Emerging Perspectives on Self Service Technologies in Retail Banking

This paper attempts to critically examine the available literature on the subject, discuss a model that provides a managerial framework for analyzing the variables associated with customer value, and to identify potential research areas. The discussion draws conceptual impetus from new technologies in banking services through self service technologies in banking as a tool for optimizing profit. The discussion in the paper also analyzes the main criteria for successful internet-banking strategy and brings out benefits of e-banking from the point of view of banks, their technology and customer values and tentatively concludes that there is increasing returns to scale in the bank services in relation to the banking products, new technology and customer value.Self service technology, retail banking, customer value, profit optimization

Managerial Challenges in Addressing HIV/AIDS: Gujarat State AIDS Control Society (GSACS)

The spread of HIV/AIDS is not merely a problem of public health; it is also an economic, political, and social challenge that threatens to hinder decades of progress in different parts of Gujarat. There is an urgent need to significantly scale-up public health interventions that work to make a meaningful impact. While NGOs and community based organizations have a critical role to play in implementing these interventions amongst the various population groups, the government must shoulder the overall responsibility for planning, coordinating, mobilizing, and facilitating the various HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment services in the state. Generally, the departments of HIV/AIDS are dominated by doctor-managers who lack training in management. This working paper was developed with objective of enhancing the skills of the program implementers. In this paper, in first three chapters we describe the overall situation of HIV/AIDS globally and nationally. Major challenges in managing sentinel surveillance, behavior surveillance, targeted interventions and its subcomponents have been described in chapter four. Issues related to integration of HIV/AIDS activities with reproductive health has also been discussed in the chapter. In chapter five, we present a few case studies from Gujarat State AIDS Control Society. These cases focus on the managerial issues in the following areas: Project Management, Blood Bank Management, VCTC/ICTC Management, Behavioral Surveillance and MIS for Targeted Interventions. These case studies bring out the ground level realities and can help participants develop insights for better management of the HIV/AIDS programme.

Towards Transparency in Finance and Governance

The study of transparency is increasingly a more topical, broadly relevant, but also more under-researched enterprise. The Asian financial crisis has highlighted not only the welfare consequences of financial sector transparency, sparking a series of yet unresolved debates, but has also linked this relatively narrow problem to the broader context of transparency in governance. Its significance has broadened geographically as well as across different sectors. It has been observed that curtailment of transparency, often on scanty pretexts, is commonplace even in the highly developed countries. This suggests a broad and possibly radical reform agenda. Departing from the urgency of these observations, this paper reviews the existing literature on transparency in finance and governance, indicates remaining knowledge gaps, and offers some hypothesis on the mutual significance of the two issues. The first two sections of the paper outlines a conceptual framework for defining and measuring transparency that distinguishes among its desirable characteristics; access, timeliness, relevance, and quality. It also suggests methodologies that may produce tractable measures of transparency. Additionally, it places in context debates concerning transparency; its desirability, contingency, complexity and regulation. Reviewing critiques of objections against disclosure, the chapter advances a general preference for transparency, not only in the developing but also in the developed world. Nevertheless, it emphasizes the need to weigh the costs and benefits of more transparency in designing regulatory policy. In general, while consequences of information imperfections are well recognized, the solution is not simply a matter of more information. The third section treats the role of transparency in promoting greater financial stability, acknowledging exceptions to the general preference expressed earlier, in relation to financial stability. It treats as priority policy issues the following problems: developing institutional infrastructure, developing standards and accounting practices, improving incentives for disclosure and balancing countervailing regulations to minimize perverse incentives generated by safety net arrangements such as deposit insurance. An important suggestion is that since institutional development is gradual, relatively simple regulations such as limits on credit expansion, may be best tailored to developing countries. Implicit in this section is the notion that there are absolute limits to transparency, in particular for lack of adequate enforcement. The last section elaborates on the concomitant link between financial markets and governance, discussing select consequences of transparency for national-level and local governance, identifying some policy implications and suggesting further research issues. As illustrated by the case of Indonesia, it argues that financial reform may be predicated on broader public sector reforms. Again, because formal institutions take time to develop, it highlights three principles of reform to promote incentives for openness: harnessing private sector participation in service provision, promoting exit and contestability, and encouraging "voice" and public participation. These are now increasingly being integrated to new innovative data collection and analysis techniques, and to particular dissemination methods promoting collective action to improve governance and enhance transparency. The chapter concludes by outlining the difficulties of implementing greater participation and voice.financial liberalization, transparency, corruption, governance, banking crisis, asymmetric information, local investors, shocks, bad loans, emerging markets

Improving water resource management in Bangladesh

As populations expand and make various uses of water, its growing scarcity becomes a serious issue in developing countries such as Bangladesh. Water can no longer be considered a totally free resource and plans must be developed for its efficient use through better management and rules that preserve everybody's access to it and interest in its development. Because it is a common resource, its development and management should involve all beneficiaries. The government's role in this process is to establish the ground rules for water use and conservation through a policy and legal framework and a monitoring system that ensure its continued safety of supply to--and responsible water use by--every sector and user in the economy. National water policy must set the ground rules for allocation to different users, water rights, pricing, and environmental safety. Bangladesh's water strategy should start with a national water policy that spells out key objectives such as priority of use by critical economic sectors, approaches to water pricing and cost recovery for development, and shared public- and private-sector water management. An apex public planning organization is needed to perform overall planning for water resources and to advise the National Water Counsel on policy and legislation. Also needed are agencies to implement public water plans for the development of infrastructure, the monitoring of water regimes, and the enforcement of regulations.Water Conservation,Water Resources Law,Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Water and Industry,Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies

