LDAP uses a central directory access protocol which can solve such administration issues by collecting and storing information about people on a server which can be accessed via several applications. All the information is stored in “Directories” with each individual entry being saved as an object. Thus each object has a object id (OID) or unique object identifier and attributes and value pair.

Since , all the values are encapsulated in an object, thus accessing and searching for any value is as simple as running a query on that specific attribute. For e.g. to search for Smith across all the users, the “name” attribute can be searched for the string “Smith”.

Directory Structure

LDAP not only provides querying the directory but also updating the table for any changes. Thus, adding to removing access levels can be done simply by running a query.

There are various books which can help to get an in-depth knowledge and understanding of LDAP and  IBM Red Book on LDAP is a great source to start. Do let us know any other sources worth reading for newbie’s to LDAP.

LDAP Resources:

Article: Leveraging LDAP

The three Indian colleges in the list are

• Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad - Rank 11
• Indian School of Business(ISB)- Rank 13
• SP Jain Center of Management(Dubai/Singapore)- Rank 68

See the entire list  here. Do post your reactions in the comments section !

1) Don’t sigh blindly on the documents : I understand that reading 20-30 pages of policy documents are a cumbersome job and even educated people prefer to just sign at the cross marks which the agents point them to. Yet this is one of the easiest ways for agents to cheat and sell you an entirely different product compared to the product advocated.

2) Understand the features of the policy: Read between the lines and ask questions. Find out the different charges that eat into your principal at various stages of policy – inception, policy life, and exit. Some agents may try to evade the question or falsify the information and it is the buyer who has to do his own “home work”.

3) Don’t follow the herd: Don invests just because of past performance and expects the performance based on past performance: Just because a mutual fund has given double digits returns, the past is not a correct way to predict the future. This sour fact was realized by many individuals who put their money in high return mutual bonds not realizing that during the recession these will be the most badly hit funds, wiping out the entire principal.

4) Free advice is not “free”: The agents get paid based on each policy they sell. The commission on any ULIP plan in India can be anywhere between 30- 50%. Amazingly, this commission is indirectly deducted directly from the buyer’s pockets. One strategy that the agents also employ is providing a discount of 10-20% on policy, knowing they lure the buyer into the trap of buying a policy who thinks he got a great deal.

5) Expecting magical returns: Magical returns also mean high risks. Understand where your money is being invested – the companies, the sectors, and the percentage of money “actually” being invested.

Surely, by following these small and basic tips, you can save yourself from the pain of running after agents who are known to sell and run looking for new prey.

This is where there is a need for the immigration officer needs to shed the “old way of doing things” and adapt to the “new technology” and bring customer.

Some of the challenges of these personnel are

· Lack of Awareness

· Lack of training

· Resistance to change from traditional ways to doing things

· Resistance to process transformation and trying to force process translation.

]]> http://golmuri.com/learning-center/mba-learning-center/role-of-individual-in-transforming-citizen-service-delivery/feed 0 http://golmuri.com/learning-center/mba-learning-center/process-translation-vs-process-transformation http://golmuri.com/learning-center/mba-learning-center/process-translation-vs-process-transformation#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:54:46 +0000 admin http://golmuri.com/learning-center/mba-learning-center/process-translation-vs-process-transformation Process translation is the methodology used wherein the existing process is analysed, and automating some part or the entire process. Thus there will be no change in the process steps and is useful to improve the efficiency of some steps which if done manually were consuming a large amount of time. These steps, after automation, reduce the time taken for the entire process thereby improving efficiency.

Process transformation, on the other hand, is an analysis of the "AS – IS" process and "TO- BE" process, analysing the gaps and transforming the process to a new process using process reengineering using ICT (Information and Communication technology).

An example of process translation is the Electronic Voting machine (EVM) used in India. The EVM sold purpose is to make the casting of vote process more efficient by replacing the traditional paper votes by storing votes in digital form. Once the votes have been casted, these machines are then physically transferred to a common location where the votes are then counted. All the steps except how votes are entered into a voting machine remain the same, thus leading to no change in structure of process but only making a node in the process more efficient. I must stress again that the entire process still remained the same and no new sub processes were added or removed from the original process. Also the activities done by the various stakeholders during the entire process remained unchanged.

On the other hand, Process transformation would have been in case the polling system process would have been made online. In this scenario, the role of stakeholders change – The voters need not go to polling booth, the policemen need not transfer the votes collected to a new physical

Scenario 1: The Ultimatum Game: 10$ to be shared between two individuals where one person decides how much he wants to keep and the other decides whether both of them keep the money divided among them.

