Rural Marketing Mix in Bhutan: An FMCG Perspective

--Dev Narayan Sarkar and Gagan Pareek

Almost all large consumer goods companies operating in Bhutan actually operate through their Indian offices since India has a free trade agreement with Bhutan. Bhutan has a unique rural market structure, and the 4Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) and 4As (Awareness, Availability, Affordability and Acceptability) of rural marketing are also governed by unique regulations formulated by the Government of Bhutan. Bhutan is 69.1% rural, and rural marketing becomes the most important subject for marketing in Bhutan—in fact, if Indian census benchmarks were applied to the Bhutan demographics, the percentage of rural population would be beyond 90%. This present study is the most comprehensive ex post facto qualitative and quantitative study of the 4Ps/4As of rural marketing in Bhutan. The research tool used is a qualitative survey of the national distributors operating in Bhutan and of some wholesalers in each district of Bhutan, followed by a quantitative analysis of the associations between the factors. Absolutely no literature is available on rural marketing in Bhutan, and this paper aims to advance that body of knowledge from a practitioner’s point of view.

© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Protecting the Competitive Advantage Derived Through HR: Challenges for IT Industry

--Nagapavan Chintalapati

Innovative practices in design, development and delivery of services; responsiveness to customer issues; and trusted relationships with the customer’s organization are the three differentiators for knowledge organizations. These differentiators require Human Resources (HR) with the required competence, experience, capabilities and motivation. The competitive advantage derived through HR should be sustained which requires benchmarking of the HR practices and resources with the best competition. This paper presents a conceptual framework to discuss the possible and preferable HR practices by classifying the key areas into five Rs: (1) Recruitment, (2) Results (performance management), (3) Reward (compensation management), (4) Retention (talent management), and (5) Retrenchment (downsizing/rightsizing). The challenges in these five activity groups and approaches of management during recession and supposed recovery are different and a comparison of the questions that practicing managers are pondering about is showcased. The concept is applied with specific reference to the IT industry in India, as HR forms a very critical component of this industry. The data regarding IT industry is collected from secondary sources and published reports. Anecdotal evidence from experiences of HR practitioners and senior managers is considered for expanding the model of five Rs for the recovery period of the business cycle. The findings reveal that no single solution may be prescribed for the firms in the IT industry and therefore HR departments have to customize solutions for their firm.

© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Enhanced Industrial Employability Through New Vocational Training Framework with Attitude-Skill-Knowledge (ASK) Model

--K M Nagendra, S Radha and C G Naidu

Positive Vocational Education and Training (VET) experience can generate benefits to individuals beyond those of income and employment; the learning content can foster confidence and self-esteem in learners and offer topics relevant to the individual’s engagement with their family and society. VET provision should not be geared solely towards giving people the ‘know-how’ or ‘the skills to do their job’ but should improve individuals’ competencies, including the ability to meet complex demands and the habits of self-direction. Individuals in a VET setting also have the opportunity to learn from other learners, make new social groups and possibly modify the previous ones. These interactions are extremely important for knowledge transmission and improvement in essential employability skills which could lead to wider benefits or outcomes for learners. This paper attempts to discuss a new framework called Attitude-Skill-Knowledge (ASK) model and its implementation results in a leading automobile organization.

© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Workforce Agility: A Review of Literature

--Ashutosh Muduli

Agility research mainly considers the agile workforce from an operations perspective. To date, a majority of research on workforce agility has focused on the speed and flexibility from an operations perspective, while studies on the attributes of agile workforce are lacking. Very few studies have been done on management actions that can promote workforce agility. The present paper addresses this research gap by exploring the attributes of an agile workforce and identifying the management practices capable of promoting workforce agility. An extensive survey of the available literature has been made to explore the attributes and facilitators of workforce agility, and therefore, the study is conceptual in nature. The findings reveal that an agile workforce is adaptive, flexible, developmental, innovative, collaborative, competent, fast and informative in nature. The study also explores the management actions on training, compensation, empowerment, teamwork, and Information Systems (IS) which promote workforce agility.

© 2013 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Book Review:
Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere