sometimes arise when they are
exposed to questionable marketing tactics and messages. For
example, studies linking relationships between tobacco and
alcohol marketing with youth consumption resulted in
increased public pressure directly leading to the regulation
of marketing for those products.
The proliferation of direct marketing and use of the Internet
to market to children also raises ethical issues. Sometimes a
few unscrupulous marketers design sites so that children are
able to bypass adult supervision or control, or sometimes
they present objectionable materials to underage
consumers or pressure them to buy items or provide credit
card numbers. When this happens, it is likely that social
pressure and subsequent regulation will result. Likewise,
programming for children and youth in the mass media has
been under scrutiny recently.
In the United States, marketing to children is closely
controlled. Federal regulations place limits on the types of
marketing that can be directed to children, and marketing
activities are monitored by the Better Business Bureau, the
Federal Trade Commission, consumer and parental groups,
and the broadcast networks. These guidelines provide clear
direction to marketers.
Unlike the legal protections in place to protect children
from harmful practices, there have been few efforts to
protect minority customers. When targeting minorities,
firms must evaluate whether the targeted population is
susceptible to appeals because of their minority status. The
firm must assess marketing efforts to determine whether
ethical behavior would cause them to change their
marketing practices.
As society changes, so do the images of and roles assumed by
people, regardless of race, sex, or occupation. Women have
been portrayed in a variety of ways over the years. When
marketers present those images as overly conventional,
formulaic, or oversimplified, people may view them as
stereotypical and offensive.
Examples of demeaning stereotypes include those in which
women are presented as less intelligent, submissive to or
obsessed with men, unable to assume leadership roles or
make decisions, or skimpily dressed in order to appeal to the
sexual interests of males. Harmful stereotypes include those
portraying women as obsessed with their appearance or
conforming to some ideal of size, weight, or beauty. When
images are considered demeaning or harmful, they will work
to the detriment of the organization. Advertisements, in
particular, should be evaluated to be sure that the images
projected are not offensive.
“'Ethics' most often refers to a domain of inquiry, a
discipline, in which matters of right and wrong, good and
evil, virtue and vice, are systematically examined.
'Morality', by contrast, is most often used to refer not to a
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 061
discipline but to patterns of thought and action that are
actually operative in everyday life. In this sense, morality is
what the discipline of ethics is about. And so business
morality is what business ethics is about” (Goodpaster, 1992,
p. 111). This quotation offers a simple and fruitful entrance
into a discipline. Questions about moral acceptability in
business contexts and others can beaked (and answered)
descriptively or critically. A descriptive (or empirical, or
social science) question could be what given individuals and
groups themselves actually do accept as right or wrong. Such
a question cannot be answered without empirical data. A
critical (or normative, or ethics) question would focus on why
choices, consequences, or system states are acceptable (or
not). Such questions cannot be answered without good
reasons, arguments, and criteria. Ideally, asking and
answering do not stop before the facts are clear (enough) and
good (enough) reasons are found and offered, or before at
least good enough discussion procedures are followed.
1Marketing ethics a preliminary portrait of marketing ethics
could simply extend the above quotation. Marketing ethics
examines systematically marketing and marketing morality,
related to 4P-issues such as unsafe products, deceptive
pricing, deceptive advertising or bribery, discrimination in
distribution (cf. Smith and Quelch, 1993, p. 13). Other issues
are related to exploitation of consumer weakness (see ibid,
p. 30) or using PR for preventing critical journalism and
public debate. If business ethics as an academic field is about
moral criticism and self-criticism of business and business
education, this would include criticism and self-criticism of
marketing as well, as its most out-going and aggressive part,
with its specific Johannes Brinkmann, Ethics, Teaching
Business Ethics, Business Ethics: European Review as well as
two books about business ethics (1993, 2001, in
Norwegian).Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional
Ethics. Concepts, Approaches and Typologies Johannes
Brinkmann Journal of Business Ethics 41: 159–177, 2002.
2 a) OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main objective of the study is :
To study the Present marketing practices w.r.t. professional
ethics in Pune Region.
WHY STUDY MARKETING PROFESSIONALS ?
In the age of liberalization, privatization and globalization,
organizations are forced to thrive on the cutting edge of
competition. They have to convert their core competency
into competitive advantage on an ongoing basis. The
organization has to keep moving ahead even to stay on the
same spot since the competition is tremendous. The
pressure of this market driven economics is felt most on the
Marketing Professionals who have to prove their worth
consistently. In order to do so they often may be tempted to
cut corners and do things that are not strictly ethical. The
investigator wishes to see whether marketing as a profession
is capable of bringing out ethical leaders in the years to
come for developing business.
