PRODUCT COSTING METHOD

The major methods that can be used in product costing by manufacturing company are Absorption costing and Variable costing.

Variable costing:

Variable costing is also known as a Marginal costing, a technique/tool of costing which includes only variable manufacturing costs , in the form of direct materials, direct labor and variable manufacturing overheads while  determining the cost per unit of  a product.

In the costing of product/service, a variable costing technique considers the behavioral characteristics of costs that is segregations of costs into fixed and variable elements, because per unit variable cost is fixed and total costs are variable in nature, where as total fixed costs are fixed and per unit fixed cost is variable in nature and furthermore variable costs are controllable in nature, while total fixed costs are un-controllable in nature. Variable costing is useful for short-term planning, control and decision-making, particularly in a business where multi-products are produced. In variable costing technique, the contribution is calculated after deducting variable costs from sales value with reference to each product or service, in order to calculate the total contribution from all products/services which are made towards the total fixed costs incurred by the business. As the fixed costs are treated as period costs, are deducted from total contribution to arrive at net profit.

Absorption costing:

Absorption costing is a costing technique that includes all manufacturing costs, in the form of direct materials, direct labor, and both variable and fixed manufacturing overheads, while determining the cost per unit of a product. It is also termed as the full- cost technique.

Absorption costing considers a share of all costs incurred by a business to each of its products/services. In absorption costing technique; costs are classified according to their functions.  The gross profit is calculated after deducting production costs from sales and from gross profit, costs incurred in relation to other business functions are deducted to arrive at the net profit.

A Report for Portfolio Management 

For MBA under Pokhara University

INTRODUCTION

The term portfolio refers to any collection of financial asset such as stocks, bonds and cash.  It is also known as the science and art of making decisions about investment mix and policy, matching investment to objectives, assets allocation for individuals and institutions, and balancing risk against performance. In this ever changing era, Portfolio management is becoming a dynamic decision process, whereby the investors list of active new projects is constantly up-dated and revised. In this process, new investment alternatives are evaluated, selected and prioritized; existing investments may be accelerated, killed or de prioritized; and resources are allocated and re-allocated to active projects.

Constructing a right portfolio is more than simply individual project selection; rather it’s about the entire mix of projects. It consists of risk in a proportion to its return and sometime more than that though it depends on investors risk taking behavior. Investors try to minimize such a risk by constructing a portfolio. Portfolio management is all about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the equity choice of national vs. international, growth vs. safety, and many other tradeoffs encountered in the attempt to maximize return at a given appetite for risk. Portfolio may be held by individual investors and/or managed by financial professionals, hedge funds, bank and other financial institutions. It is a generally accepted principal that a portfolio is designed according to the investor’s risk tolerance, time frame and investment objectives. The dollar amount of each asset may influence the risk/reward ratio of the portfolio and is referred to as the asset allocation of the portfolio.

Portfolio management by the investor sound like a fairly mechanistic exercise of decision-making and resource allocation but there are many unique facets of the problems which make it perhaps the most challenging decision-making faced by the investors. Generally portfolio management deals with future events and opportunities; thus much of the information required to make project selection decisions is at best uncertain, and at worst very unreliable. Also the decision environment is a very dynamic one. The status and prospects for projects in the portfolio are ever changing, as new information becomes available. Finally, resources to be allocated across projects are limited. A decision to fund on one alternative may mean that resources must be taken away from another; and resource transfers between projects are not totally seamless.

IMPORTANCE OF PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Portfolio management is a critical and vital to every investor. Investors try to maintain high rate of return on their investment as much as possible. So, primarily for financial purpose that is to minimize risk and to maximize return, the Portfolio management is vital. But offcourse the risk consists in a proportion to the return. Though it can be minimized it can not be avoided. For the reason, the Portfolio management will be crucial to investors.  Instead, it help to determine whether the potential return from investing in a specific stock or fund is worth the incremental risk that this stock or fund adds to investor’s portfolio. It also help to achieve balance- the right balance between long and short term investment alternatives, and high risk and low risk ones, consistent with the business’s goals.

In portfolio management, it is important for an investor to monitor his or her portfolio regularly in addition to asset allocation, because it must be determined whether or not the return results of the portfolio meet the expectations of the investor, or whether there is a need to change the strategic asset allocation. The monitoring process also provides comprehensive, detailed information on the investment positions of the investor. The result of the controlling monitoring might require changes in the asset allocation in order to realign the long-term asset allocation strategy. It is important to note that portfolio management, as an investment process, is not a static, but a dynamic one, where you should regularly adapt your decisions to changes in the market and in your own circumstances.

