rajesh purohit / blog

I have found it difficult to understand what the theory is and what does authors of this theory wants to convey. When I tried to Google ‘Actor-Network Theory in plain english’ I came across these video on youtube which tries hard to explain the theory using (not so) simple language. Click here to watch Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2YYxS6D-mI This spoof video has an interview with the sociology department's photocopier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2o-BLubvOg&feature=related The comment on this video clip summates feelings of most of students who had to read about this theory. “ I've always wondered what the guys who came up  with this  theory had been smoking.... ” thormj But thanks to Ramine Tinati and university of Southampton I got to read the case study on UK Open-PSI community using Acor-Netwrok Theory (ANT) framework. You can read Actor Network theory in easy to understand language from here http://share-psi.eu/papers/T...

Every MP in the Lok Sabha or the lower house of the Indian parliament under the age of 30 had inherited a seat. More than two thirds of the 66 MPs aged 40 or under are hereditary MPs. Every Congress MP under the age of 35 was a hereditary MP. Nearly 40% of the 66  ministers who are members of the Lok Sabha  were hereditary members. Nearly 70% of the women MPs have family connections. More details -  http://www.theindiasite.com/family-politics/

Introduction Software projects are complex technological projects in a way that each project is unique and thus has its own risk. This paper tries to find if risk management best practices as defined by project management frameworks and literatures are sufficient in real world projects. The report starts with defining software projects and risk management. In second section the paper tries to answer if risk management policy defined in literature is sufficient in practice and if software managers should try to implement or not. The last section takes real life case study of miss-managing risk in software project and its implication. In the end the paper tries to find balance between literary view of risk management with practical view by software developers and managers. Software Projects and Risk Management Software project is the work undertaken to specify, design, develop, test and implement a new software solution for the client (internal or external). Unlike any other industrial p...

Competitive Advantage A company is said to be in competitive advantage when it develops or get hold of attribute which helps it to do better than its competitors in terms of higher rate of return on investment. Competitive advantage occurs when firm develops or acquire unique attributes which help it to outperform its competitors. This attributes can be new technology, business process, highly skilled technical resources etc. Resource Based View (RBV) Design school theory of business strategy caters mainly for external environment and leaves out any internal resources. Resource base view (RBV) is used to determine internal resources from within the firm contributing towards greater financial performance (Kearns & Lederer, 2003). The core of the RBV emphasises that organisation to maximise rate of return and financial profitability and form sustainable competitive advantage, should have heterogeneous resources and capabilities. The resources in question should be inimitable an...

Introduction Outsourcing is a strategic decision taken by firms to achieve competitive advantage whereby products or services are produced more effectively and efficiently by outside suppliers. As par McCarthy & Anagnostou (2004, p. 63), "outsourcing is an agreement in which one company contracts-out a part of their existing internal activity to another company." Offshore business process outsourcing refers to outsourcing to vendors outside the country, predominantly to developing nations to leverage the cost advantage. To remain competitive and focus on core competencies, companies are driving toward offshore outsourcing as it helps free up resources (SCHEIBE, MENNECKE, & ZOBEL, 2006, p. 283) and help higher management focus on core business requirements (Blumberg, 1998). The offshoring provides effective means of reducing cost by outsourcing non-core activites to third party who can provide similar, if not better, services at lower cost. India is the favourite desti...

Most of anti-apple argues about the hype of iPhone and its app stores. But they forgets that apple is providing a platform for amateur software developers. As par Steve Jobs, around 5 Billion apps have been downloaded since the launch of iPhone and App Store and Apple has paid around 1 billion $ till date (Apple takes a cut of 30% from every sale and developers are paid remaining 70%). For the stats there are 250,000 apps listed on app store. Research published by this site shows average total development cost amounting to $6,453 and the earning is around 15 times of the cost. That said, not all apps can sale. The app needs to be innovative. Stats shows that people like simple design when it comes to games and it reflects in top position of games like 'Angry Birds' and 'Doodle jump' both costs 99cents (around 0.59 £). Doodle jump has been downloaded 4 million times you do the rest of the maths. With iAd platform available now, Apple is eyeing for bigger pie this time ...

One day I was having discussion with my colleague during lunch time about the impact of 2012 Olympics in London on City's economy. Specially, the East London. The discussion wasn't finished as neither of us had empirical data readily available at that moment to see if Olympic organisations had any Positive impact on the organising city if at all. So here are few links I googled to get to know if there were any positive impacts on host city's economy based on previous Olympic events. The discussion on this blog on New York Times suggests negative impact. Montreal's Olympic [1976] debt of $2.7 Billion was paid in 2005. Barcelona [1992] was neither in profit nor in loss but public debt went up to $ 6.1 billion. Same history was repeated at Sydney, Athens Olympics too. However, in case of Barcelona, Olympic helped the city to register the city on world tourist map. Moreover, Olympic event can be beneficial for the host cities on investments in terms of new Roads, Bridges ...

Every day, in a city the size of London, 30 million meals are served. But where does all the food come from? Architect Carolyn Steel discusses the daily miracle of feeding a city, and shows how ancient food routes shaped the modern world. Understanding the flow of food will help us reconnect with what we eat.

A nice blog depicting the pseudo environmentally friendly image of supermarkets who claims making changes to their stores to offset carbon footprint. Supermarkets get cold feet over fridge doors Why have supermarkets shelved their promise to introduce cheap and easy fridge doors? Whenever I visit any supermarket in UK, I found lots of energy wastage. The open fridge section deters me going into that isle or makes me run through the sections because it’s too cold. And I’m not alone many customers shares same view as me on supermarket open fridge policies.