The investigator wants to check whether the time has
come to visualize the future leader as the ethical leaders
who can stand up to be counted and walk his talk. Certain
innate core values and ethics that govern his actions guide
the leader. If an organization has to thrive on the cutting
edge of global competition then the marketing professional
above all else must be ethical.
The investigator himself is a marketing specialist and would
like to see as to what extent marketing professionals in the
corporate world are ethical and what particular values guide
their ethical conduct. [Value is a thought-based concept
while ethics is an activity-based concept.]
The short cut methods in business in General and in
Marketing in particular are common and we see that short
sighted goals are affecting the economy and welfare of the
nation. The examples of 'Stamp Scan', bofors, kickbacks,
defense deals are not good examples and the country can
not improve its economy and good will and productivity
which are very vital for the progress of the nation. We can
only dream of better Shinning INDIA when the life style &
living standards of the common people changes and that is
possible only by improving productivity and distribution of
the benefits of Globalization and modern high-tech,
knowledge based society to the grass roots. That is only
possible through practicing high ethical standards in every
sector including marketing too.
The effects and the inter dependency of the ethical
Marketing will help to a great extent. The business of various
sectors in future can play a leading role to contribute in the
welfare and progress of the nation.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 062
2b) HYPOTHESIS
The hypothesis of the research study is :
a) Professional Ethics is a vital component of
marketing for the rapid growth of business.
b) The Ethical Attitude of the managers in the
modern corporate sector needs overhauling.
3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research process is carried out by
(a)� SELECTING THE SAMPLING DESIGN
The items i.e. Large Scale / Small Scale Industries of
different types will be selected from the Pune
region (Universe/population)
(b) The type of sampling method used is random area
sampling where different areas having different
types of Industries will be considered for doing the
sampling work. About 100 (Hundred) managers from
various types of industries will be interviewed and
questionnaires will be filled in by them. Also 300
(three - hundred) customers has been interviewed
and questionnaires are filled up from them.
(c) DATA COLLECTION
The data is collected by carrying out a systematic survey. The
data can be collected by one of the following ways.
By observations.
Through personal interviews.
Through telephone interviews.
By mailing the questionnaires.
The project was executed with efficient time management.
The data will be collected with the help of structured, well
planned questionnaires.
4 ANALYSIS OF DATA
A) THE DATA PROCESSING
Preparing Data for Analysis
The data collected are first processed through following
steps in order to prepare the data for actual analysis.
(a)� Editing
(b)� Coding
©� Classification
(d)� Tabulation
(e)� Using percentages
B) ANALYSIS OF DATA
(a)� Descriptive and
(b)� Statistical analysis will be carried out.
C) FINDINGS
The findings are based on the analysis of the data of research
study. Conclusions and suggestions depend on the findings.
The research process has been carried out systematically
and scientifically.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 063
Table No. 1
Only 15% customers are satisfied with the claims made by the
company or shopkeeper and 85% on the other hand remain
dissatisfied with the false claims and promises during
Marketing.
Only 28% customers received detailed information of the
product about its Advantages & Limitations.
But 72% customers were not given the vital information about
the advantages & limitations. This indicates that managers
are hiding the information from customers which confirms
/highlights the unethical practices by the marketing
managers.
62% of the customers felt that they have been cheated with
respect to price & Quality of the product offered to which
indicates the customers were deprived of a fair price & good
quality of the product offered to them.
57% respondents are saying that they have not received the
best product for the price the customer paid.
65% of the customers were unsatisfied with the justification
of the price of the product explained to them. That is the
facts about the actual price of the product and its total
information was not given. This fact reveals the unethical
practices of the managers.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 064
Maximum 81% percentage of customers do disagree that the
managers follow good ethical practices while supplying their
products.
92% of the respondents believe that the unethical practices
do not affecter the business adversely.
It signifies that that the marketing managers generally are
involved in unethical practices and getting away with it scot
free and the practice continues.
79% customers do agree to the superiority of the product
claimed by the company in advertisement .That proves the
point that only main positive features and benefits and
strengths are highlighted and negative aspects such as
higher price charged for such high end products are hidden.
Table No. 2
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 065
If the customers received the product for the fair price, according to them it is considered to be good ethical practices by the
Managers ?
Detail information about the product 35%, good service after sales 26% & Fair price charged to them 24% believe that good ethics
followed by the salesman or shopkeepers.