Major importance of portfolio management can be point out as follows. These are also known as four macro or high level goals of portfolio management for investors.

       I.            Value maximization: Here the goal is to allocate resources so as to maximize the value of investors’ portfolio. That is, investor’s select projects so as to maximize sum of the values or commercial worth of all active projects in their pipeline in terms of some business objective ( such as long term profitability, return-on-investment etc.)

    II.            Balance:  Here the principal concern is to develop a balanced portfolio – to achieve a desired balance of projects in terms of a number of parameters; for example, the right balance in terms of long term projects’ versus short ones; or high risk versus lower risk projects; and across various markets, technologies, product categories, and project types.

 III.            Strategic Direction: The main importance here is to ensure that, regardless of all other considerations, the final portfolio of projects truly reflects the business’s strategy – that the breakdown of spending across projects, area, markets, etc., is directly tied to the business strategy.

 IV.            Right Numbers of Projects: Most investors have too many alternate projects underway for the limited resources available. The result is pipeline gridlock: projects end up in a queue; they take longer and longer to get to market; and key activities within projects. Thus an over-riding importance is that it ensures a balance between resources required for the “Go” projects and resources available.

INVESTMENT DECISION/ PORTFOLIO SELECTION

Constructing a portfolio is a complex but crucial to make the proper risk return trade-off decision. Majorly investors have two alternatives; risk free and risky alternatives. Obviously, an investor cannot decide how to allocate investment funds between the risk-free asset and that risky portfolio without knowing its expected return and degree of risk.  So it is necessary to calculate expected return, degree of risk (S.D.), Covariance, Correlation of coefficient before investors’ construct their portfolio. The above required calculations are made as follows:

After calculating all above we can choose an appropriate complete portfolio by mixing several asset those may be risk free or risky or moderate risky assets. For portfolio selection, Markowitz Portfolio selection model is considered as the appropriate model.   Markowitz’s model has a great contribution in quantitative method for portfolio analysis. Quantitative method for portfolio analysis has developed since Markowitz’s pioneering work in 1950. These methods have been applied successfully in a variety of areas of finance, notably to equity portfolios. These methods show the amount of risk reduction achievable through diversification. They measure the amount of risk contributed by an asset, or group of assets, to a portfolio. By extension, they also show the amount of diversification provided by a single asset or group of assets. The aim of these methods is to maximize the return to a portfolio while keeping the risk within acceptable bounds. This maximization requires a balancing or returns to risk within the portfolio, asset by asset, group of assets by group of assets.

The first step is to determine the risk-return opportunities available to the investor. These are summarized by the minimum-variance frontier of risky assets. The frontier is a graph of the lowest possible variance that can be attained for a given portfolio expected return. So, expected returns, variances, and covariance are calculated as stated above they are presented in frontier. The most diversifying investments lead to portfolios with higher expected returns and lower standard deviation combination. All the portfolios that lie on the minimum-variance frontier from the global minimum-variance portfolio and upward provide the best risk-return combinations and thus are candidates for the optimal portfolio.

The second part of the optimization plan involves the risk-free asset. Where we search for the capital allocation line with the highest reward-to-volatility ratio.

Finally the individuality investor choose the appropriate mix between the optimal risky portfolio and risk free assets combinations.

INTRODUCTION OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT BANK LIMITED

Business Development Bank Ltd. (BDBL) was established in 2063 Baishakh 27 with the ‘vision of striving for ultimate win’. It has total of five branches with the last one established in Narayangarh. Head office of BDBL is located in New Road, Pokhara. Around forty two employees are working in BDBL at present after the last increment. BDBL is the no. One development bank among all the development bank in Nepal according to the Fast Micro Finance Development Bank Ltd’s financial statement of 2066/067.

In the recent year it is busting its profit and liquidity by investing in most profitable area that is identified by survey under the rule of Rastra Bank. It is implementing myriads of strategies to strive success with just a few years of experience.

INTRODUCTION OF KUMARI BANK LIMITED

Kumari Bank Limited, came into existence as the fifteenth commercial bank of Nepal by starting its banking operations from Chaitra 21, 2057 B.S. with an objectives of providing competitive and modern banking services in the Neplease financial market. The bank has paid up capital of Rs 1.48 trillian of which seventy percent is contributed from promoters and remaining from public.

