NYKAA: A Comprehensive Analysis of a Leading Indian E-Commerce Cosmetic Company

Purpose: The cosmetics industry is one of the major industries that have attracted many players due to its rapid growth. The cosmetics industry plays an important role in developing the country's economy. This study is being taken up to better understand the contribution of the beauty industry to the development of the country and to evaluate the strategies of these companies. Nykaa is one of the leading companies in the cosmetics industry. It offers various products of different brands on one platform. Its setup by Falguni Nayar in 2012. She anticipated the huge opportunity in online trading in the coming years and converted that opportunity into a big vision. Her decision was not wrong it turned into building a large-scale business. By operating multinational, it attracts customers from various regions. Initially, it started the business by offering beauty products later on diversified with fashion, skincare, luxury products. This study is conducted to evaluate the strategies used by NYKAA to be one of the top companies in E-Commerce. Research Methodology: In this paper, an attempt is made to evaluate financial performance, Competitor’s analysis, CSR, Marketing and Inventory strategy, SWOC framework of Nykaa as a research case study. Findings: From the study, it’s clear that Nykaa is doing very well in E-retailing and gives tough competition to rival firms. Giving a platform to small entrepreneurs to grow along with their successful journey. Originality: Various performance analysis techniques are used to appraise the NYKAA accomplishment. Paper type: Research Case study.

Performance measurement using a novel directional distance function based super efficiency model and neighborhood theory

This paper entails a systematic approach for measuring the Super Efficiency Scores of a set of rival firms. This evaluation process is dependent on the location of the worst Decision-Making Unit retained by the technology set. Unlike antecedent researches, the worst point is selected from a predefined neighbourhood with an application of a linear model. Finally, the new Super Efficiency model measures the Efficiency score while embedding the worst point within the direction vector. This two-stage model is akin to the standard form of a Directional Distance Function and does not end up with problems of infeasibility, negative data or zero data. In other words, the method is found robust to classify the Decision Making Units into the Super-Efficient, Strongly Efficient, Weakly Efficient and Inefficient groups. Two cases once addressed by Seiford and Zhu (1997) and Byrnes et al. (1984) are illustrated here to explore the functionality of the model in comparison to a few renowned ones.

Spillover Effects of Analyst Coverage on IPO Firms

This study investigates the effect of analysts’ recommendations and earnings forecasts for newly listed firms in the same industry. IPO underpricing is significantly lower as the number of firms whose investment recommendations are upgraded increases, supporting the contagion effect hypothesis that a high affinity for the industry has a positive effect on the IPO offer price. However, as the number of listed firms with higher earnings forecasts increases, IPO underpricing is higher, which supports the competitive effect hypothesis that the profit growth of competitors negatively affects IPO firms’ competitiveness. The effects vary depending on the competitive positions of both listed firms and IPO firms within the industry. The results also show that in industries with high concentration (i.e. low competition) , analyst information on listed firms has a greater contagion effect, while the competition effect hypothesis that better earnings forecasts for rival firms negatively affect IPO firms’ competitive position is not supported. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing the information spillover effect of analyst coverage in the IPO market by showing that the effects vary depending on the firms’ competitive positions as well as industry competition.

A Review of Hedge Fund Activism: Impact on Shareholders vs. Stakeholders

This chapter reviews the growing empirical literature on shareholder activism by hedge funds, summarizing the sources and nature of the activist data and examining the evidence on target firm outcomes. Target firms do not exist in a vacuum, however; they have industry competitors, suppliers, customers, debtholders, and employees. Hedge fund activists often demand a reformulation of the target firm’s product market strategy to enhance its ability to earn inframarginal profits. This positive strategic effect may be especially significant for target firms that are economically distressed and facing predatory moves from deep-pocketed rival firms to induce exit. The putative significant effects of hedge fund activism on targets should generate spillover effects on their stakeholders. The chapter considers these spillover effects in a number of well-defined categories: industry rivals, customers, suppliers, debtholders, and employees.

Green Innovation and Competition: R&D Incentives in a Circular Economy

The present paper provides theoretical insights regarding the determinants of firms’ incentives to invest in a Circular Economy. The analysis relies on a Cournot model disaggregating the disposal cost in the production function. In a non-simultaneous sequential game, two risk-neutral firms are endowed with a green innovation project that, if successful, would reduce the overall production costs and implement a Circular Economy. Firms are plagued by asymmetric information about the exact value of the other firm’s innovation. In this setting, the R&D investment in a Circular Economy, by affecting the distribution of production and disposal costs, influences the production decisions of both the innovating and the rival firms. The sign of the impact depends on the firms’ strategy in the product market. Furthermore, the analysis points out that cooperation in R&D of firms competing in the product market reinforces incentives to invest in green innovation. This suggests that governments aimed to advance a Circular Economy should encourage firms’ cooperation.

