Faculty: Shashwat Alok, Shiv Dixit & Prasanna Tantri

Project Brief: There is substantial variation across Indian states in their fiscal response to COVID-19. This  project  aims  to  study  which  interventions  have  been  successful  in  terms  of  cost-effectiveness  and economic stimulus. Do direct cash transfers work best, or should we also have a food distribution system? Our central hypothesis is that the optimal composition of government spending depends on whether the shock is demand-or supply-driven. In a demand-driven recession, cash transfers may be preferable since they allow households the flexibility to spend on the goods that they need most, circumventing the perils of paternalism. On the other hand, if the downturn stems from obstacles in the supply chain, then in-kind transfers may be preferable.

The project will pursue a three-step strategy. The first step will document the  exposure to demand/supply shocks using variation in the intensity of lockdowns across Indian districts, and the various types of fiscal interventions implemented by the centre and local governments. Second, for each location, we will identify if demand or supply shocks dominate by examining movements in quantitates and prices of standardized  commodities. The idea is  that  demand  shocks  cause  output  and  prices  to  move  in  the  same direction, while supply shocks cause these variables to move in opposite directions. Third, we will estimate the impact of fiscal interventions on economic outcomes by comparing the experiences of individuals that are more exposed to a particular type of shock with those who are less exposed. 

Faculty: Shashwat Alok, Shiv Dixit & Prasanna Tantri 

Project Brief: The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an extremely important role in the  Indian economy:  they  contribute  45%  of  the  industrial  output;  40%  of  the  overall  merchandise  exports;  and employ more than 60 million people. Despite their importance to the economy, it is well known that SMEs suffer credit constraints. This situation can be loosely described as a lack of access to credit despite there  being  profitable  projects.  The  recently  announced  “Atmanirbhar  Bharat”  package  of  the government of India has made solving access to credit issues faced by SMEs as its number one priority. To resolve related credit-access problems of SMEs, we must first understand how SMEs are financed. To our knowledge, there is no database that provides authoritative information about how SMEs are financed in India. This project is an attempt to fill this knowledge gap. The exercise will have three phases. The first phase will have the team (consisting of faculty, researchers, and students) working with a survey agency and conducting surveys of SMEs in Telangana and Punjab. We will also work with an SME association. The work will involve designing initial and final survey documents, deciding the working arrangement with the survey agency, monitoring the execution, tabulating the data, and finally drawing inferences wherever possible. The second phase will involve a more in-depth analysis of the data from the survey. The findings may lead to a case study or a research paper. Finally, the last phase will involve experiments. The questions for experiments will be based on the findings of the first two phases.

Faculty: Shashwat Alok, Shiv Dixit & Prasanna Tantri

Project Brief: There is substantial variation across Indian states in their fiscal response to COVID-19. This  project  aims  to  study  which  interventions  have  been  successful  in  terms  of  cost-effectiveness  and economic stimulus. Do direct cash transfers work best, or should we also have a food distribution system? Our central hypothesis is that the optimal composition of government spending depends on whether the shock is demand-or supply-driven. In a demand-driven recession, cash transfers may be preferable since they allow households the flexibility to spend on the goods that they need most, circumventing the perils of paternalism. On the other hand, if the downturn stems from obstacles in the supply chain, then in-kind transfers may be preferable.

The project will pursue a three-step strategy. The first step will document the  exposure to demand/supply shocks using variation in the intensity of lockdowns across Indian districts, and the various types of fiscal interventions implemented by the centre and local governments. Second, for each location, we will identify if demand or supply shocks dominate by examining movements in quantitates and prices of standardized  commodities. The idea is  that  demand  shocks  cause  output  and  prices  to  move  in  the  same direction, while supply shocks cause these variables to move in opposite directions. Third, we will estimate the impact of fiscal interventions on economic outcomes by comparing the experiences of individuals that are more exposed to a particular type of shock with those who are less exposed. 

Faculty: Sarang Deo 

Project Brief: Unlike developed countries, blood supply chains in India are unorganized, fragmented and lack coordination. Patients and their caregivers bear the responsibility of either arranging a donor with matching blood group or replace the blood procured from blood banks with voluntary donations of any blood group. Blood banks rely on these voluntary donations or organize blood donation drives, both of which impose significant uncertainty on the supply. Furthermore, there are no centralized platforms, where blood banks can exchange information on the available inventory of various types of blood and its components. As a result of the structural constraints highlighted above, blood supply chains in Indian cities are characterized by significant mismatch between supply and demand. In 2017, the clinical demand for whole blood and blood components in India was about 14.6 million units but the actual collection of blood was only 11.1 million units. However, at the same time, it is estimated that 2.8 million units of blood were discarded by blood banks across India in the last five years. The inefficiency is further exacerbated due to COVID-19 pandemic, owing to which donations across the country have reduced by 75%, thereby making it even more important to match demand and supply efficiently.