Kumari Bank Ltd has been providing wide-range of modern banking services through 28 points of representations located in various urban and semi urban part of the country, 19 outside and 9 inside the valley. The bank is pioneer in providing some of the lucrative banking services in Nepal. The bank always focuses on building sound technology driven internal system to cater changing need of the customers that enhance high comfort and value. The bank is able to get recognition as an innovative and fast growing institution striving to enhance customer value and satisfaction backing transparent business practice, professional management, corporate governance and total quality management as the organizational mission. The bank always prioritized the priorities of the valued customers.

A Business Development plan writing on MBA

A Business development plan for Organic cookies Company

Chapter One

Introduction of Business

1.1 Back ground of the Cookies Company:

Neplease market is experiencing one of the most extraordinary period in a history. It is shifting towards the era of fast food. The increasing population, imitation of western culture, more women joining the workforce and more families relying on two incomes are changing the eating and spending habits of Neplease people and thereby the demand of fast food. Most of those increasing demands are fulfilled by imported goods from India and other countries. The changes that occur in Neplease consumer and so on market has led me to open up this business as there is growing need for such a Cookies Company.

Kerry Cookies is a cookies company that will be located in Lekhnath, Kaski. This company will be established as a Partnership Company. Kerry Cookies Company will produce varieties of cookies like basic vanilla spritz, almond spritz, double lemon, icing, deviled eggs, zesty herbed cheese sperad, baked stuffed potatoes, cheese straws, peanuts, coconuts, mini ice cream sandwiches. Old fashioned and healthy cookies will help us to make a strong stand in this strong competitive market. Organic raw materials will be used to ensure the healthiness of our cookies. Apart from this it will also provide an online shopping service. For online purchase customer can simply visit the company site. We will also provide home delivery services in Pokhara and Lekhnath municipality for purchases of more than thousand rupees and in other location of Nepal for purchases of more than ten thousand rupees.

The target customer for this business is a person from urban and rural area of Nepal who totally loves cookies (i.e. student, housewife, personal or any other).  More importantly, among cookies lovers the company is seeking those who are not the health nuts looking for ‘alternative’ cookies. My vision is for good old fashioned high calorie splurge type cookies. Locating these cookie lovers is no simple task, as it is more of a psychographic characteristic than any sort of easily identifiable demographic.

1.1.1 Vision:

“Our vision is to be a finest cookies company in a market across all geopolitical zones and socioeconomic stratums of the nation by overcoming the customer gap that helps to create value for all our stakeholders and to make a strong stand in front of all other.”

1.1.2 Mission Statement:

“Our mission is to create a stakeholder economy. Our approaches are to set apart our product by offering old fashioned and modern products with the practice of best technologies keeping in focus our customers’ increased health awareness and satisfaction over and above everything else at all times.”

1.1.3 Objectives:

“To make unique, creative, high quality, healthy cookies and provide them locally at a fair price through online and cookies stores.”

1.1.4 Goals:

        i.            Use local and organic raw materials as possible.

      ii.            Frequently throw new cookies to market and find customers' changing taste on cookies.

    iii.            Increase online sales by 8% per year.

    iv.            Increase total sales by 20% per year.

      v.            To gain larger market share within four years.

    vi.            To provide 10% of return to shareholders.

1.1.5 Keys to Success:

        i.            Provide the highest quality product with personal customer service.

      ii.            Competitive pricing.

    iii.            Maintain the uniqueness by putting healthiness at the top.

1.2 The project:

Chiefly, this company - Kerry Cookies will provide a variety of organic and healthy cookies produced in industrial area of metropolitan city Lekhnath. This will be the first organic and privately owned cookies company of our country. It is projected that it will produce totaled of five ton cookies per day. Though it is established in western part of our country the retail outlets will be established in twenty five locations that almost cover all part of our country.  It will use latest cheap technologies developed in China. So the training in operation will be received from company representative in the very beginning days.

1.2.1 Objective of the Project:

        i.            Decrease import of fast food and promote domestic producer of organic raw materials.

      ii.            Increase health awareness among people.

    iii.            Become a first exporter with its uniqueness of old fashioned and healthy cookies.

