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This paper aims to present existence comprehensive analysis of state of implementation of benchmarking concepts in Indian automotive companies.

The research is carried out through a mixed method of research approach comprising of a survey of 300 auto companies in India. Out of 300, 48 valid responses together with three additional case studies were used in the data analysis. Inclusion of case studies was aspired to get deeper insight into the issues pertaining to adoption of best practices, and subsequently the implementation of benchmarking activities.

Benchmarking has been unanimously accepted as an effective performance and productivity improvement tool by Indian auto companies. However, Indian automobile manufacturers still see benchmarking as a tool to compare product attributes, quality attributes, operations, and processes. Moreover, it has been perceived as being less applicable at strategic level. Results also show that benchmarking is in its primary stage in the Indian automotive industry, and it still needs much more commitment from top management for its proliferation. Lesser significance is given to competitor benchmarking due to the fear of losing competitive advantage, and the problem of confidentiality. Reasons identified in this study for not using benchmarking include “lack of human resources” as most important, followed by “financial constraints”, and “lack of internal expertise”.

Research results should be generalized and reproduced with a larger sample size. Owing to the scarce application of benchmarking in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), separate study should be carried out to find ways to encourage benchmarking implementation in Indian auto component manufacturing SMEs.

The paper provides insight into the extent of implementation of benchmarking concepts in Indian automobile industry. This study is the first attempt to understand propagation of benchmarking concepts, exclusively among Indian auto companies.

Value stream mapping (VSM) is a lean manufacturing (LM) tool used for analyzing material and information flow on a specific product family. The purpose of this article is to address the importance of VSM in LM environment in an Indian auto components industry.

The case study approach has been used to show the applicability and importance of VSM in an Indian auto components company, in which the current state of manufacturing is mapped with the help of VSM symbols. According to the current state mapping, the study conducted analysis and identifies the area of improvement needed in terms of work in process, lead time and cycle time. The study further implemented kaizen on the current state map and developed future state map while including these kaizens.

The study clearly shows that the VSM brings out the positive impact on process ratio, TAKT time, process inventory level, line speed, total lead and process time and reduced man power. It is helping the company in satisfying their customers with respect to quality, cost and delivery.

The main limitation of the study is the confined focus on a single industry. The case should be extended to other industries in order to support the findings and for the purpose of the wider generalization.

The results obtained from the study will help other industries and sectors to implement VSM in LM environment.

The article deals with a real case study, which shows application of VSM for implementing lean principles.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the agility performance level of manufacturing supply chains using Taguchi loss functions (TLFs) and design of experiment (DoE).

The proposed methodology is used for capturing the various agility losses using appropriate TLFs and the aggregated agility loss is calculated at different situations using DoE. The aggregated agility loss is analysed for comparing manufacturing supply chain agility performance.

The proposed methodology was applied to three Indian auto component supply chains, i.e. X, Y and Z. In total, 27 experiments were carried out using DoE and obtained results show that agility performance level is the highest for X followed by Z, whereas agility performance level is the least for Y.

The proposed methodology is generic in nature and can be applied to a specific environment for comparing performance of different supply chains. The user has to identify the relevant agility enablers and capture the appropriate TLFs for the specific environment in which agility performance level has to be calculated and compared.

The proposed methodology provides an effective approach for evaluating agility performance. It can be used by the supply chain manger to assess the supply chain agility performance level of own company with its competitors. These comparisons will help the manufacturing company to find the areas where it should focus.

Many studies and researches related to implementation and evaluation of agile manufacturing are reported in the literature but very few studies are available for evaluating the supply chain agility performance. This study will definitely provide a guideline for measuring and comparing manufacturing supply chain agility performance in general and Indian automotive supply chain in specific.

Marketing-managing customer relationship, market positioning, target marketing, product strategy, distribution, retailing and supply chain management, integrated marketing communications.

Undergraduate and graduate students in international marketing; business administration; strategic decision making and general management courses.

The case study focuses on the current scenario within the Indian automotive lubricants industry, in order to provide an understanding of the marketing challenges, especially in retailing and distribution, faced by organisations within this highly competitive sector. The case examines the implementation of marketing strategies into practice and provides an insight into the importance of branding, market segmentation, market positioning, product and pricing strategies and customer relationship management (CRM).

The case study enables the students to understand and analyse: the current business environment and dynamics of emergence in the Indian automotive lubricants market; the critical success factors for doing business in the Indian automotive lubricants market and the associated opportunities and challenges; the importance of distribution and retailing strategies in the Indian context; Izo's growth and expansion strategy in India; and Izo's sales management and CRM systems and there importance to the success of the business.

Teaching note.

Though there has been steady growth in the automobile sector in India, India is still a player of little consequence in global auto production. Despite total quality management (TQM) playing an increasingly important role in the survival and growth of companies in the automobile sector, the dynamic interactions among its subsystems have not received due attention in the literature. Based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award model, this paper develops causal relationships among the different variables that represent “enablers” and “results” – operating within 44 identified feedback loops. Of these loops, 33 are positive and 11 are negative. The resulting causal loop diagram provides an insight into understanding the dynamic interactions among TQM subsystems which helps identify proactive action in implementing the TQM philosophy.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, analyze and orient the enablers of Six Sigma to enhance supplier capability for an Indian manufacturing supply chain (SC).

