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Quality aims at meeting customer satisfaction through its various attributes in a product, process or system. Quality has to meet the requirements of a competitive environment, offer good price for cost and meet customer satisfaction. In the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system, quality means the special attributes of ODL, such as being learner-centric and product centric, the value for cost, and the ability to fulfill the expectations of the shareholders. The ODL system in India is almost thirty-five years old and has met the educational needs of millions of students in India and abroad. The system needs to further improve the quality of its products and services. There is growing demand for adopting innovative measures for improving the quality of ODL system in India. This paper examines the quality aspect of the ODL system from different perspectives with the objectives of identifying the gap areas and parameters of quality. Based on the findings, this paper proposes an implementation framework for improving quality in the ODL system in India. This proposed framework is expected to facilitate the policymakers in assuring quality in the system.

Fluency Assessment and Benchmarking for Literacy in Education (FABLe) is the first mobile application being developed for the assessment of foundational literacy skills in India. FABLe passages are currently available in English for Grades 2, 3 and 4, with plans to expand to other Indian languages. FABLe is designed to administer curriculum-based measures for reading (R-CBMs) that have been validated in the Indian context. This paper describes the preliminary benchmarking procedures being undertaken for the Indian student population and how FABLe screens for students at-risk for reading difficulties. Student performance data based on initial FABLe results are compared with international benchmarks and teacher perception data. Overall, FABLe scores are lower than international benchmarks. FABLe was able to accurately identify students needing additional support, with the majority of students identified at-risk falling below the 19th percentile in FABLe.

Maximum number of privately funded engineering institutions have been established in India in the last two decades to meet the growing needs of technical manpower required by the Engineering and IT companies as well as aspiring students after completion of the Pre-University Program. However, a large number of institutions have not been able to attract the talented students for their undergraduate programs. The private managements of those institutions have realized then, the need for maintaining high quality in imparting engineering education. In addition, the regulatory bodies like NBA insist on maintaining the quality in the educational programs before giving accreditation. Therefore, the young institutes need to know the best practices adopted by the high performing institutions and introduce those best practices in their programs. In this paper, an attempt has been made to identify the best practices of the reputed and ranking institutes, to classify and codify those practices so as to enable the young institutes to implement them. Quality indicators have been identified through literature review, by summarizing previous studies, by conducting discussion with experts in the field. A few top ranked engineering institutions are selected to identify and list the best practices, by referring to the finding of various magazines. Practices followed with respect to the quality indicators identified have been composed by conducting structured interviews and discussions with various core groups and stake holders of these institutions. The details of literature review, data collection & analysis, findings and policy implications of the research work are presented in this paper. The best practices enlisted through this study will act as guidelines to implement the quality initiatives for the young institutions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of select technical higher education institutes of national importance in India. This helps to judge the efficiency and effectiveness of an institute to provide valuable insights on performance measurement and effectiveness not only to the respective institute but also to governmental agencies and policymakers. Design/methodology/approach: The paper makes a comparative analysis across various educational institutes of repute. This paper looks at the performance of four technical higher education institutes of India. An integrated data envelopment analysis-analytic hierarchy processing (DEA-AHP) approach has been used to compare and evaluate the relative efficiencies in terms of input provided to the institute to produce outputs. Findings: The results depict the performances of the four institutes over the period of five years and, in turn, help assess the increase or decrease in the performance of a particular institute in comparative assessment. The paper also helps identify the most efficient institute among the four institutes that have been compared, in terms of academic efficiency, research efficiency, teaching efficiency and consulting efficiency. Practical implications: A study like this would furnish an insight into the performance of the select higher educational institutes. The findings can be useful for policymakers, educational planners and administrators in designing a system based on various criteria that can help improve the overall efficiency and decide about benchmarking and funding strategies. Originality/value: This paper is an attempt toward defining, conceptualizing and measuring performance effectiveness of institutes of higher education in the Indian context. The effort at the integration of the methodologies (through comparison and DEA-AHP) has helped to provide insights that could not have been obtained through the use of the methods or techniques alone. The paper has helped identify critical strategic issues and parameters which when implemented would be useful for policymakers, educational planners and administrators in designing a system based on various criteria that can help improve the overall efficiency of educational institutes in higher education.

Academic and Administrative Audit (AAA) is a system to control and maintain high standards in the field of Higher Education. It is playing vital role in providing quality education to the learners all over the world. In addition to the developed countries, even the developing as well as underdeveloped countries, are now-a-days coming forward in opting the AAA. It is a continuous process of self-introspection for the better growth of the institution. The present paper proposes to focus on the role and significance of AAA in the present day globalized Indian academia.

This paper proposes how to select a methodology to target multidimensionally poor households, and how to update that targeting exercise periodically. We present this methodology in the context of discussions regarding the selection of a targeting methodology in India. In 1992, 1997, and 2002 the Indian government identified households that are below the poverty line (BPL) and in updating the 2002 methodology, alternative methods have been proposed and vigorously debated. A fourth BPL method was published and a corresponding Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC), implemented. Using the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), this paper illustrates how a BPL targeting method using SECC variables might be calibrated to a multidimensional poverty measure. This paper compares the fit between a benchmark measure of multidimensional poverty and several plausible targeting methods to determine which method(s) approximate it--as well as related measures--most closely. We find a ten-item binary scoring method, which uses variables already available in the SECC questionnaire, provides a strong proxy. The emphasis of this paper is to illustrate how a particular targeting method can be justified, rather than to advocate any particular solution.

Purpose: The environmental challenges of digitalization, globalization, and industrialization, which are growing at a fast pace, require serious attention. As a result, the old structures of the education system established in pre-independent India and in place during most of the twentieth century are now required to undergo drastic changes. The introduction of ICT and knowledge management systems (KMSs) in Indian education for achieving these new visions would require enormous changes in the system. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze the perception of teachers about KM orientation in Indian engineering institutions in the National Capital Region and to propose a conceptual model to assess KM orientation in private engineering institutes in India. Design/methodology/approach: Research data were collected using a questionnaire from teachers of private engineering colleges of the National Capital Region in India. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed to the teachers in private engineering colleges of the National Capital Region in Ghaziabad covering about ten private engineering colleges in the region. The validity of the constructs was assessed by means of factor analysis and the reliability of the scales was judged using Cronbach's a. Findings: Factor analysis produced five factors of KM orientation after deleting those items with a factor loading of less than 0.50. The results indicate that five attributes: i.e. knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, leadership, culture and technology: are important dimensions of knowledge management orientation in engineering institutions. Research limitations/implications: This paper can provide reflections and inputs to other technical institutions for developing a successful knowledge management framework. Practical implications: The paper reveals the knowledge infrastructure and resources used by Indian engineering institutions as a benchmark for better performance. Originality/value: From an examination of the literature, only a few studies of application of knowledge management in engineering colleges have been reported in India, which reveals that KM as a tool in higher education has not received much attention. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

In the techno-driven world, mobile learning is an indispensable element of teaching-learning activities. It helps distance learners in many ways by providing their required facilities. The paper discusses about these facilities in an eclectic and summary manner. Thus, by implication, it is popularized among distance learners across the globe. Further, it discusses the reasons why learners tempt to go for mobile learning? How it helps them in their study skills and enhancement of their cognitive skills which they badly require in their learning activities? A critical analysis of these issues is followed by a crucial discussion. That is, whether it is possible to sustain quality assurance in mobile learning? The paper concludes with an assertive view that mobile learning is a smart choice of distance learners in the Open and Distance Learning system. (Contains 1 figure.)

