Ashok Kumar Panigrahi

Liquidity Management of Indian Cement Companies – A Comparative Study

Liquidity management is a concept that is gaining serious attention all over the world because of the current financial turmoil and the state of the world economy. The concern of business owners and managers all over the world is to devise a strategy which will help in maintaining liquidity as well as to increase profitability and shareholder’s wealth. Liquidity is perceived as the debt paying ability of a going concern. It is the ability of a company to meet the short term obligations. Hence, it is of utmost important to keep a constant eye on liquidity position of the company as without it the company cannot survive. In this paper a comparative study on the liquidity position of five leading Indian cement companies has been done to know the liquidity position of the companies. The study covers a period of 10 years viz, 2000-2001 to 2009-2010. For the purpose of investigation purely secondary data is used. The techniques of mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, ratio analysis, and Motaal’s ultimate rank test has been applied to analyze the data. It has been found that the liquidity position of small companies are better as compared to big ones and most interestingly the growth rate of current ratio, quick ratio and working capital to current assets of all the companies are negative which indicates an unsound liquidity position. Moreover, low or negative working capital in some cases indicates the aggressive working capital management policy of the firms which implies minimal investment in current assets by the companies so as to derive a higher rate of return. But it has to be remembered that risk of default and bankruptcy increases when a firm adopts more aggressive working capital policies. One should remember that a negative working capital is a sign of managerial efficiency in a business with low inventory and accounts receivable (which means they operate on an almost strictly cash basis). In any other situation, it is a sign that a company may be facing bankruptcy or serious financial trouble. In our case, Motaal’s Ultimate Rank Test shows that the liquidity position of Shree Cements is sounder as compared to other companies.

E-Marketing - Leading Edge for Booming Business World Wide

E- Marketing, which is also called internet marketing, involves use of interactive, virtual spaces for the sake of promoting and selling goods and services. E-marketing is growing at a dramatic pace and is impacting customer and market behaviours. This has forced firms to start incorporating e-marketing as the main form of marketing and try to meet their targeted customers’ needs to the satisfaction. It is simply the use of electronic communication technologies more specifically the internet for the sale of goods or services. When e-marketing strategies implemented correctly, the return on investment (ROI) from e-marketing can far exceed that of traditional marketing strategies. E-marketing has several benefits like global reach, lower marketing cost, gives measurable results, personalization, easy to update information, more attractive, save paper, provides good conversation. It has also several disadvantages like technology dependence, privacy, security, continuous update. There are several methods of e-marketing like search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, e-prescription, viral marketing, direct to consumer advertising. All methods have several advantages and disadvantages and selection of method depends on the technology available with organization, cost of method, privacy requirement and other factors. Here we have discussed some of methods of e-marketing and when it is used, how it is different from other and how these methods can be useful to improve the marketing. We have also studied how e-marketing plays a vital role in health and pharmaceutical sector.

Sustainable Corporate Social Responsibility in Financial Institutions and Banks in India

Corporate Social Responsibility is the mechanism through which the corporate organizations have executed their philanthropic visions for social welfare. It is a powerful way of making sustainable competitive profit and achieving lasting values for stakeholder as well as shareholder. Corporate Social Responsibility is very popular in financial sector, which the financial crisis did not damage as perceptible as in other countries of developed economies (Singer, 2009). In the recent years Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has witnessed tremendous increase in awareness and control in the global arena. CSR that emerged in 1960 was an attempt to link business with society. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to strategies that Corporations or firms employ to conduct their business in a way that is ethical, society friendly and beneficial to community in terms of development. It is a concept where Business organizations apart from their profitability and growth show interest in societal and environmental welfare by taking the responsibility of impact of their activities on stakeholders, employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, and civil society. In this regard, actions taken by corporate houses and regulatory authorities operating in developed nations are quite satisfactory. However in developing nations the situation of CSR activities by financial institutions is not so flourishing.The contribution of financial institutions including banks to sustainable development is paramount, considering the crucial role they play in financing the economic and developmental activities of the world. In this reference the present paper attempts to analyze the CSR practices in Indian banking sector.