The project will focus on conducting secondary research on existing centralized systems in other countries and their relevance in the Indian context with focus on: (i) governance and financing structures, (ii) operating model and performance metrics, (iii) use of IT to match supply and demand. The team will also conduct situational analysis of blood banks in India through analysis of secondary data on key challenges facing them with regards to inventory and demand management and conduct advanced analytics on inventory and demand data collected from a few large blood banks in Hyderabad to quantify the challenges identified through the situational analysis.

Faculty Members: Prof. Nitin Kumar

Project Brief : Corporate Health of an economy is reflected in the financial markets. Mutual funds (MF) are an investment vehicle through which common people in the economy participate in the financial markets. Yet, despite the tremendous growth in the MF industry in recent years, there have been events of macro-political nature that impacted (positively or negatively) the growth trajectory of MF investments. The most recent such macro event is the economy-wide disruption due to Covid-19. 

The goal here is to quantify the impact of such events on the MF industry. We will analyze the impact of three such events: (a) change of government at the central level because of elections, (b) 2008 financial crisis, and (c) Covid-19. The team will create a database of MF investments using various sources (open source or subscriptions available at ISB) in a broad category of mutual funds, such as equity- or debt-oriented funds. The data shall be then analyzed to quantify the impact of the events mentioned above on mutual fund investments. 

The team will create a database of MF investments using various sources (open source or subscriptions available at ISB) in a broad category of mutual funds, such as equity- or debt-oriented funds. We will then analyze and quantify the impact of the events mentioned above on mutual fund investments. 

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of what are the organization-wide policies and protocol for remote work home and how has the top management been supportive of remote work initiatives.  The analysis will involve a closer look at the general guidelines that outline the organization’s plan for remote work and connection between the organization’s vision and values and its day-to-day operations.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive plan for organizations who wish to implement remote work in their organizations.  The white paper will include a description of the best practices of remote work from all around the world and guidelines for employers and employees to transition to a remote working model with a focus on new employment contracts and hiring strategies.

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of what are approaches through which remote work can help decongest urban cities. The expectation is to conduct a detailed investigation of the magnitude, causes and associated economic costs  of  urban congestion (traffic, migration, availability of affordable housing) and provide potential solutions in terms of how the quality of life and the economy can benefit from urban decongestion. Simultaneously, it will be important to investigate if reverse migration of work away from urban centres to rural and semi-urban areas will lead to the growth of rural economy.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive guide to how urban cities can decongest and benefit from remote work. The analysis will include what are the best practices or benchmarks from cities around the world that have adopted remote work.

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of what factors contribute to achieving a work-life balance, organizational guidelines allowing flexi-schedules, flexible work arrangements for women, minorities and underprivileged and if creating an environment of a good work-life balance means better employee productivity.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive analysis of how organizations can promote physical, emotional and mental well-being by focusing on separation between work and nonwork lives of its employees rather than concentrate on creating a harmonious work-life balance. The analysis will include an observation of organizational culture to overwork, organizational narratives around balancing the demands of one's career and the demands of one's personal life and a review of the best practices from organizations around the world.

Faculty: Shashwat Alok & Prachi Deuskar 

Project Brief : Covid-19 has had India under lockdown for months now. While essential services have been allowed to operate, but with reduced workforce and proper precautions in place, other businesses and services have been forced to either have employees work from home or shut down completely for the time being. While all businesses are affected by the pandemic, some have suffered more than others. For example, look at the stock price performance of TCS vs Tata Motors: 

Source : https://www.google.com/finance Date: May 28, 2020 

What makes some businesses more vulnerable to the pandemic than others? To this end, we want to conceptualize a “Corporate Vulnerability Index”, a metric to gauge exposure of a business to potential impact from pandemics and other calamities. 

The team will first identify the key dimensions along with vulnerability needs to be measured: for example, demand, human resources, supply chain. They will think about the best ways to measure exposure to risk for each aspect. The idea is to combine vulnerability along different dimensions into one index. The team will operationalize the index using a few companies with a plan to eventually scale the measurement across a broad range of corporates constituting a representative sample of India Inc.