Table No. 3
Table No. 3
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 066
75% of the customers are satisfied with respect to purpose
and needs but that results in low price related satisfaction. It
signifies that high price is charged for better features.
CONCLUSION
1) The code of conduct should be followed by the
Marketing managers.
2) The marketing practices of manager's w.r.t.
Business Ethics requires complete overhauling.
3) The company should appoint controlling authorities
to control the market ting activities strictly as per
norms, policies and code of conduct.
4) The managers plan long term strategies considering
ethical issues.
REFERENCES
1) Bibliography For: "Ethics in Marketing".
John Swope “Ethics in Marketing”, Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd
Ed.,
Findarticles .com 26 Marth, 2009. By Julie A. Mitchell - Business
Consultants 2001
By Andrew L. Friedman, Samantha Miles - Business & Economics
2006.
Business Ethics (Weiss 1998, 2003) And Marketing (Duncan and
Moriarty)
Marketing Management : Ethical and Soial Dimensions
Marketing And Finance - Michael Vaz
Principles of Marketing - Philip Kotler and Arms Strong.
2. By Hands Edward Bynagle - Philosophy 2006 - 385 pages.
3. A Companion to Business Ethics - Page 192
4. By Robert Frederick - Business & Economics - 2002 - 480 pages.
5. GR 1981 : Marketing Ethics : A Review with Implications for
Managers, Educators.
6. By Angela Thody - Language Arts & Disciplines - 2006 - 264 pages
7. The Number Of These Words That You Can Alllocate To The
Literature Review Is ... Regarding Teaching Professional Ethics Is
Can Ethics Actually Be Taught ?
TABLE NO. 5
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 067
INTRODUCTION
kills
Sand knowledge are the prime factor that helps in proper and
well directed economic growth. A country cannot think of
balanced and sustained economic development along with social
justice without offering fair, equal and large number of opportunities to
its people .These opportunities help the people to acquire new systems,
techniques, skills and even cultural change and adjust with cultural
changes. The most important factors which people in a given society
needed to acquire are new knowledge and skills. Without possession of
new knowledge and skills people in a given society cannot maintain the
tempo of growth and development. Various researchers have proved this
beyond doubt that the basic essential requirement for growth of any
society is the ability to acquire, digest and acquaint with new skills and
knowledge inputs. The countries and societies where people have the
ability to accommodate themselves with new skills and caliber usually
are better placed than other because they can meet the challenges of
change effectively. Hence it is necessary that the focus of educational
system should be on skills development and enhancement of knowledge
inputs.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
India claims to have the largest population of the youths and in the
coming year India will have advantage of demographic dividend due to
large number of working youths that India shall have. A small simple
statistic can explain this well.
India is passing through a phase of unprecedented demographic change
where the working age population, aged between 15 and 64, will rise by
around 12 million every year in the next two decades. In 2020, the
“HUMAN RESOURCE ENRICHMENT
THROUGH SKILLS DEVELOPMENT :
ISSUES AND CHALLNEGES”
DR. SANJAY KAPTAN
PROFESSOR & HEAD
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
& RESEARCH CENTRE,
UNIVERSITY OF PUNE
MARKETING
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 068
average Indian will be only 29 years old, compared with 37 in
China and the US, 45 in West Europe and $* in Japan, making
India one of the young nation in the world. The age advantage
of the nation is stated to continue for at least 3 decades till
2040.As such, we indeed have great opportunities in our
hands to leverage the nation's young human resource to help
grow our country economically.
On this backdrop it is necessary that efforts should be made
to improve the quality of human resource and develop a
consistent supply of qualified, skilled man power which can
help the economy to maintain growth pace. On this backdrop
it is necessary to analyses the issues related with skill
development and enhancement of the quality of human
resources. As we all know all the resources but the human
resources are static in nature. Unless and until the dynamism
of human resources is put to effective utilization, the
economy cannot maintain its growth rate. Hence in the
present study an attempt is to make to identify how human
resource development helps in development of economy and
what is the role of skill development in the quality of human
resources. Therefore the title of the present paper is “Human
resource enrichment through skill development: issue and
challenges”.
NATIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, INDIA
(NSDC, INDIA)
The NSDC was set up as part of national skill development
mission to fulfill the growing need in India for skilled
manpower across sectors and narrow the existing gap
between the demand and supply of skills.
The Finance Minister announced the formation of the
National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in his Budget
Speech (2008-09): “There is a compelling need to launch a
world class skill development programme in Mission mode
that will address the challenge of imparting the skills
required by a growing economy .Both the structure and the
leadership of the mission must be such that the programme
can be scaled up quickly to cover the whole country”.