1.2.2 Strategy of the Project:

 We will follow the low profile strategy. It doesn’t mean that we will not budget for promotion but only that we will budget for those promotion that are economic as well as effective. Consumer always expect quality product at low cost so this strategy will fit in Neplease market. To reduce cost first we consider each and every value chain activities such as logistic, technology, manufacturing and marketing activities. Beside this to reduce unnecessary cost and increase beginning turnover of our cookies, the major market center will be selected and delivered.

1.2.3 Status:

Lekhnath is the place where we can get sufficient raw materials as we required and at we enjoy. This place will give us a benefit of supplier participation or involvement of supplier in value chain. Every target market will be beneficially accessed from this location. Climate is favorable for different types of inventory.

Chapter Two

Production Plan

2.1 The Product:

Kerry Cookies company will offers a broad range of cookies, all from high quality domestic organic raw materials. Kerry cookies will caters to all of its customers by providing each customer cookies product made to suit the customer, down to the smallest detail. It will provide freshly prepared cookies products at all times during business operations.

Initially we are offering basic vanilla spritz, almond spritz, double lemon, deviled eggs, zesty herbed cheese sperad, baked stuffed potatoes, cheese straws, peanuts, coconuts and some other cookies with local taste.

Most of our cookies packaging has consisted of two cookies facing one another in a simple plastic packet. The package is heat-sealed to preserve crispness. Our products will be available from small size to large family size.

2.2 Product Materials:

The ingredients include unbleached organic flour, sweet butter, whole fresh organic eggs, pure  sugar, whole almonds or hazelnuts, Cocoa, Callebaut bittersweet chocolate, anise seeds, fresh lemon peel, aluminum-free baking powder, organic anise oil, vitamin E, salt, vanilla extract, organic butter, peanuts and cow milk etc. They qualify as all organic and natural products with no preservatives, although the addition of vitamin E, which acts as an antioxidant for the butter and nuts, does prolong the shelf life by approximately six months. Almost all raw materials are available in our domestic markets and those which are not available will be imported from cheaper and faster suppliers in abroad.

A Case writing for MBA

“Sabita Tailoring” the name of tailoring to everyone

She was in front of me staring hazy picture of her family – remembering the days with deprivation that eventually unearth the ground breaking effort hidden inside her to make a “Sabita Tailoring” the name of tailoring for everyone. Sabita Paudel knocks down the door of success rather than knocking it by using her strong ability of planning, operating and risk assumption.

The Struggle

The values and norms of our society and dedicated works on our surname were against her initiation that she made in Nepalgunj. Beside this she is the second wife of her husband. So she decided to emigrate from there. Beni, the city of Myagdi district is the place where she entered ten years ago with small two daughter, him and ever following sorrows that she wanted to place far away-long ago. Sabita Paudel, the founder of the tailoring business and after whom the business is named, says she had to strongly revolt against society even after she entered to Beni bazaar.

Those days at Beni also came with stiff challenges. She said they needed more money for their child’s education, business initiation and for secure future. She sought opportunity of tailoring business there. And for the seed capital, she took a loan from bank keeping her jewellery and collect from her neighbour. With this seed capital they started tailoring business in Hulaak Chwok. Where, they as well operate a hotel business along with.

Turning Point

Time goes on but her dreams are still locked on due to strong realm of competitor. The failure of business, high cost of borrowed amount and increasing expenses of her family creates stiff financial challenges. Though her business is in losses there was no way for her except continuing it. It was a time to repay borrowed amount from creditors. She sold all her jewellery and repaid those amounts. She was really in a tough time to make a decision that is either to return Nepalgunj or still continue her business at Beni bazaar. If she still continued her business, there she has to bear not only financial risk but also family risk. Finally her bravery, confidence, enthusiasm, optimism force her to continue her business. The extreme time in her life came with ideas in her mind. Thereby she continued by changing the face of business. She opened it to new place, use her bitter experiences of failure, come with updated design and slash the opportunity. After that, till today her business is successful and she is one of the successful entrepreneurs.

The Values, Philosophy and Business Status

She said that, her chief feature is to inflict pain – step into those designing that no one has dared to set foot on, and solve it. With her chief feature and through the good management of time, money and employee; she manages to gradually take the business to higher platform. Now the business, at the outset started with her single effort and one sewing machine that is used by her has more than twelve head employees and two assistants. Sabita tailoring is the no one tailors in Myagdi district. Sabita tailoring is mainly famous for ladies clothes, available both in readymade and through custom tailoring. Beside this it also offer some custom designed gens clothes. With the talent skill of her own and her follower, she made everyone to remember “Sabita tailoring” when they think of tailoring services. “We cater dashing to custom cultural clothes” she said. This company is not only limited in tailoring services. Now days they started training classes to those who want to learn tailoring. There are more than five women who are learning tailoring skill from Paudel.

