Developing new products for emerging markets: a competency based approach

Emerging markets as represented by BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries signify an enormous growth opportunity and a must win market for MNCs (multinational companies). It is estimated that by 2013, the middle class in BRIC countries will be larger than the population of Western Europe, USA and Japan combined. For companies focusing on developing new products, emerging markets represent a large and potentially attractive new customer base. Unfortunately, MNCs are strategically disadvantaged in developing new products for the emerging markets. Compared to developed markets, emerging markets have significant geographical, economic, social, culture, infrastructure and governmental differences. The problem is exacerbated as MNCs continue to rely on predictable business models that have been built on years of experience in developed markets. To become a market leader, MNCs must seriously challenge their existing business model and strategic framework to address the nuances of emerging markets. BRIC should be viewed through a different lens and the deeply embedded values, processes and resources modified to win in emerging markets

Evaluation of Plan Implementation:

Since the 1980s China has experienced unprecedented urbanisation as a result of a series of reforms promoting rapid economic development. Shanghai, like the other big cities along China’s coastline, has witnessed extraordinary growth in its economy and population with industrial development and rural-to-urban migration generating extensive urban expansion. Shanghai’s GDP growth rate has been over 10 per cent for more than 15 years. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 23.47 million, which is double its size in 1979. The urban area enlarged by four times from 644 to 2,860 km2 between 1977 and 2010. Such demanding growth and dramatic changes present big challenges for urban planning practice in Shanghai. Plans have not kept up with development and the mismatch between the proposals in plans and the actual spatial development has gradually increased, reaching a critical level since 2000. The mismatch in the periurban areas is more notable than that in the existing urban area, but there has not been a systematic review of the relationship between plan and implementation. Indeed, there are few studies on the evaluation of plan implementation in China generally. Although many plans at numerous spatial levels are successively prepared and revised, only few of them have been evaluated in terms of their effectiveness and implementation.  This particularly demanding context for planning where spatial development becomes increasingly unpredictable and more difficult to influence presents an opportunity to investigate the role of plans under conditions of rapid urbanisation. The research project asks to what extent have spatial plans influenced the actual spatial development in the peri-urban areas of Shanghai? The research pays particular attention to the role of the Shanghai Master Plan 1999-2020 (Plan 1999). By answering the main research question this study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of present planning practice in Shanghai from a plan implementation perspective, and to establish an analytical framework for the study of the role of plans that fits the Chinese context. The findings may also help planners, policy makers and private developers to adjust urban planning within the implementation process in order to meet planning objectives at different levels. The evaluation of plan implementation can be divided into peformance-based and performance-based approaches Conformance approaches focus on the direct linkage (i.e. level of conformity) between the plans and spatial outputs (Laurian et al., 2004; Tian & Shen, 2011). Performance approaches are concerned more with outcomes and the role of the plan in the urban development process (Barrett & Fudge, 1981; Faludi, 2000). Both of these approaches are employed in this research to evaluate the implementation of the Plan 1999. I firstly examine the level of conformity between the Plan 1999 and the overall peri-urban structure at the metropolitan level. I then use examples of specific areas (North Jinqiao Export Processing Zone and Xinmin Development Area) to evaluate performance of the Plan 1999. The study also takes a diachronic approach, which looks at how relationships between variables change over time in the implementation of the Plan 1999. That is because the performance of plans is influenced by deeper-seated reasons such as the changing institutional context, particularly the levels of interaction between involved actors in the land development processes. As such, the changing planning system in Shanghai and the history of Shanghai’s peri-urban development in the second half of the 20th century are reviewed before the conformance-based and performance-based evaluation. This research leads to three major findings. First, peri-urban areas have played an increasingly important role in Shanghai’s urbanisation process through accommodating the rapidly increasing population and demands for growth. Such extensive peri-urban development was not guided by the Plan 1999. It is not surprising that plans are left behind in the context of such unprecedented growth, but the pilot programmes and the key projects proposed in the Plan 1999 were implemented with a high level of conformance. However, the Plan 1999 performed differently in local urban projects, with varying degrees of project conformity, development process and development timing. Second, there was variation in the delivery of the main objectives to the subsequent urban plans, the consistency between the Plan 1999 and the related sector plans, the ways of interaction between involved actors and their reactions to the plan, and the methods of land development. Overall, the Plan 1999 performed better in the case of North Jinqiao Export Processing Zone because the governments (at both national and municipal levels) intervened more in the development process, compared with the case of Xinmin Development Area. The performance of the plan is closely related to the level of conformity between the plan and the actual development. Therefore, although the conformance-based and performance-based approaches to implementation can be separated conceptually, they are very interconnected in practice. Third, the urban planning system in Shanghai has experienced a structural reorganization in terms of the system of plans, the involved actors and the planning instruments since the late 1980s. But the emphasis on the rational technocratic process used in the 1960s in the western society is still predominant in the planning system in Shanghai. Aside from the demanding urban growth, the other reason of non-conformance between the actual peri-urban development and the Plan 1999 and bad performance of the Plan 1999 in local projects is a big gap between the seemingly rational operation of the urban planning system and the reality of external challenges. The current planning system lacks proper coordination with the external challenges, such as insufficient investigation of the existing circumstance or history, and ineffective planning instruments. Cooperation between involved actors is also largely absent in planning practice. Overall, urban planning and management in Shanghai could benefit from more recognition and monitoring of plan implementation which would lead to some reconsideration of the planning tools and processes to more effectively guide future urban development

