Search results

1. To analyze the various business models and choose the best model to contribute maximum profit to the company.2. To understand the importance of customer management with the help of the Net Promoter Score in the food retail context.3. To develop customer loyalty strategies and implement them to improve customer management?

39 Bakers, a multi-outlet bakery chain in Jammu, India, is run by its founder Gagan. 39 Bakers, through its retail outlets across the Jammu region, offers a variety of products, ranging from bakery items that include blends of Indian and Italian cuisines, offering more than 1000 stock keeping units (SKUs). Through its high-quality offerings at an affordable price range, the brand has carved a niche in the hyper-competitive bakery market of the Jammu region. Gagan, has closely seen the Jammu market and customer preferences and strongly perceived that the customers in the Jammu region are very price sensitive. Thus, he has always been very reluctant to increase the prices of his product offerings at 39 Bakers. He has always believed that any drastic price rise may lead to immediate dissatisfaction and customer churn and therefore has not increased the prices at 39 Bakers for two years in a row. While this decision of Gagan paid off in terms of its popularity and recognition as one of the highly recommended bakery chains among customers, it drastically impacted the bottom line (i.e. profitability) at 39 Bakers, especially in the year 2020–21. Getting popularity at the cost of dipping profitability made Gagan rethink his decision to be protective of price increases at 39 bakers. How can he measure customer satisfaction and loyalty? Which loyalty strategies will work for the huge customer base of Jammu? Should he change his business model from B2C to B2B? How can loyalty be established? How can he manage his existing and loyal customers through price increases?

The case study is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Marketing Management and Retail Marketing. The case study’s focus can be on the importance of pricing, business model evaluation, customer management analysis, customer loyalty, Customer Loyalty analysis, and net promoters score. The case can also be useful to entrepreneurs and regulators.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This study aims to investigate the impact of a salesperson’s psychological capital (PsyCap) on sales performance through the interplay of work engagement and performance feedback. This study examines the role of thought self-leadership (TSL) as an antecedent of a salesperson’s PsyCap.

Grounded in the social cognitive theory and job demands–resources theory, a hypothesized model is proposed. To test the hypothesized model, data on sales professionals were collected from B2B sales organizations, and a structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.

The results demonstrate that TSL drives PsyCap in salespeople. The results also suggest an interesting relationship between salesperson’s PsyCap and their sales performance through work engagement as a mediator for PsyCap and sales performance. The moderating effect of performance feedback on work engagement was not significant and thus counterintuitive.

The results suggest that organizations should invest in training to develop the TSL of their salesforce, which will lead to enhanced performance through personal resources such as PsyCap. Further, the findings have implications for sales organization designs and structure.

This study augments the extant information on the linkage between a salesperson’s PsyCap and sales performance by suggesting mediation mechanisms and proposing an integrated framework with work engagement. Further, the authors establish TSL as an important cognitive mechanism to strengthen PsyCap in salespeople.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the velocity and temperature profile for a two-dimensional flow of single- and multi-walled nanotubes (CNTs)/H₂O nanofluid over a flat porous plate, under the impact of non-uniform heat sink/source and radiation. The influence of suction/blowing, viscous dissipation and magnetic field is also incorporated.

The solution of the PDEs describing the flow of nanofluid is accomplished using Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg approach with shooting scheme.

Quantities of physical importance such as local Nusselt number and skin friction coefficient for both types of nanotubes are computed and shown in tables. Also, the impact of copious factors like Prandtl number, magnetic field, Eckert number, porosity parameter, radiation parameter, non-linear stretching parameter, injection/suction, heating variable, particle volume fraction and non-uniform heat sink/source parameter on temperature and velocity profile is explained in detail with the aid of graphs.

Till date, no study has been reported that examines the role of radiation and non-uniform heat sink/source on MHD flow of CNTs‒water nanofluid over a porous plate. The numerical outcomes attained for the existing work are original and their originality is authenticated by comparing them with earlier published work. This problem is of importance, as there are many applications of the fluid flowing over a flat porous plate.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the problem of thermal destratification facing engineers and scientists during the motion of fluids which consist of rigid and randomly oriented particles suspended in a viscous medium under the influence of Lorentz force. This paper provides an insight into the non-linear transfer of thermal radiation within the boundary layer.

Similarity transformation and parameterization of the non-linear partial differential equation are carried out. The approximate analytical solution of the governing equation which models the free convective flow of strong and weak concentration of micro-elements in a micropolar fluid over a vertical surface is presented.

It is observed that the velocity and temperature distribution are decreasing properties of thermal stratification parameter S_t. Maximum local skin friction coefficients are ascertained at an epilimnion level (S_t=0) when the magnitude of thermal radiation is small. Thermal stratification parameter has no significant effect on the temperature distribution in the flow near a free stream.

The relationship between stratification of temperature and the transfer of thermal energy during the problem of thermal destratification facing engineers and scientist during the motion of fluids which consist of rigid and randomly oriented particles suspended in a viscous medium under the influence of Lorentz force is unravelled in this paper.

Blockchain technology (BCT), since its emergence touted to be disruptive, is gaining momentum, especially in the agri-food system owing to its multiple benefits.

The authors attempted to conduct a systematic bibliometric visualization analysis of the BCT in the agri-food system. The analysis investigated the list of countries and institutions that conducted research on BCT in agriculture, growth trend analysis in research publications, bibliographic coupling of journals using the VOSviewer tool, and the countries and institutions researching BCT.

The authors discovered that China, the USA and India were the highly active countries in BCT research and publication. However, India has only limited research collaboration with other countries as compared to China and the USA. The keyword analysis indicates the role of BCT in order to maintain the transparency of the supply chain by means of protecting the privacy of the personal data of the stakeholders.