In order to enhance skills amongst the youth, NSDC has
accepted following as its primary objectives –
To contribute significantly (about 30 percent ) to the overall
target of skilling / up skilling 500 million people in India by
2022, mainly by fostering private sector initiatives in skill
development programmes and providing funding.
NSDC WAS ESTABLISHED WITH THE FOLLOWING PURPOSES
1. To upgrade skills to international standards through
significant industry involvement and develop
necessary frameworks for standards, curriculum
and quality assurance.
2. To enhance, support and coordinate private sector
initiatives for skill development through
appropriate Public-private Partnership (PPP)
models; strive for significant operational and
financial involvement from the private sector.
3. To focus on underprivileged sections of society and
backward regions of the country thereby enabling a
move out of poverty; similarly, focus significantly
on the unorganized or informal sector workforce.
4. To play the role of a “market – maker” by bringing
financing, particularly in sectors where market
mechanisms are ineffective or missing.
5. To prioritize initiatives that can have a multiplier or
catalytic effect as opposed to one – off impact.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The principal objectives of the paper are enlisted as follows:
1. To identify the role of skill development in
improving the quality of human resources.
2. To know how various skill development initiative
help in improving the human resources in our
economy.
3. To suggest various measures for industry institute
interaction.
RELEVANCE OF THE IDEA
The idea of skill development has become more and more
appropriate in present day concern. The idea of skill
development has become more and more relevant in the
present day context. Offering mere conceptual and
theoretical knowledge inputs is not adequate to meet the
real life challenges and to provide meaningful employment
or self-employment in any sector. It is necessary that
everyone who learns or takes education in a particular
discipline should be equipped with essential skills in that
discipline. We cannot have a system where ability, skills and
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 069
caliber are not interlinked with learning inputs. It is expected
that every learning inputs shall enhance some abilities and
skills. From this point of view there has to be proper co-
ordination between educational systems and skills
development. The idea of human resource development
cannot work effectively without infusing necessary inputs of
skill development in the educational system itself. In other
words on contemporary educational system should emphasis
on skill development along with information deliverance and
knowledge generation. This is how the system is expected to
work. Unless and until we reframe our educational system to
enrich our human resources the idea of sustained economic
development cannot be rightly achieved.
WORKING DEFINITION
1. Skills : The term skill means ability to apply
knowledge in practice.
2. Skill development: It means every initiative
undertaken to enrich competence, caliber and
ability so as to develop a person's personality to
meet challenges of real life situations.
3. Human resource development: Human resource
development means developing manpower in a
given society so as to satisfy expectation of the
industries, economy and society for meaningful
deployment of available human resources.
DISCUSSION
1. SKILL DEVELOPMENT FOR HUMAN RESOURCE
ENRICHMENT
A country cannot proper with only policy of manpower .A
manpower no doubt is strength of a country only when it
possess skill, ability and knowledge. Unskilled, untrained and
uneducated people cannot be considering as demographic
dividend but it is a demographic liability. People who are
unable to contribute the productive and meaningful
activities are a big boss.
Unless and until the human resources are properly
channelized for meaningful development the society cannot
prosper and economy cannot grow. However, the prosperity
of the economy is the function of skill, competence, caliber
and capacity building. From this point of view there is no
institution for human resource development. Human
resource can contribute to purposive growth only when they
possess desired skills and caliber. And possession of such
skills can be organized only with the help of organizational
system. Education is the only mechanism which can help to
develop human resources n term of values, ideas, ideology
and competence.
Education as a system should inculcate the spirit of
awakening, desire to learn and ability to acquire new
techniques and skills and knowledge to understand
environment that surrounds the society. Hence mere
delivery of information cannot be termed as education. The
learners who participate in the educational system should
understand what is expected from them and how they shall
be using knowledge inputs for their personal development.
From this point of view education should play the role of
change agent. A change agent that creates awakening
develops abilities and improves skills and caliber to apply
knowledge in practice. When such kind of education is
offered to people at large, human resource development
takes place in its truest sense. Therefore education should
be considered as a true and basic input for HRD.
2. INITIATIVE FOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Skill is a very broad term. Its simplest meaning is ability to
apply knowledge in practice. However, knowledge has many
connotations. Therefore different type of skills exits in the
human system. These skills are associated with different
trades, professions, occupations and vocations. Every
business or industry acquires a large number of skill sets
which helps in its smooth functioning. A skilled person
becomes an expert who through his proficiency, ability and
acumen helps in improving the productivity of the system.
Hence skill development is one of the issues associated with
HRD. The idea of rapid advancement of economy is possible
only when we nurture appropriate skill development
initiatives and how such initiatives can be undertaken is a
very important issue for discussion. The skill development
initiatives can be of different type and may have different
purpose. One may classify skill development initiatives on
broader scale as follows:
a) � National level initiatives.
b) � State or regional level initiatives.
c) � Institute of micro level.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 070
NATIONAL LEVEL INITIATIVE
Skill development is a major concern of our economic
planners. It is unanimously accepted by all that skill
development is the primary requirement for economic
growth. It is only the skilled workers who can get appropriate
employment and who is a key to productivity enhancement.
From this point of view at national level various initiatives
are undertaken for development of variety of skill sets. These
initiatives encourage formulation of national policy for skill
development undertaking skill development programmes by
establishing national institutes. Furthermore national level
skill development initiatives are essentially designed to offer
a guideline as to what should be the approach of various skill
development programmes .A national level initiative offers a
broad spectrum of policy which helps in working out
appropriate programmes at regional and local level. The
state and regional level initiatives are helpful in establishing
institutes and skill development centres as well as
organization of specialized programme to meet region
specific and industry specific requirement. Different region
have different types of industries and employment avenues.
Establishing regional skill development centres helps to meet
the specific requirement of a particular region and promote
appropriate vocational and training activities. It also helps
in effective way and reduce gap between demand and supply
of manpower.
Institute or micro level initiative encourage institute –
institute interaction and develop appropriate collaborate at
different levels. It also helps educational institutes to
identify the strong and weak areas of manpower requirement
and develop suitable strategies to train the youths in the
industry – institute interaction in many ways resources. It
helps to satisfy industry specific skill needs and thus improve
the productivity and performance of the industry.
3.� MEASURES TO IMPROVE INDUSTRY – INSTITUTE
INTERACTION
In order to strengthen the concept of industry – institute
interaction, few useful measures are suggested here. These
are :
a. Industrial manger, employers and entrepreneurs
should define their specific requirements in terms
of skill needs and types of traders or activities for
which they require particular type of manpower.
b. The industrial managers should participate in
designing of suitable teaching mechanism.
c. Industries should offer opportunities to youths for
hands on experience and give necessary exposures
as to how industries functions.
d. Industries should also assist in developing suitable
infrastructure and expertise for skill building
activities.
CONCLUSION
Thus the above discussion justifies the need for appropriate
collaboration between industries and academic institutions.
Skill building cannot be the sole responsibility of academic
institution. Industries should come forward and spell out
their specific skill requirement. Similarly at national level a
broad and pragmatic policy of skill development should be
formulated which will provide guidelines for development of
skilled and developed manpower to meet economics and
industrial requirement.
REFERENCE
1. Neil Richardson and Lucy Laville, Develop Your PR Skills, Kogan
Page, London Philadelphia, New Delhi (2010).
2. G. Jegadeesan and R Santana Krishanan, Soft Skills Development,
Training and Evaluation, The Icfai University, Press 2008.
3. Naveen Kumar and A.S. Sudan, Managerial Development, Anmol
Publications Pvt. Ltd., (New Delhi), 2004.
4. Leslie Ray, The Art of Training and Development in Management”,
Effective Planning, Crest Publishing House (New Delhi), 2002.
5. Ditkoff. M. “Ten Skills for brainstorming breakthrough thinking”,
Journal Quality and Perception, 21 (6), 1998.
WEB SITES
http://nsdcindia.org/about-us/organization-profile .aspx
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 071
Maharashtra is the second largest state in India both in terms
of population and geographical area (3.08 lakh sq. km.). The
State has a population of 11.24 crore (Census 2011) which is
9.3 per cent of the total population of India. The State is highly urbanized
with 45.2 percent people residing in urban areas. The State has 35
districts which are divided into six revenue divisions' viz. Konkan, Pune,
Nashik, Aurangabad, Amravati and Nagpur for administrative purposes. As
per India's Human Development Report, 2011 Human Development Index
of India is 0.467 and the State ranks 5th in the country with Human
Development Index of 0.572 but in spite of this, the total percent of BPL
population in the state is 24.5% in 2009-10 as per the Planning Commission
report.
The basis for identifying the extent of poverty in India has evolved over
time. Attempts to define a “poverty line” that permits an estimation of
the extent of poverty have a fairly long history. Official methods of
determining poverty use average per capita energy intake norms of 2,400
kcal in rural areas and 2,100 kcal in urban areas. However, the use of a
minimum adequate norm of nutrition as a key criterion for defining the
poverty line has come in for criticism, both for the level at which it has
been fixed and for the inadequacy of the expenditure level of households
at which these norms are likely to be met in providing a minimum
standard of living. Poverty reduction requires that the earnings of the
poor increase, either through productivity or through income transfers. If
‘Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you,
apply the following test: recall the face of the poorest and the weakest
man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you
contemplate is going to be of any use to him.’
- Mahatma Gandhi
“A STUDY ON IMPLICATIONS OF FINANCIAL
ASSISTANCE SCHEMES FOR THE BPL FAMILIES
BY THE GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA
FROM 2008-09 TO 2012-13 IN PUNE CITY ”
DR. BHARAT MEGHE
DEAN
DEPT. OF COMMERCE, RTM,
UNIVERSITY OF NAGPUR
PROF. DHIRENDRA KUMAR
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
SIBAR, KONDHWA, PUNE
DR. VIDYA NAKHATE
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
SIBAR, KONDHWA, PUNE
GENERAL
MANAGEMENT
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 072
the options for improving income are either weak or absent, poverty will persist. Shocks can lead to a decline in income levels, for
instance crop failures, ill-health; disabling accidents or other disasters, the number of people who are poor will increase. Above
all, traditional reliance on joint family support and dependence on children in old age is largely fading away, as we drift to micro
families and as children migrate elsewhere to seek employment opportunities. Existence of formal Social Security System, in such
a scenario, acts as a cushion of adjustment in face of the changes in the social fabric and ensures sustenance to individuals or
families when they or the earning member of the family retire, die or suffer a disability. The recent Planning Commission's pegging
of BPL cap needs to be more pragmatic. At the National Level, anyone earning Rs. 672.8 monthly that is earning Rs. 22.42 per day
in the rural area and Rs. 859.6 monthly or Rs. 28.35 per day in the urban area is above the poverty line. Though the government
plays a significant support role, but the system needs to be more transparent and vigilant. The government policies towards
financial assistance schemes for the poor families should be in tuned with rise in prices.
LITERATURE REVIEW
To support the research study, various research journals on the related topics were referred. A report on causes of farmers'
suicides in Maharashtra by TISS mentioned- crop failures, inability to meet the rising cost of cultivation and indebtedness seem
to create a situation that forces farmers to commit suicide. The study was done in Vidarbha, Marathwada and Khandesh regions of
the state. However according to the report, not all farmers facing these conditions commit suicide- it is only those who seem to
have felt that they have exhausted all avenues of securing support have taken their lives. They recommended a long term solution
in the form of reducing interest rate & pro- farmer agricultural policies. In another paper by S Burrah: Towards a pro-poor
framework for slum upgrading in Mumbai examines the institutional framework and financial mechanisms for slum upgrading in
Mumbai. It discusses the historical relationship between the central, state, local governments and slum communities. It described
how the Government of Maharashtra introduced legislation that protects slum dwellers from demolition but has no proactive
provision to support resettlement. Throughout year after year substantial financial resources have been directed towards
promoting these schemes, there is lack of field level of monitoring. Nayak Radhika, Saxena N.C's Reaching the poor, the
influence of policy and administrative processes on the implementation of Government poverty schemes focuses on four
types of poverty reducing schemes i.e. income transferring to the poorest, enhancing their infrastructure, employment creation
and enhancing the self-employment possibilities.
SOCIAL SECTOR
Social development paves the way for economic development. The various social sectors schemes which have been studied are :
I) � EDUCATION
a) � ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCE SCHEME
In order to reduce the dropout rate of the girls studying, in Primary Schools, the State Government introduced 'Attendance
Allowance Scheme' in January, 1992.
Table No.3: Various Schemes to encourage education
Source: Directorate of Primary Education, GoM
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 073
b) � SPORTS EDUCATION
The State Government has established 'Shiv Chattrapati Kridapeeth' at Pune in the year 1995 with the motive of promoting sports
and develop excellence by upgrading the skills of sports persons.
Table No. 4 : Achievements of students of sports academies
Source : Directorate of Sports and Youth Services, GoM
II) � PUBLIC HEALTH
a) JANANI SURAKSHA YOJANA
Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is being implemented in the State since 2005-06, to encourage institutional deliveries in rural &
urban areas and thereby to reduce MMR & IMR among beneficiaries (belonging to BPL, Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe
(ST) families) of age more than 19 years at the time of Anti Natal Care (ANC) registration. Number of beneficiaries and expenditure
incurred under JSY is shown in Table No.5.
