An integrated framework for the assessment of inbound supply risk and prioritization of the risk drivers

Supply chain risk factor assessment of Indian pharmaceutical industry for performance improvement

Purpose

The purpose of the present work is to improve the industry performance by identifying and quantifying the risks faced by the Indian pharmaceutical industry (IPI). The risk values for the prominent risks and overall industry are determined based on the four risk parameters, which would help determine the most contributive risks for mitigation.

Design/methodology/approach

An extensive literature survey was done to identify the risks, which were also validated by industry experts. The finalized risks were then evaluated using the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) method, which is the most suitable approach for the risk assessment with parameters having a set of different risk levels.

Findings

The three most contributive sub-risks are counterfeit drugs, demand fluctuations and loss of customers due to partners' poor service performance, while the main risks obtained are demand, financial and logistics. Also, the overall risk value indicates that the industry faces medium to high risk.

Practical implications

The study identifies the critical risks which need to be mitigated for an efficient industry. The industry is most vulnerable to the demand risk category. Therefore, the managers should minimize this risk by mitigating its sub-risks, like demand fluctuations, bullwhip effect, etc. Another critical sub-risk, the counterfeit risk, should be managed by adopting advanced technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, etc.

Originality/value

There is insufficient literature focusing on risk quantification. Therefore, this work addresses this gap and obtains the industry's most critical risks. It also discusses suitable mitigation strategies for better industry performance.

The logistics service providers during the COVID-19 pandemic: The prominence and the cause-effect structure of uncertainties and risks

Uncertainties and risks play a central role in creating vulnerabilities for logistics service operations. Over the years, Logistic Service Providers (LSPs) have learned how to ensure resilience to confront uncertainties and risks triggered by adverse events. However, quite unlike any seen in recent times, the COVID-19 pandemic brings about unavoidable uncertainties and risks for the logistics industry. Yet, there is no common approach to contextualize how they interact together. We incorporate an empirical research design and make a threefold contribution: first, we identify uncertainties and risks that LSPs encounter during the COVID-19 pandemic and investigate their prominence. Second, we unveil intertwined schemes of afore-identified uncertainties and risks and augment the understanding of their cause-effect structure. Third, we provide an uncertainty and risk assessment guideline for LSPs affected by threats emerging from unforeseeable crises. In this study, we combine qualitative work and the fuzzy DEMATEL method. Qualitative thematic analysis of in-depth interviews reveals the most important uncertainties (COVID-19 measures, employee welfare, forecast horizon, demand change, and government regulations) and risks (COVID-19 risk, delivery delays, supply chain disruptions, financial failure, and product returns) for LSPs. The fuzzy DEMATEL method shows that COVID-19 measures and COVID-19 risk are highly prominent and influence other factors. The results indicate that demand change, government regulations, and supply chain disruptions are net causers, and employee welfare, financial failure, forecast horizon, delivery delays, and product returns are net receivers. Distinctly, employee welfare is the most affected factor, empirically confirming that major risks for LSPs are related to the human factor. More investigation in our results suggests that supply chain disruptions and demand change, two factors triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, influence financial failure and forecast horizon, two factors associated with operational performance.

Benchmarking the assessment of barriers to the admission of management education in India during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

This paper proposes a decision-making framework for assessing various dimensions and barriers that have affected the admission process in management educational institutions during the ongoing pandemic. The framework considers the interrelationship between the obstacles and highlights the importance of each barrier.

Design/methodology/approach

An integrated method based on decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and analytical network process is proposed to structure the barrier assessment framework. Results obtained from the study are validated by comparing them against the conventional analytical hierarchy process.

Findings

The results obtained from this study indicate four significant dimensions that hinder admission in Indian management institutes, namely, governmental, financial, sectoral, institutional and market. The top five barriers are demand shift towards technical (alternative) skills, acceptance of the graduated students, lack of industry–institute collaboration, lack of long-term vision and opening new Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) and Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs).

Research limitations/implications

During this ongoing pandemic, many educational institutes have been forced to shift from the traditional classroom to a virtual teaching model. In this regard, this study helps identify and assess the barriers to admission in Indian management institutes during this epidemic and thus, contribute to the literature. The findings will assist all stakeholders and policymakers of management institutions design and develop appropriate managerial strategies. The study is conducted in the Indian management educational institute context and can be extended to technical education institutions for deeper insights.

Originality/value

The paper develops an assessment framework for analysing the barriers to admission in Indian management institutes during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Research implications are discussed in the context of a developing country.

Barriers to implementing digitalization in the Indian construction industry

Purpose

This research paper aims to analyze the critical barriers to implementing digitalization in the Indian construction industry as Indian construction companies are lagging in the implementation of digital technologies in the work environment.

Design/methodology/approach

In this research paper, a qualitative research approach is adopted, and multiple detailed interviews are conducted with industry and academic experts. Further, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques are used to finalize the prioritization among various alternatives. The fuzzy-decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (Fuzzy-DEMATEL) and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) techniques are employed to find the exact relationship among the identified alternatives.

Findings

This study identifies 14 critical barriers from an extensive literature review and multiple interviews with industry professionals, and further driving and critical barriers are identified.

Research limitations/implications

In this research paper, an exploratory study with a limited number of respondents from a large Indian construction company is carried out. Further, a detailed longitudinal analysis can be done to assess the subjectivity of the participants with more advanced statistical tools. However, this research discusses several points pertaining to the implementation of digitalization in the construction industry. The research further identifies the critical barriers to digitalization in the Indian construction industry.

Practical implications

The finding of the study has two-pronged implications. First, it provides a road-map to the construction industry by highlighting the engagement of top management as the key focus area for successful digitalization. Second, the finding also shows similarity of the digitalization process to the adoption of process improvement techniques like lean and total quality management (TQM), wherein the top management plays a crucial role in ushering in the implementation of a disruptive change.

Originality/value

The research is unique in two ways. First, this is one of the very few attempts to understand digitalization in the Indian context. Second, the research also demonstrates that the combination of fuzzy DEMATEL and ISM techniques can be successfully employed in the emerging field of construction digitalization research.

Analyzing the Adoption Challenges of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Smart Cities in China

Smart cities play a vital role in the growth of a nation. In recent years, several countries have made huge investments in developing smart cities to offer sustainable living. However, there are some challenges to overcome in smart city development, such as traffic and transportation management, energy and water distribution and management, air quality and waste management monitoring, etc. The capabilities of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) can help to achieve some goals of smart cities, and there are proven examples from some cities like Singapore, Copenhagen, etc. However, the adoption of AI and the IoT in developing countries has some challenges. The analysis of challenges hindering the adoption of AI and the IoT are very limited. This study aims to fill this research gap by analyzing the causal relationships among the challenges in smart city development, and contains several parts that conclude the previous scholars’ work, as well as independent research and investigation, such as data collection and analysis based on DEMATEL. In this paper, we have reviewed the literature to extract key challenges for the adoption of AI and the IoT. These helped us to proceed with the investigation and analyze the adoption status. Therefore, using the PRISMA method, 10 challenges were identified from the literature review. Subsequently, determination of the causal inter-relationships among the key challenges based on expert opinions using DEMATEL is performed. This study explored the driving and dependent power of the challenges, and causal relationships between the barriers were established. The results of the study indicated that “lack of infrastructure (C1)”, ”insufficient funds (C2)”, “cybersecurity risks (C3)”, and “lack of trust in AI, IoT” are the causal factors that are slowing down the adoption of AI and IoT in smart city development. The inter-relationships between the various challenges are presented using a network relationship map, cause–effect diagram. The study’s findings can help regulatory bodies, policymakers, and researchers to make better decisions to overcome the challenges for developing sustainable smart cities.

An integrated framework for analysing performance indicators of Indian microfinance institutions: a multi-stakeholder perspective

Purpose

An amalgamation of Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytical Network Process (ANP) has been performed to develop a decision-making framework for improving the overall performance of the microfinance institutions. A primary survey was conducted to collect real-time data from the heterogeneous stakeholders of microfinance institutions across India. The validation of the proposed framework is performed by comparing the results against the conventional method of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP).

Design/methodology/approach

This study identifies various dimensions and indicators for measuring the performance of Indian microfinance institutions. Additionally, the ranking and prioritisation of the performance dimensions and indicators is obtained by considering the mutual interrelation between them.

Findings

The study indicates that there exists a significant dyadic relationship between financial performance and social performance for improving the overall performance of the microfinance institutions. Governance is found to unidirectionally influence both financial and social performance. Among all the considered dimensions, financial performance of a microfinance institution is the most critical dimension for improving the overall performance. The top five performance indicators of the Indian microfinance institutions are funding source, borrowing and overhead cost, size of the firm, end-use of the money and depth of outreach.

Research limitations/implications

The study was conducted in the context of Indian microfinance institutions; hence the scope of generalisation of the results is limited. This research considers both subjective and objective aspect of the performance dimensions and indicators from the perspective of multiple stakeholders (i.e. firm, society and regulator). The integrated framework is expected to aid in improving overall performance of microfinance institutions by focusing on the most critical (high prioritised) performance indicators.

Originality/value

An integrated DEMATEL-ANP framework is used in the domain of microfinance to assess the performance dimensions. This study is unique in terms of analysing performance of microfinance institutions from the perspective of heterogeneous stakeholders.

Remanufacturing supply chain: an analysis of performance indicator areas

Purpose

Re-use of products in the supply chain has become a significant consideration in the last decade. It has resulted in the development of several product recovery alternatives. Remanufacturing in the supply chain is one such product recovery option that yields social, economic and environmental benefits. This study aims is to identify and evaluate the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the remanufacturing supply chain (RSC).

Design/methodology/approach

The KPIs of RSC are classified along with the five primary management processes (plan, source, make, deliver and return) of the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model. A grey decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique is applied to investigate the complex interrelationships amongst the identified KPIs and categorize them into cause and effect group. The applicability of the proposed framework is demonstrated through a case organization involved in remanufacturing business.

Findings

The KPIs are identified based on literature analysis and subsequent discussion with decision panel experts. The present research work results reveal that “consumer awareness program”, “technological compatibility” and skilled workforce' are the most influential indicators.

Originality/value

This research work provides a framework to evaluate the causal relationship between the RSC KPIs. The framework proposed in this study is empirically applied to a case organization. Based on the study findings some important recommendations are presented to the decision-makers/policy planners to help them develop an action plan. This would help the case organization reduce resource consumption, increase market share and enable sustainable development.