Managing back-office operations for financial services is a challenging task because of highly volatile and dynamic demand requirements. Lack of service inventories, the inability to backlog demand and significant shortage and overage costs complicate the problem. In such situations, outsourcing...

Valuing territorial exclusivity in franchising is difficult because of the uncertainty associated with variables such as future franchise sales and brand strength. We present a stochastic dynamic programming model to value the exclusivity option from the perspective of both the franchisor and...

This paper looks at the regulatory component of India's electricity reforms from four perspectives. Concerns about governance standards for the sector that set the context ofreforms are noted first, and the re-allocation of powers that reforms brought about is discussed with particular reference...