Archana Kumari

Dependability a Key Element for Achieving Competitive Advantage: A Study of Information Service Firms

In the current economic climate and intense competitive environment achieving sustainable competitive advantage has become vital for any organisation’s survival. Organisations around the globe are seeking ways to distinguish themselves from their competitors and win customers. This paper attempts to study the significance of sustainable competitive advantage from the information service firms’ perspective. The paper argues that service firms can distinguish themselves and attain competitive advantage by performing well on operational performance elements that lead to customer satisfaction, loyalty and ultimately to profitability. Particularly, the paper empirically investigates the importance of dependability and quality in driving customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The analysis shows that dependability is a key driver of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Thus, information service firms should focus more on improving the reliability of their services to achieve competitive advantage and later that may lead to a sustainable competitive advantage.

A Multi-Agent Architecture Framework to Improve Wine Supply Chain Coordination

Over the last few decades, a rapid advancement in the arena of technology has escalated the competitive scenario across the globe. Several companies are now using intelligent systems to assist their supply chain management activities. This research, therefore, attempts to explore the advantage of using intelligent systems in managing supply chain activities. A review of the literature shows that with growing demand of food products, improved supply and storage facilities, and strong emphasis on cross boundary trade and policies have generated a lot of interest among researchers to look at the issues faced in the food supply chain. Researchers have attempted to study various types of food supply chains; however, little emphasis has been given to study the wine supply chain industry. One of the key challenges that exist in wine supply chain is the integration among the key members of the supply chain to accomplish a collective set of tasks. This paper, therefore, aims to address the supply chain coordination issue. To achieve better coordination among the wine supply chain members, this paper put forward the use of an intelligent agent based architecture framework. The paper suggests that the proposed intelligent multi-agent framework can reduce the complexity of decision making process, improve the supply chain coordination, and assist the SCM managers in smooth running of the wine supply chain.

Investigating Key Antecedents of Customer Satisfaction in B2B Information Service Firms

Service sector has grown significantly over the years and now is one of the major contributors of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of most of the developed and developing economies. Within the service sector, information economy has grown significantly with the rapid developments in the Internet and Communication Technologies (ICTs). However, the research so far has focused on the manufacturing sector rather than the service sector. This paper, therefore, aims to fill this void by testing the service management and Service Quality (SERVQUAL) theories in Businesses to Business (B2B) information services context. An empirical investigation with secondary data is carried out to explore the relationship between three key antecedents of Customer Satisfaction (CS) namely; Functional Service Quality (FSQ), Technical Service Quality (TSQ) and Corporate Image (CI). This re-search also aims to investigate the interrelationship between the three key antecedents of customer satisfaction. The findings show that FSQ, TSQ, and CI are positively correlated with customer satisfaction. Results also show that CI is positively correlated with TSQ and FSQ.

Growth-inhibitory activity of 1-benzyl-5[E]-2, 6-dimethyl-1, 5-heptadienyl imidazole (KK-42) on spodoptera litura

The ecdysteroid agonist KK-42 [1-benzyl-5(E)-2,6-dimethyl-1,5-heptadienyl] imidazole adversely affected the growth of Spodoptera litura and caused a delay in pupation. The compound also caused adult deformation, increased sex ratio in favour of males, and adversely affected the fecundity and fertility of emergent females. The ecdysteroid 20-hydroxyecdysone, identified by HPLC, was present in treated and control insects. Ecdysone was also detected in only the insects treated with 1 μg/larva KK-42.RésuméL’inhibiteur antagonique de la biosynthèses de l’ecdystéroïde: le KK-42 [1-bénzyle-5(E)-2,6-diméthyle-1,5 heptodiényle] imidazole affectait sérieusement la croissance et le développement de Spodoptera litura et retardait la chrysalidation. Cette substance provoquait également des malformations chez adultes et le décalage du sex ratio en faveur de l’augmentation du taux de mâles par rapport aux femelles. De même, le produit affectait négativement la fécondité et la fertilité des femelles émergées. L’ecdystéroïde 20-hydroxyecdysone identifié par méthode HPCL, était trouvé tant chez les sujets traités que chez les témoins. De même, l’ecdysone était détectée seulement chez les insectes traités à la dose de 1 μg de KK-42 par larve.