Evaluation of Plan Implementation

Since the 1980s China has experienced unprecedented urbanisation as a result of a series of reforms promoting rapid economic development. Shanghai, like the other big cities along China’s coastline, has witnessed extraordinary growth in its economy and population with industrial development and rural-to-urban migration generating extensive urban expansion. Shanghai’s GDP growth rate has been over 10 per cent for more than 15 years. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 23.47 million, which is double its size in 1979. The urban area enlarged by four times from 644 to 2,860 km2 between 1977 and 2010. Such demanding growth and dramatic changes present big challenges for urban planning practice in Shanghai. Plans have not kept up with development and the mismatch between the proposals in plans and the actual spatial development has gradually increased, reaching a critical level since 2000. The mismatch in the periurban areas is more notable than that in the existing urban area, but there has not been a systematic review of the relationship between plan and implementation. Indeed, there are few studies on the evaluation of plan implementation in China generally. Although many plans at numerous spatial levels are successively prepared and revised, only few of them have been evaluated in terms of their effectiveness and implementation.  This particularly demanding context for planning where spatial development becomes increasingly unpredictable and more difficult to influence presents an opportunity to investigate the role of plans under conditions of rapid urbanisation. The research project asks to what extent have spatial plans influenced the actual spatial development in the peri-urban areas of Shanghai? The research pays particular attention to the role of the Shanghai Master Plan 1999-2020 (Plan 1999). By answering the main research question this study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of present planning practice in Shanghai from a plan implementation perspective, and to establish an analytical framework for the study of the role of plans that fits the Chinese context. The findings may also help planners, policy makers and private developers to adjust urban planning within the implementation process in order to meet planning objectives at different levels. The evaluation of plan implementation can be divided into peformance-based and performance-based approaches Conformance approaches focus on the direct linkage (i.e. level of conformity) between the plans and spatial outputs (Laurian et al., 2004; Tian & Shen, 2011). Performance approaches are concerned more with outcomes and the role of the plan in the urban development process (Barrett & Fudge, 1981; Faludi, 2000). Both of these approaches are employed in this research to evaluate the implementation of the Plan 1999. I firstly examine the level of conformity between the Plan 1999 and the overall peri-urban structure at the metropolitan level. I then use examples of specific areas (North Jinqiao Export Processing Zone and Xinmin Development Area) to evaluate performance of the Plan 1999. The study also takes a diachronic approach, which looks at how relationships between variables change over time in the implementation of the Plan 1999. That is because the performance of plans is influenced by deeper-seated reasons such as the changing institutional context, particularly the levels of interaction between involved actors in the land development processes. As such, the changing planning system in Shanghai and the history of Shanghai’s peri-urban development in the second half of the 20th century are reviewed before the conformance-based and performance-based evaluation. This research leads to three major findings. First, peri-urban areas have played an increasingly important role in Shanghai’s urbanisation process through accommodating the rapidly increasing population and demands for growth. Such extensive peri-urban development was not guided by the Plan 1999. It is not surprising that plans are left behind in the context of such unprecedented growth, but the pilot programmes and the key projects proposed in the Plan 1999 were implemented with a high level of conformance. However, the Plan 1999 performed differently in local urban projects, with varying degrees of project conformity, development process and development timing. Second, there was variation in the delivery of the main objectives to the subsequent urban plans, the consistency between the Plan 1999 and the related sector plans, the ways of interaction between involved actors and their reactions to the plan, and the methods of land development. Overall, the Plan 1999 performed better in the case of North Jinqiao Export Processing Zone because the governments (at both national and municipal levels) intervened more in the development process, compared with the case of Xinmin Development Area. The performance of the plan is closely related to the level of conformity between the plan and the actual development. Therefore, although the conformance-based and performance-based approaches to implementation can be separated conceptually, they are very interconnected in practice. Third, the urban planning system in Shanghai has experienced a structural reorganization in terms of the system of plans, the involved actors and the planning instruments since the late 1980s. But the emphasis on the rational technocratic process used in the 1960s in the western society is still predominant in the planning system in Shanghai. Aside from the demanding urban growth, the other reason of non-conformance between the actual peri-urban development and the Plan 1999 and bad performance of the Plan 1999 in local projects is a big gap between the seemingly rational operation of the urban planning system and the reality of external challenges. The current planning system lacks proper coordination with the external challenges, such as insufficient investigation of the existing circumstance or history, and ineffective planning instruments. Cooperation between involved actors is also largely absent in planning practice. Overall, urban planning and management in Shanghai could benefit from more recognition and monitoring of plan implementation which would lead to some reconsideration of the planning tools and processes to more effectively guide future urban development

