Relationship Marketing and Service Quality in Bank Muscat Oman (Sayarati Loans)

Sultanate of Oman is one of the prominent GCC Countries with a population of around 3 million. With assets worth over USD 15 billion, Bank Muscat (SAOG) is the leading financial services provider in Oman with a strong presence in Corporate Banking, Retail Banking, Investment Banking, Treasury, Private Banking and Asset Management. This paper looks into the “RELATIONSHIP MARKETING AND SERVICE QUALITY IN BANK MUSCAT OMAN (Sayaratti Loans)â€. The quality of customer service is the key indicator of the performance of the different branches of the Bank. Banks in the current scenario is increasingly showing its interest in satisfying a customer wants. Given the profit figures on board as targets Banks need to also look into the special needs of the customer’s perspective, any lacuna in service quality to be looked into seriously. The car loans popularly known as Sayaratti loans are taken as the product for study. The findings of the study say that there is a significant relationship between the age and the overall customer satisfaction levels and there is no significant relationship between the age and the service quality by the bank

Malaysian Consumer Research: Does Computer Literacy Affirmative towards E-commerce Activities?

Rapid expansion of technology application, especially in the field of information technology, with the support of fine tune infrastructure, further correlated with severely with the ecommerce activities. This scenario is not much different in developed as well as developing countries. It is a placid trend nowadays that the customers are moving from traditional direct shopping practices to online shopping. In this scenario it is observed that the generations Y is more contented with online purchasing and adoption of e-commerce practices compare to generation X. It is hypothesized in this research that higher the computer literacy people have with higher the attitude in favor for technology adoption and ecommerce activities. Contextualizing this assumption to Malaysian scenario, fewer studies have been conducted so far and seldom any information that has shared across to the research world. Hence, a study was conducted to analyze the effect of computer literacy on internet usages and ecommerce activities among generation Y in the Malaysian context. This study provides interesting insights into the technology adoption aptitude of generation Y

Instrument Development “Intention to Stay Instrument” (ISI)

Quite a few instruments exist in literature to measure the concepts like absenteeism, attrition, organizational member’s intention to leave and retention. While, there is always confusion between the variable’s and its appropriateness when contextualize the topic to various industries, sectors and regional applications. These variances evidently may observe when an instrument developed in the west and apply it in east to get its validity and reliability. In this context, an instrument developed to measure the causative factors of ‘member’s intention to stay’, especially focused on individual and organizational factors in the manufacturing sector. The instrument development process was initially followed the qualitative research method. Techniques like content analysis, personal interviews with the organizational members, focus group discussion and Delphi technique were adopted. After identification of the variables through Delphi, these variables were exposed to validity and reliability test. Further, content, construct and face validity was made on the sub factors and items generated in the instrument. The instrument was finalized with 76 items under 21 sub factors of ‘member’s intention to stay’

Indicative variables of attrition: Application of Delphi Technique

Case studies are one of the methodologies followed by researchers to arrive at observations where measurements are impossible, but deep rooted probing is possible. This case study analyzes the organizational and strategic planning problems that HAA & Associates, a small sized law firm, faces in coping with the competitive legal industry and business environment in Malaysia.The scenario posited in the case study has similarity with most other small law firms in Malaysia and the general business activities of other professional firms face and refer to various research sources that offer solutions.The goal is to provide a study of the organizational strategy and change management concepts.Some of the problems that the firm is facing include the role of the leader/owner, vision and mission, economic pressures, lack of understanding of marketing orientation, technological changes, regulation of the legal practices and training and development of the legal personnel.Although the legal profession is facing dramatic transformation, most law firms are not applying the required strategies necessary for adapting to the changing conditions. The research sources reviewed in the paper will be useful in identifying the suitable strategies necessary for ensuring success in the small legal firms and small professional firms

Way to measure the concept precarious working conditions in oil palm plantations

Oil palm plantations are the backbone of the Malaysian economy, since day immemorial. When you look into the past, the workers in the oil palm plantations were dominated by Indian and Chinese communities.Later due to the sigma associate with oil palm plantations jobs viz., dirty, dangerous and distance, the Indians and Chinese workers moved away from the oil palm work and they were replaced by Indonesians and Philippines.These foreign workers whom having the legal and illegal status under enforcement in Malaysia, have been living in remotely located inhabitations engaging in ‘dirty, dangerous and distance’ wise oil palm plantations.Though the larger oil palm plantation companies ensure minimum living and working conditions for the foreign workers, vastly located small holding plantations never follow such minimum and fair working environment. These conditions to be correlated with the term “precarious working conditions’ in small holding oil palm plantations.Due to lack of availability of the locals to engage in oil palm work, the plantations have to depend on foreign workers do all these ‘dirty, dangerous and distance’ workers in oil palm plantations.Except a few literature available from Amnesty international and local NGOs, there is less evidence to prove the existence of such exploitative working conditions in oil palm plantations. In order to explore precarious working conditions in oil palm plantations thus a qualitative research study is conducted in the Sabah region of the Eastern Part of Malaysia.The study followed, triangulation method through interviews with the migrated foreign workers, (legal and illegal), focus group discussions and Delphi technique with the identification of experts in the field to arrive at the factors and categories related to the theme ‘precarious working conditions’ in oil palm plantations.The outcome of the study fixes the variables that need to be concentrated for a higher level research through quantitative research

Why workers disengage? Factors from “Head” or “Heart” to be tagged on?

