Like organizations, countries too enjoy competitive advantage as a result of natural resources. The state of Jammu & Kashmir in India is endowed with natural resources and one of the crops that has the potential to become world-class provided the required impetus is given to the apple processing industry. The first paper, “Resource-Based Competence of Apple-Based Processing Units in Jammu and Kashmir”, by Abid Sultan and Saurabh, makes an attempt to investigate how the natural resource advantage of the state can be exploited through a coordinative mechanism of institutional frameworks and strategic interventions. According to the author, these activities will go a long way in creating entrepreneurial opportunities and employment in the state.

The second paper, “Assessing Corporate Performance with Measures of Value Added as Key Drivers of Shareholder Wealth: An Empirical Study”, by E Madhavi and M S V Prasad, looks at how Economic Value Added (EVA) is a better indicator of firm performance compared to other measures like EPS, ROE, etc. For many years, there has been a running debate on which of the measures used by finance managers in particular and firms in general indicate better wealth creation. Numerous studies in the area are proof that there is a lack of agreement about what constitutes a better index of wealth creation. The authors of this paper identified six organizations in the cement industry and six in the FMCG industry listed on the National Stock Exchange. The results of the analysis prove that EVA is a better predictor of wealth creation, although qualitatively speaking the superiority of EVA compared to other measures is not highly discernible. The data for analysis was taken from the annual reports of the sample organizations.

Enterprises compete using different business models which are distinct and their outcomes are difficult to predict. Appraising these models in a stand-alone fashion leads to faulty assessments of their strengths and weaknesses. There is a need to view business models more holistically and compare the sustainability aspects (economic, environmental, social, multidimensional/holistic and commercial/business). The third paper, “Inter-Firm Differences in the Sustainability Business Model: A Study on Select Firms from Agri-Food and IT Companies”, by Syeedun Nisa, discusses the relationship between different sustainability characteristics prevalent in two very diverse industries—agri-food (dairy) and Information Technology (IT)—and also analyzes inter-firm differences in sustainability components of the business model. The results of the analysis reveal that the differences are more pronounced in the agri-food business than in IT organizations which are taking sustainability more as a responsibility than as a compliance issue.

The last paper, “Analytics – Some Ethical Dimensions”, by Rajan Mani, looks at the broader aspect of ethics in analytics. Organizations are increasingly using analytics to get a deeper understanding of their customers. Such an approach has its own set of challenges and limitations. There is a need to understand the frameworks that apply to the ethicality of collecting customer level data with and without the knowledge of the person/institution concerned. How much of private and confidential information needs to be collected is a moot point, apart from the even more basic issues such as the process of collection of this data and the uses to which it is put. A greater threat is the process by which the data ‘travels’ and an understanding of the safeguards taken to prevent unauthorized use of data. The broad questions that need answers are where and how the organization draws the line between legitimate action and impingement on confidentiality and privacy, maintaining the security of the data itself, and the way findings are manipulated.

-- Venu Gopal Rao
Consulting Editor