The Advantages and Disadvantages of Budgeting

A budget can be described as a financial plan for a business that has been prepared well in advance to demonstrate and dictate the future course of work of a business. A budget may be set in money terms or it can be expressed in terms of units. Budgets can also be put across in the form of income budgets for money received i.e. sales budget, or expenditure budgets for money spent, i.e. a purchases budget. However, a major emphasis has always been on the cash budget which combines both income and expenditure in estimating the business working capital, cash in hand and bank balance during a course of work or a time period. The budgets are usually prepared for the following financial years (budget period), and are usually broken down into shorter time periods in order to emphasize on the figures and their attainment/fulfillment. The periods are usually monthly Continue reading

Classification of Bank Payment Systems

Payment systems can be classified on the basis of the value of transactions being put through them, settlement modality or on the basis of timing of settlement. Value of funds transfer: payment systems can be categorized into (a) Large-value funds transfer — where individual payments are of high value and therefore time sensitive and (b) Retail funds transfer — where the value of transactions are of relatively low individual value but the volume of transactions put through it large. Settlement modality: payments systems can be classified into (a) Net settlement where payments are set off against receipts over a large number of transactions taken up for settlement. This arrangement can be on a bilateral basis between two participants or on a multilateral basis amongst all participants and (b) Gross Settlement — where each transaction is settled independent of other transactions. Timing of settlement: payment systems can be classified as (a) Continue reading

Laws governing merger in India

Various Laws governing merger in India are as follows: 1. Indian Companies Act, 1956 This has provisions specifically dealing with the amalgamation of a company or certain other entities with similar status. The most common form of merger involves as elaborate but time-bound procedure under sections 391 to 396 of the Act. Powers in respect of these matters were with High Court (usually called Company Court). These powers are being transferred to National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) by companies (second Amendment) Act, 2002. The Compromise, arrangement and Amalgamation/reconstruction require approval of NCLT while the sale of shares to Transferee Company does not require approval of NCLT. Sec 390 This section provides that “The expression ‘arrangement’ includes a reorganization of the share capital of the company by the consolidation of shares of different classes, or by the division of shares into shares of different classes, or by both these methods” Sec Continue reading

Paradoxical Thinking

For decades, the management theorists have focused their attention on three types of thinking i.e. magical thinking, modern thinking and postmodern thinking. The latest inclusion is the paradoxical thinking. The main reason that paradoxical thinking has gained importance in the business world is that there were some buzz phrases that were being used by the employees of the organisations such as controlled chaos, getting outside the box, breaking the frame of reference, creative destruction, fuzzy logic and etc. All of these terminologies show that a business can develop something impossible by going beyond the imaginative framework and these old models have less importance in the contemporary world. The primary crux of the paradoxical thinking is that the openness can be anything but it is indecisive, lacks principled convictions and is sometimes passionless as well. Paradoxical thinking implies that problems should be looked from different angles rather than one perspective so Continue reading

Trading Area Adequacy for Retail Layouts

Trading area adequacy is the ability of a trading area to support proposed and the existing retail operations. The support capability may be viewed in a “Gross” as well as “Net” form. Here Gross adequacy is the ability of a trading area to support a retail operation without any consideration of retail competition. That is, the gross adequacy measures the total amount of business available to all the competing retailers within a defined trading area. Contrary to this, “net adequacy” is the ability of a trading area to provide support for a retailer after competition has been taken into account. The Gross Adequacy of Trading Area Measurement of gross adequacy determines the trading area’s total capacity to consume. The capacity of a retail market to consume is the function of the total number of consumers within a trading area at a given time and their need, willingness and the ability Continue reading

ERP Software Cost

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages are very expensive. Let us be clear. If you have already have some system or not, once you decide to go for ERP, you need to plan well. The entire project cost is not the only the ERP Software cost. It includes hardware, software, implementation, consultation charges, sensitizing employees to ERP and training them. Hence, if you come across some one indicating only the ERP software cost, do not get carried away. Every ERP implementation needs careful planning. Once the Enterprise identifies a few specific ERP software, ERP companies or their consultants may be asked to give you some presentation as to why should their ERP software be bought. Do not expect to get the total ERP implementation costs including ERP software cost in this presentation stage. You need to technically evaluate all the suitable ERP software packages. If you have internal expertise or a Continue reading