More research related to the implementation of BCT in livestock, fishery and agro-forestry sector is recommended.

The case examined is of particular interest as it is concerned with efficient supply chain management.

This study adds value and evidence to the scope and benefits of BCT by providing a comprehensive literature review, with a special focus on the opportunities and challenges concerned with implementation of BCT in the Indian agri-food system.

1. Blockchain technology (BCT) – a promising tool to resolve issues in agriculture supply chain.

2. BCT ensures transparency and protection of information along the supply chain transactions.

3. China, the USA and India are the highly active countries in BCT research and publication.

4. Multiple potential benefits to stakeholders are attributed to the BCT in the agri-food system.

5. The key challenge is to bridge the digital gap between developed and developing nations.

6. Future research on BCT should aim at easing and undistorted competition among stakeholders.

Blockchain technology (BCT) – a promising tool to resolve issues in agriculture supply chain.

BCT ensures transparency and protection of information along the supply chain transactions.

China, the USA and India are the highly active countries in BCT research and publication.

Multiple potential benefits to stakeholders are attributed to the BCT in the agri-food system.

The key challenge is to bridge the digital gap between developed and developing nations.

Future research on BCT should aim at easing and undistorted competition among stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of non-linear thermal radiation, Joule heating and viscous dissipation on the mixed convection boundary layer flow of MHD nanofluid flow over a thin moving needle.

The equations directing the flow are reduced into ODEs by implementing similarity transformation. The Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg method with a shooting technique was implemented.

Numerical outcomes for the coefficient of skin friction and the rate of heat transfer are tabulated and discussed. Also, the boundary layer thicknesses for flow and temperature fields are addressed with the aid of graphs.

Till now, no numerical study investigated the combined influence of Joule heating, non-linear thermal radiation and viscous dissipation on the mixed convective MHD flow of silver-water nanofluid flow past a thin moving needle. The numerical results for existing work are new and their novelty verified by comparing them with the work published earlier.

This paper aims to review and critically assess the role that data visualizations played as communication media tools to help society during a worldwide crisis. This paper re-creates and analyzes several visualizations, critically and ethically assesses their strengths and limitations and provides a set of best practices that are informative, accurate, ethical and engaging at each stage in a reader’s interest.

The paper bases its methodology on the construct of “The Network Society” (Van Dijk, 2006; Castells, 2000, 2006) by creating a series of social networked visualizations, identifying the challenges and pitfalls associated with this communication approach and suggesting best practices in information communication technology. The case study is COVID-19.

The research in this study found that visual data dashboards and interactive Web-based charts did play a significant role in helping society understand COVID-19’s impact to make better informed decisions about society’s health and safety.

Visual expositions of data do have strengths and weaknesses depending on how they are designed, how they communicate the story and how they are ethically deployed. Best practices are provided to help mitigate these limitations.

Visualizations are certainly not new, but the technology for rapidly developing and sharing them is new. Visual expositions provide an effective media for communicating complex information to a networked society.

Visual expositions provide an effective media for communicating complex information to a networked society.

This paper highlights the significance of the need to understand complex data in a crisis in a visual format and to communicate the information quickly, persuasively, effectively and ethically to a networked audience.

This research focuses on suggesting an optimized model for selecting best employees using advanced multi-criteria decision making method to a supply chain firm, who is planning to start a new cold chain business vertical.

Study has been conducted in a supply chain firm in North India, who wants to expand its business with the help of efficient team members. In total 38 applicants were considered for the study, as selected by the firm after initial screening from pool of talent. AHP-LP and TOPSIS-LP integrated approach were applied separately for evaluation and implementation of personnel selection model. Further, both the approaches were compared to find the best fit and optimized model.

As per the findings, both AHP and TOPSIS can be used to select the best candidate among the alternatives available. TOPSIS was found easier to implement as it involves ranking of applicants with respect to each skills required for respective job profile only once, whereas AHP involves pair-wise comparison among candidates with respect to each skills required for respective job profile and normalization of each comparison, resulting in the formation of number of comparison matrices. However, AHP is more reliable as it considers consistency check for each level of pair-wise comparison. Hence, there is a chance to avoid or revise the human judgment error. Integrated ranking and optimization approach minimizes the cost by suggesting the relevant positions to be filed to make an efficient team.

Group of interviewers are involved in the decision-making process, hence there are chances of biasness in ranking method which can influence the group decision. Research is limited to a particular geography of North India therefore needs to be tested for other regions also in order to generalize. The research will help the third party logistics (3PL) and other related firms in efficient team selection.

The researcher focuses on formalizing a method for potential candidate selection by considering the constraints of the organization. It has been observed that limited researches have been done on the application of AHP-LP or TOPSIS-LP integrated approach for selection process. Hence, this research proposes two integrated ranking-optimization method and suggests the best fit by comparing both the approaches.

This paper aims to find the best tools to influence the improvement of sustainability in food supply chains (FSCs) by conducting a systematic review of articles. The reader will learn how the different industry 4.0 tools (I4.0T) benefit the FSC and the limitations of each tool.

A review of 436 articles published during the period 2019 to 2022 referenced in the Scopus and Web of Science databases was performed. The review was limited to articles published in English and directly related to Industry 4.0, circular economy and sustainability in the food supply chain.

The results show different contributions of I4.0, with some being more influential than others in improving sustainability in FSCs; for example, Internet of Things and Blockchain have been shown to contribute more toward transparency, traceability, process optimization and waste reduction.

The paper's contribution consisted of ranking according to their importance and the I4.0T that affect sustainability in FSCs by classifying the aspects of each tool and the sustainability factors through a categorization by the Analysis Hierarchy Process.