School of Management & Entrepreneurship

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The sprawling 852-acre IIT Jodhpur campus is a majestic tribute to the deep-rooted diverse cultural heritage of the region. The campus is an architectural masterpiece, which is slated to become an international exemplar of sustainability with net-zero energy, and advanced water and waste management strategies.&rdquo;

IIT Jodhpur

Subject area: Marketing management and marketing strategy, rural marketing, sales and distribution. Study level/applicability: Students of business schools specialising in the area of marketing or rural marketing. Case overview: The case focuses on the rural market. It deals with the alternative distribution channels adopted for last mile distribution among rural consumers of underdeveloped Odisha (India). The case discusses key issues pertaining to rural marketing, business viability, social issues and public sentiment.Easy access is an entrepreneurial venture by an erstwhile intellectual marketing professor of a premier B-school. The objective behind this initiative is multiple, viz., rural marketing, developing alternative distribution networks, women empowerment, etc. The case highlights that the business of Easy Access started with noble social objectives like women empowerment and developing a cost effective distribution network so that rural customers would be benefited. The case also highlights that the practices adopted by Easy access was not good enough to track & forecast demand effectively as well as the supply chain to replenish stock was not proper.Since the particular market is a backward region and there are number of Govt. schemes and people are given many things for free. People thought Easy Access is result of one of such schemes. Also there were social issues of improper address and mismatch identity (as mentioned in the case) etc.So the issues of demand forecasting and supply chain management along with social issues resulted in financial loss and thus the viability of business venture (Easy Access) is a concern. The social objectives associated with this venture are also at stake or at danger because of financial loss. Expected learning outcomes: The case provides insights into the marketing concepts like rural marketing, marketing strategy in emerging markets and sales and distribution. Supplementary materials: Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

World University root node

Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies

Easy access: a case study on rural marketing

Purpose — India has a big pool of internet savvy population that is not only accessing the internet but also buying online. Online shopping could be defined as the concept of buying and selling of goods over the internet. From the perspective of the seller, it is the attempt on the seller's part to attract and persuade the prospect to conduct the purchase decision-making process, and ensure satisfaction and loyalty. From the perspective of the buyer, online purchase behavior is the degree to which consumers access, browse, shop and transact and repeat the behavior. With a revolution in the very basics of transaction from a physical store format to a non-store one, the retail industry has begun to understand the indispensability of the internet as a medium of transaction. However, the rate of diffusion and adoption of the new phenomenon among consumers is still relatively low. With the internet advancing new opportunities, it is important to understand the factors that could motivate Indian consumers to indulge in online buying. This paper is a theoretical attempt at conceptualizing “motivation” as a construct, in the context of online buying and testing it empirically. The objective of the study is to explore the critical motivational factors that influence the online buying decision of people, and to establish their causal impact, if any, through developing an integrated model. – The study, descriptive, diagnostic, and causal in nature, has been conducted in the context of online buying of railway tickets in India. In the first phase, a pilot survey was conducted on a sample of 100 users of the online railway reservation. After having tested the survey instrument for validity and reliability, the second phase of the study was conducted on a sample of 327 users of online railway reservation facilities. A series of multiple regressions analyses was conducted to determine the causal impacts of critical motivational parameters on online reservation of railway ticket by users in the Indian context. The analysis of demographics based on gender and age groups were also made to capture the cross-comparisons of critical motivational attributes. – The results were in expected direction and fulfilled the research aims of the current study. The factor analysis had grouped the items into nine constructs with 38 items. For analytical purposes, descriptive statistics were used through measures of central tendency and dispersion. The item total correlations to each construct were found significant. All the critical motivational constructs were found to have a significant impact on the intention of buyers of booking/purchasing railway tickets online in India. The analyses of demographics established that as far as gender is concerned, all the critical motivational attributes to online buying intention have no significant differences between men and women; however, for age groups it was observed that some of the attributes were found significant and others were not. – Through identifying and empirically establishing critical motivational parameters in online reservation of railway tickets in Indian context across demographics, this study helps to understand what consumers expect from the online reservation facilities from the railways for their convenience and satisfaction. By examining the various dimensions explored and established in this study, the concerned authority can develop a better understanding of consumer needs and expectations. Academicians and researchers can use this study for assessing consumer motivation towards online reservation of railway tickets in Indian context, and identifying such attributes that would lead to favourable motivational disposition towards online reservation of railway tickets. The policy decision makers of railway authority may also use the findings of this study as a resource, while constructing, managing, and evaluating their marketing strategies in the Indian context. © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.

