http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/ Knowledge@Wharton is an online resource that offers the latest business insights, information, and research from a variety of sources. Content includes analysis of current business trends, interviews with industry leaders and faculty, articles based on the most recent business research, book reviews, conference and seminar reports, and links to other websites. en-us Copyright (c) 2009 The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/singh_jitendra.jpg http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/ 125 45 Wharton Faculty Research Leadership and Change http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1332&source=rss <SPAN style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: verdana">Demands have long been heard for greater transparency in the way Indian companies do business. Now, matters are about to come to a head. Ready or not, India's public companies must meet a January 1, 2006, deadline to comply with sweeping new corporate governance standards inspired by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the U.S. Are Indian companies ready? According to experts at Wharton and Egon Zehnder, the international executive search firm, the rewards for companies that implement sound corporate governance practices can be large.</SPAN> Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:41:41 EST Law and Public Policy http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=989&source=rss <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">Even Bollywood, India's prolific version of Hollywood, couldn't have produced a more dramatic script. In a vote held over three weeks to accommodate the country's 1 billion-plus population, the country's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, lost his post in a surprise upset when the Congress Party, led by Sonia Gandhi, won the elections. After a week marked by political uncertainty and stock market swings, Sonia Gandhi has stepped aside to let Manmohan Singh, a former finance minister and architect of India's economic reforms in 1991, take over as the head of India's new government. What will this mean for economic reforms in India? Experts at Wharton and elsewhere say that they may slow a bit, but they won't stop.</span> Wed, 02 Jun 2004 14:35:20 EST Finance and Investment http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=749&source=rss Although the high-tech sector is in the doldrums and venture capitalists are keeping away in droves, a small silver lining does glimmer in that dark cloud. A flurry of VC deals has occurred recently involving companies engaged in business process outsourcing (BPO), a trend that involves moving back-office operations overseas to India, the Philippines and other parts of the developing world. Knowledge@Wharton recently caught up with a Britain-based VC firm that is testing the waters in this fast-emerging field. Wed, 23 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EST Operations Management http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=731&source=rss When companies outsource back-office services overseas, one of the biggest challenges they face is measuring the results. Failure to monitor whether work is being performed correctly after it moves outside a company can result in massive and costly errors. How can companies protect themselves against such risks? Ravi Aron, co-director with Jitendra Singh of a recent Wharton executive education program on business-process outsourcing, offers some crucial insights. Wed, 12 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST Finance and Investment http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=677&source=rss Although the high-tech sector is in the doldrums and venture capitalists are keeping away in droves, a small silver lining does glimmer in that dark cloud. A flurry of VC deals has occurred recently involving companies engaged in business process outsourcing (BPO), a trend that involves moving back-office operations overseas to India, the Philippines and other parts of the developing world. Knowledge@Wharton recently caught up with a Britain-based VC firm that is testing the waters in this fast-emerging field. Wed, 04 Dec 2002 00:00:00 EST Strategic Management http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=676&source=rss Conventional wisdom maintains that a company's capabilities -- what it does well -- are crucial in determining whether it does well. But a multi-year research project by Wharton management professor Jitendra Singh and colleagues at the University of Michigan, based on data from an Indian software services firm, shows that all capabilities are not created equal. Some have a greater impact on the bottom-line than others. The trick is figuring out which ones count most in your business. Wed, 04 Dec 2002 00:00:00 EST Strategic Management http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=652&source=rss When companies enter into cross-border business process outsourcing (BPO) deals, they often aim to provide seamless services to their customers. But the blurring of boundaries between organizations also gives rise to an extended enterprise – and this presents management risks that did not exist in past outsourcing arrangements. In this second part of Knowledge@Wharton’s special report on BPO, experts at Wharton and elsewhere offer insights on managing BPO relationships. “BPO relationships are like snowflakes,” says one expert. “They may look alike but each one is different.” Wed, 23 Oct 2002 00:00:00 EST Strategic Management http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=630&source=rss Ravi Aron, a professor of information and operations management at Wharton, has been working with Jitendra Singh, a Wharton professor of management, to study the strategic questions companies face as they seek to outsource tasks that were once thought to lie at the core of the firm – the business processes. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Aron discusses the theoretical and organizational challenges of cross-border business process outsourcing. Wed, 25 Sep 2002 00:00:00 EST Managing Technology http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=138&source=rss India’s software industry is on a roll. Revenues have exploded from $10 million a decade ago to $4 billion in 1999 and are projected to reach $50 billion or more during the next decade. The drive behind this growth has come from companies like Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies, which provides software services to global clients such as Northern Telecom. Headed by N.R. Narayana Murthy, a soft-spoken, 53-year-old engineer who is its chairman and CEO, Infosys in 1999 had revenues of $121 million. Last March it became the first Indian company to list on a U.S. stock exchange. Its American Depository Shares have thrived on the Nasdaq during the past year; on February 11 the stock closed at more than $670, giving the company a market capitalization of some $44 billion. Jitendra Singh, vice dean of international academic affairs at Wharton, recently spoke to Murthy about the factors underlying Infosys’s growth and the company’s strategy for the future, at a time when the Internet is re-writing the old rules of the software industry. Wed, 01 Mar 2000 13:58:15 EST Managing Technology http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=40&source=rss Competition in taking business online without sacrificing other operations is a crucial challenge as the century closes. Companies that supplement existing offices, stores and customer or supplier relationships with new links over the Internet are gaining an advantage over their non-digital counterparts. New strategies for competing in the digital economy range from new forms of partnership to new ways of communicating with customers. But the Internet is not a solution to every business ill, warns David Pottruck, president and co-CEO of leading investment firm Charles Schwab, who spoke at the Wharton Technology Conference in Philadelphia this year. Fri, 23 Jul 1999 16:36:27 EST