This business is always lead by her with a vision to provide the customers wears as per the present fashion designed. “We always understand what our customer expects from us” Paudel says. They meet those customers expectation through different strategy. Frequently she creates different new design and throws it to market. This step helps them to find what is new in the market and what their drawbacks are. Those, which are preferred by customers are modified and specialize with some effective feature. Her creativity and better understanding of market are the key feature for the success of her business. The company’s clientele are mainly ‘high-class’ and ‘middle-class’ people.   By characteristics, those people who want to keep themselves updated with new fashion. So they have many old clients as well as increasing number of new faithful customers. “Quality is always followed by cost. So some people cannot afford our services and products though we try to cover everyone” Paudel says.

There are very few competitor of Sabita tailoring. They frequently come with low pricing strategy. However Paudel maintain stand in the market through continuous adherence to good quality and time commitment to the customers. Quality is always in the uppermost of her mind from the time the order is taken from customers to the time it is handed over to them. But her single effort is not sufficient to meet the desired quality so she always motivates her employees and collect their expectation and feedback about new initiation. She maintains high customer involvement on her services and respect customers’ feedbacks. Budget for the advertisement is lower than it should be Sabita tailoring’s products are primarily marketed through words of mouth. She said “we believe in customer followed by quality not by fad created by advertisement that quickly dies and fades away.” She always believes in a customer with awaken mind not in their naked eyes.

Future Plan

Though her weaknesses and difficulties growing with her old age are in neck and neck with her effort, she is still avid and devoted in her business. Success of the beginning year is sufficient to survive in market. But she is not satisfied with this success. She is planning to go beyond the city with the knowledge she accumulated from mistakes and the experience she have. She said that ‘everything will be mind blowing to our customers after our step outside Beni bazaar.’

A Research Proposal on Customer Satisfaction on Commercial Bank of Nepal

Chapter-1

Introduction

1.1  Background

Banking sector in Nepal is facing a rapidly changing market. This is also known as the late effect of world financial crisis. In addition, the impact of the economic problems and financial crisis among the financial institutions creates a great challenge for the overall banking sectors. At this situation aiming for the customer satisfaction is the most challenging task for banks. Through the satisfied customers, a bank can easily measure the effectiveness of the business, its potential and position in the industries and the areas that are needed to polish and improve. But gathering a satisfied customer is not an overnight miracle but with the full of patience and bountiful of effort.

It is a well known fact that no business can exist without customers. So they must be satisfied.  More than any other, banking is a customer oriented services industry and Nepalese banks have started realizing that business depends on client service and the satisfaction of the customer. Customer satisfaction is the key factor for customer retention and thereby the banks success. So identifying and improving the factors that can limit the satisfaction of customer is the crucial step for the bank which wants to be a step forward than its competitors.

Customer satisfaction is an ambiguous and applied concept and the actual manifestation of the state of satisfaction will vary from person to person and product/service to product/service. The state of satisfaction depends on a number of both psychological and physical variables which correlate with satisfaction behaviors such as return and recommend rate. The level of satisfaction can also vary depending on other options the customer may have and other products against which the customer can compare the organization's products. Among several factors; Quality, Timeliness, Efficiency, Ease of Access, Organizational environment, Commitment to the Customer and Innovation, Behavior of employees, Willingness to solve problems, friendliness, knowledge level, communication skills etc. are some major factors that affect the satisfaction of customer. These factors are used for measurement and continuous improvement of customer satisfaction.

Machhapuchchhre Bank Ltd was founded in 1998 as the first regional commercial bank to start banking business from the western region of Nepal with its head office in Pokhara. It is one of the full fledged commercial bank operating in Nepal; and it ranks in the top most among the private commercial banks. With its past success and experience MBL is striving to facilitate its customers’ needs by delivering the best of services in combination with the state of the art technologies and best international practices. But its business environment is not same as it was in the past. Its business environment is more complex with the entrance of powerful competitor, rapid change in customers’ service/product expectations, increasing employee turnover, possible cross sales and with many other factors. So, before moving to the something new and continuing existing one, it is necessary to identify the factors affecting the satisfaction and its current level.  