Faculty Members: Prachi Deuskar and Sudhir Voleti 

Project Brief : Stock markets around the world have experienced wild movements in recent times. How much of that movement is driven by economic realities, and how much by investor psychology? It is well-known that investor sentiment plays a crucial role in financial markets. When a large set of investors move based on optimism or pessimism unfounded in reality, stock market prices can fluctuate. This can lead to misallocation of capital in the economy. Too much money gets allocated to unproductive pursuits when investors are exuberant. And even excellent business opportunities may be starved of resources during times of panic.  

As intuitive as this concept is, measuring investor sentiment is hard. But whether investors are optimistic or pessimistic, the financial press reflects that tone. Idea is to explore how to create an investor sentiment index for the Indian stock market using textual analysis of news articles and machine learning. 

The team will create an initial corpus of news articles scored of different dimensions. This corpus will then be used to train the machine learning algorithm to produce an investor sentiment index. The team will perform qualitative and quantitative validation exercises to see how the index correlates with past and future stock market movements and other indicators of investor irrationality

Faculty Members: Prof. Apoorva Javadekar & Prof. Prasanna Tantri

Project Brief : Indian banking system underwent a period of rapid credit growth after the global financial crises of 2008-09. Unfortunately, a large part of the credit went to unproductive/inefficient firms. Initial Findings show that only 10% of the credit in the economy is with the firms who have Interest coverage ratio (ICR) of greater than 1. (essentially, companies who make enough to at least pay interest on loans) That means 90% of the credit is mis-allocated. Banks managed to keep the lid on the disclosed levels of Non-Performing Assets (NPA’s) by funding companies with more credit when they could not repay the original borrowings – the so-called zombie lending. In 2014, the RBI initiated Asset Quality Review (AQR) and the new government cracked down on zombie lending, did banks start to fully disclose the extent of the NPA’s – the result was horrific – Indian banking system had developed stress to the extent that 10% of the loans were categorized as NPA’s and another 15% were on their way to default with gross NPA’s standing at around INR10 Lakh Cr at its peak.  

It is of utmost importance to develop a tool to track these cracks in the quality of the corporate credit very early and respond swiftly.  We do not have a good index of quality of corporate credit.  We will pick data from the financial statements of the corporates – large corporates disclose financials every quarter and smaller firms disclose it every year. Then use this data and compute simple yet useful quantities such as “which companies are holding on to the banking credit”, “did better or worse firms secured fresh credit during this quarter”, “is the problem more severe for the firms mainly funded by Public banks”?  This would give a real-time index of corporate credit quality. In the second wave, we aim to extend this to other developing and developed markets using COMPUSTAT Global database. This index will be on the dashboard of the Center for Analytical Finance. 

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre, Aaditya Dar, Sarang Deo & Sripad Devalkar 

Project Brief: The trends of paddy arrivals in the past years exhibit significant variation in spatial and  temporal  patterns  of  arrivals  across  districts,  market  centres  and  months.  Variations  in harvest  dates,  connectivity  to  purchase  centres,  proximity  between  purchase  centres  and production dominant areas and size of purchase centres lead to the 15 days of major arrivals being  different  across  different  purchase  centres.  Further,  these procurement  windows  are marked by days of peak arrivals, with quantity received on the peak days being as high as 8 times the average quantity received per day in some centres. The need to maintain physical distancing requirements to prevent spread of COVID-19 infections during the procurement season posed a set of unique challenges to the normal functioning of agricultural markets. To meet this challenge, the GoP implemented a staggered procurement process to “flatten” the wheat arrival curve from 15 days to 45 days and control the number of people present in a purchase centre on any given day. To achieve this, the government implemented the following measures:

• Control the number of farmers arriving at any purchase centre on a given day by issuing tokens to farmers and allowing only farmers with a valid token to bring their grains.
• Open temporary purchase centres for operation to reduce the total quantity received in any given centre.

The government would like to i) document the impact of the procurement process implemented this Rabi season, ii) draw lessons from the current implementation to refine the process for procurement of paddy in Kharif 2020-21 and possibly as a regular procurement process in the future.

The project will involve understanding institutional and operational details of paddy procurement operations, collation and analysis of  historical data  on  arrivals,  purchases,  and transport of paddy from the various purchase centres for 2019-20. 

