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The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of economic and social factors influencing the logistics cost for the Indian steel sector and its relationship with the service quality.

A structured questionnaire survey is used for the data collection in this research. The questionnaire included different elements of logistics cost on inbound and outbound logistics, and service quality.

This research identified various significant elements of logistics cost for Indian steel sector and observed its relationship with transportation cost, warehousing cost and administrative cost. The findings of this study showed positive relationship between logistics cost and service quality.

The data for this study is cross-sectional; it is recommended that future studies can gather it longitudinally. This will help in gaining deeper understanding of the cause and effect relationship among the variables. The findings of this study are very useful in identifying the suitable training directions.

Logistics is very critical factor in deciding the competitiveness of steel sector globally. Particularly for steel manufacturing the inbound logistics is more critical as compared to outbound logistics both in terms of volumes and costs.

For the Indian steel manufacturing companies, the logistics cost is very high as compared to other developed countries. Total logistics cost on inbound movements taken into consideration is around 16-18 per cent of material turn-over whereas; the world average is around 7-8 per cent.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this study is the first attempt to study the relationship of logistics cost elements on the service quality in the context of Indian steel manufacturing sector. The logistics cost in steel industry is considered as one of the top performance measurement of the entrepreneur in this research.

In today’s highly competitive business scenario, advertising symbolizes one of the key marketing activities. The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between advertisement effectiveness and consumer buying behavior for major automobile companies of central India.

A judicious mix of qualitative (focus group and Delphi technique) and quantitative (structured questionnaire survey) research methods was used for the present study.

Study found that for automobile sector, effective advertisements have a positive impact on consumer buying behavior. It suggests that customer’s attitude can be shaped favorably through effective advertising. Automobile companies must arrange special training sessions and learning programs for their sales force to ensure supportive customer purchasing behavior.

The scope of the present study is limited to major automobile companies of central India only. Although, the findings can be interpreted and generalized in a global business scenario.

The research work is first of its kind that attempts to study the impact of effective advertising on consumer buying behavior in Indian automobile context. The findings and recommendations can be used for strategic planning of training sessions and workshops for different stakeholders in automobile industry.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of the concept of service quality in a supply chain and present a framework for its measurement.

A literature review was conducted on key service quality models and measurement issues. Various dimensions related to the quality of service were explored. This was followed by in‐depth exploratory interviews at different levels. Based on the insights gained, a conceptual framework for measurement of quality of service in supply chain is presented.

The paper presents a conceptual model of service quality in supply chains based on gap analysis. These gaps are bi‐directional. The bi‐directional gaps cover both inter‐ and intra‐organizational transactions in the supply chain. They include the gap between supplier and focal firm, focal firm and distributor, and distributor and customer. Further, implications of various factors such as economic, politico‐legal, technical, socio‐cultural, competition, demographic are also highlighted. A novel methodology for the measurement of these gaps using various tools such as quality loss function, data envelope analysis, etc. is also presented along with segregating indicators in three categories, namely, quality of service indicators, quality of service and performance indicators, and performance indicators.

The assessment of quality of service in the supply chain is an attempt to cover the relatively less explored area. It is expected that this research will further motivate researchers to work in this area. This service quality framework will be beneficial to researchers and practicing managers in identification of opportunities for improvements in service quality.

This paper explores research in the less explored area and offers practical help to researchers and practitioners in providing a direction for service quality improvement in the supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perception of Indian logistics managers and employees engaged on the steel sector having knowledge and exposure on the logistics network and logistics cost in Indian steel sector using descriptive analysis.

To address the research questions, a survey-based empirical study was carried out in a representative sample of 226 from different levels like managers, senior managers, presidents and vice presidents and general managers at the operational levels at reputed steel industries having annual turnover of 250,000 dollars. All 226 responses received and analyzed descriptively and the results presented.

The result showed that 83 percent of the respondents perceived the importance of network mapping and the elements of logistics cost with reference to the total overall logistics cost on the context of Indian steel industry. At the same time, poor infrastructure and port inefficiency were the main barriers for increasing the logistics cost as perceived by the respondents.

The sample is restricted to the logistics networking and the elements of logistics cost in Indian steel industry only. So caution needs to be exercised in generalizing the results

In order to achieve the cost level at other developed and developing nations, the government of India should give focus on infrastructure development, improvising the exiting road condition and sea port development so that bigger size vessels can call to Indian ports for direct delivery of goods without any transshipment. Further, government of Indian needs to promote the multi modal logistics providers for timely evacuation of material as per the demand of industry requirements.

In India, it is visualized that logistics company have an advantage of cheap availability of labor but on the other side have to manage high cost of logistics. Typically, the total cost on inbound logistics taken into consideration which is around 16-18 percent of the turnover whereas, the world average is around 7-8 percent.

To the best knowledge of the authors this study is the first attempt to survey the perception of logistics managers on logistics networking and cost elements on the overall logistics cost incurring on steel manufacturing companies in India.

The main objective of this paper is to critically appraise various service quality models and identify issues for future research based on the critical analysis of literature.

