The United Kingdom currently ranks at the bottom of the list compared to other high income countries with it’s percentages of female entrepreneurs. Because of this it loses out on valuable turnover and employment. The overall conclusion on the matter is that there is an overwhelming fear of failure by UK women. To counter this there has been significant resources put on the market to encourage women to start their own company. However these resources all focus on the first six to eighteen months of start up and it leaves a gap of information which would provide women with the resources to grow and sustain their businesses. By introducing women with a model of a successful female entrepreneur in the United Kingdom, this paper can provide them with the confidence they need to start, grow, and sustain a new venture.
 

The purpose of this research paper is to assess the operational efficiency of the companies in the Indian organized retail industry expressed in terms of inventory days and to investigate the impact of the inventory days on the key financial indicators. Panel data was collected from CMIE’s Prowess database for the period 2000-2010 for three retailers viz., Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd., Shopper’s Stop Ltd. and Trent Ltd. These are considered as the representatives of the industry due to high market share. Fixed effect model has been used to analyze the panel data. For the data analysis, ANOVA is used to check the significance of differences in the Inventory holding period of the case companies. Further, for analyzing financial impact of inventory holding period, regression analysis is used. The results suggest large differences in the inventory positions of companies under study. An inverse relationship is observed between inventory days and the financial performance ratios under consideration which is partially supported by the regression function. Interestingly, significant results could not be obtained for all the companies under study. The findings have policy implications for the measures to be implemented for improving the inventory position and thereby the financial performance by the retailers.

In Indian context, Telecommunication has emerged as one of the fastest growing services, as it has witnessed phenomenal growth from 22.8 million subscribers in 1999 to 746.77 million by the end of November 2010 (Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India, 2011). However, despite this unparalleled growth, few critical issues have emerged which affect the growth in a negative manner. These are decreasing ARPU, undifferentiated services, increased competition, rapid evolution of technology and highly dynamic customers. The present study has been undertaken to analyse the customers’ perception about the key telecom providers regarding the Value Added Services (VAS), Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty. The results suggest that Value Added Services are perceived to be a strategic tool to differentiate service of one provider from the other. Further, a comparative analysis of the leading service providers has been undertaken from customers’ perspective to understand the variations in satisfaction and loyalty levels of their customers.

Data Centers are an important entity for any IT setup. They are the backbone of e-enabled services and are organizations in themselves. Just like any other organization, Data Centers also aim for Organizational Effectiveness. This paper presents some of the findings from a research study on “Organizational Effectiveness of Data Centers”. In this paper, we refer to various measures of Data Centers’ Organizational Effectiveness and present a detailed analysis of employee satisfaction as a key measure of Data Centers’ Organizational Effectiveness. We also present various factors contributing to Data Centers’ employee satisfaction, followed by a comparison between the factors contributing to employee satisfaction of Government and Corporate Data Center employees.

Indian outbound tourist flow is expected to increase annually. This study investigates Indian tourists’ satisfaction of Bangkok, Thailand. The study reveals that these Indian tourists are highly educated and mostly from Mumbai and New Delhi. They are highly satisfied with the Suvarnabhumi International Airport, attraction, and shopping, while their satisfaction levels are low regarding English speaking ability, variety of food, and traffic. The majority of Indian tourists (over 90%) shows their willingness to return and recommend Bangkok and Thailand as travel destinations. The findings of this study benefit Tourism Authority of Thailand and tourism businesses.
 

The study of solvency is becoming more relevant and important as even large companies across the world are failing resulting in economic and social problems to the society. Using financial distress models to predict failure in advance is absolutely essential for most businesses in their decision making process. Hence, this study involves a critical investigation using Fulmer H-Score and Springate Z-score models in predicting solvency of Non-Banking Financial Institutions in India. The Fulmer and Springate models were however developed in a different economic environment, time horizon, industry and country. Testing these models in the Indian context is important to determine the practical applicability and relevance of the models. The study is confined to 25 Non-Banking Finance companies including Housing Finance Companies catering to asset finance, infrastructure finance, investment finance and housing finance. The study employed an analysis of financial statements for a period of 5 years (2005-2009). The study examined not only solvency position but also factors which have an impact on solvency position of NBFCs.

This paper presents a consumer value chain framework to better understand the stages consumers go through in acquisition and consumption of hybrid services. Our framework consists of three stages: (1) initial contact and purchase, (2) service usage and consumption, and (3) service recovery. We build on the consumer value chain framework and previous research findings to propose 18 dimensions to measure service quality in hybrid contexts. Given the nature of hybrid services, the proposed dimensions reflect a mix of human-related variables such as staff competence and relational quality and technology-related variables such as call centre quality and technology ease of use. We conclude by offering conceptual and managerial insights as well as suggestions for future research.