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre, Aaditya Dar, Sarang Deo & Sripad Devalkar 

Project Brief : The  trends  of  wheat  arrivals  in  past  years  exhibit  significant  variation  in  spatial  and temporal patterns of arrivals across districts, market centres and months. Most of the grains arriving at  a  given  purchase  centre  arrive  within  a  period  of  15  days.  Variations  in  harvest  dates, connectivity  to  purchase  centres,  proximity  between  purchase  centres  and  production  dominant areas  and size  of  purchase  centres  lead  to  the  15  days  of  major  arrivals  being  different  across different  purchase  centres.  Further,  these procurement  windows  are  marked  by  days  of  peak arrivals,  with  quantity  received  on  the  peak  days being as  high  as 8  times  the average  quantity received per day in some centres. The project will involve understanding institutional and operational details of procurement operations, analysing data on arrivals, purchases, and transport of grains from the various purchase centres, scenario modelling and interpreting results of scenario analysis to draw lessons for improving the design of procurement operations for other agricultural commodities. 

Faculty: Sarang Deo 

Project Brief: A vaccine against COVID-19 may well be the most awaited and most sought-after biopharmaceutical product in the world in recent times. It is estimated that more than 100 independent efforts are currently underway to develop a vaccine, 30 of which involve Indian entities, either independently or as part of global teams. This is not entirely surprising, given that Indian companies are among the largest global manufacturers of vaccines. Serum Institute of India, which supplies 20 vaccines to 165 countries, has partnered with Oxford University and plans to unleash its excess capacity of 400 to 500 million doses. Bharat Biotech has partnered with FluGen and University of Wisconsin and claims to have capacity for 300 million doses.

However, translating vaccine production into vaccinations is not trivial. Despite several missions and campaigns India’s childhood vaccination coverage remains low, especially in states such as UP and Bihar, where 40-50% of the children are estimated to not have received all recommended vaccines.2 In fact, adult vaccination, unlike more developed countries, is almost non-existent with penetration being less than 1-2% even in higher income segments.3 In 2015, several doses of flu vaccine against H1N1 were left unused due to a plethora of factors including reluctance of doctors and lack of awareness.4 On the one hand, the economics of vaccine supply chains, which will drive the uptake in the private sector, is not well understood. Further, vaccination programs in the public sector are primarily designed for childhood vaccines.

This project involves critical analysis of current barriers for rapid and large-scale uptake of COVID vaccines in the public as well as private sector. These may range from economic incentives for various players to logistics and supply chain barriers in the last mile delivery to increasing awareness and demand generation. 

Faculty: D.V.R. Seshadri, Sarang Deo 

Project Brief: Several single specialty healthcare organizations (e.g., Aravind Eye Care Systems, L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Tata Memorial Center) seek to provide equitable access to high quality healthcare services to all patients irrespective of their ability to pay. These models often employ differential pricing and quality of service (i.e. more affluent patients pay market prices and receive high quality service whereas low-income patients pay subsidized prices and receive basic service quality) to improve access while achieving financial sustainability. A key driver of their success is their capability to develop standardized workflows that can service high patient volume thereby delivering on low costs (e.g., bulk procurement, vertical integration, low overheads) and high clinical quality (e.g., learning by doing, adoption of standardized protocols). 

COVID-19 poses significant challenges to the financial sustainability of these organizations. First, health facilities in these organizations are associated with significant physical crowding. Thus, they will pose significant risk of infection to patients as they resume their operations. Second, a large fraction of their patients travels over long distances to access care which would be difficult due to travel restrictions, lack of transport options and associated increase in expenditure during periods of economic hardship. As a result, it is imperative for these organizations to innovate their marketing and service processes to ensure their financial sustainability while continuing to serve their mission of expanding healthcare access to low-income communities. 

This project will involve developing a deep understanding of the current operating models and their associated risks. This will be followed by documenting the organizations’ short-term response to COVID and associated challenges, wherever possible, validated with operational data collected from the partner organizations. A report with critical analysis of various business model innovation strategies under evaluation or adoption by healthcare delivery organizations.

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre 

Project Brief : The Government of Jharkhand is planning to set up a system for procurement of selected forest products at the stipulated Minimum Support Price. The task of this project will be to support the design and development of this system using data provided by the relevant departments. It is expected that the procurement will enable direct infusion of cash into the rural economy and relive distress for the most vulnerable sections of the population. The process will involve compiling data on volume, seasonality, and location of collection and trade of different forest products, understanding current institutional and operational framework available for deployment (including physical infrastructure), drawing lessons from experiences from other states like Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, simulating alternative designs for the procurement system to optimize over operational costs as well as number and distribution of beneficiaries, and designing the payment system using the Jan Dhan – Aadhaar – Mobile architecture.