Table No.5: Number of beneficiaries and expenditure incurred under JSY
Source : State Family Welfare Bureau, GoM + upto December
b) NAVSANJIVANI YOJANA
Matrutva Anudan Yojana (MAY) is being implemented under NSY to provide health services like ANC Registration, regular health
check-up and required medicines to pregnant women in tribal areas. Number of beneficiary mothers and expenditure incurred
under MAY are given in Table 6.
Table No. 6 : Number of beneficiary mothers and expenditure incurred under MAY (Rs. Crore)
Source : Directorate of Health Services, GoM
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 074
III) � WOMEN AND CHILD
a) GOVERNMENT WOMEN HOSTELS
Government Women Hostels are set up to provide shelter, protection and rehabilitation of the destitute, orphan, deserted, unwed
mothers, victimized women and those found in difficult situations between age group 16 to 60 years.
b) INDIRA GANDHI MATRITVA SAHAYOG YOJANA (IGMSY)
This scheme is being implemented since 2011 to improve health and nutrition level of pregnant and lactating women.
Table No. 7 : Women welfare schemes
IV) � POVERTY
a) � SEED MONEY SCHEME
This scheme is being implemented by GoM to encourage unemployed to take up self employment ventures through industry,
service and business by providing soft loans from institutional finance to meet part of the margin money.
b) MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is being implemented in all districts except Mumbai city and Mumbai Suburban
districts as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). It is the combination of NREGA and old
Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) which was exclusively implemented by the State.
V) HOUSING
A) URBAN HOUSING : BEEDI KAMGAR GHARKUL YOJANA
The State is implementing Beedi Kamgar Gharkul Yojana since July, 2001 for construction of houses at Solapur, Nashik, Pune,
Kolhapur, Nanded, Garkheda in Aurangabad and Kamtee in Nagpur for Beedi workers.
B) RURAL HOUSING: INDIRA AWAS YOJANA
Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) is being implemented in the State since April, 1989 to construct the houses for houseless BPL families in
the rural areas.
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 075
VI) WATER SUPPLY & SANITATION
a) 'MAHARASHTRA GOLDEN JUBILEE NAGRI DALIT VASTI WATER SUPPLY & SANITATION SCHEME’
This was launched under Maharashtra Sujal & Nirmal Abhiyan, to provide domestic water connection & individual toilet to the
families of Scheduled Caste & Nav Boudha.
b) NIRMAL BHARAT ABHIYAN
'Total Sanitation Campaign' scheme has been renamed as 'Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan' with effect from April, 2012.
VII) SOCIAL JUSTICE
a) SANJAY GANDHI NIRADHAR ANUDAN YOJANA
This scheme is applicable to destitute persons of age below 65 years, orphan children,all types of persons with disabilities,
patients suffering from severe illness (T.B., Cancer, AIDS and Leprosy), destitute widows including those of farmers who
committed suicide, destitute divorced women not getting maintenance allowance and women in process of divorce, women freed
from prostitution and outraged women.
b) INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OLD AGE PENSION SCHEME
Destitute persons of age 65 years and above belonging to BPL family are eligible under this scheme.
Table No. 8 : Details of important Social Justice Schemes
Source: Department of Social Justice and Special Assistance, GoM.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Concept, need, significance and role of financial assistance schemes in Economic Development.
Demographic and socio-economic structure & its relations with these for the country as a whole and the state of
Maharashtra in particular.
It gives an idea about the effectiveness and utility of these schemes for the BPL families.
It provides an insight as to how these schemes can be more effective.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 076
1. To study the various Financial Assistance Schemes of the Government of India/ Maharashtra
2. To study the demand and supply of these schemes for the BPL families
3. To study the various promotional activities by the Government in creating awareness about these schemes.
4. To study the efficacy and outcomes of these Schemes.
HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY
H The beneficiaries are not aware about these schemes.0:
H The Government is ineffective in providing these schemes to the right beneficiary.1:
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The study made use of both primary data and secondary data.
In this Research paper, researcher adopted various techniques to collect the data as.
a) Personal interview - through correspondent
b) Telephone survey - through telephone
c) Questionnaire - By making the set of questions & giving it to the respondent to collect the data.
The Research Methodology adopted in the research is Judgement / Purposive where information collected & utilized to study
implications of Financial Assistance Schemes for the BPL families by the Government of Maharashtra. The Research Methodology
adopted include following steps.
a) Sampling.
b) Data collection.
c) Analysis & conclusion of data.
a) SAMPLING METHOD
the sampling method chosen is Judgment / Purposive sampling which are types of Non- Probability sampling.
Four areas of Pune have been judgmentally selected. BPL Families have been randomly selected from each area. Areas of Pune
selected are :
b) Sample Size : 600
Table No. 9 : Number of BPL families in Pune District
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 077
Out of the scattered BPL families as mentioned above, we have selected four regions on the basis of highest number of BPL families
for the study.
PRIMARY SOURCE OF THE DATA
Collection of primary data is by distributing the questionnaire to the selected samples to obtain their views on research by mail or
through personal interview.
SECONDARY SOURCE OF THE DATA
Technical and trade journals, books, magazines and newspapers, report and publication of various associations
connected with business and industry, banks, stock exchange; etc.
Public records and statistic, historical documents and other sources of published information.
Through the direct search on the Internet.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study helps in knowing and creating awareness amongst the BPL families for these schemes.
The study will help in finding out the challenges involved by the beneficiaries in getting the benefits of these schemes.
It will help in revealing the satisfaction level of the beneficiaries regarding these schemes.
The study will help in taking corrective measures by the Government regarding accessibility of these schemes.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
a. Any statistical technique employed has some inherent assumption, which may or may not distort the references.
b. Analysis is made on the information provided by the BPL families in four areas of Pune District.
c. The Sample size chosen may not be enough to give a true representation of the total population.
d. It was not possible for the researcher to cover all the financial assistance schemes of the GoM.
e. The perception of researcher and the beneficiaries may differ regarding the benefits of the schemes.
HYPOTHESIS TESTING
1) H The beneficiaries are not aware about these schemes.0:
To test this Hypothesis, research asked following question to the respondents.
Which are the Financial Assistance schemes you know (Total=169)
Table No.21: Awareness of Financial Assistance Schemes
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 078
Table No. 22 : Frequency Table of Question 3
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 079
Table No. 23 : Hypothesis 4 : Chi-Square Test
Reject Ho because 66.2 is greater than 9.488 (for alpha = 0.05)
To check this hypothesis researcher applied chi square test of uniformity. As p value is greater than 0.05, researcher working
hypothesis “Most of the beneficiaries are not aware about these schemes.” is rejected at 5% level of significance.
2) H The Government is ineffective in providing these schemes to the right beneficiary.1:
“I am satisfied with the role of Government in proceeding FA schemes”
Table No. 25 : Hypothesis testing
ALLANA MANAGEMENT JOURNAL OF RESEARCH /JANUARY - JUNE 2014 / PAGE NO. 080
Reject H1 because 13885.28 is greater than 9.488 (for alpha
= 0.05)
To check this hypothesis researcher applied chi square test of
uniformity. As p value is greater than 0.05, researcher
working hypothesis “I am satisfied with the role of
Government in proceeding FA schemes” is rejected at 5%
level of significance. Hence the Null Hypothesis i.e. most of
the respondents are not satisfied with the role of
Government in proceeding FA schemes is accepted.
FINDINGS
1. Most of the respondents knew about the one or the
other schemes but only few knew about all these
schemes.
2. Out of the total schemes studied, most of the
respondents or any of their family members were
availing benefits of MNREGA, Seeds money
schemes, Indira Awas Yojana and old age pension
schemes.
3. Most of the respondents knew about the financial
assistance schemes only through their neighbours /
friends / relatives. Government personnel's were
less involved in promoting or creating awareness
about these schemes.
4. Lengthy procedures are the major problems faced
by the respondents in availing the benefits of these
schemes.
5. The respondents were able to afford meals on day to
day basis but at the same time most of them were in
favour of increasing the amount of financial
assistance schemes.
CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY
Based on the findings we can conclude that no doubt most of
the respondents know about various schemes but still lot has
to be done by the government in creating awareness about
these schemes. The procedures need to be made very much
transparent and systematic in order to target the right
beneficiaries. These schemes no doubt have been helpful in
raising the standard of living but at such a high rate of
inflation, the compensatory amounts need to be hiked.
REFERENCES
· Kapur Aasha, Shepherd Andrew'sINDIA CHRONIC POVERTY REPORT:
Towards Solutions and New Compacts in a Dynamic Context.
· Economic survey: Government of Maharashtra 2012-13
· www.tiss.edu : cause of farmers suicides in Maharashtra : An
Enquiry
· Burrah S : Towards a pro poor framework for slum upgrading in
Mumbai
· Economic survey : Government of India 2012-13
· Shekhar T.V : Special financial incentive schemes for the girl child
in India
· Nayak Radhika, Saxena N.C , Reaching the poor: the influence of
policy and administrative processes on the implementation of
Government poverty schemes in India.