Mutability, mobility, worlding: appropriate infrastructure and urban sociotechnical change in Ahmedabad, Gujarat

This thesis investigates the relationship between urban infrastructure and sociotechnical change. Drawing on 10 months of field research in the city of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, the study provides an account of relations between infrastructural undertakings and their contexts, and how these shape subsequent patterns of continuity and change. This connection, I argue, is particularly apparent in the urban milieu, where planners have to contend with existing infrastructure as part of the built environment. Supplementing this interpretive account, the study draws on post-war writings on appropriate technology, working to update and evaluate the utility of ‘appropriateness’ as a criterion for evaluating infrastructure projects, particularly those implemented in an urban or postcolonial setting. Identifying infrastructure as a slippery, opaque, and often invisible research subject—something exceeding representational writing and the single, clearly-bounded field site—the study adopts a research methodology inspired by practices of flânerie, deploying observational techniques, practices of urban walking, and performative modes of writing to trace the configuration of specific infrastructure projects and processes of urban change. Drawing on recent work on infrastructure from anthropology, STS, urban geography, and policy studies, the study mobilises a range of concepts to further illuminate the status of objects and events encountered in the city, and situating them in relation to broader processes of change and transformation. In developing this account, and moving from description to theory, the thesis addresses three sets of relational dynamics—mutability, mobility, and worlding. The first of these dynamics looks at the mutability of a given system or artefact, its capacity for adaptive modification, or, conversely, its resistance to change. The second addresses how infrastructures are transferred from one setting to another, paying attention to the pressures of new or unforeseen contexts of use. The third examines how understandings of context are enacted through the ‘worlding’ of infrastructure and urban technology—exploring situations where different actors’ worldings compete or exist in tension with one another. As observed in Ahmedabad, a postcolonial ‘mega-city’ and home to a new, emerging urban middle class, these dynamics complicate the relationship between infrastructure and its contexts—interactions shaped by crosscutting obdurate and fluid materialities (‘mutability’), enmeshed in global circuits of transport and exchange (‘mobility’), and materialising various forms of identity and affiliation (‘worlding’). Mobilising ‘appropriateness’ as a norm and evaluative criteria, and reflecting on the likely characteristics of ‘appropriate infrastructure’, is, I conclude, an effective way to foreground these neglected dimensions, and, in doing so, contribute to future work on urban transformations and infrastructural change

The Responses Of Local Education Authorities To Changes In Their Functions: A Study Of In-Service Education And Training

This research is about the politics and policy processes of education. The focus is on central Government policy relating to INSET and the political activity and responses of LEAs to new policy developments. LEAs have a statutory duty to provide efficient and sufficient schooling. This entails a concern for the professional quality of teaching. To meet this responsibility LEAs traditionally employed advisers, maintained teachers' centres and secured provision by sending teachers on INSET workshops/courses. During recent years, however, changes in the funding of LEAs and the introduction of specific grants significantly impacted on the organisation and delivery of INSET. This research ascertains the INSET provision in a sample of five LEAs; identifies the similarities and differences between these authorities in their responses to the changing funding mechanisms; and examines the underlying rationale for the variation in INSET provision. The research methodology is underpinned by an eclectic ethos. Concepts are derived from theories of organisations and policy implementation.A range of data collection techniques are employed. The research concludes that the responses to change adopted by the five LEAs in the sample are different in several important respects. Each LEAs INSET policy greatly depends on the authority's size, resources, history, culture, commitment and avenues of communication. Even where similar structures have developed, disparities in the mode of operation are evident. By way of representing the full range of responses to change which characterises each LEA, the researcher uses a spectrum. All of the LEAs in the sample sought to establish a 'partnership' with schools in regard to INSET. However, in each case, associations are framed according to a distinct set of values. At one end of the spectrum is an hierarchical association; at the centre a association which is complementary; and at the other end an enterprise association with schools

The emergence of the mobile internet in Japan and the UK: platforms, exchange models, and innovation 1999‐2011

