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INDUSTRY WATCH

India Financial Services : Long-term challenges, but some near-term opportunities : "It is expected that the financial sector, particularly state-owned banks, to be faced with mounting challenges in mobilizing capital. While competition from foreign banks and prospective private banks is unlikely to be significant, aggressive mergers or acquisitions, and smaller private-sector banks could pose challenges to major banks. A better economic environment in FY15 and falling inflation would enhance the flow of financial savings towards bank deposits, boosting banking liquidity."

Electrical Equipment Market in India : The report also presents the vendor landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the top five vendors in the Electrical Equipment market in India. In addition, it discusses the major drivers that influence the growth of the market. It also outlines the challenges faced by the vendors and the market at large, and the key trends that are emerging in the market.

Wireless Telecommunication Services in India : The wireless telecommunications services market is defined here as including cellular (mobile) phones, pagers, and any other wireless or cellular telecommunication service. Wireless telephony significantly improves communication and social integration, economic activity and productivity not only in the spheres of business, but also in other areas of life such as health, education and agriculture. Furthermore the development of mobile services contributes to GDP growth.

Food and Beverage Ingredients : Emerging Market to Drive The Future : This report looks at trends in ingredients use by the packaged food and beverage industries and highlights the importance of emerging markets in driving this category. This covers ingredients that food and beverage manufacturers add to the product’s core recipe in order to improve taste and texture, to extend shelf life, to enhance healthiness or to improve the image of a finished food.

India: Food and Drink Report : Despite the economic challenges, long-term potential of the Indian food and drink market is undeniable. Rapid income growth, a young and growing population and a continued influx of investments underline the potentially fruitful opportunities for the growth of food market. The mass grocery retail industry is expected to help drive up food consumption by presenting consumers with a much wider range of higher value products and encouraging purchases of items beyond those necessary.

ARTICLE ALERT

Outsourcing Contracts and Equity Prices : Outsourcing initiatives vary in terms of uncertainty in business requirements, complexity of coordination between the outsourcing firm and provider, and the consequent choice of the governing contract. Using theories from institutional economics, strategy, and information systems, we argue that firms pursuing large-scale, fixed price outsourcing, which are characterized by lower business uncertainty and simpler coordination requirements, will realize higher market returns relative to similar firms in the same industry who did not outsource.

The Big Lie of Strategic Planning : Strategy making forces executives to confront a future they can only guess at. It's not surprising, then, that they try to make the task less daunting by preparing a comprehensive plan for how the company will achieve its goal. But good strategy is not the product of endless research and modeling, it's the result of a simple process of thinking through how to hit a target and whether it's realistic to try.

Integration and Cospecialization of Emerging Complementary Technologies by Startups : The market entry problem faced by start-ups that must integrate their service or product with one or more complementary technologies. The problem is especially challenging when the complementary technologies have uncertain cost reduction potentials. The entrepreneurship literature suggests that start-ups should pursue focused strategies for various reasons, including bounded rationality and budget constraints, but generally overlooks start-ups entering markets with complementary technologies.

Building Positive Resources : Effects of Positive Events and Positive Reflection on Work Stress and Health : This article three-week longitudinal field study with an experimental intervention examines the association between daily events and employee stress and health, with a specific focus on positive events. Results suggest that both naturally occurring positive work events and a positive reflection intervention are associated with reduced stress and improved health, though effects vary across momentary, lagged, daily, and day-to evening spillover analyses. Findings are consistent with theory-based predictions.

The risk-relevance of securitizations during the recent financial crisis : Investigate changes in the risk-relevance of securitized subprime, other nonconforming, and commercial mortgages for sponsor-originators during the recent financial crisis. Using the volatility of realized stock returns, option-implied volatility, and credit spreads, observes pronounced increase in the risk-relevance of subprime securitizations as early as 2006. Furthermore, reflecting the evolution of the financial crisis in waves, find that investors recognized the increased credit risk of other nonconforming and commercial mortgage securitizations as the financial crisis progressed.


ARTICLE ALERT

Record GMAT Turnout Tells New MBA Story
: The number of Indians appearing for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) hit an all time high in 2013, a year when applicants for the Common Admission Test (CAT) have dipped to a seven-year low. Together, the two numbers capture the story of the changing management education landscape in India at a time when the economy is slowing down appreciably. 22,878 candidates took the test from India in 2013 compared with 22,310 a year ago.

MBAs need a fresh set of skills for the 21st century : If the goal of the MBA programme is to develop tomorrow’s business leaders, then business schools need to think harder about what that future will be. Many will say that this future is international, and the challenge of increasing globalization is one that students and schools should be looking to meet. And there is no doubt that this is important. Companies need managers who can appreciate different ways of doing business in various countries.

2013 Year-End Poll of Employers : A Look at Hiring and Salary Projections for the Coming Year : The employment landscape in 2014 will continue to reflect steady demand for business and management skills, according to a survey conducted by GMAC. Actual hiring reported by participating companies for 2013 signals improved demand for business and management skills by firms worldwide compared with a few years ago. Continued economic uncertainty from euro zone crisis, slower growth in emerging markets, and on-again off-again confidence in US political climate are viewed as threats to improved demand.

IT, banking, Agri-based industries to be among job creators in 2014, says ASSOCHAM study : Information Technology, pharmaceuticals, agri-based industries, banking and the agri-related industries such as farm equipment and fertilizers and seeds etc., will remain the largest employment generation sectors in 2014, an ASSOCHAM study has pointed out. “These sectors will stand out despite the fact that the present state of economy where in a large majority of sectors, net employment is being lost and not created does not support large scale employment," the study said.

Exec demand will be high in 2014 : Company transformations aimed at beating the slowdown and revival of growth in some sectors are expected to keep senior executive movements buoyant in 2014. Last year, too, despite the economic slowdown, senior executive churn was significant. This was partly driven by companies' need for new talent that could make the radical changes required to ensure growth and profitability in a dull environment, and partly by the need to integrate major new technology developments.


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