In this game, $10 is given to an individual and he has the option to share this person with person seated in another room. The receiver has the option to accept the money offered, in which case both the receiver and the giver keep the money with them. But in case the receiver refuses the money, then both the buyer and receiver get nothing. E.g. if the giver gives $5 to the receiver, and receiver is happy to keep the sum, then receiver and buyer both keep $5 each.

In the other case, if the receiver gives $0.20, in case the receiver refuses, both buyer and receiver get nothing.

It is seen that in this case, on an average, people tend to give close to $5 to the other individual.

Scenario 2: Dictator Game: The receiver has no word in the deal and division of $10 is left entirely to the discretion of one individual.

In this scenario it is seen that the givers usually shell out a lesser amount as compared to the previous deal. The general trend is that people still give out $ 1.5 in this case.

Scenario 3: Instead of sharing a maximum of 10$, the giver has option to take $ 1 from the other person: In this scenario, on an average a person gives $1.5 compared to an average of $3 in the previous scenario.

Scenario 4: Instead of sharing a maximum of $10, u has an option of taking back $10 from the other person:

It is seen that in this scenario, instead of giving, people have a tendency of “stealing” $1.5 on an average.

In the entire experiments, the people didn’t change but what changed is how people responded to different incentives. It is the situation where the disconnection between people and how the current decision does not impact any future decisions that led to people thinking more about themselves and less about the others thus proving against the standard economics of self interest of people. The new outcomes shows that human behavior is motivated by self interest in the real world and shows a new way to look at the behavior of same people when subjected to different circumstances.

So the next time when you think someone is “self -sacrificing” , try to look at him through the above four situations and you could understand the driving force behind the benevolent act!

Now economists are arguing intriducing a new term ,Eagles , Emerging and Growth Leading Economies that would include countries like South Koria, indonesia, Turket, Egypt, Taiwan along with the BRIC countires.

The economists beleive that going forward, the Eagle countries would contribute to half of world growth in the next decade. They believe that these countries would contribute to over $10 trillion in the next 10 years whereas the joint growth provided by Japan , britain, Germany, France and Italty would be close to be estimated at $6 trillion.

Source: New York Times

They offer several advantages -

1) Overtake market leaders and

2) Switch the demand from the existing demand and could make the current product obsolete

3) Change the way companies operate and change how they strategize the position of their products to the end customer.

Yet, even after all these benefits there lays a shortage of companies coming up with new innovations that could turn disruptive in the future. The reasons for these are several

One, a company may not see a technology as being disruptive and it could be parked in the shelves for years before someone decides to go ahead and test it in the market. Pharmaceutical companies spend years and millions trying to come up with a disruptive technology and sometimes the cost exceeds the benefits and the project is shut down.

Second reason is efficiency. By efficiency, I mean the efficiency to extract the maximum benefits from the disruptive technology. E.g. sometimes a company may find itself in a situation wherein it is not able to utilize the full benefits of a disruptive technology. This could be due to several factors such as the time duration for which a disruptive technology could be a USP before a competitor also copies it and eats into the market share of the company could force a company to try and “hide” the technology from the big companies who have an economy of scale.

Soon, I would be explaining what companies can do to overcome these challenges. Do post your comments to let me know what you think about it.

All you have to do is login to the PostPost website using your facebook account. The website takes around 30 seconds to load the latest news from your profile.

You can access PostPost by visiting its website here.

Here is a video explaining the features.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spntcQj-ZII&feature=player_embedded

• which directly add value , called Line function
• which indirectly add value, called Staff Function

Line function are responsible for directly generating revenue, whereas staff function lead to indirect generation of revenue.

Line function has direct business accountability. Staff function are more to ASSIST and ADVICE.

A line function  can be subdivided into three parts. It is believed that a company’s direct functions can be divided into these three categories

1. Production Development: eg focus on blueprint, design. eg Apple
2. Operations: This includes Manufacturing, Quality, Supply chain management, Logistics, Packaging. . eg Intel
3. Sales/Service : which leads to cash flows.  eg. Amazon

A company need not necessarily have all the above three line functions. Example:

• Apple Inc. is not good in Operations as it does not own manufacturing plants.
• Contract manufacturers are not good in sales, as their job is only to manufacture , thus they focus only on operations.

Thus there are not many companies which are good in achieving all three line functions. This is because line functions are costly.

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