Project Brief : ISB exchanged an MOU with Department of Handlooms and Textiles, Government of Telangana in the presence of Hon’ble Minister, K. T. Rama Rao. The MoU aims to evaluate   the implementation and performance of the state-run policies for the weaving community in Telangana. Prof Ashwini Chhatre is mentoring this project and 7 PGP students are involved in this project. Currently, the project is in data collection stage.

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre

Project Brief : The project intends to establish a mechanism to monitor progress in the short term through a series of high-frequency and high-spatial resolution indicators to inform decision-making and responding to new and emerging opportunities. The expected outcome of this project is to build a repository of information and evidence-based insights that will directly help decisions for enabling and increasing economic activity. First, a system will be designed to host high frequency economic performance indicators for the state. As the economy recovers from the pandemic-induced lockdown, we will identify and monitor selected parameters that indicate change in the level of economic activity on the ground at a high spatial resolution. Having multiple indicators of economic recovery that are near-real-time, spatially-explicit, and comparable over time will enable a dynamic policy response for enabling and increasing economic activity in the industrial and other sectors of the economy.

Project Brief: This is a JSI project which is undertaken in partnership with Department of Industries, Government of Andhra Pradesh. The MoU is already signed and the work is under progress, though we are awaiting for data from the State Government.

Project Brief : This is a JSI project which is undertaken in partnership with Department of Industries, Government of Andhra Pradesh. The MoU is already signed and the work is under progress. As part of this study, we have connected the Government of AP with a delegation from Johns Hopkins University specifically on the prospects of projecting Visakhapatnam city as the engine of growth city.

Project Brief : Working with Department of Agriculture, Government of Telangana and Professor Jaishankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU). An MoU on the same was already signed and the study is underway.  5 students were interviewed and selected to work on this project. Professor Madhu Viswanathan is leading this from our end. Prof DVR Seshadri, Prof Manish Gangwar and Prof Arunachalam are also involved in this study.

Faculty: Vijaya Sunder M 

Project Brief: The rise of digital technologies has presented a contemporary landscape of business transformation in the healthcare sector. The pace of technology absorption is likely to increase in hospitals. Technology absorption refers to the acquisition, development, assimilation, and utilization of technological knowledge in response to environmental dynamism. For realizing strategic benefits (top-line and bottom-line impact), hospitals should develop technology absorption as a dynamic capability, and not merely as an effort to manage day-to-day activities. 

The large hospitals in top-tier cities that often provide multi-specialty healthcare services and located in multiple regions have the upper hand towards the development of technology absorption capability. However, other smaller players that lack relevant resources to develop such a capability are worthy of attention. Consequently, in the scope of in small and medium-sized hospitals in India, this project aims to: 

• Examine the state of sensing (internal opportunities and available technologies) capability 
• Examine how the sensed opportunities are seized (assessment and investment decisions) 
• Examine how the transformation is brought in by exploiting the digital technologies and leading associated change management 

This project involves data collection and subsequent analysis towards presenting the current state of technology absorption capability in small and medium-sized hospitals in India, towards addressing the above aim. The success of the project will be based on objectively measuring the above three stages of technology absorption, as a detailed report that should assist further research in this area.  

Faculty: Saumya Sindhwani 

Project Brief: Media coverage and academic reports paint an alarming picture of a substantial increase in reports of gender-based violence during the covid-19 outbreak, with physical distancing measures acting to exacerbate existing barriers for victims to access resources. India’s National Commission for Women (NCW) reported that there was a >90% increase in cases in the first three weeks after lockdown while NGOs operating helplines to counsel victims of violence reported a drop in calls which they attributed to the forced proximity with their abusers.

The idea behind this project is to a) diagnose existing channels and systems for reporting gender-based violence and b) suggest changes to address concerns or propose a new digital channel to enable reporting. The team will reach out to experienced practitioners and victims and users of helplines to identify pain points and gaps in support while identifying factors which maximize access, comfort, security, and delivery of the best care to the victims of gender-based violence. 

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre  

Project Brief : The proximity of human settlements to forest areas gives rise to the human-wildlife conflict where animals pose a threat to the safety and livelihood of those living around them. As a result of this threat, humans may turn to the mistreatment of animals that endanger their livelihood or safety. The project intends to conduct thorough research on the forest areas, farmlands, and protected areas based on percentages, distribution, accessibility, and other attributes and assess the potential market of such regions for community-based conservation and eco-tourism practices. The team members will be working to develop a sustainable business model based on the concept of ecotourism through ecolodges and resorts established on community-owned land. The solution to the problem will be presented as a whitepaper to interested Government ministries and NGOs. Specifically, the proposal would develop a prototype model based on an endemic location with specific geographical and social factors relevant to that location.

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre

Project Brief : Handlooms industry is facing tough competition from power loom and mills, resultantly, weavers are facing livelihood crises. Owing to the high distress level of weavers, the Government of Telangana has launched various schemes to bring relief to the community such as: PAVALA VADDI SCHEME, NETHANNAKU CHEYUTHA, CHENETHA MITHRA. Apart from these there is the Handloom Weavers comprehensive welfare scheme that provides social safety nets and the National Handloom Development Programme to provide training to upskill and diversify. Despite the efforts to provide inputs, market support and protect the welfare of weavers, the state-run schemes are yet to create an impact in bringing the weaving community out of distress and revive the handloom industry. We aim to examine and evaluate the implementation and performance of state-run policies for weaving communities in Telangana. The objective is to evaluate effectiveness, reach and relevance of the scheme and examine outcome and impact of the same. The study will assess the blind spots and analyse the issues in the existing schemes to be able to deliver sustainable outcomes.

Faculty: Sanjay Kallapur and Bhagwan Choudhary

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre 

Project Brief: Several Indian states are uniquely positioned, in terms of natural resources, human capital and geography, to set-up large scale manufacturing hubs for specific industries. However, these opportunities have either not been identified yet or not realized to their fullest potential. Through this project, we wish to identify unique drivers for growth in investments and to provide a roadmap/plan of action to state governments. The primary goal is to identify unique investment opportunities to kick-start manufacturing in India across industries and states. The project further intends to identify and analyse the various parameters (infrastructure, natural resources, financing etc) which are primary drivers to establishing manufacturing in that region. To achieve the same, the team members will be working closely with select states as well as officers in other relevant agencies. It is expected that the team will deliver frequent presentations on the problem definition, data analysis, and potential solutions.

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre 

Project Brief : The Government of Himachal Pradesh is planning an actionable strategy for cluster development and value addition after recognizing unique products of each district (at forest range level). The task of this project will be to increase value of the raw material available in the state. Moreover, state needs assistance in branding and marketing of production coming from these rural clusters including online platforms. The process will involve compiling data (1) geography of production, (2) estimate of volume and value, (3) identity of industrial buyers of raw materials by location and sector, and then, assess the (4) feasibility of setting up industry in Himachal Pradesh. The process will also streamline regulatory mechanisms to facilitate sustainable extraction, value addition, sale and purchase and industrial production of the herbal products to boost local economy and support thousands of families involved in this trade all over the state.

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre

Project Brief : The COVID -19 crisis presents an unprecedented challenge to international and domestic tourism. Travel destinations around the world and the tourism industries have come to a sudden halt due to the pandemic. In the short term, the impacts on the tourism sector have varied depending on the national responses of countries but across the globe, the sector has been affected by lockdowns, travel restrictions and border closures. In India, all three responses have been severe, with a national lockdown since March 2020, domestic and international travel restricted, and all borders closed. Therefore, the domestic and international tourism has come to a standstill in all states in India, which includes Himachal Pradesh. However, the state can position itself ahead of the curve by preparing for the new normal. The project will mainly focus on medium to long-term imperatives for the government of Himachal Pradesh. However, in the short term, there must be strategies designed around ensuring hygiene and safety and some fiscal stimulus packages to ensure economic impact is reduced. In the medium term, the study will look at the existing models of tourism in the state and suggest ways to re-look and re- strategize the tourism policy with a long-term sustainability perspective.

Faculty: Ashwini Chhatre

Project Brief : Pulse is a an advanced data analytics application using real-time digital data on citizen interactions with government programmes and systems. Building on the existing NIC-based information, the process integrates continuous data streams into a common framework for analytics and will be designed to detect anomalies that signify potential challenges at an aggregate spatial level (such as the panchayat or block). The project intends to present opportunities where application of predictive analytics on data streams from delivery of multiple benefits can enable the second generation of e-governance initiatives. For the same, the team will build predictive analytics for ground level actionable intelligence on potential exclusion and establish advance warning mechanisms. This application is particularly suited to several initiatives undertaken by Government to alleviate rural distress and to ensure synergies in public investments for maximum welfare.