In total, nine enablers of Six Sigma were identified through an extensive literature review and discussion held with managers/senior managers in different Indian manufacturing companies. The interpretative structural modeling (ISM) approach is applied to the Indian auto ancillary company for developing and analyzing the structural framework of enablers to enhance the supplier capability.

The enablers such as top management commitment and leadership, supply chain management, standardization, training and education, human resource management and project selection and execution methodology of Six Sigma related to supplier capability have emerged as the prominent enablers, which are driving force in the system for the Indian manufacturing SC.

This study is restricted to only one Indian manufacturing company. Therefore, the outcomes of the study should not be generalized. Further studies may be carried out for several Indian manufacturing industries to get a more comprehensive implementation approach, their validity and their variation across the different industries.

The simplicity and clarity of the proposed structural framework of Six Sigma helps in the identification and orientation of enablers for the successful implementation of Six Sigma in the SC. The proposed structural framework can be applied to different manufacturing SCs by allowing managers to structure the enablers considering their unique implementation constraints, which can reflect their priority considerations.

The study goes beyond the conceptual discussion of supplier capability issues. The supplier capability cannot be seen as a standalone approach irrespective of the constraints from the supplier domain as it is in synchronization with the entire SC performance. The enablers and their orientation with respect to the SC are providing a unique contribution toward supplier management planning. The outcomes from the proposed structural framework are used for developing action plans for organization “A” or other organizations to build suitable supplier capability in the SC.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between Chief Executive Officer (CEO) narcissism and firm performance. Further, it examined the moderation effects of CEO duality and top management team (TMT) and board member agreeableness on the CEO narcissism–firm performance relationship.

The study is based on survey data from 373 CEOs in the automobile industry in India. The paper used mixed method research where CEO narcissism and TMT agreeableness has been measured using survey instruments, other data such as firm performance has been captured using secondary sources.

The study confirms that the relationship between CEO narcissism and firm performance is curvilinear, meaning that narcissism can positively impact firm performance to a point, but may become counter-productive or ineffective beyond that. Further, CEO duality and TMT and board member agreeableness significantly impact this relationship.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how CEO behavior can affect variance in firm performance. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications and offer suggestions for future research.

This paper traces the historical evolution and growth trajectory of the automotive and farm equipment sector, which is a very significant entity of the Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) group. The purpose of this paper is to understand and provide a pragmatic framework through which the authors can see what were the internal and external factors and the spirit of the contemporary times that led to the changes in the nature of the group.

The “Greiner curve” model has been applied to interpret the evolutionary growth of the group and strategic trajectory explaining characteristics in its different phases.

M&M initially went through its share of learning and grew through pragmatic and, orchestrated entrepreneurial risk. The group made a very successful transition from a proprietorship model to a professionally managed group. It is found that rapid growth has been possible through innovation led collaboration. The group is increasingly organizing its innovation activities around the development of responses to specific challenges.

This study suffers from methodological limitations associated with a stage model that the estimated length of the time the organizations will stay in a phase is not known. It is unclear whether passage through all stages is necessary; or whether, in some circumstances, one or more stages may be omitted, and if variations in sequencing can occur. The data for the initial years was not available in primary form and the paper had to depend entirely on the secondary sources.

Various strategies adopted by the group from time to time have practical implications for Indian economy. The group has faced many challenges, but challenge-led collaboration-driven approach represents a new type of innovation process that contrasts with other methods of business strategies and provides a sharper focus for managerial and technical issues and brings together stakeholders with diverse interests, expertise and perspectives.

This study is a unique attempt in India to trace the evolution of the strategic interventions in the context of a major business group, which is considered to be a symbolic representation of Indian economic history. The paper has got both academic as well as managerial utility.

Quality management among multiple business units of a large organization is often difficult if each unit is run independently in terms on their quality standards. In this case, participants will discuss how Bukhari Group of Companies should establish a common brand image through standardized quality. Participants should also understand that common brand image for diverse products does not mean identical level of rejection or customer complaints. It should be understood that different markets have different tolerance for product failures. The participants can chalk out the measures the protagonist of the case should be able to take to effectively steer the Bhukari Group to achieve profits and excellence.

Intellectual capital (IC) has been recognized in improving the efficiency of businesses and gaining competitive edge in the developed world. The present study offers perspectives into the effect of IC on the efficiency of the Indian financial sector companies.

For the purpose of evaluating efficiency, the research has used stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). All Indian financial sector companies listed in National Stock Exchange (NSE-500) for the timeframe of ten years (2008–2018) have been considered. The paper has employed modified Pulic's Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC^TM) as a proxy to measure IC. Correlation and panel data regression have been used in order to examine the relationship.

The results of the study indicate positive and significant relationship between IC and efficiency of the firm. The results also show that all the components of IC, that is, human capital, relational capital, process capital and capital employed have a significant impact on firms' efficiency. Additionally, it has been seen that sample companies do not invest in research and development leading to no innovation capital.

The research will assist managers in managing and controlling the IC, investors in matters related to investment and financial experts in improving the company's IC and value creation.

The current research is one of the pioneering studies in the context of Indian financial sector that examines the impact of modified VAIC on operational efficiency calculated using SFA.