Agglomeration of Foreign Automobile Firms in India: Empirical Evidence

--Neha Gupta

Automobile and auto-ancillary manufacturing in India is highly concentrated, with four auto clusters receiving approximately 91% of the total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in this sector. Technological spillovers, factor endowments, etc., were identified as some of the factors influencing firm co-location. This paper observes the impact of agglomeration as well as state-specific endowments on the development of automotive clusters in India. In order to determine the motives deriving location choices of foreign automobile firms in India, one agglomeration and nine control variables were identified and tested using Dynamic Linear Programming Regression (DLPR) model. Presence of incumbent Indian automobile firms, higher per capita income and higher demand for vehicles turned out to be some of the important determinants of location choices of foreign automobile firms in the country.

© 2015 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Strategic Opportunities for Indian IT Companies: A Study

--Yagnil Mehta and U S Rao

Indian IT/ITES industry has seen unparalleled growth since its inception and has been contributing substantially to India’s GDP as compared to other industries. This being a knowledge industry has been less affected by the economic downturn. The success story of the Indian IT industry propelled other countries to expand their business portfolio to move higher towards services offering to a wider geographic base. This forced the value proposition to shift from labor arbitrage to innovation, non-linear business models and transformational business needs. Hence it has put tremendous pressure on the companies to change the traditional business model for sustaining future growth. The emergence of disruptive technologies, talent scarcity and cutthroat competition are the major forces acting on the organizations, impelling them to evolve from traditional linear business model to nonlinear business model. Clearly, the Indian IT companies need to think from the strategy perspective to garner the customer value chain to gain sustainable competitive advantage. This study will help the Indian IT companies to cope with the dynamic environment and deal successfully with rivals and challenges that stand as hurdles and obstacles to their growth.

© 2015 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Investment Decision Making in the Upstream Oil Industry: An Analysis

--Surbhi Arora

Oil is the world’s biggest and most pervasive business, the greatest of the great industries that arose in the last decades of the 19th century. The words of Daniel Yergin in his book, The Prize (1991), which chronicles the development of the world’s oil industry, highlight the importance of oil industry in the recent times. In an environment of growing competition, higher resource costs, and significant price uncertainty, ‘Investment Decision Making’ is given top priority. There are many decision making techniques in academic literature. Some fundamental concepts were formulated more than 200 years ago. But their application became apparent only in the 1950s and 1960s. It is an acknowledged fact that the current practice techniques used for investment decision making in most industries lag behind the current decision theories. Which techniques are most appropriate and applicable to upstream oil industry is what is to be analyzed here. This study draws on the oil industry literature to find the techniques used by upstream oil companies. It tries to identify the techniques that are available and what are the tools appropriate for upstream investment decision making. Each tool has certain limitations. Thus, a combination of decision analysis techniques and concepts are to be used. The rationale behind this study is the assumption that the techniques used would be adding value to the upstream oil companies. This assumption would then be tested to verify this relationship. The risk and uncertainty involved in each technique is also considered. Investment appraisal, industry literature and the insights gained from various conferences, seminars etc. are used to draw conclusions.

© 2015 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Organizational Restructuring and Collaborative Creativity: The Case of Microsoft and Sony

--Ishneet Dhillon and Sonam Gupta

The need for innovation and cross-dependencies among the departments is forcing organizations to restructure from divisional to functional organizational structure. This paper presents one such case wherein Microsoft and Sony carried out restructuring efforts to move towards a functional organizational structure when they faced cutthroat competition from other technology majors such as Google and Apple. Both Sony and Microsoft brought in major changes to their organizational design, engineering a greater collaboration among technologies and creating an organizational culture that is deeply embedded in collaboration, creativity, and innovation. The paper uses several financial, organizational, and other matrices to illustrate how organizations embracing creativity outperform their peers and competitors on key business performance indicators, such as revenue growth, market share, and talent acquisition.

© 2015 IUP. All Rights Reserved.