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of what is the compensation structure used by organizations to incentivize their employees to work from home. Student teams are expected to provide a detailed analysis of how employee productivity is monitored in a remote working environment.  The discussion should cover different types of reward structures to encourage performance in a remote working environment, strategies to monitor employee performance and maintain employee productivity.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive guide of compensation practices to encourage organizations to implement remote work.  The white paper will include a description of the best compensation practices and reward structures from all around the world.  The white paper will also cover the negotiation guidelines for employees whose job roles are ready to transition to a remote working model. 

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of how organizations ensure the emotional well-being of their employees. Student teams will analyze the implications of remote work on mental health and focus on the loss of interaction with colleagues and alternate socialization routines that organizations have to compensate social isolation. The goal is not just identifying the problem of isolation but also suggest evidence-based, scientific, effective and practical coping mechanisms.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive guide to employee well-being practices for organizations to encouraging adoption of remote work.  The white paper will include a description of the best employee wellness programs from all around the world aimed at helping remote workers.  The white paper will also cover a discussion of coping mechanisms for employees to help them manage effectively manage stress and other problems of social isolation.

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of how organizations can structure their teams and organization structure to promote adoption of remote work. Student teams will analyze the formal and informal reporting structures, agility of decision-making and discuss implications of organizational and leadership structures incompatible with a remote working environment. The goal is not just identifying the problem of incompatible organization and leadership structures but also provide effective redesign of organization structure and a study of what of current leadership practices are more suited to on-site/in-office people management and what of that needs change as leaders need to lead remote workers virtually.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive guide to leadership models and managerial skills required to manage remote workers in organizations encouraging adoption of remote work.  The white paper will include a description of the emerging practices of organizational leadership and managerial skills from around the world that effectively help organization transition to a remote working model.

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: The changing landscape as suggested a revamping of the entire workplace, in some ways eliminating it altogether as well as creating a dedicated workspace at home. This project will include a critical analysis of how organizations can create new and efficient workspace model for employees while ensuring access to secure desktops or laptops and high-speed connectivity to transition to remote work. Student teams will analyze the inequalities in access to technology and adoption to technology to get on the remote work bandwagon. The goal here is not to recommend that organizations increase their investments in technology but to outline an all-encompassing strategy that makes remote work a level playing field for all. It is expected that the role of governments and industry consortia is analysed to increase access.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive guide to how organizations can provide equitable access to technology to enable remote work. The white paper will include a description of the best practices of how organizations can bridge the technology inequality from around the world. The discussion will also outline strategies to effectively promote employee technology adoption. It is expected that specific recommendations are evolved to engage with governments at state and center level and the role of industry consortia like NASSCOM may be studied.

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of how organizations can create an information governance strategy and employee communication protocols for remote working. The analysis will focus on what are the secure protocols to allow data collection, data storage and data transfer of  critical business  data and what are the mandatory malware and anti-virus or anti-theft protection software that need to be installed to ensure data security when allowing employees to work remotely.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive analysis of information governance and data security measures taken by organizations. The discussion will also include an analysis of communication protocols and the common set of technology tools for VPN, file sharing, instant messaging, video conferencing and other teleconferencing requirements of an organization.

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: This project will include a critical analysis of what are the government policies supporting remote work. The important task set out for the government is to set up an robust infrastructure for communications to enable remote engagement. As India accelerates its Digital India mission what policies can state and central government adopt to embrace new ways of digital working and pursue common goals of connectivity and security of data. A specific question to be enquired will be: how can remote work accelerate our digital economy ambitions?

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines a comprehensive guide to how state and central government can create governance policies and build a robust broadband infrastructure to enable remote work. The goal is to not just identify infrastructure requirements to job roles that mend themselves to remote working but also identify new categories of job roles and sectors where government mandated policies can create new jobs. 

Faculty: Prof. Chandra and Prof. Amit Chuaradia

Scope: Student teams are encouraged to explore sectors that can adopt to remote work by automating their operations using robotics, AI and IoT. The scenario is not to create a completely remotely controlled environment but an exploration of how technology can aid more sectors to adopt to remote work by focusing on the three dimensions of work, workforce and workplace. Under this topic the students are focusing on enabling remote work in agriculture, the various aspects of the value chain starting with the farmer to the end-customer are studied and systems that are adaptable to remote work are identified.