In 1999 Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo launched arguably the world’s first successful mobile Internet services portal called “i‐mode”. In Europe at the same time a series of failures diminished the opportunities to attract customers to the mobile Internet. Even though similar Internet technologies were available in Japan and the UK, very different markets for services developed during the initial years 1999‐2003. When the West expected Japanese firms to become dominant players in the mobile digitalisation of services during the introduction of 3G networks, it remained instead a national affair. The dominant views of how markets for mobile services operated seemed flawed.   So‐called delivery platforms were used to connect mobile phones with service contents that were often adapted from the PC world. Designing and operating service delivery platforms became a new niche market. It held a pivotal role for the output of services and competition among providers.   This thesis sets out to answer a set of inter‐related questions: How and where did firms innovate in this new and growing part of the service economy and how are new business models mediated by service delivery platforms? It argues that innovation in the digitalised economy is largely influenced by firms achieving platform leadership through coordination of both technological systems and the creation of multi‐sided exchanges. This thesis demonstrates from cases of multi‐sided markets in operator‐controlled portals, of mobile video and TV and of event ticketing in Japan and the UK that defining the scope of the firm on the network level forms the basis for incremental innovation, the dominant form of service innovation. A parallel focus on coordinating platform technology choices forms the basis for firms to trade fees, advertisements, and user data, enabling control over profitable parts of multi‐sided value networks

Extending IT Infastructures in the Local Government Authorities Through Enterprise Application Integration

Whilst the early stages of e-government focused on e-enabling customer-facing services, the latter stages of e-government is focused towards transformational change in public sector agencies. However, public sector agencies are struggling to successfully achieve the transformational stage of e-government due to various strategic, organisational and technical challenges. To realise the transformational stage of e-government, local authorities will need radical changes in core processes across organisational boundaries, in a manner that has not been seen before in the public sector. In particular, the bitter lessons that were learnt by many private sector organisations during the business process reengineering (BPR) era should provide a stern reminder of the challenging and complex nature of transformational change efforts. This paper seeks to explore the key strategic, organisational and technology challenges that local government will face when implementing the transformational stage of e-government in UK local councils and contributes a conceptual frame of reference for transformational stage e-government

From geospatial data capture to the delivery of GIS-ready information : improved management within a GIS environment

This thesis presents the research undertaken to investigate how geospatial data handling techniques and technology can be potentially used to enhance the existing management of entire survey datasets from their captured stage to a GIS-ready state and the delivery of this to the user. Discovery of the current systems for managing survey data and information in the Survey and Mapping Department Malaysia (JUPEM) has been presented. In addition, the surveying practice and processes carried out have been examined, especially the different type of data and information existed within the raw data capture right through to the production of GIS-ready information. The current GIS technology and techniques for managing geospatial data have been inspected to gain an in-depth understanding of them. Geospatial object as an approach to model reality of the world has been discovered and used to model the raw, processed, the GIS-ready information. To implement the management, a prototype Database Management System (DBMS) has been implemented, and a trial data population and processing steps have been carried out. An enhancement of the managemenot f the datasetsf rom geospatiald ata capturet o the GIS-ready infori-nation has beend emonstratedT. o deliver online the final product, demonstrationo f available methods were illustrated, and then contrasted. A range of datasets around Malaysian context were used in the research. The investigation revealed that raw, processed and GIS-ready information can be successfully modelled as object in an object-relational spatial database. Using inherent GIS tools, survey datasets management and processing steps within the same system are evidently achieved in a prototype implemented DBMS. An improved management showing the capability of 'drill-down search' and 'two-way traceability' to access and search spatial and non-spatial information in the system is effectively illustrated. Demonstration of the vendor specific and open source technology for the GIS-ready information delivery leads to the comparison between them. The thesis concludes by recognising that a management for raw captured data, processed set of data and GIS-ready information, and the delivery of this, within GIS environment is possible. The inherent GIS tools and DBMS have presented a single-view system for geospatial data management providing superior interfaces that are easy to learn and use, and users are able to specify and perform the desired tasks efficiently. Delivery of data has some constraints that need to be considered before embarking into either vendor specific application or open source technology. In JUPEM, time and cost can be reduced by applying and implementing the suggested GIS application for cadastral and topographic surveys right up to the creation of GIS-ready information, as detailed in the thesis. The research also finds that the in-depth understanding and experience, practically and theoretically, of all aspects of current GIS technologies and techniques gained through this research has achieved an overarching inspiration: equalisation of a high level of awareness and ability of staff in handling GIS project development within currently developing countries with those in the developed countries, and within the national survey and mapping department with those of other government departments and commercial GIS contractors.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServicePublic Service Department of Malaysia : Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia : University of Newcastle upon TyneGBUnited Kingdo