Journal of Asia Business Studies

“Buyer's motivation” for online buying: an empirical case of railway e-ticketing in Indian context

International Congress EuroMaintenance 2014, Helsinki, Finland

Reliability analysis of Human Error servicing in imperfect locomotive maintenance

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to go beyond the “What to outsource” and “To Outsource or Not” debate. Recognizing outsourcing as a fast growing reality that firms have to depend upon, the paper concerns itself with optimal management of outsourcing arrangements through the practice of “outsourcing capability”. It argues that outsourcing failure can be mitigated if organizations see outsourcing as an “ongoing activity” to be managed as opposed to treating it as a one-time opportunistic “act”. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the review of existing literature and drawing upon recent instances of outsourcing successes and failures, the paper develops a conceptual framework which divides various organizational processes into four different classes. It delineates the varied aspects of “outsourcing capability” that a firm would need to use to manage these varied class of processes as and when they are outsourced. Findings – There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to managing outsourced processes. Different processes require emphasis on different aspect of outsourcing capability if outsourcing is to deliver the envisaged benefits. Originality/value – The traditional focus in outsourcing literature has been on the core/non-core process with the recommendation to keep core processes in-house and outsource the non-core processes. This distinction can be transitory and hence detrimental in the era of hyper-competition. I argue that firms should instead focus on developing and refining aspects of “outsourcing capability” relevant to the varied class of processes that they wish/need to outsource. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Strategic Outsourcing

Towards a framework for performing outsourcing capability

International Conference on Technology and Business Management March

Improving Effectiveness of Customer Loyalty Programs: A Case Study on a Large Retail Chain in the Indian Context

Many models and methodologies are available to deal with imperfect repair for repairable systems. Initial attempts at modeling imperfect repair using the (p, q) rule that defined the two extremities of imperfect repair-perfect renewal and minimal repair were effectively extended by Kijima and Sumita. They developed the generalized renewal theory from the renewal theory in the context of imperfect repair and applied it to repairable systems with the concept of virtual age. Since this pioneering work, much of imperfect repair modeling literature builds up on Kijima's models based on the Generalized Renewal Process (GRP). The paper conducts a survey for imperfect repair of repairable systems using GRP based on arithmetic reduction of age (ARA) and arithmetic reduction of intensity (ARI) concepts in general and Kijima models in particular. In addition to the theoretical development of Kijima models and its extensions, the review highlights their applications such as designing maintenance policies based on the concept of ARA. The survey will be useful to researchers in providing a starting point to develop appropriate models that suit their application oriented requirements. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Reliability Engineering \& System Safety

Imperfect repair modeling using Kijima type generalized renewal process

Recent Advances in Applied Mathematics, Modelling and Simulation

Estimation accuracy of an inequality index

The increasing dependence of businesses over information and the changing ways of information usage with modern IT/ICT tools and mediums, have created an unavoidable need of information security in organizations. Earlier, the technical measures were used to fulfill this need; however, it has been realized that technology alone is unable to address the challenges of information security management (ISM) in organizations. Management and behavioral aspects are pivotal to build an ISM system in organizations. This paper makes an attempt to understand and examine the current ISM practices of two large size, global IT and management services and consulting organizations, one from India and another from Germany. In a case design, the study adopts qualitative research route and semi-structured interviews were conducted across hierarchy in both the organizations. Observations from interviews are portrayed using descriptive analysis methodology. Further, to draw learning from the cases, SAPLAP method of inquiry was used to understand the present status of ISM practices in both the organizations. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the findings and scope for the future research. © Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management 2013.

Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management

Information Security Management (ISM) practices: Lessons from select cases from India and Germany

We revisit fixed-width (= 2d) confidence interval procedures with a preassigned confidence coefficient (≥1 - α) for the mean μ of a normal distribution when its variance σ2 is unknown. Had σ been known, the required optimal fixed sample size would be C ≡ a2σ2/d2 where a ≡ aα is the upper 50α% point of N(0, 1). In his fundamental two-stage procedure, Stein (1945, 1949) estimated C by replacing σ2 with a sample variance from pilot data of size m(≥2) and a with tm-1, α/2. Mukhopadhyay (1982) opened the possibility of incorporating less traditional estimators of σ2.We focus on estimating σ2 by a statistic defined via Gini's mean difference (GMD), mean absolute deviation (MAD), and range. Such modifications are warranted especially when we suspect one or more outliers but normality of the data may not be questioned by a standard test for normality assumption. Obviously, then, tm-1, α/2 must be replaced by the upper 50α% point corresponding to a pivotal distribution of the sample mean standardized appropriately by Um. This way, we explore the role of Mukhopadhyay (1982) two-stage confidence interval procedure when the requisite sample size is determined through GMD, MAD, or range. Associated exact and some asymptotic first-order properties are developed first. Next, we revisit Mukhopadhyay and Duggan (1997) updated two-stage methodology that was proposed when a known positive lower bound was available for σ2 in the present light. We highlight associated (i) first-order efficiency properties for all proposed fixed-width confidence interval procedures and (ii) second-order efficiency property of the GMD-based procedure. These are accompanied with extensive data analyses via simulations as well as real data. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.