Large-scale educational telecommunications systems for the US: An analysis of educational needs and technological opportunities

The needs to be served, the subsectors in which the system might be used, the technology employed, and the prospects for future utilization of an educational telecommunications delivery system are described and analyzed. Educational subsectors are analyzed with emphasis on the current status and trends within each subsector. Issues which affect future development, and prospects for future use of media, technology, and large-scale electronic delivery within each subsector are included. Information on technology utilization is presented. Educational telecommunications services are identified and grouped into categories: public television and radio, instructional television, computer aided instruction, computer resource sharing, and information resource sharing. Technology based services, their current utilization, and factors which affect future development are stressed. The role of communications satellites in providing these services is discussed. Efforts to analyze and estimate future utilization of large-scale educational telecommunications are summarized. Factors which affect future utilization are identified. Conclusions are presented

Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Communication Networks for the Maritime Internet of Things: Key Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges

With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing number of maritime mobile terminals, as well as a growing demand for high-speed and ultra-reliable maritime communications to keep them connected. Traditionally, the maritime Internet of Things (IoT) is enabled by maritime satellites. However, satellites are seriously restricted by their high latency and relatively low data rate. As an alternative, shore & island-based base stations (BSs) can be built to extend the coverage of terrestrial networks using fourth-generation (4G), fifth-generation (5G), and beyond 5G services. Unmanned aerial vehicles can also be exploited to serve as aerial maritime BSs. Despite of all these approaches, there are still open issues for an efficient maritime communication network (MCN). For example, due to the complicated electromagnetic propagation environment, the limited geometrically available BS sites, and rigorous service demands from mission-critical applications, conventional communication and networking theories and methods should be tailored for maritime scenarios. Towards this end, we provide a survey on the demand for maritime communications, the state-of-the-art MCNs, and key technologies for enhancing transmission efficiency, extending network coverage, and provisioning maritime-specific services. Future challenges in developing an environment-aware, service-driven, and integrated satellite-air-ground MCN to be smart enough to utilize external auxiliary information, e.g., sea state and atmosphere conditions, are also discussed

Evolution of High Throughput Satellite Systems: Vision, Requirements, and Key Technologies

High throughput satellites (HTS), with their digital payload technology, are expected to play a key role as enablers of the upcoming 6G networks. HTS are mainly designed to provide higher data rates and capacities. Fueled by technological advancements including beamforming, advanced modulation techniques, reconfigurable phased array technologies, and electronically steerable antennas, HTS have emerged as a fundamental component for future network generation. This paper offers a comprehensive state-of-the-art of HTS systems, with a focus on standardization, patents, channel multiple access techniques, routing, load balancing, and the role of software-defined networking (SDN). In addition, we provide a vision for next-satellite systems that we named as extremely-HTS (EHTS) toward autonomous satellites supported by the main requirements and key technologies expected for these systems. The EHTS system will be designed such that it maximizes spectrum reuse and data rates, and flexibly steers the capacity to satisfy user demand. We introduce a novel architecture for future regenerative payloads while summarizing the challenges imposed by this architecture

IIMA in HealthCare Management: Abstract of Publications (2000-2010)

The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), was established in 1961 as an autonomous institution by the Government of India in collaboration with the Government of Gujarat and Indian industry. IIMA’s involvement in the health sector started with the establishment of the Public Systems Group in 1975. In the initial period, our research focused on the management of primary healthcare services and family planning. We expanded our research activities to include the management of secondary healthcare services in the 80s and to tertiary healthcare services in the 90s. Currently our research interests focus on the governance and management issues in the areas on Rural Health, Urban Health, Public Health and Hospital Management. In June 2004, IIMA Board approved the setting up of a Centre for Management Health Services (CMHS) in recognition of IIMA’s contributions to the health sector in the past and the felt need to strengthen the management of health sector in the context of socio-economic developments of our country. The overall objectives of CMHS are to address the managerial challenges in the delivery of health services to respond to the needs of different segments of our population efficiently and effectively, build institutions of excellence in the health sector, and influence health policies and wider environments. All our research projects are externally funded and we have developed research collaborations with 15-20 international universities in USA, UK, Europe, and Asia. CMHS has also established strong linkages with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at the national and state government levels, particularly in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Orissa, and Bihar. This working paper is a compilation of the abstracts of all our publications in the last 10 years, which include 40 referred journal articles, 54 Working Papers, 19 Chapters in Books and 18 Case Studies.

Performance Analysis of Debit Card Services on Deposit-Taking SACCOs’ Financial Performance: A Case of Kenya

The Co-operative Bank of Kenya has partnered with Deposit-Taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs) in Kenya to allow their members access to Co-operative Bank automated teller machines (ATMs) via Saccolink debit cards. However, the adoption and utilization of debit cards has opened financial institutions to fraud associated with the use of debit cards for transactions on automated teller machines and point-of-sale terminals. Given this limitation, this study sought to investigate the effect of Saccolink debit card services on the financial performance of Deposit-Taking SACCOs in Kenya. Through a combination of agency, information systems success models, and task-technology fit theories to explain financial performance, the study found a positive effect of Saccolink debit card services on the financial performance of Deposit-Taking SACCOs in Kenya. The study therefore recommends continued utilization of Saccolink debit cards and an enhancement of their features within the Deposit-Taking SACCOs in Kenya