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of school assessment in Bhutan, briefly, as a background to considering the present and future school assessment issues especially as they relate to quality concerns and educational improvement in Bhutan. A benchmark for Bhutan, the National Educational Assessment (NEA) programme in Bhutan was inspired by a 2002 initiative in South Asia funded by the World Bank. In this paper, we address how the 2003 NEA was developed. Emerging issues are discussed including methods of reporting and the concept of "benchmarking" in three senses of that term. Technical issues are also addressed in the context of the desire to administer another comparative NEA in 2010. Out of these developments, the Bhutan Board of Examinations has developed ideas about expanding access to system-wide assessment data to different levels of stakeholders in order to achieve improvements. A 2x2 matrix is provided identifying four key questions around judgments of educational achievement at two key levels (system and school) within and between these levels. This matrix represents a model of the evolution of assessment in Bhutan. This paper should be of interest to education systems in developing countries that have undertaken or intend to undertake national educational assessment programmes. (Contains 3 tables and 5 notes.)

Purpose: The paper aims to report on the 30th IATUL Annual Conference held in Leuven, Belgium, 1-4 June, 2009. Design/methodology/approach: The paper summarises the major themes of the conference as well as giving some specific details of developments at the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India, which supplement the author's presentation at the conference. Findings: The IATUL conference included a wide gamut of important issues faced by the libraries in the knowledge society of the twenty-first century. The delegates exchanged ideas and learnt of best practices prevalent in libraries across the globe. The conference provided insights into the issues of innovation, change, benchmarking, quality assurance, Web 2.0 tools, information literacy, free internet resources and so forth. Originality/value: It was a conference of immense value for library and information professionals. It raised important issues; problems faced by the libraries today and offered tentative solutions. (Contains 1 figure.)

Background: Large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized natural language processing with their ability to generate human-like text through extensive training on large data sets. These models, including Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT)-3.5 (OpenAI), GPT-4 (OpenAI), and Bard (Google LLC), find applications beyond natural language processing, attracting interest from academia and industry. Students are actively leveraging LLMs to enhance learning experiences and prepare for high-stakes exams, such as the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in India., Objective: This comparative analysis aims to evaluate the performance of GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and Bard in answering NEET-2023 questions., Methods: In this paper, we evaluated the performance of the 3 mainstream LLMs, namely GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and Google Bard, in answering questions related to the NEET-2023 exam. The questions of the NEET were provided to these artificial intelligence models, and the responses were recorded and compared against the correct answers from the official answer key. Consensus was used to evaluate the performance of all 3 models., Results: It was evident that GPT-4 passed the entrance test with flying colors (300/700, 42.9%), showcasing exceptional performance. On the other hand, GPT-3.5 managed to meet the qualifying criteria, but with a substantially lower score (145/700, 20.7%). However, Bard (115/700, 16.4%) failed to meet the qualifying criteria and did not pass the test. GPT-4 demonstrated consistent superiority over Bard and GPT-3.5 in all 3 subjects. Specifically, GPT-4 achieved accuracy rates of 73% (29/40) in physics, 44% (16/36) in chemistry, and 51% (50/99) in biology. Conversely, GPT-3.5 attained an accuracy rate of 45% (18/40) in physics, 33% (13/26) in chemistry, and 34% (34/99) in biology. The accuracy consensus metric showed that the matching responses between GPT-4 and Bard, as well as GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, had higher incidences of being correct, at 0.56 and 0.57, respectively, compared to the matching responses between Bard and GPT-3.5, which stood at 0.42. When all 3 models were considered together, their matching responses reached the highest accuracy consensus of 0.59., Conclusions: The study's findings provide valuable insights into the performance of GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and Bard in answering NEET-2023 questions. GPT-4 emerged as the most accurate model, highlighting its potential for educational applications. Cross-checking responses across models may result in confusion as the compared models (as duos or a trio) tend to agree on only a little over half of the correct responses. Using GPT-4 as one of the compared models will result in higher accuracy consensus. The results underscore the suitability of LLMs for high-stakes exams and their positive impact on education. Additionally, the study establishes a benchmark for evaluating and enhancing LLMs' performance in educational tasks, promoting responsible and informed use of these models in diverse learning environments., (©Faiza Farhat, Beenish Moalla Chaudhry, Mohammad Nadeem, Shahab Saquib Sohail, Dag Øivind Madsen. Originally published in JMIR Medical Education (https://mededu.jmir.org), 21.02.2024.)

Evidence from cross-country studies suggests that the sustainability of India's rapid economic growth will be conditioned by the quality of its education. This paper analyzed a 2005 World Bank-sponsored survey of Grade Nine students in the states of Rajasthan and Orissa. The survey used internationally comparable items from the 1999 Trends of Mathematics Study to provide the first international benchmark for education quality in India for three decades. The study finds that only 15% and 25% of students in Rajasthan and Orissa, respectively, have achieved the expected international average of these items. The study further shows that increasing students' opportunity to learn through better pedagogical practices and enhanced schooling experience can increase performance, while mitigating between-school inequality, and reducing the achievement gap between boys and girls, holding other factors constant. (Contains 4 notes, 6 tables and 4 figures.)

