Page 151 - DMGT522_SERVICES MANAGEMENT

Services Management

Notes Improving the “enabling” environment for the internal customers: Ergonomic (the science
of comfort) work space or comfortable work environment like climate controls, faster
computing tools and connectivity (Internet, cell phones, V-SAT, etc.)

Improving the quality of services and interactions with the customers (Moments of Truth):
The elements of customer satisfaction and quality service are reliability, consistency,
accuracy and speed of service.

Creating flexibility for changing business environment: With swift-changing environment
factors like government regulations, economy, complexity of operations and changing
consumer preferences, investments in IT would enable service firms to better cope with
change.
The paradigm shift in attitude and perception of Indian labour, management, PSU
stakeholders and the bureaucrats on technology adoption.
Management saw in it a solution for cutting costs and increasing production while labor perceived
it as a threat to their jobs. Post-nationalization, public sector banks (PSBs), witnessed militant
labor that fought tooth and nail against mechanization. Textile mill management wanted to
introduce high speed Sulzer looms which the labor opposed; Food Corporation of India labor
opposed bringing in forklifts that would help in efficient stacking of sacks of food grains, etc.
PSB managements, government and Indian Banks Association (IBA) the nodal agency for PSBs
had a harrowing time throughout the turbulent eighties in negotiation for computerization of
banks – making them lose a decade-and-a-half of lead time which would go on to haunt them
later, proving costly and weakening their competitiveness. Life Insurance Corporation of India
(LIC), the country’s only life insurance firm for over half-a-century could not introduce
microprocessors in their offices for similar reasons. Today, they have, within a span of four
years, lost 13% of their market share, key personnel and leadership in innovation.
It is officially admitted by a lot of intellectuals (Nani Palkhivala), industrialists (Ratan Tata),
professionals, bureaucrats and sociologists that India has missed many buses and “lost the
eighties”. Over the last decade-and-a-half, there has been a paradigm shift in the thinking of the
Indian workforce, public sector undertaking stakeholders, decision-makers and other opinion
leaders on technology adoption and other prickly issues like business process outsourcing. State
Bank of India, LIC and Punjab National Bank are investing heavily in IT. PNB is the largest
implementer of People Soft system amongst all PSUs.

!

Caution Management and labor, for better or worse, have always perceived technology
differently, forever curdling their respective attitudes and decisions to adopt them, and
forcing them to take adversarial roles.
7.1.1 Indian Online Retailing Scenario

The Indian economy is slated to grow by upward of 6 percent annually in the next few years
which is among the highest rates of any big emerging economy. And quite a lot of this growth
would be on the back of domestic consumption of goods and services. E-commerce is emerging
as a great leveler given that organized retail is still not ubiquitous across the length and breadth
of the country with large retail chains making up less than 10% of the market.
E-commerce is helping people in smaller towns in India access quality products and services
similar to what people in the larger cities have access to. Its being forecast that close to 60% of
online shoppers would come from beyond the top eight large cities by end of this year.
India has 50-100 million internet users and they are increasing at a rate of about 30% a year. In
2011, 17 million users purchased something online as compared to 10 million in 2010. With

146 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY