Challenges and Issues in E-Banking Services and Operations in Developing Countries

In recent years we have seen a number of changes in banking sector of India. Main objective of banks is to create more value for customers; that is why most of the banks have begun to take an innovative approach for this purpose. In the world of banking and finance, nothing stands still. Now a day's banking activities is not limited to deposit and lending money to customers Apart from traditional business, banks provide a wide range of services to satisfy the needs of all types of customers whether it is financial or non-financial needs from the smallest account holder to the largest company and in some cases of non-customers. As a result of recent developments, the entire banking industry has restructured and new technologies are also introduced to make it competitive. Revolution of Information Technology has made it possible to provide ease and flexibility in operations to customers thus making life simpler and easier so bank can provide a variety of products and services to the customers. The E-Banking process has changed the way of working of banks across the world. In the chapter, the author reviews the literature on “The issues and challenges of e-banking service operation” what is the perception of people towards E-Banking in different developing countries?” As E-Banking is an emerging concept in the field of commerce and banking. This paper furnishes the study of E-banking in developing countries through an analysis of content & existing literature that focused on developing countries. The main purpose of the study is to present the current level of research on E-banking in developing countries. Electronic banking (e-banking) is the new technology in banking environment that allows the bank customers to do banking activities at any time and from any place.

Systems for Knowledge Management along the Supply Chain

This chapter explains the role of knowledge management systems, whether technology-based or people-based, in service supply chain management. A systematic literature review was carried out to identify relevant examples of both successful and unsuccessful knowledge management systems. These are analyzed in terms of process, people and technology aspects, and the activities in the knowledge life-cycle (create, acquire, store, use, refine, transfer) that they support. These include systems used within a single organization, systems shared with supply chain partners, and systems shared with customers, the latter being the least common. Notable features are that more systems support knowledge exploitation than knowledge exploration, and that general-purpose software (e.g., internet search, database) is used more than software specific to knowledge management (e.g., data mining, “people finder”). The widespread use of mobile devices and social media offers both an opportunity and a challenge for future knowledge management systems development.

Dynamic Vehicle Routing Solution in the Framework of Nature-Inspired Algorithms

Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP), a well-known combinatorial optimization problem had been presented by Dantzing and Hamser in 1959. The problem has taken its inspiration from the transport field. In real field environment, a lot of variants of the problem exist that actually belongs to the class of NP-hard problem. Dynamic Vehicle routing problem (DVRP) is one of the variant of VRP that varies with respect to time. In DVRP, new customer orders appear over time and new route must be reconfigured at any instantaneous time. Although, some exact algorithms such as dynamic programming methods, branch and bound etc. can be applied to find the optimal route of a smaller size VRP. But, These Algorithms fail to give the solution of existed model of VRP in real field environment under given real time constraints. Courier services, dial a ride services and express mail delivery etc. are the few examples of real field environment problems that can be formulated in the form of DVRP. In this chapter, A novel variants of DVRP named as DVRP with geographic ranking (DVRP-GR) has been proposed. In DVRP-GR, geographical ranking, customer ranking, service time, expected reachability time, customer satisfaction level have been optimized. A solution of DVRP-GR using seed based particle swarm optimization (S-DVRS-PSO) has been also proposed. The simulations have been performed using customized simulator developed in C++ environment. The data sets used in the simulations are OMK-01, OMK-02 and OMK-03 generated in real vehicular environment. The solution of the proposed algorithm has been compared with the randomized solution technique. Analysis of the simulation results confirms the effectiveness of the proposed solution in terms of various parameters considered viz. number of vehicles, expected reachability time, profit and customer satisfaction.

Assessing the Readiness of Farmers towards Cold Chain Management

The purpose of the paper is to gain an insight into the current status of farmers' awareness and practices towards maintaining the postharvest cold chain. The related hypotheses are developed and tested. The major findings include- marginalized and small farms, literacy and poor awareness level are the main causes for the backwardness of Indian farmers. Also, lack of funds forces farmers to ignore the use of cold storage. Further, multi-intermediaries and fluctuating consumer prices result farmers in not getting fair share of the consumer rupee. One of the major challenges in front of fresh food industry in India is to reduce postharvest losses across the chain through increasing awareness level of famers towards cold chain, building market information systems to assist farmers in decision-making and improving food safety and quality of farm produce available in the market.

Mapping Sustainable Tourism into Emergency Management Structure to Enhance Humanitarian Networks and Disaster Risk Reduction using Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Initiatives in Himalayan States

The overall aim of the paper is to analyze supply chain performance in humanitarian context, in aligning with PPP interventions for Himalayan States. A preliminary Framework for Performance evaluation of private and public actors, with seven constructs has been formulated viz. Mutual Coordination; Risk Management; Organizational Structure; Humanitarian Operational Assessment; Service Quality; Operation Flexibility; Humanitarian Logistics cost has developed for Humanitarian operations in Himalayan region. Five Hypotheses were tested using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The results show that PPP efficacy in humanitarian logistics enhances the sustainability of local economy. Implementation of Public Private Partnership (PPP) as a new strategy in managing disaster, the study suggest that they should complement each other with certain characteristics such as: (1) Mutual Coordination; (2) Shared Risk and Profits/ Benefits; and (3). Organizational Arrangement and it should also support the sustainability of Tourism industry.

Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets-Based Method for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making

In this study, the familiarity or expertise of the experts with the evaluation areas (called confidence levels) is also incorporated in the multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) process under intuitionistic fuzzy environment, i.e. two types of information is involved: one is the performance of the evaluation objects under intuitionistic fuzzy environment and other is the familiarity or expertise with the evaluation areas. In this direction recently, Yu (2014) proposed some operators to aggregate the two types information described above effectively. In this paper, the weighted confidence level is used instead of simply confidence levels as used by Yu (2014) to enhance MCDM method under intuitionistic fuzzy environment. So, two operators such as intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging operator under weighted confidence level (IFWAOUWCL) and intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric operator under weighted confidence level (IFWGOUWCL) are introduced to aggregate the two types of information. Finally, the presented technique is implemented effectively to a real life problem of supply selection.

Indian Handicraft and Globalization

Globalization has made the whole world one compartment and makes a single village a global village. Indian handicraft products have great opportunities both in the domestic and international markets. Main products of handicrafts consist of art metal wares, embroidered and crocheted goods, shawls and art wares, and Zari goods, woods wares, hand printed textiles and imitation jewelry. Indian Handicrafts, which constitutes a significant segment of the decentralized sector of the economy, its export has reached at a commendable height. Indian folk art and crafts which are the integral parts of the Indian culture and tradition are in high demand among the western consumers. A lot of manufacturing units are established in rural and small towns, which generate employment for a million of artisans. Indian exports are showing a growing trend. Like every coin has two sides, globalization is not separate from this point it also not only have positive impact on artisans industry but there are some negative consequences too on which this chapter is trying to put some light.

Operational Efficacy of 3PL in Reverse Logistics and Closed Loop Supply Chain

The paper presents an empirical research aims to establish service quality relationship between focal firm and 3PL operations and their performance in a reverse logistic and closed loop supply chain particularly in emerging economies like India and China. Seven Constructs has been formulated viz. Outsourcing contract between focal firm – 3PL; Supply Chain Integration; 3PL operational assessment; Service Quality; Return shipping; Lead-time; Reverse logistics cost. Five hypotheses were tested using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The results shows the efficacy of reverse logistics determine the customer satisfaction, whereas the degree of supply chain integration between focal firm and 3PL. The research gives broad insight on the 3PL functionality in reverse logistics especially for consumer centric emerging market places.

Scenario Planning

A crystal ball methodology that foresees the future is probably one of the most sought-after tools by any organization operating in this ever-changing world. The ability to correctly navigate through uncertainties and drastic changes in the external environment is found to be limited when an inward perspective of the company is utilized. The measurement of performance indicator and the mining of usable information in a sea of big data, among other approaches, may provide limited results in guiding the company towards choosing effective strategic decisions that will sustain the company in the future. This chapter is an effort to pursue an alternative perspective in planning by using Scenario Planning, a group thinking process that encourages knowledge exchange and development of mutual deeper understanding of central issues important to the future of an organization. Applying Scenario Planning framework, a structured approach is elaborated to describe a replicable methodology for sensing critical uncertainties in the external environment. These uncertainties are then utilized as the foundations for creating scenarios, which are attempts at vivid visualizations of how the future may look like. In this research, the effectiveness of the methodology has been demonstrated on the supply chain of Clariant, a Specialty Chemicals Company headquartered in Switzerland, by developing three scenarios that are sample representations of a whole range of plausible futures. These scenarios are differentiated by combinations of high and low conditions of the three critical uncertainties identified: (1) Emergence of trading blocks, (2) Changing consumer needs/behavior, and (3) Changes in logistics infrastructure. These critical uncertainties are also used to further design a new breed of indicators that are used as ground-sensors to monitor which direction the future is heading to. In addition, Scenario Planning also provides a fertile platform on which organizational learning can organically grow. The steps used in the methodology forces users of the scenarios to challenge existing mental models resulting to a wider perspective and appreciation of the dynamics that surround and impact an organization in the future.

Development of Key Performance Measures for Sustainable Manufacturing in Global SMEs

Sustainable manufacturing strives to produces the goods by minimizing negative environmental impact and reducing the resource consumptions. It also strives for safety of employee and community while maintaining an affordable cost. This study focuses on the development of a set of measures and metrics for assessing sustainability performance of manufacturing SMEs. In this study, various literatures on sustainable manufacturing performance measurement, green manufacturing, traditional manufacturing performance measurement and performance measurements in manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are reviewed. Triple Bottom Line (TBL) is considered as framework in order to establish the relevant measures in an effective and comprehensive manner. The measures for performance measurements are classified in the three aspects of TBL known as economic, environmental and social. Therefore, 6 measures with 26 indicators, 8 measures with 31 indicators and 3 measures with 23 indicators were identified for economic, environmental and social aspects respectively. To establish the importance and applicability of developed measures, a survey will be conducted among the experts from academics and industries. Using survey results, a sustainability performance measurement model will be developed and presented.