ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought in many unique challenges and opportunities for patient care, and one is online healthcare practices. Patient satisfaction with online consultation is primary importance as online healthcare practices are evolving with time. Although previous research has examined how patient satisfaction with online doctor services can be further improved, there has been scant research on the satisfaction with online doctor services concerning Indian patients. Within the framework of service science theories, this study examines satisfaction and sentiments of Indian patients with online doctor services from multiple perspectives. A total of 38019 patient online feedback for 343 doctors was used for understanding patient sentiments. The sentiment analysis classified the reviews of the patients on online doctor consultation services. The finding suggests that healthcare service providers consider a systemic approach that includes core health services along with technical and marketing factors to proactively improve online patient satisfaction.
ABSTRACT
PurposeThis exploratory study aims to explore the operational and financial constraints faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper highlights the role of supply chain finance (SCF) in the uncertain business environment caused by the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts an inductive approach and conducts convergent interviews with 32 SME owners and bank officials who are associated with SME-related financial transactions. The analysis of the interview data has been done through a grounded theory approach.FindingsThe findings portray four key themes representing the operational and financial constraints faced by SMEs during the pandemic. Further, the study identifies four drivers of SCF adoption among SMEs, including capital constraints, high inventory turnover cycle time, high order fulfilment cycle time and long debtors' collection period.Practical implicationsThe study provides various insights to the managers and owners of SMEs to deal with the economic crisis and eliminate the financial pressure created by the pandemic. The study enlightens the policymakers about the struggles of the SMEs during the economic turmoil created by the pandemic and guides them to introduce the relevant policies to resolve their problems.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to identify the factors driving the SMEs to adopt SCF due to the economic chaos created by the pandemic. Also, the study theoretically contributes to the literature by developing a theoretical framework for SCF adoption based on grounded theory.
ABSTRACT
In recent years, supply chains seem to be moving more towards reconfiguring their networks to become more profitable. In the times of COVID-19, where the whole supply chains have been disrupted, suppliers are unable to supply, and manufacturers are unable to manufacture because of lockdowns in the various regions around the world. This pandemic can be compared to past earthquakes and tsunamis, as the coronavirus is also a natural disaster. Due to these past disruptions, organizations have taken many precautions and developed risk mitigation strategies to manage them. Because the COVID-19 outbreak shows the importance of new business perspectives like repurposing a viability strategy, that comes with sustainability and reconfigurability. Where reconfiguration focuses on adaptation, which directly means changes in resources and capabilities and repurposing focuses on a quick response solution to address the shortage. In this paper, a study has been done in two phases to model viability in an automobile supply chain during the COVID-19 times. In the first phase, a hybrid Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach is used to get the best criteria and alternatives with sustainability and reconfigurability under consideration. The multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming (MOMILP) model has been developed in the second phase. Suppliers' weight that is obtained will be used to get the optimal order and allocation. This model will help develop supply chain strategies to cope with situations that hinder the firm's competitiveness. A case study of an Indian automobile manufacturer has been taken to show the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed methodology using GAMS/CPLEX solver.
ABSTRACT
As the world has seen the impact of COVID-19, development of resilient supply chain strategies has emerged as top priority. The inconsistent demands, product consumption and the shorter lifecycle of products during the pandemic needs appropriate planning and designing to make the supply chain more resilient. In this study, an analytical model is proposed to assess the resilience of supply chain to overcome the effect of the disruption impacts. The supply chain risks will depend on the nature of the business and therefore, besides literature review on supply chain resilience the inputs from experts were required. The interdependency among the indicators was analysed by employing Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) and demonstrated with the help of a framework. The strength of the interdependence is assessed using Bayesian Network approach. BN transformed the qualitative expert inputs to quantitative assessment by utilising the principles of conditional probability. Three cases from Indian manufacturing industries were used to demonstrate and assess the critical supply chain resilience indicators using integrated ISM-BN approach. The cases showed that the proposed approach can assist decision makers in identifying the critical indicators to be focused towards improving the supply chain resilience to overcome the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. A comparative analysis of the supply chain risk indicators has also been performed, thereby extending the practical implication of supply chain resilience.
ABSTRACT
Consumer food preferences are undergoing a rapid transformation, and there has been a heightening of interest in eating healthy, sustainable foods. Food entrepreneurs are cashing in on the trend and are diversifying their existing offerings to include healthier options using alternate ingredients such as millets. However, these entrepreneurs face several challenges, and the actual growth of the market is lower than expected. The present study examines the opportunities and challenges faced by millet entrepreneurs. A total of 25 millet entrepreneurs were interviewed using a semi-structured qualitative design. Key opportunities include increased awareness of millets, people going back to their traditions, and informative food labels were the key opportunities, while a lack of awareness, lack of familiarity, preparation difficulty, sensory attributes, lack of affordability, inferior image, customer distrust, and millets’ longer gestational cycle were major challenges.
ABSTRACT
The novel coronavirus outbreak has reported to be rapidly spreading across the countries and becomes a foremost community health alarm. At present, no vaccine or specific drug is on hand for the treatment of this infectious disease. This review investigates the drugs, which are being evaluated and found to be effective against nCOVID-19 infection. A thorough literature search was performedon the recently published research papers in between January 2020 to May 2020, through various databases like "Science Direct", "Google Scholar", "PubMed","Medline", "Web of Science", and "World Health Organization (WHO)". We reviewed and documented the information related with the current and future aspects for the management and cure of COVID-19. As of 21st July 2020 a total of 14,562,550 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 607,781 deaths have been reported world-wide. The main clinical feature of COVID-19 ranges from asymptomatic disease to mild lower respiratory tract illness to severe pneumonia, acute lung injury, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), multiple organ dysfunction, and death. The drugs at present used in COVID-19 patients and ongoing clinical trials focusing on drug repurposing of various therapeutic classes of drug e.g. antiviral, anti-inflammatory and/or immunomodulatory drugs along with adjuvant/supportive care. Many drugs on clinical trials shows effective results on preliminary scale and now used currently in patients. Adjuvant/supportive care therapy are used in patients to get the best results in order to minimize the short and long-term complications. However, further studies and clinical trials are needed on large scale of population to reach any firm conclusion in terms of its efficacy and safety.