China, India, and the USA are the countries with the highest energy consumption and CO 2 emissions globally. As per the report of datacommons.org , CO 2 emission in India is 1.80 metric tons per capita, which is harmful to living beings, so this paper presents India's detrimental CO 2 emission effect with the prediction of CO 2 emission for the next 10 years based on univariate time-series data from 1980 to 2019. We have used three statistical models; autoregressive-integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, seasonal autoregressive-integrated moving average with exogenous factors (SARIMAX) model, and the Holt-Winters model, two machine learning models, i.e., linear regression and random forest model and a deep learning-based long short-term memory (LSTM) model. This paper brings together a variety of models and allows us to work on data prediction. The performance analysis shows that LSTM, SARIMAX, and Holt-Winters are the three most accurate models among the six models based on nine performance metrics. Results conclude that LSTM is the best model for CO 2 emission prediction with the 3.101% MAPE value, 60.635 RMSE value, 28.898 MedAE value, and along with other performance metrics. A comparative study also concludes the same. Therefore, the deep learning-based LSTM model is suggested as one of the most appropriate models for CO 2 emission prediction., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to benchmarking the governance performance of Indian states.Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a framework to measure governance performance at the state level. Using the data on 28 key indicators, the authors evaluate Indian states on seven broad dimensions of governance quality covering several aspects of public service delivery, regulatory quality and law and order. The empirical methodology involves the application of multi-criteria decision making techniques in two steps. The authors, first develop suitable weights of the identified dimensions and criteria under each dimension by applying the inputs of an expert-based decision-panel in a best-worst framework. Next, using these weights, the authors evaluate ranking of each state using TOPSIS and PROMETHEE-II methods.Findings The results indicate wide disparities in the governance performance of Indian states. Based on different indicators, the paper evaluates the rank of all the major Indian states. Results reveal that "Social Service Delivery(S)" is the most influencing dimension for the development of a state. Overall, the authors find Andra Pradesh, NCT of Delhi and Goa to be the leading states in terms of governance quality.Research limitations/implications The paper provides policy makers with easy to use operational indicators to analyse the governance performance of Indian states. These would help in better monitoring of these states through competitive goal-setting for continuous improvement.Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first formal assessment of governance quality in the Indian states in a multi-criteria framework. To this end, the paper addresses the issue of wide regional disparities in the country. The findings of the paper provide powerful insights to policy makers in setting up appropriate strategies to eliminate these disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This year, Benchmarking: An International Journal (BIJ) is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The purpose of this paper is to show the historical connections and professional impact of the journal over the years. This is accomplished through a detailed bibliometric analysis (BA) of its content from 1994 to 2018. This paper also identifies leading trends that have affected BIJ during this time frame. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, the authors employ BA on data retrieved from the Scopus database. The authors used various indicators such as the most productive authors, institutions and countries, as well as the most cited papers, citing journals and articles most cited by BIJ between 1994 and 2018. Additionally, the authors have used the Gephi, VOSviewer software to map journals, keywords and institutions with bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis. Findings: The journal has improved its impact, productivity and reputation in the period under review. Articles published in BIJ have been cited in other journals more than 15,000 times. The most prominent themes among the articles published in BIJ are benchmarking, supply chain management and performance improvement. Significant contributions have come from authors and institutions around the globe. Co-authorships, though global, have centered around India, the USA and the UK. There is also a thematic similarity between articles from India and Thailand, and the USA and Germany, indicating high academic collaboration or prevalence of similar issues. Practical implications: This paper provides evidence of the impact of BIJ, and in so doing, it helps authors to decide on the appropriateness of this publication for their research. The reader will also understand leading trends occurring in BIJ over the history of the journal. Originality/value: This is the first paper that traces the progress of BIJ covering a time span of 25 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper demonstrates a multi-criteria analytic hierarchy process (AHP) framework for evaluating and benchmarking maintenance performance in the select agro-based industry. Design/methodology/approach: Initially, 20 maintenance practices (criteria) have been identified after a detailed literature review and discussion with the agro-based industry (sugar, textile and dairy industry) executives. These are then grouped into six maintenance management areas referred to as group criteria. The multi-criteria methodology consists of three steps: criteria identification, hierarchical modeling and data collection and maintenance performance evaluation, and benchmarking. The multi-criteria methodology proposed in this work facilitates two ways of carrying out benchmarking: (1) within the agro-based industry and (2) between the agro-based industry. The methodology has been explained by taking a case example of 45 agro-based industries (18 dairy, 13 sugar and 14 textile) from the western region of India. The sensitivity analysis of the model has been performed to ascertain the robustness of the results. Findings: There is a difference in the maintenance performance across the agro-based industries due to different maintenance practices perceived differently. Research limitations/implications: The outcome of the model is mainly given by the judgments of the agro-based industry executives. It is also sensitive to any change in the relative importance to the evaluation criteria or the perception about the maintenance performance. Practical implications: The study contributes in identifying the weakness, if any, by comparing the agro-based industry under investigation with the benchmark factory at three levels, namely, overall performance (factory level), group criteria (maintenance management area level) and criteria (maintenance practice level) allowing further improvement. Originality/value: The methodology assists in better decision-making and in improving maintenance performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Benchmarking is a very important tool to know the gap in your performance and best performance. It is possible to apply benchmarking in a wide variety of area. This paper uses benchmarking for assessing women entrepreneurship. Women entrepreneurship is a symbol of the balanced growth of the society. Financial inclusion schemes offered by the government are aimed to encourage a large number of women of the country to entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of financial inclusion and others factor like family circumstances, benchmarking, entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurial intention of women on their decision to take up entrepreneurship as a career choice.Design/methodology/approach This research study is undertaken to understand the relation of financial inclusion schemes on women entrepreneurship and also to develop a cause–effect relationship. Here, financial inclusion effort is an independent variable, whereas women entrepreneurship is a dependent variable. A sample size of 250 women entrepreneur was taken. The sample was selected on the basis of convenience. Out of the total sample, 125 women belonged to the self-help group and 125 women were registered under the RSETI program of lead banks of Haridwar and Dehradun districts of the Uttarakhand state of India.Findings The results of the present study indicate that there is a statistically significant impact of financial inclusion on women entrepreneurship. It provides the platform to the women that help them in establishing a new business.Research limitations/implications Data for present study were collected from two districts of Uttarakhand. In future, data can be collected from different geographical areas of India for generalizing the findings of the study.Practical implications The results of present study indicate that there is a statistically significant impact of financial inclusion on women entrepreneurship. It provides the platform to the women that help them in establishing a new business. For promoting women toward entrepreneurship, the government has launched many schemes.Social implications After the study, the author found that the society will accept the fact that women entrepreneurship is emerging as a dire need for the country.Originality/value The author followed all the guidelines that were concerned about the originality of the paper. This paper is not under review of any journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate performance of Indian telecom service providers through a benchmarking study of their operational efficiency and service delivery effectiveness. The paper also carries out a peer-to-peer comparison and identifies-specific areas of improvement for different service providers to attain sustainable growth and profitability. Design/methodology/approach – A two stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was used to compare the performances of the service providers. The first stage represents how efficiently a unit is able to use its infrastructure and resources to generate better quality services. The second stage captures how well the company is able to communicate and deliver these services to the customer. Findings – The results of the study support the applicability of the two stage DEA for comparing the performances of the telecom service providers as they are in line with the financial performance indicators and brand ranking. It is observed that those companies which score high on both operational efficiency and service delivery effectiveness have achieved superior profitability. Research limitations/implications – This study has been carried out at a pan-India level and hence does not take into account circle level or local performance which varies significantly for most service providers. Besides, this the analysis was constrained by limited data in the public domain, which necessitated estimations