Deliverable: A white paper which outlines the comprehensive guide evaluating what aspects of the agricultural value chain can be brought under remote work. The analysis will include an  in-depth analysis of the existing technology in the agricultural value chain and suggestions for what areas can be improved to add more value and benefits to the farmers.

Faculty : Prof Ashwini Chhatre

Project Brief : AP Government had been focussing on developing the Rayalseema as a ‘Millets Belt of India’. The selection of millets as the preferred product category for the region aligns with the ‘Drylands’ topography of the regions and very share of irrigated land, and multiplication usages of millets (direct consumption, processed food, oil seeds etc.) The proposed project aims to attract investment in Food Processing Industry in RayalSeema on the basis of discussion with industry and evaluation of domestic/international best practices, outline policies for setting up food processing industry, that can revolve around a single or class of crops - say millets. This could include identifying raw material, inputs, labour, transportation requirements, export support etc after researching and talking to industry, besides doing need-gap, SWOT (vs. other states) and environmental analysis (PESTLE).

The deliverables of the project include:

• Suggest policy report on incentives for industry to invest in, 
• Analysis of expectations of the industry, of they were to invest in Rayalaseema,
• Assessment of Dryland farming Best practices – India and International,
• Crop alternatives/combinations/baskets that AP should consider, to millets, basis market demand (domestic and export), and viability.

Faculty: Murali Mantrala, Manish Gangwar, Madhu Viswanathan, Ahmed Timoumi, Abhinav Uppal, & Kiran Pedada

Project Brief : COVID-19 has highlighted several last-mile challenges faced by India in delivering various goods and services to different consumer segments of the population. This crisis gave rise to issues related to the delivery of essential commodities, financial payments and healthcare services. Some of these challenges are due to inefficiencies already embedded in the market before the crisis. 

As we move forward, we have to monitor and learn from the market’s response to the ongoing crisis and its evolution, identify weaknesses in current last-mile delivery systems, and propose new business models and policies to make these systems in different consumer service sectors more efficient and effective.

This project aims to investigate theoretically and empirically (based on both primary survey and secondary data collection) the following two problems:

• How the COVID crisis is impacting consumer behavior (e.g., preference for shopping and delivery channels, adoption of new channels, brand loyalty, store loyalty, basket size, private label patronage, and product returns behaviors, etc.) and how long-lasting are these effect.
• Impact of the COVID crisis on traditional kirana stores and modern retailers. How have they managed the emerging last-mile delivery issues (e.g., developing their own delivery capabilities vs. listing on an online platform)? Would they change their distribution strategy post-COVID? Understanding and analysing the attitudes towards delivery services, ownership behaviour, antecedents of key strategic decisions, strategies on retaining/managing consumer satisfaction 

Faculty: Sachin Garg

Project Brief : The JSI Project “Incorporation of electric mobility and infrastructure in mass transit networks to develop sustainable transportation networks” investigates ways to accelerate the shift to Electric Vehicles by assisting private players to resolve issues such as land reallocation, infrastructure restructuring, and distribution of the initial costs. Since multiple issues need addressing the project takes a holistic approach and involves various stakeholders. The main scope of the project's currently is to create a transportation model for electric buses that is operationally feasible and financially sustainable in 2nd tier smart cities in India.

Faculty: Prakash Bagri

Project Brief : This Project looks at the way public transportation services operate in India from the ground up. The project aims to create an innovative turnaround plan to increase efficiency as well as profitability. The goal of the project ranges from exploring technology interventions to exploring best practices from successful models to improve operational efficiency, especially for multi-operator journeys. 

Indian School of Business, under the Jump Start India initiative, kicked off the Mentorship based initiative for five meritorious schools of Punjab. The students will be evaluated via a comprehensive Randomized Control Trial tool after being divided into the treatment and control groups. The project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a mentorship-based model in improving student engagement, and enhancing their motivation. The initiative focusses on a randomly selected set of students from the 12th standard, who are at an important stage in their careers, but are at a high risk of dropping out of the education system altogether, unless they are engaged in a meaningful way during this critical time. Nearly 500 students of class 12 from the meritorious schools, 200+ ISB students (PGP, PGP-PRO, PGP-MAX and AMPPP) and 20 ISB staff members are participating in the programme. The initiative is being documented as a Randomized Control Trial and if found effective, the model could be replicated and scaled up across the state for benefitting maximum students.