The industry, the academia and the government lament that the quality of students graduating from universities is on the decline. Many are vehemently blaming the present education system as inadequate or ill-equipped to impart the desired levels of quality demanded by the industry. “The quality of higher education in India across disciplines is poor and does not meet the needs of the corporate world,” Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat says. It is disheartening to note that compared to countries like the US, Germany and Japan where 75% of the total workforce is skilled, a meager 5% of India’s total workforce can be called skilled, according to the research. Acquiring the right entry-level talent can make a huge difference to the fortunes of organizations, and hence a systematic approach to finding the causes of poor quality among the graduates passing out of the universities and addressing them is the need of the hour. As the desired skillset demanded by the industry is ever changing, it is important that the industry enumerate and define the generic skills and specific skills relevant to a particular industry like retail, hospitality, healthcare, banking-financial, IT, automobile and construction across various levels and provide the yardsticks to measure them. It is also crucial to focus on general employability attributes, the transferable skills and job-specific skills or knowledge to be successful in one’s job. The first paper, “Beyond the Business Communication Course: A Historical Perspective of the Where, Why, and How of Soft Skills Development and Job Readiness for Business Graduates”, by Catherine MacDermott and Lorelei Ortiz, discusses the job readiness of graduates in the US and elaborates the role of different stakeholders in enhancing the skills of the students. It provides interesting and invaluable insights on the skills demanded by the employers.
No matter what the industry or the position is, communication skills are extremely critical to be successful at the job. The GMAC 2015 Corporate Recruiters Survey Report finds that 89% of recruiters consider communication skills as a “critical factor” in deciding whom to interview and only then look at their “proven ability to perform”. Recruiters do place greater stress on communication than technical and quantitative skills. The second paper, “The Need for Oral Communication in Large and Medium Enterprises of the Manufacturing Sector of India”, by C Shanmuga Priya, S Mekala and M P Shabitha, provides numerous insights on workplace oral communication. Persons with good oral communication skills can be effective in an environment of diverse teams and cultural diversity.
Effective managers are confident and competent, whereas the arrogant managers are confident but incompetent. Movies and ads ridiculing autocratic bosses are not a new phenomenon. The famous Hari Sadu ad depicting an executive who insults subordinates swallowing the bitter pill attracted wide attention when a junior employee in the ad volunteers to decipher the boss's name to a caller on phone as H - for Hitler, A-for Arrogant, R-for Rascal, I-for Idiot and S-for Shameless. In the paper, “Hari Sadu Versus Subordinates: An Analysis of the Interpersonal Dynamics at the Workplace”, the authors Nikhil K Mehta and Upasna A Agarwal, explore the interpersonal transactions involved by applying Eric Berns popular Transaction Analysis tool.
Managers often encounter several instances of employees making mistakes or erring at their jobs and have to deal with them to ensure the accomplishment of objectives. To address such issues, managers need to possess skills to provide clear, constructive and quick feedback which are not too critical or negative but motivational. “The Art of Giving Feedback” by Revathi Turaga emphasizes the role of feedback and offers tips to provide proper feedback to the employees.
Facing an interview is quite nerve-wracking. A lot of students and job seekers are interested in knowing the formula to ensure success at the interview or leave an indelible impression on the interviewer. The last paper, “Understanding Nonverbal Cues: A Key to Success in Interviews”, by Sonali Ganguly highlights the importance of understating the role nonverbal cues play to emerge triumphant from an interview, and suggests ways to enhance proper nonverbal cues to improve the rate of success.
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs): The Changing Face of Banking in India
Bank Management
Information and communication technology has changed the way in which banks provide services to its customers. These days the customers are able to perform their routine banking transactions without even entering the bank premises. ATM is one such development in recent years, which provides remote banking services all over the world, including India. This paper analyzes the development of this self-service banking in India based on the secondary data.
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is playing a very important role in the progress and advancement in almost all walks of life. The deregulated environment has provided an opportunity to restructure the means and methods of delivery of services in many areas, including the banking sector. The ICT has been a focused issue in the past two decades in Indian banking. In fact, ICTs are enabling the banks to change the way in which they are functioning. Improved customer service has become very important for the very survival and growth of banking sector in the reforms era. The technological advancements, deregulations, and intense competition due to the entry of private sector and foreign banks have altered the face of banking from one of mere intermediation to one of provider of quick, efficient and customer-friendly services. With the introduction and adoption of ICT in the banking sector, the customers are fast moving away from the traditional branch banking system to the convenient and comfort of virtual banking. The most important virtual banking services are phone banking, mobile banking, Internet banking and ATM banking. These electronic channels have enhanced the delivery of banking services accurately and efficiently to the customers. The ATMs are an important part of a bank’s alternative channel to reach the customers, to showcase products and services and to create brand awareness. This is reflected in the increase in the number of ATMs all over the world. ATM is one of the most widely used remote banking services all over the world, including India. This paper analyzes the growth of ATMs of different bank groups in India.
International Scenario
If ATMs are largely available over geographically dispersed areas, the benefit from using an ATM will increase as customers will be able to access their bank accounts from any geographic location. This would imply that the value of an ATM network increases with the number of available ATM locations, and the value of a bank network to a customer will be determined in part by the final network size of the banking system. The statistical information on the growth of branches and ATM network in select countries.
Indian Scenario
The financial services industry in India has witnessed a phenomenal growth, diversification and specialization since the initiation of financial sector reforms in 1991. Greater customer orientation is the only way to retain customer loyalty and withstand competition in the liberalized world. In a market-driven strategy of development, customer preference is of paramount importance in any economy. Gone are the days when customers used to come to the doorsteps of banks. Now the banks are required to chase the customers; only those banks which are customercentric and extremely focused on the needs of their clients can succeed in their business today.
