Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

About: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore is a education organization based out in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Emerging markets & Corporate governance. The organization has 491 authors who have published 1254 publications receiving 23853 citations. The organization is also known as: IIMB.

System Dynamics Investigation of Capacity Building by Humanitarian Supply Chain in Disaster Prone Eco-Communities of India

Abstract: Humanitarian Supply Chain (HSC) is central to any developmental initiative meant for capacity building in the eco-communities of India, particularly for those which are located in disaster prone regions. Although being environmentally rich, such class of rural or tribal eco-communities and their people are often devoid of supplies of adequate Physical, Social, Economic, and Technological resources and are forced to struggle on a daily basis to survive and are unable to cope with any additional stress factors like population growth and abject poverty. In this regard, sustainable humanitarian supply chain practice and community based resource management can collectively promote more resilient communities promoting social, economic and environmental equity and ethical imperatives for sustainable community development. Apart from providing immediate relief assistance at the occurrence of natural disasters, what is more critical is their long term capacity building with a holistic perspective. This is also vital to enhance the effectiveness and speed of community response to major humanitarian programs, such as health, food, shelter, water, sanitation and employment. In this study, an attempt has been made to develop a system dynamics model of humanitarian supply chain in order to capture causal dynamics and inter linkages within the system under investigation and suggest some critical intervention strategies for enhancing overall performance. In this study, an economic sub-sector base model for the Indian tribal communities has been calibrated and used for simulation analysis as a reference case-study. The key motivation to select tribal regions for our model was that the various humanitarian measures undertaken under India Eco-Development Project (IEP) by the Indian government are not able to meet the intended objectives.

Infosys Technologies Limited: The Global Talent Program

Abstract: Infosys Technologies Limited, the Bangalore-based information technology company, embarked on a global recruitment program in 2006. The first batch of recruits from U.S. universities were brought to the company's Mysore training facility in India and put through a rigorous 16-week training program. By November 2007, the third U.S. batch was on campus for training along with the first batch from the U.K. Each of these batches had around 125 recruits. The company's CEO had charged Infosys' Head of Administration and Human Resources Development, Mohandas Pai, to step up the recruiting to around 1,000 overseas recruits a year from countries such as the US, UK, continental Europe, and China as a way to globalize the workforce. Pai was concerned that this ambitious recruitment program would strain the company's training function. His concern stemmed from the fact that the trainers had to deal with cultural differences and varied learning styles of overseas recruits. The trainers had done a commendable job of making adjustments while training was ongoing, but Pai wondered if the same adjustments could be made when the scale of recruits increased dramatically. This case is useful for examining the issues of training capacity and cross-cultural training.

Toward achieving persistent behavior change in household water conservation.

Abstract: Achieving persistence in household behavior modification has been a central but elusive goal of environmental conservation attempts that rely on behavioral interventions. We implemented a habit change intervention, designed to achieve persistent change in household water conservation behavior in an affluent residential community in urban India. We found a 15 to 25% reduction in household water consumption in the absence of any volumetric pricing. Most importantly, the effects of our 5-wk intervention persisted for more than a year, after which marginal pricing was introduced. The treatment gap was not bridged even after a year under the marginal price regime.

Optimal Pricing and Advertising Policies for Bottom of Pyramid Markets: An Analytical Approach

Abstract: We propose a model for developing optimal decisions and normative policies for pricing and advertising of products/services to markets at the ‘bottom of pyramid (BOP).’ This concept has been popularized in the recent times by Prahalad (The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, 2006). Our model considers two types of market segments. The first type is the BOP market, which is large in size, but has limited ability to pay. The second type of the market is smaller in size, but can pay higher prices. The product/service offered to the two markets is differentiated in such a way that the base product (of appropriate quality) is available to the BOP market, while the premium product at a higher price is available to the higher-end market. The two markets are linked to each other such that there is a positive effect of customer base in the BOP market on the diffusion of product in the Premium market. Successful practices of such kind of models have been reported in widely documented healthcare case studies such as Aravind Eye Care (Kasturi Rangan, Service for sight, 1993). The product diffusion in the two markets is modeled using a pure innovation model by Fourt and Woodlock (J Mark, 25:31–38, 1960). Using optimal control methodology, we derive pricing and advertising policies for two types of organizations—for-profit organization (FPO) and non-profit organization (NPO). Thus, our analytical research design follows a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 (markets—BOP vs. Premium, strategies—pricing and advertising, organizations—FPO vs. NPO, and modeling—static vs. dynamic) design. Our optimal normative policy results can be summarized as follows: (i) A NPO charges lesser price per unit in both BOP and Premium markets, as compared to the FPO, (ii) A NPO spends equal amount of money in advertising or promoting the product/service as that spent by a FPO, (iii) A FPO charges lesser price per unit in the BOP markets as compared to the Premium market, (iv) The FPO receives lesser contribution margin per unit in the BOP market, as compared to the Premium market, (v) For the FPO, the ratio of advertising/promotion done in BOP market to that in the Premium market is governed by the parameters such as relative advertising effectiveness, cost of advertising, and contribution margin per unit in the two markets, (vi) Our dynamic pricing policy results for a FPO show that the prices are gradually increasing in the Premium market, and gradually decreasing in the BOP market, albeit after a threshold level of sales. The dynamic advertising policy results for a FPO show that advertising should gradually be decreased in the BOP market, but should remain stable in the Premium market. The NPO dynamic pricing and advertising results are similar to their static counterparts, though at much lower price levels.

Non-linear growth: The road ahead for Indian IT outsourcing companies: The Infosys experience: In conversation with S. Gopalakrishnan, CEO and MD, Infosys Technologies

Abstract: Indian IT outsourcing companies (major among them being the SWITCH companies -- Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and HCL) grew rapidly for more than a decade on low cost business process and IT outsourcing. With the bigger companies already reaching a high of 100,000 employees, they are now turning their attention to non-linear revenue (i.e. revenue less dependent on numbers or greater revenue earned per employee). For this they need to pursue ‘disruptive’ strategies which are distinctly different from the ‘incremental’ initiatives they adopted in the past to maintain linear revenue. This paper first outlines the disruptive and the incremental initiatives of the SWITCH companies and the road ahead for them. This is followed by an interview with S Gopalakrishnan, CEO and MD, Infosys Technologies who discusses the non-linear initiatives of the company and the challenges it faces in the field.