The paper critically examines 19 different service quality models reported in the literature. The critical review of the different service quality models is intended to derive linkage between them, and highlight the area for further research.

The review of various service quality model revealed that the service quality outcome and measurement is dependent on type of service setting, situation, time, need etc factors. In addition to this even the customer's expectations towards particular services are also changing with respect to factors like time, increase in the number of encounters with a particular service, competitive environment, etc. This paper provides a rich agenda for future research in the subject.

This research developed a linkage between the different service quality models.

The growth of literature in the field of service quality seems to have developed sequentially, providing a continuous updating and learning from the findings/observations of predecessors. This paper provides new directions to service quality researchers.

This paper explores new directions in service quality research and offers practical help to researchers and practitioners in providing a direction for service quality improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the properties of the classical goodness of fit test statistics X², G², GM², and NM² in testing quality of process represented as the trinomial distribution with dip null hypothesis and to devise a control chart for the trinomial distribution with dip null hypothesis based on demerit control chart.

The research involves the linear form of the test statistics, the linear function of counts since the marginal distribution of the counts in any category is binomial or approximated Poisson, in which the uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator is the linear function of counts. A control chart is used for monitoring student characteristics in Thailand. The control chart statistics based on an average of the demerit value computed for each student as a weighted average lead to a uniformly most powerful unbiased test marginally. The two‐sided control limits were obtained using percentile estimates of the empirical distribution of the averages of the demerit.

The demerit control chart of the weight set (1, 25, 50) shows a generally good performance, robust to direction of out‐of‐control, mostly outperforms the GM² and is recommended. The X², NM² are not recommended in view of inconsistency and bias. The performance of the demerit control chart of the weight set (1, 25, 50) does not dramatically change between both directions.

None of the multivariate control charts for counts presented in the literature deals with trinomial distribution representing the practical index of the quality of the production/process in which the classification of production outputs into three categories of “good”, “defective”, and “reworked” is common. The demerit‐based control chart presented here can be applied directly to this situation.

The research considers how to deal with the trinomial distribution with dip null hypothesis which no research study so far has presented. The study shows that the classical Pearson's X², Loglikelihood, modified Loglikelihood, and Neyman modified X² could fail to detect an “out‐of‐control”. This research provides an alternative control chart methodology based on demerit value with recommended weight set (1, 25, 50) for use in general.

To implement a customer-centric vision in the digital era requires leadership that champions principles, processes and practices that promote customer value and corporate agility.

In the digital age organization the CEO’s job description, and those of all the leadership team, will require radical redesign.

A successful digital-age CEO is an entrepreneur with a passion for creating new value for customers and a preoccupation with strategic agility and discerning new business opportunities.

Perhaps the most critical feature of digital-era CEOs’ jobs is their focus on the continuous creation of new businesses.

A successful digital-age CEO is an entrepreneur with a passion for creating new value for customers and a preoccupation with strategic agility and discerning new business opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to compare some major National Quality Award/Business Excellence Models (NQA/BEM) in terms of the criteria employed and their relative weights. It shows that these models vary both in terms of criteria and their weights. Whereas some of them are changing weights frequently, others are almost static. It employs the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to allocate scores to 12 criteria identified in the model by Agrawal et al. (1998) to propose a modified quality award model similar to that. The six quality award models used in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and India are compared with the proposed model using AHP and their relative rankings are obtained.

First, a literature review is done to identify various quality award models globally, with their features being compared. Furthermore, paired comparison technique is used to rationalize the relative weights of proposed 12 criteria, and then AHP is again used to rank this proposed model with six major award models.

This paper shows that the six NQA models vary substantially on parameter weights. They do not include some relevant criteria to evaluate the organizational performance holistically. It also reveals how some models have been revising criteria weights very frequently, whereas others are static. In some models, the results get much higher weightage than enablers, and hence the performance may not be sustainable. The modified Agrawal et al. (1998) model is taken as a base model, with weights rationalized in it using the AHP. The rankings obtained using AHP reveal that proposed model scores over the other six prominent quality award models. The result also reveals that for organizational excellence, the quality of people plays a major role in the successful implementation of quality processes. Hence, it is very important to focus on improving the quality of people before expecting improvement in the quality of products and services.

The paired comparison results are based on the researchers’ own perception and do not consider interdependence among the criteria, which is a limitation of AHP. Analytic network process can be further explored to overcome the limitation. The proposed model has not been tested in a variety of real-world situations, which can constitute a scope for further work in the direction.

The proposed model framework and weightages evolved using AHP can provide a universally acceptable quality award model framework. The companies can adopt it with or without modifications to address their contextual adaptation. It can possibly become a standard model framework globally. This model does not capture the measurement of the softer aspects that impact the people quality. As people play an important role in the success of the implementation of any practice, hence measurement of people quality is another important aspect that can be further studied and researched.

This comparative study & analysis of National Quality Award/Business Excellence Models using AHP is presented for the first time. The authors have not come across any such studies in their literature review. This paper is an original conceptualization of the application of the AHP on the various Quality Award model parameters, and it has been submitted exclusively to JAMR for publishing.