and extrapolations for some variables of few service providers. Practical implications – The study has helped to provide inputs for the Indian telecom companies for potential performance improvements by providing a comparative analysis of their operational efficiency and service delivery effectiveness. It has enabled to derive deeper insights on potential target areas for managerial attention that could be translated into implementable actions. The benchmarking analysis has also helped to understand whether the current performance of the service provider is sustainable, unprofitable or ephemeral. Originality/value – This paper goes beyond the traditional benchmarking studies of Indian telecom service providers introducing a two stage DEA model to understand the operational efficiency as well as the service delivery effectiveness. The study has helped to derive valuable academic and practical insights on the issue of performance measurement of the Indian telecom service providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use strategic resource management (SRM) model and data envelopment analysis (DEA) for benchmarking Indian retailers. The study ascertains, how a retailer can benchmark its performance at company level, global level, store level and finally at merchandise category level using diverse strategies for inventory, space and people. Design/methodology/approach – The paper aims to use SRM model, for evaluating and comparing the performance of two generalized retailers Shoppers Stop and Trent. These two generalized retailers are benchmarked with another best-in-class retailer, Wal-Mart using the SRM model. The benchmarking exercise brings out improvement directions for the Indian retailers. In the next part of the study, economic efficiencies of 11 generalized retailers are ascertained using DEA model. Finally, a study is conducted to understand, how SRM model can be used as a planning tool for deciding alternative inventory, space and people strategies at store level as well as at merchandise category level. Findings – Based on the data for the year 2011-2012, Trent’s performance is comparatively better than Shoppers Stop. The paper offers suggestion to improve its performance. Next, it was found that the performance of Wal-Mart is superior to the two Indian retailers. The study offers direction to the two retailers to devise appropriate strategies to improve their performance. The study further ascertains the relative efficiencies of 11 generalized retailers in the country. Finally, an illustration of how a retailer can use the SRM model as a tool for planning alternative strategy for inventory, space and people in a particular merchandise category is offered using data from a retail firm. The study has used “Jeans” and “Toys” as two categories to demonstrate this concept. Practical implications – The examples considered in this paper can be used by practicing retailers to plan and benchmark their performance. Originality/value – The study proposes a method, by which retailers can examine ways to plan and improve their operations and profitability by using the SRM and DEA model. The study is therefore relevant to practicing retailers as well as academicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Higher education management institutions play a vibrant role in imparting managerial skills to the students to face the corporate world. Performance evaluation of such institutions is mandate to ensure the outcome quality. To establish this, the present research explored the critical performance indicators of management institutions using the balanced scorecard (BSC) approach. Design/methodology/approach: This research explored the critical performance indicators of public, private and standalone management institutions in India. Data were collected from the representative sample of all the stakeholders in those management institutions. A specific vision was created and a systematic procedure was employed to arrive at the objectives, measures and metrics of the scorecard specific to the vision. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to perform analysis on the collected data. For the objectives and measures that evolved from confirmatory factor analysis, metrics were formulated based on the expert opinion. Findings: The study resulted in 16 objectives, 46 measures and 54 metrics encompassing all the four perspectives of BSC. This paper has contributed a concrete, concise, comprehensive and context specific framework. Research limitations/implications: The nature of the BSC framework paves the way for continuous assessment and eventually helps the institutions to attain sustainable growth. This research contributes to the literature of balanced scorecard and also to the performance assessment of the management institutions. Originality/value: BSC-based benchmarking is a unique contribution to the academia of management education to precisely measure the performance of institutions. The model comprehensively includes the indicators from all the perspectives of stakeholders in terms of objectives, measures and metrics, thus proposing a holistic assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The information technology (IT) outsourcing has been inexorably growing in spite of its downsides. The main reasons are financial gains and cost reductions, as well as it allows companies to focus on their core selling areas. Within IT outsourcing, offshoring has become a big success because it greatly reduces costs. Countries like India, China and Philippines are attracting a lot of IT outsourcing work. In order to save costs, companies have to work out the best pricing models with the vendors so enable profitability at both ends. The main pricing models prevalent in the industry are Time and Material (TnM) and Fixed Time Fixed Price (FTFP) alternately also referred as Fixed Price. There are various other pricing models now, which are mainly variations of these. The purpose of this paper is to show an empirical comparison between these models from the vendor’s perspective to see which of them has greater acceptability. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is an empirical paper in which literature survey has been done to study various pricing models in the IT service outsourcing industry, on the basis of same, two most used models have been identified, namely, FTFP and TnM, hypothesis were formulated, Likert scale questionnaire was formed. Subsequently data were collected and Wilcoxon signed-rank test was carried out to compare the variables defining the FTFP and TnM models of pricing. In total, 68 firms were targeted and 120 responses were received. The two models were studied against parameters like usage, profitability, risk, deliveries meeting project schedule, good quality code, the pricing model used by respondents’ majority of times and whether either of them lead to increasing costs. Findings – This study has found that TnM is less risky for vendors, more profitable and vendors are able to manage better quality delivery compared to FTFP. Also it has been statistically proven that the pricing models TnM and FTFP do not impact the usage and schedules in any way. These are important findings as there have been no earlier research papers which have compared the pricing models with reference to Indian IT service outsourcing industry. Research limitations/implications – The two major pricing models TnM and FTFP are studied in the paper below. Data were gathered from 68 companies. As per results, TnM is more profitable, less risky, does not lead to increasing cost and produces good quality code as compared to FTFP also it has been statistically proven that the pricing models TnM and FTFP do not impact the usage and schedules in any way. The implications bridge a gap between theory and practice, as theoretically many pricing models exist, however, what are practical applications and justification vis-à-vis different aspects has not been approached statistically so far in the given context. Further research can be done on other variations of pricing models and to establish which one should be the preferred model and in which circumstances. Practical implications – There are major practical implications of the paper as it fills the gap between the theoretical discussions of pricing and identifies and statistically proves importance of various aspects of pricing in practice. Originality/value – The paper is original and adds value in terms of advising the IT service outsourcing companies as to which pricing models to use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Quality education is a key requirement of a burgeoning country, like India as it aims to establish a sustained growth. However, the current situation of Indian education system is extremely poor. Although efforts are being made nationwide to improve the present situation, it is incontrovertible that different complications ail different Indian states. Some states suffer from a poor gross enrollment ratio, while others have an extremely high student-teacher ratio. The purpose of this paper is to compare the educational performance of 28 Indian states in order to identify those which require immediate attention.Design/methodology/approach For fulfilling this objective, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework utilizing preference ranking organization method for enrichment of evaluations and geometrical analysis for interactive aid methods is adopted.Findings The results indicate that the educational performance of Goa is the best amongst all the considered alternative states, while Bihar is the laggard in this direction.Research limitations/implications From the results, the states which fare to be the worst can easily be identified along with the specific areas/criteria, where they are falling behind. Based on these findings, necessary remedial actions can be undertaken so as to improve the educational performance of the ailing states.Originality/value This paper employs a novel geographic information system (GIS) method and a hue-saturation-value color coding scheme in order to determine the influence of individual criterion on the overall state rank, thereby representing an integration of MCDM and GIS which has never been applied before for educational performance evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper identifies technology as a key solution for the challenges of sustainability and quality in housing and recognizes benchmarking as a tool for selection of appropriate technologies. Suitability of technologies for housing has been explored in respect of functional needs, sustainability needs, and performance standards. These issues have brought out the need for an objective methodology for selection of appropriate technologies, especially for mass housing. The objective framework has been developed by identification of needs of large scale projects, assessment of current issues and their shortcomings and development of objective parameters. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has been used as tool for benchmarking. The case example of the technologies promoted by Government of India for "Housing for All" Mission has been taken up for development of the framework and benchmarking. Findings from the QFD process highlight that these emerging technologies cater to limited building elements and not for the building system as a whole. Inconsistencies amongst performance of these technologies on various parameters have been demonstrated. It is concluded that assessment and benchmarking of technologies give useful insights into the comparative performance of each of these technologies and is hence, a useful tool for selection of appropriate technology for housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose In order to reduce the high failure rate of enterprise resource planning system (ERP) projects in Indian retail, project managers need to analyze and understand the impact of risk factor on ERP implementation. The purpose of this paper is to identify the key risk factors solely or primarily for the Indian retail sector. Furthermore, this study also analyzes the impact of risk factors in ERP implementation using the structural equation model (SEM) approach. “User risk,” “project management risk,” “technological risk,” “team risk,” “organizational risk,” and “project performance risk” are the examined factors.Design/methodology/approach A theoretical model is created that explains the risk factors which may impact the success of ERP implementation. Hypotheses were also developed to evaluate the interrelationship between risk factors and success of ERP implementation. Empirical data are collected through survey questionnaire from practitioners such as project sponsors, project managers, implementation consultants, and team members who are involved in ERP implementation in the retail sector to test the theoretical model.Findings Using the SEM, it is found that 40 percent of the variations in ERP implementation success can be explained with the help of the model suggested in the research study. The results of the study has empirically verified that “user risk,” “project management risk,” “technological risk,” “team risk,” “organizational risk,” and “project performance risk” factors are positively impacting ERP implementation success. All six hypotheses were supported by the results of the study.Research limitations/implications The findings from this paper can provide greater understanding of ERP implementations. Researchers, practicing managers, and those seeking to implement ERP in retail organization can also use the findings of this study as a vehicle for improving ERP implementation success in the retail sector.Originality/value The study integrates the impact of risk factor on ERP implementation. Very few studies have been performed to investigate and understand this issue. Therefore, the research can make a useful contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose |!|#8211; The purpose of this paper is to evolve a framework for assessing the efficiencies of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) services. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), a deterministic parametric frontier technique, has been employed for benchmarking of the MSWM services across municipalities in 22 cities in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. Findings |!|#8211; This paper reviews the solid waste management status and applies SFA to evaluate the relative performances of the services in terms of seven models, of which two models were found significant and acceptable based on the null hypothesis, significance of elasticity of variables, and an absence of data heteroskedasticity. The paper discusses the results in the context of various indicators, and finds that a large number of MSWM municipalities exhibit relative inefficiencies, implying that most municipalities can achieve higher levels of outputs by deploying fewer resources, thereby improving performances without necessarily increasing municipal spendings. Social implications |!|#8211; The work suggests some of the changes at the policy level that would affect the way in which solid waste is managed currently in India, and hence the work has social implications whereby the lives of a billion people will be improved through improved solid waste management services. Originality/value |!|#8211; To the best of the author|!|#39;s information, advanced benchmarking techniques such as SFA have seldom been applied for evolving the efficiencies of solid waste management municipalities, primarily because the sanitation services are yet to take the shape of an industry in the developing world. Lack of availability of data and non-transparent functions of these services prevent further exploration into estimating the inefficiencies of these service utilities. The paper will be of use to policy makers, solid waste managers, administrators, and sector regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose |!|#8211; The purpose of this paper is to benchmark the Indian mobile telecommunication service providers for relative efficiencies. In this paper, a method for benchmarking performance of mobile telecom utilities based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) is presented. The paper discusses some concepts between quality performance and benchmarking and the results include performance efficiency and sensitivity-based classification of utilities. Also, peer-to-peer comparison of inefficient with efficient utilities is provided. Based on these results, inefficient utilities can develop strategic plans to improve performance. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; The authors use DEA to measure comparative efficiencies of mobile telecom companies and two different DEA models, CCR and BCC, were applied to evaluate the relative efficiency of mobile telecom operators in India. Sensitivity-based classification of utilities is carried out by removing one or more inputs or outputs from the base model to construct a new DEA model. Comparisons of DEA efficiencies from the base model with the structurally perturbed models show the impact on efficiency. Data include annual and quarterly reports showing various quality parameters. Findings |!|#8211; DEA is used to derive the benchmarks based on the comparison of the 126 utilities which include public sector undertaking (PSU) operators (MTNL and BSNL) and private operators of the Indian mobile telecommunication sector. The result includes performance efficiency and peer-to-peer comparison of inefficient utilities with efficient utilities. Based on these results, inefficient utilities can develop strategic plans to improve their performance. Sensitivity analysis, based on removal of one or more variables from the base model to determine changes in DEA efficiencies is done for selecting the strength of parameters of utilities for performance improvement. Practical implications |!|#8211; Benchmarking of service utilities in the telecom sector is virtually non-existent at the national level in India. This research identifies the different variables and then a model is prepared for benchmarking of the service providers in India. Based on the efficiency analysis, benchmarks can be set, and utility efficiency scores can be obtained based on the set benchmarks. These scores can help develop a strategic plan for mitigating the factors that contribute to the system inefficiencies. Originality/value |!|#8211; This paper is one of the few published studies that benchmark the performance of mobile telecom services in India. This research promises to be amongst the first of the works carried out taking specific parameters of mobile telecom utilities of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: There is a lacuna in research work in terms of understanding how Indian IT organizations can become global brands. Benchmarking has not received much attention in marketing literature due to lack of benchmarking framework, and IT organizations are yet to make progress in benchmarking. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of brand strength on global branding by developing a conceptual benchmarking framework for Indian IT organizations. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured in-depth interviews are conducted with thirty middle-level managers from two Indian IT organizations, two US-based global IT organizations and one UK-based leading bank, which is a customer of these IT organizations. Findings: Results show a positive relationship between brand strength and global branding, between customer loyalty and global branding, between brand loyalty and competitive advantage and between global branding and competitive advantage. Indian IT organizations can benchmark global IT organizations to improve delivering brand promise, positioning, awareness building and authenticity toward making Indian IT organizations future ready to address the entire breadth of opportunities in the evolving world of cloud and digital. Practical implications: This research helps managers with a brand strength-based benchmarking framework toward global branding of Indian IT organizations. Social implications: IT is instrumental for rapid growth of Indian's economy. India should optimally utilize its greatest wealth, its human potential, with the latent global demand in IT through building global IT brands. Originality/value: The originality of the study lies in conducting a qualitative study on global branding of Indian IT organizations and also proposing a conceptual benchmarking framework. The study further validates the model using qualitative analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – With the growing importance of service quality in Indian retail, it becomes critical for the retailers to identify the appropriate dimensions for their retail stores. In the process of evaluating service quality the decision maker is often faced with ambiguities due to the imprecise information gained from the respondents. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated fuzzy (fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) approach to help the decision makers/retailers in practicing and judging the priorities of service quality strategies and accordingly benchmarking retail stores in Indian retail environment. Design/methodology/approach – The study incorporated the five basic dimensions of Retail Service Quality Scale proposed by Dabholkar et al. (1996) and the FAHP approach to three leading apparel retail stores of a major city (Rourkela) of Orissa (an Indian state located in eastern part of the country) to determine the weights of criteria and sub-criteria of retail service quality. Findings – The study identified that the dimensions, namely, personal interaction, physical aspects, reliability and policy are perceived as important by the Indian consumers. Merchandise and the store’s willingness to handle returns and exchanges emerge as the most influencing variable affecting the overall service quality of the store. Research limitations/implications – The study was restricted to a major city of Orissa and to three apparel stores. The results obtained may not be extrapolated to the country as a whole. The authors believe that the integrated approach of FAHP could be used by a variety of service industries to evaluate the service quality. The study did not investigate switching behavior among the respondents as they had been visiting all the three apparel stores during the preceding months. Practical implications – The integrated approach of FAHP makes an empirical contribution to the service quality and retail marketing literature by overcoming the uncertainty of concepts those are associated with human beings’ subjective judgments. Social implications – The retailer can improve the quality of service provided by them based on the parameters important in Indian context, which will lead to higher customer satisfaction. Originality/value – This paper can help the retail service providers to identify which of the retail service quality dimensions requires much attention to create sustainable competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Companies all over the world have recently started to adopt supply chain finance (SCF) solutions in their supply chains to reduce the payment defaults and simplify the bill settlement process. The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the barriers to adopting SCF in micro, small and medium enterprises. Design/methodology/approach: It employs a three-phase methodology to identify and prioritize the essential barriers to the implementation of SCF. An extensive survey has been carried out in 101 Indian MSMEs in India which identified 37 barriers under six heads in the first phase. Experts' interview using the Delphi technique has been carried out in the second phase to finalize the barriers. The analytic hierarchy process methodology, with sensitivity analysis for validation, is used in the final stage to prioritize and rank the barriers. Findings: Results show that financial and information technology barriers are prominent in SCF adoption followed by financial challenges. Among specific barriers, the disclosure of sensitive company information to competitor barrier acts as an essential barrier followed by poor technological capability of MSMEs. Research limitations/implications: The study is limited to SCF adoption of MSMEs in a developing nation. Extensive research is required in order to derive a global trend. Practical implications: The current research contributes to the stakeholder theory and transaction cost economics. Observations made in the current research can encourage organizations to incorporate stakeholders' concerns into the adoption of SCF solutions. The study provides a more in-depth view of such challenges and a benchmark, which will help companies to adopt SCF solutions more effortlessly. Moreover, policy makers across the world can explore these serious issues and amend or introduce new policies to facilitate companies' implementation of supply chain financial solutions. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study which identified and prioritized SCF adoption barriers of MSMEs in a developing nation. This study is also novel in adopting a hybrid analytical hierarchy process-sensitivity analysis for ranking the SCF barriers in an MSME context. SCF studies often emphasize only on the reverse factoring aspect of SCF. The current study considers many innovative aspects of SCF, such as pre-shipment financing, dynamic discounting, inventory financing, collaborative logistics, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to primarily emphasize on improvement of student's academic excellence through devising and implementing a competent Internal Assessment Criteria that indirectly improves their results and passing rates in exams. Design/methodology/approach -- In present system, Internal Assessment Criteria has evolved as critical factor having lot of margin for bringing improvement in student's academics by redesigning or editing the existing one, appropriately. Assessment criteria are re-optimized by strategic implementation of well proved Six Sigma's DMAIC approach. Findings -- It is a one of rarely seen effort to transform Assessment Criteria by identifying the statistical relations between internal marks and external marks secured by students in an end semester university exams. The proposed framework and its validation through an Indian case study, ignites the application of this structured Six Sigma approach in higher education for necessary excellence. Research limitations/implications -- The whole work revolves around the Indian engineering environments, moreover the case has been restricted and elaborate facts for only unaided (private) engineering universities. Practical implications -- The paper can be utilized to stimulate thinking about the fine tuning of Assessment Criteria through proven Six Sigma methodology in current Indian academic settings and further safeguarding the interests of managements, students and society, simultaneously. Originality/value -- The formulation of upcoming challenges before Indian engineering system are outcome of intense literature survey. Focussing on always neglected "Assessment Criteria" and its re-optimization by statistical approach of Six Sigma is hard to found and has immense scope in future for reaching at desired academic hikes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the design for quality aspect as not any static one time activity but a dynamic reality for the organisations. Authors developed and implemented a benchmarking tool for measuring quality design effectiveness by field survey. Even if mature, established and reputed organisations are time-tested for producing quality products, various index parameters were found where one company could prioritise their design improvement initiatives. This paper takes the design for quality issue beyond the predominantly static product prelaunch act to a continual dynamic endeavour of on-going nature, which was not addressed this way in prior literatures. Limitations exist both in its scale and scope, which require further research for establishing cross-case patterns. An implication will be to expand the ambit of field data from across the various other sectors towards building a consensus on dynamic design for quality management as a cornerstone for the general innovation structure management of the organisations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper makes an attempt to measure the relative Technical Efficiency (TE) of twelve multi-brand retail firms in India, using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). An input oriented DEA under the assumption of Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) has been proposed for the study and analysis has been conducted for the period 2012-13. The study has relied on secondary source for data on the input and output variables. Based on the method and the choice variables, it has measured technical efficiencies and identified the efficient and relatively less efficient firms in the group.DEA revealed that five multi-brand retail firms, Out of the twelve, Are on the efficiency frontier and the remaining seven were found to be below it. For the relatively less efficient firms, the input slacks have been calculated which has important managerial implications for efficient resource utilization through better management practices. It was also found that among the twelve brands, Brand house Retails Ltd. and GIVO Ltd. are the most efficient multi-brand retail firms in the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper aims to present existence comprehensive analysis of state of implementation of benchmarking concepts in Indian automotive companies. Design/methodology/approach – The research is carried out through a mixed method of research approach comprising of a survey of 300 auto companies in India. Out of 300, 48 valid responses together with three additional case studies were used in the data analysis. Inclusion of case studies was aspired to get deeper insight into the issues pertaining to adoption of best practices, and subsequently the implementation of benchmarking activities. Findings – Benchmarking has been unanimously accepted as an effective performance and productivity improvement tool by Indian auto companies. However, Indian automobile manufacturers still see benchmarking as a tool to compare product attributes, quality attributes, operations, and processes. Moreover, it has been perceived as being less applicable at strategic level. Results also show that benchmarking is in its primary stage in the Indian automotive industry, and it still needs much more commitment from top management for its proliferation. Lesser significance is given to competitor benchmarking due to the fear of losing competitive advantage, and the problem of confidentiality. Reasons identified in this study for not using benchmarking include "lack of human resources" as most important, followed by "financial constraints", and "lack of internal expertise". Research limitations/implications – Research results should be generalized and reproduced with a larger sample size. Owing to the scarce application of benchmarking in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), separate study should be carried out to find ways to encourage benchmarking implementation in Indian auto component manufacturing SMEs. Originality/value – The paper provides insight into the extent of implementation of benchmarking concepts in Indian automobile industry. This study is the first attempt to understand propagation of benchmarking concepts, exclusively among Indian auto companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to benchmark the solvency status of Indian general insurance firms. Design/methodology/approach – The paper collects, compiles and analyses the key financial, operational and business data of eight Indian insurance firms. The authors first decide on initial firm-specific economic variables and use data of last five years from IRDA Reports and Company Annual Reports. The NAIC IRIS ratios method was used to obtain an initial risk classification. This was used as a proxy of insolvency risk. Linear regression and logit techniques were thereafter applied to estimate the significant factors (direction-wise and magnitude-wise) which influence insurer solvency. Findings – The results suggest that the factors that most significantly influence Indian non-life insurers are lines of business, the firm's market share, the premium growth rate, the underwriting performance and the claims incurred. Further, the factors which have the strongest effect are market share, change in inflation rate, firm size, lines of business and claims incurred. Research limitations/implications – The sample of Indian general insurers used is limited with regard to the time span. No holdout sample was used and the entire data set was subjected to statistical analysis. These somewhat limit the findings and implications. Practical implications – The paper provides insurers with easy-to-use operational and marketing indicators to benchmark their solvency risk. It will lead to competitive goal setting for continuous improvement. Estimation of appropriate market/economic parameters can be a useful input for regulators. A few suggested indicators are new. Originality/value – Previous studies of insurance companies have focused on developed economies (USA, Europe) or the Asian Markets (China and Japan). This paper determines a set of marketing, financial and operational variables to predict benchmark financial strength of general insurance firms in India. It incorporates qualitative inputs from practising managers and industry experts before carrying out quantitative modeling and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose |!|#8211; The quantity and quality of available water resources have been recognized limiting factors in development of most of the arid and semi arid regions. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency, for water users|!|#39; associations (WUA), of irrigation project Samrat Ashok Sagar (Halali) in India, using benchmarking by data envelopment analysis as the performance evaluation tool and to integrate the outcome of the benchmarking process for planning, design and effective management of available water resources. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; To collect information or data required to calculate indicators, there was personal interaction with water users and executive engineers in-charge of the project, and competent authority for WUA (sub-engineers), with other technical staff and with establishment staff and the purpose of the study explained. In the analysis, the performance gap was compared within the scheme. The causes of the performance gap and the action required for closing the performance gap were explored. Data envelopment analysis was done for different sets of input output by input-oriented model through software. The data collected were real time and validated from Samrat Ashok Sagar Irrigation and Drainage Project Authority. Findings |!|#8211; It was found that the majority of WUAs as per model I to model VI had efficiency below 70 per cent, which is a matter of serious concern. It is evident that considerable variations occur amongst the various WUAs in terms of the operational characteristics reflected by the independent variables. Originality/value |!|#8211; The paper demonstrates that it is evident that considerable variations occur amongst the various WUAs in terms of the operational characteristics reflected by the independent variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of aluminium firms in India.Design/methodology/approach Different data envelopment analysis (DEA) models have been employed to calculate the various efficiency scores of aluminium firms in India.Findings The major findings of the DEA analysis suggest that 62 per cent firms are found to be technically efficient. Overall, the industry shows good performance with mean technical efficiency levels of 0.936 and 0.911 for VRS and CRS frameworks, respectively. Further, five firms show decreasing returns to scale, signifying the overutilization of plant capacities. Six firms exhibit increasing returns to scale implying underutilization of plants. The results show that domestic firms are more efficient than the foreign firms, young firms are more efficient than young firms and small- and medium-scale firms are more efficient than large-scale firms.Practical implications The results of this study would help the aluminium firms to formulate an appropriate strategy to cautiously use their resources to increase their efficiency levels.Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, no earlier studies seem to have ranked the aluminium firms based on their super-efficiency scores. Further, no previous studies seem to have examined the efficiency differences among aluminium firms across different size, age and ownership groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a study that is focused on application of fuzzy logic and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) approaches for leanness evaluation in an Indian small- and medium-size enterprise (SME).Design/methodology/approach Lean manufacturing concepts are being adopted by SMEs to sustain in the competitive manufacturing landscape. Performance of lean system needs to be assessed using appropriate methods. A model for measuring lean performance is proposed with five enablers, 30 criteria and 90 attributes. Leanness index is computed using fuzzy logic approach and benchmarked with ANFIS approach.Findings Leanness index computed using fuzzy logic approach is found to be (4.47, 5.97, 7.55) and that of ANFIS approach is found to be 5.84 to facilitate benchmarking of leanness evaluation. After finding weaker areas, certain improvement initiatives are being deployed.Research limitations/implications The developed model for leanness evaluation has been test implemented in an SME. In future, the model could be test implemented in several SMEs.Practical implications A case study conducted in an SME involved in heavy engineering fabrication is presented. Therefore, the inferences derived from the study has practical propensity.Originality/value The development of leanness evaluation model for SMEs and deployment in an industrial scenario are the original contributions of the authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to generate awareness of contributions made by benchmarking toward building performance of Indian service industries in globally market. Ranking of Benchmarking is done on the basis of their application which give confidence for the managers to adopt in their Industries so that they may become best in their field.Design/methodology/approach Methodology consists of three phase: define, phase include definitions, factors of benchmarking as literature outcomes, questionnaire survey and outcome of survey. In the second phase, analysis of collected data and applications of multi-criteria decision-making approaches [technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and analytical network process (ANP)] are used. The last phase includes comparison of results which gives validation in similarities of ranking obtained.Findings The study identifies seven different benchmarking techniques used for service industries. Using TOPSIS and ANP approaches shows similarity that external benchmarking, performance benchmarking and internal benchmarking are the first three ranks that give basis for several critical success factors s, namely, planning, reliability, standardization, time behavior, usability, etc., as part of benchmarking using in service industries.Research limitations/implications The limitation is the assumptions made by multi-criteria decision-making approaches which may effect the analysis of the study as these are taken theoretically.Originality/value This study is a first attempt to find similarities in both techniques while comparing benchmarking in Indian service industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand whether the adoption of environmental management practices and firm characteristics influence the environmental benchmarking in Indian firms. It further looks into the impact of environmental benchmarking practices on firms’ environmental performance. Design/methodology/approach – The study conducts a research survey to obtain the practitioner’s responses on the different aspects of environmental benchmarking. The survey data of 104 firms provide an empirical basis to investigate different research hypotheses using statistical techniques. Findings – The results indicate that the firms which implement environmental management practices are more likely to adopt environmental benchmarking in one or more areas of their operations. The findings signify that firms which benchmarks for environmental purposes are more likely to have better environmental performance. The study confirms that large firms have significant chances of having environmental benchmarking compared to small and medium sized firms. The firms in different sectors have different relative preference to eight different areas of environmental benchmarking. However, all these preferences are not significant at 95 per cent confidence level. Research limitations/implications – The research use only qualitative responses on environment management aspects and could be further extended by incorporating the quantitative (emission) data of different industries. Practical implications – The study provides an insight into the environmental benchmarking practices of Indian firms for better management of environmental performance of the firms. Originality/value – The study investigates the experience and attitude of Indian firms to environmental benchmarking based on an empirical research. It adds to the knowledge in the field of environmental benchmarking in developing countries with specific focus on India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most developing countries like India, benchmarking of water supply utilities is rarely carried out as these services are not run on professional lines to ensure profitability, even as social goals of making provision for all, including the poor, take priority over profitability. When performances of these services are not measured, efforts to improve these services remain directionless and arbitrary. Urban water supplies in India, therefore, suffer a self-inflicted fate, wherein city municipalities remain mired in mundane issues, leading to large dissatisfaction and inefficiencies. This paper attempts to evolve a framework for evaluating cost efficiencies of water supply services and applies stochastic frontier analysis to 18 urban centres in India through six models. The results indicate large relative inefficiencies and a scope of savings of 24.5% of average current operating and maintenance costs even with existing levels of resource inputs. The results are discussed from a regulatory and policy-making perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Current study involves identification of indicators and dimensions of transport system sustainability, selection of urban areas, developing composite sustainable transport index etc. Fig. 1 shows detailed flow chart of methodology used for carrying out transport system benchmarking as a part of this study. • Radar diagram and gap analysis approach is used to present facts about transport systems of selected Indian cities in more interesting way. Qualitative gaps which exist in transport system performance represent potential improvement areas of the transport system. • To decide relative importance of each indicator in overall sustainability, sensitivity analysis is more important. So, a window based application is prepared using.net (Dot net) platform. It provides an interactive UI (User Interface) (as shown in Fig. 4) and facilitates monitoring of the corresponding change in index value even due to change in an indicator weight. Every small change in indicator weight can be well simulated through these index values. It helps to understand the weight change impact of indicators and dimensions on sustainability and hence on the performance of urban passenger transport system. The program also gives a graphical output of deviation of index values (as shown in Fig. 5) from the ideal case of equal weights. Abstract Increasing number of issues related to transport system around the world has raised concern about sustainable development. For developing country like India, the role of transportation sector has become critical in creating supporting growth of diverse sectors of its urban economy. The key issues of present state of transport system are higher level of motorization with dismally low share of public transport. Both of these issues are intertwined with number of social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development. Hence, there is a need for an evaluation approach which will help to analyze 'macro-level' system to give 'micro-level' analysis of the transport system. Benchmarking is one such method of comparing performances and practices and to learn from best. This paper is an attempt to study the use of benchmarking in performance improvement of the transport system. Results obtained through the study shows that the cities having a better modal share of sustainable modes occupy a higher rank with greater values of the sustainability index. In the current study, a software tool for monitoring the sensitivity of composite index of transport system towards performance indicators of sustainability is also developed. The comparative analysis of current study facilitates city-to-city learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hindon River is the main tributary of river Yamuna and it is a significant source of surface water, which flows through the major cities of western Uttar Pradesh, India. The indiscriminate development of industries and urbanization along river basin coupled with rapid population growths contribute various amounts of pollutant in the river. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess the spatial–temporal variability of river water quality (seventeen physicochemical parameters and eight heavy metals) during pre- and post-monsoon seasons for 5 years data at 19 sampling sites along the river stretch. Indices associated with water quality and heavy metals were computed to scale the accurate state of risk associated to its use for drinking and irrigation. During the pre- and post-monsoon seasons, only four sites were found having safe water quality index (WQI) values. The mean heavy metal concentrations are found in order of Zn > Fe > Pb > Cu > Cr > Cd > Ni > Mn. Considering the spatial and temporal distribution, the study benchmarked the water quality of Hindon River for priority attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A good number of models are available in the literature that guides Engineering Colleges in achieving excellence. These models indicate all the possible domains that contribute to the overall quality in engineering colleges irrespective of category. In the recent past, a large number of young engineering colleges from self-financing category in India have admitted that they have failed in attracting sufficient number of students. These young colleges may not be able to concentrate on all the dimensions prescribed by the existing models of excellence due to their limited resources. Hence, an attempt is made to develop another model of excellence, especially for the young colleges, by (i) treating the top-ranked engineering colleges in self-financing category as best-in-class organizations (ii) comparing the performance of young engineering colleges with the top-ranked engineering colleges and identifying the gaps (iii) analyzing the influence of various dimensions of quality on the present standing of the top-ranked and non-ranked private engineering colleges using Regression Analysis (iv) testing the Regression Models using Cross-validation. The model proposed in this paper can definitely help in improving the overall quality in the young engineering colleges from self-financing category at minimum possible cost. The improved quality would ultimately bring higher satisfaction among its stakeholders which in turn helps the colleges in attracting students further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study deals with summarizing and analysing the current challenges of internal supply chain management in the Indian manufacturing world. Benchmarking practice for internal supply chain management performance factors may be fruitful to overcome supply chain challenges. The main purpose of this research work is to implement the benchmarking practice in internal supply chain performance factors for the identification of gap between them. Internal supply chain management consists of purchase, production, and distribution units between suppliers and customers. Proper coordination between departments is necessary for efficient working of internal supply chain of manufacturing industry. In this research work, the main objective of the authors are to extract internal supply chain factors through history of literature and prepared mean scorecard on the basis of industrial questionnaire survey results; to implement the regular comparative benchmarking practice in finding out performance gap between factors of intern al supply chain until and either the gap is under control or within the limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Many corporates in India are constantly adapting real estate benchmarks to reduce the workspace maintenance cost. However, anecdotally benchmarking the experience of clients while designing the workspace maintenance policies is not adequately taken into consideration in India. The focus of this study is on benchmarking workspace usage based on client usability. Design/methodology/approach: The research is descriptive in nature. A structured questionnaire was sent to Information Technology (IT) companies in India to collect data through SurveyMonkey. Stratified sampling was used to collect a sample of 697 respondents which was also verified using G* software. The data collected was analysed using descriptive statistics and partial least square–structured equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to investigate the mediating effect of benchmarking the workspace usage on portfolio optimization and client satisfaction. Findings: The structural model results obtained through the bootstrapping technique show that benchmarking workspace usage for real estate management positively impacts client satisfaction in the Indian IT workspace. The findings of this study support the full mediation effect (97%) and indicate that benchmarking practices are necessary for developing strategies for optimal portfolio asset utilization and are essential to survive in the current competitive business environment. Research limitations/implications: The findings of this study were influenced by the feedback from the top 100 IT clients in India. The research findings vary according to the cost-benefit analysis of adopting benchmarking measures in small and medium-sized IT companies which still benchmark the workspace usage based on cost-saving measures. Also, very sparse research has been conducted in the workspace management domain of IT firms, so the results of this study can further be used as a reference to explore this area. Practical implications: The study provides useful insights into how benchmarking in the workspace management domain of the CRE industry can be applied to address portfolio-related challenges, divergent client needs and improve workspace usability following energy-efficient policies. Practitioners can use this study as a guide to develop more effective workspace management policies. Social implications: This study may guide other firms to benchmark their current workspace usage and evaluate the impact of their workspace management policies based on the theoretical framework of value-added balanced benchmarking criteria. Originality/value: This research adds value to the limited literature available on the impact of technology-enabled portfolio optimization techniques through benchmarking which can reduce workspace usage and enhance the usability of the workspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Supplier selection (SS) is one of the prime competencies in a sourcing decision. Taking into account the key role played by suppliers in facilitating the implementation of green supply chain management (GSCM), it is somewhat surprising that very little research attention has been imparted to the development of a strategic sourcing model for GSCM. This research aims to develop a strategic sourcing framework in which supplier organizations are prioritized and ranked based on their GSCM performance. Accordingly, the benchmark organization is identified and its strategy is explored for GSCM performance improvement. Design/methodology/approach: The research develops an innovative GSCM performance evaluation framework using six parameters, namely, investment in corporate social responsibility, investment in research and development, utilization of renewable energy, total energy consumption, total carbon-di-oxide emissions and total waste generation. An integrated multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach is proposed in which the entropy method calculates criteria weights. The Complex Proportional Assessment (COPRAS) and the Grey relational analysis (GRA) methods are used to rank supplier organizations based on their performance scores. A real-world case of green supplier selection (GSS) is considered in which five leading India-based automobile manufacturing organizations (Supplier 1, Supplier 2, Supplier 3, Supplier 4 and Supplier 5) are selected. Surveys with industry experts at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels are carried out to collect relevant data. Findings: The results reveal that total carbon dioxide emission is the most influential parameter, as it gains the highest weight. On the contrary, investment in research and development, and total waste generation have no significant impact on GSCM performance. Results show that Supplier 5 secures the top rank. Hence, it is the benchmark organization. Research limitations/implications: The proposed methodology offers an easy and comprehensive approach to sourcing decisions in the field of GSCM. The entropy weight-based COPRAS and GRA methods offer an error-free channel of decision-making and can be proficiently used to outrank various industrial sectors based on their GSCM performances. This research is specific to the automobile manufacturing supply chain. Therefore, research outcomes may vary across supply chains with distinct characteristics. Practical implications: The basic propositions of this research are based on a real-world case. Hence, the research findings are practically feasible. The less significant parameters identified in this study would enable managers to impart more attention to vulnerable areas for improvement. This research may help policymakers identify the influential parameters for effective GSCM implementation. As this research considers all aspects of sustainability, the strategies of the benchmark supplier have a direct impact on organizations' overall sustainability. The study would enable practitioners to make various strategies for GSCM performance improvement and to develop a cleaner production system. Originality/value: The originality of this research lies in the consideration of both economic, social, environmental and operational aspects of sustainability for assessing the GSCM performance of supplier organizations. Quantitative criteria are considered so that vagueness can be removed from the decision. The use of an integrated grey-based approach for developing a strategic sourcing model is another unique feature of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]