Competitive Dynamics in Strategic Management

Competitive dynamics inquiry originates from a sequence of attacks and counterattacks among firms in an industry. Firms attack and respond to attacks of rivals in order to strengthen or defend their competitive position within their competitive space. Competitive dynamics research is thus centered on the analysis of how the firm’s actions affect rivals’ reactions and performance. Actually, the nature of competitive dynamics research is the open recognition that firm strategies are “dynamic”: Strategic actions initiated by one firm may trigger a series of actions among rival firms. The new competitive environment in many industries has generated the inception of furious competition, emphasizing flexibility, speed, and innovation in response to fast-changing technological and institutional conditions and temporary competitive advantages. The key constructs and the intellectual roots of competitive dynamics (i.e., Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction and industrial organization economics and related oligopoly theories) offer some practical examples of industry and firm cases where competitive dynamics have found their main applications. The relevant underpinnings of the awareness–motivation–capability (AMC) framework provide an integrative model of the key behavioral drivers that shape a competitive actions and responses framework (i.e., the factors influencing the firm’s awareness of the context; the factors inducing or impeding the motivation of firms to respond to competitors’ action; and the capability-based factors affecting the firm’s ability to undertake actions), the three key attributes (i.e., the specific actions of firms in the industry, the firm’s competitive interdependence, and the antecedents and performance implications of firms’ competitive actions and reactions), and the three main levels of analysis used in competitive dynamics literature (i.e., action-level studies, business-level studies, and corporate-level studies). Some insights regarding the relationship between dynamic competition and the sources of temporary competitive advantage, coopetition dynamics, as well as the kind of accelerated competition epitomizing early 21st-century digital dynamics settings update the traditional competitive dynamics flavor, as they are connected with firms’ strategic interaction and the pursuit of temporary advantages.

Product Life Cycle and Time Varying Advertising Elasticity in Port Harcourt, Rivers State

The research study examines product life cycle and time-varying advertising elastics in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The population of the study consisted of 10 Television dealers, 10 Food and Beverages Distributors, 5 Tobacco Distributors, 10 Detergent Distributors, 10 Foam Mattress and Bedding Dealers and Suppliers registered with the Rivers State Chamber of Commerce. The sample size of the study consisted of 40 firms and a total of 120 respondents made up of owners, senior managers, sales representative and marketing executives in the frame of three (3) respondents from each firm were surveyed through the administration of questionnaire. The instrument for data collection contains 4 questions for the independent variable and 20 questions for dependent variables. Product life cycle was measured with time varying advertising elasticities, total scales of a product brand; advertising by rival firms, cumulative effect of past advertisement of product brand and advertising elasticity affected by other factors affecting demand for a product brand. The Cronbach Alpha was calculated to confirm the reliability of the study construct. The reliability coefficient obtained was 0.82 and the data generated were analyzed using mean and standard deviation scores. The researcher used Person Product Moment Correlation to test the stated hypotheses. Findings reveals that product life cycle is significantly associated with time varying advertising elasticities of product brand. The study conclude that to fully adopt product life cycle and the varying advertising elasticities dimension as key strategies for business cycle growth and continued survival. The researcher thus recommended that marketing and sales managers should utilize the huge benefit to advertising elasticity to campaign effectively in generating new sales in line with the product life cycle of a product life/brand, reduce product cost to prevent potential competitors, ensure the product should be reformulated and remodeled to suit the consumers’ preferences.

The town of bent necks: interorganizational causes and consequences of relational rivalry

PurposeThis study aims at developing a conceptual framework for the networking behaviour of firms having relational and non-relational competitive interactions. Initially the question of how negative ties change the meaning of competition for the rival firms was discussed and then how these types of interactions can change possible networking preferences of organizations were theoretically estimated.Design/methodology/approachThis study suggests that relational rivalry is closely linked with negative ties and even the emergence of strong positive ties among firms is viewed as a consequence of dyadic negative interactions. Different types of competitive conditions were classified under non-relational and relational categories.FindingsNot applicable.Originality/valueA majority of the studies on interorganizational networks are mostly concerned with positive tie formation patterns and the consequences of these interactions. However, there is limited number of macro-level studies, which realized explanatory potential of the negative interfirm relations. Negative interorganizational relations may also make significant contributions to the discipline of economic sociology.