Oil palm plantations are decisively situated in the various regions of Malaysia where the climatic conditions are appropriate for planting oil palm. One cannot compare the work environment of such plantations with normal office settings.The workers in those plantations are working in remote locations, totally cut off from the other part of the world. Majority workers are from Indonesia, Philippines like low income countries.The work environment is physically demanding and challenging to the workers due to many factors. An exploratory study has conducted on employee disengagement in the oil palm plantations in the Sabah region of Malaysia.The study has taken up employee disengagement factors due to the lack of interest among the local people to engage themselves in the oil palm plantations work and the plantation industry in Malaysia is facing an acute labor shortage to carry forwards the oil palm business.The study follows, field visits, interviews with the workers, focus group discussions and specifically Delphi.The findings supported to identify the 7 factors coming under the theme employee disengagement as Wage and Welfare, Work Environment, Lack of Safety and security, Poor Organizational Support, Rigid Rules and regulations, and Lack of individual motivation.The study paves better insight to lead this qualitative research in an organized quantitative research

Relationship marketing and service quality in Bank Muscat Oman (Sayarati Loans)

Sultanate of Oman is one of the prominent GCC Countries with a population of around 3 million.With assets worth over USD 15 billion, Bank Muscat (SAOG) is the leading financial services provider in Oman with a strong presence in Corporate Banking, Retail Banking, Investment Banking, Treasury, Private Banking and Asset Management. This paper looks into the “RELATIONSHIP MARKETING AND SERVICE QUALITY IN BANK MUSCAT OMAN (Sayaratti Loans)”.The quality of customer service is the key indicator of the performance of the different branches of the Bank.Banks in the current scenario is increasingly showing its interest in satisfying a customer wants.Given the profit figures on board as targets Banks need to also look into the special needs of the customer’s perspective, any lacuna in service quality to be looked into seriously.The car loans popularly known as Sayaratti loans are taken as the product for study.The findings of the study say that there is a significant relationship between the age and the overall customer satisfaction levels and there is no significant relationship between the age and the service quality by the bank

Malaysian Y generation consumer research: Does gender and technology literacy affirmative towards e-commerce activities?

The last two decades have experienced rapid expansion of information and communication technology.This wide application of internet stated its influence on attitude and adoption of internet among various generations.The generation Y which is " the millennial generation " , are the major one who has connected with the technology, especially with internet usage, and is widely in every aspect of life.They adopt technology application in shopping product and services, moving away from traditional purchasing behavior of consumer.Though various studies have come out in the area of generation Y and technology adoption, very less studies are observed connecting gender, and contextualizing the topic to the Malaysian context, considering the consumer internet usage attitude and e-commerce activities. Hence this particular study, then observed and analyzed generation Y attitude towards internet usage and e-commerce activities with its moderating effect of gender variation

Industry 4.0 and Business Policy Development: Strategic Imperatives for SME Performance

Industry 4.0 presents companies with new prospects to renovate industrial manufacturing processes and increase value creation, has promised several optimizing strategies for improved business performance. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between innovation capability and employee capability on organizational performance among Small and Medium Scale industries entrepreneurs. Following a positivist research philosophy with a quantitative, cross-sectional descriptive study design, the study addressed three direct and two indirect relationships in the model. The research followed the expectation Resource-Based View Theory to test the theoretical model. Following stratified random sampling, this research using 384 SME entrepreneurs from the Selangor state of Malaysia. The study applied Smart PLS-SEM to analyze the data. The results show that SME firms' innovation capability and employee capability positively correlate with business performance. The study also shows the partial mediation effect of technology change on innovation capability and business performance and employee capability and business performance. Research extends practical and theoretical implications to the stakeholders of SMEs and businesses.JEL Classification: L25, L26, L29How to Cite:Govindarajo, N. S., Kumar M, D., Shaikh, E., Kumar, M., & Kumar, P. (2021). Industry 4.0 and Business Policy Development: Strategic Imperatives for SME Performance. Etikonomi, 20(2), 213 – xx. https://doi.org/10.15408/etk.v20i2.20143