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Customers have expectations and criteria when they judge whether the provided banking services is satisfactory or not. At the same time, due to the high competition in a banking sector, the perception of customers and potential customers are also divided according to the services that they want to achieve. The proper identification of customer satisfaction helps to retain customers and to increase brand awareness, profitability and effectiveness of bank’s services. These are the major customer oriented opportunities and challenges for the banking sector in Nepal, so the Machhapuchchhre Bank Ltd’s. Among the different problems regarding customer satisfaction, followings will be the major concern of this study.

i.        What are the factors affecting the customer satisfaction of MBL?

ii.      How the MBL can gather the customer satisfaction, which is the same focus of other competing banks?

iii.    What are the most satisfactory factors that are provided by competing banks to its customers?

iv.    What types of product/services are expected by MBL’s customer in future?

1.3 Objective of the Study

General objectives:

i.        To identify, if any, possible way to increase customer satisfaction.

ii.      To explore the factor affecting the customer satisfaction of Machhapuchchhre Bank Ltd.

Specific objective:

iii.    To explore and analyze critically the customer satisfaction of Machhapuchchhre Bank Ltd.

1.4 Research Hypotheses

The following are the possible alternative hypotheses in this study.

H₁: Competency of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₂: Responsiveness of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₃: Timeliness of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₄: Online banking of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₅: Communication of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₆: Credibility of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₇: Customer and Social welfare program of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₈: Appearance of the bank has positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H₉: It is expected that customer are satisfied with overall loan and deposit services of bank.

1.5 Operational Definitions and Assumptions:

Customer satisfaction is the result of interaction between the consumer’s pre-purchase expectations and post purchase evaluation. More generally satisfaction is the state of liking or disliking the services/product after experiencing it. Here, consumer/customer are any individuals or households or organizations that use goods and services generated within the economy. Also, the banking services includes: bank accounts, personal loans, commercial loans, issuance of cards (debit, credit, ATM) and processing of their transactions etc. The customer satisfaction measurement variable can be defined as follows:

a.      Employees: Employee characteristics and performance related variable directly affect the satisfaction of customer. This includes:

i.        Responsiveness: The willingness of employees to help customers and provide prompt service. It also includes the speed of responses to complaints.

ii.      Friendliness: Friendliness helps to increase quality of service /product. Employees individual attention giving, caring to customer, etc are measured here.

iii.    Skill and knowledge: Skill is measured by the way how employee performs their task and delivers to customers. The employees’ skill highly depends on their education level.

iv.    Timeliness: How fast the employee can deliver the demanded services by their customers.

v.      Communication: Understandable, acceptable, informing about facility and possible risks etc.

b.      Product and Services: It includes all product and service (explained above) related factors of the bank.

i.        Variety: Availability of same category services/product in a multi form, benefit and prices. (i.e. Yuba bachat, child saving etc.)

ii.      Price: The customer pays for receiving product or services from the bank.

iii.    Special services: It includes services like ABBS, online transaction etc.

iv.    Appearance of the bank: The color combination, attractiveness of inside and outside decoration, parking style etc.

v.      Service process: The step that should be completed before getting product or services from the bank. (i.e. the process to deposit, borrow loan etc.)

c.       Image: Primarily this criteria includes,

i.        Credibility: It includes employees trust worthy in transactions and other services, banks ability to make secure transactions and assure security etc.

ii.      Technological excellence: What types of technology is used by the bank. In what extent it serves the customers expectations.

iii.    Customer and social welfare: The bank’s activities for customers’ and social welfare. (i.e. stock ownership opportunity for customers, donations to poor students in school etc.)

d.      Access: Network expansion of the bank, branches location, as well as observed troubles in the service system (strikes, damaged ATMs, etc.), availability of service access (i.e. ATM both access, Bank service access, etc.) are included in this criterion.

Chapter-2

Literature Survey and Theoretical Framework

2.1 Literature Review

Customer satisfaction is an applied term that determines on how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Following Cronin et al. (2000), conceptualize customer satisfaction to be an evaluation of an emotion, reflecting the degree to which the customer believes the service provider evokes positive feelings. Customer satisfaction reflects the degree to which a consumer believes that the possession or use of a service evokes positive feelings. Cronin et al.’s (2000) various models and theories that have been developed to this end (Oliver, 1980; Swan and Trawick, 1980; Tse and Wilton, 1988; Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Patterson et al., 1997), indicate that customer satisfaction is related to the size and direction of disconfirmation, which is defined as the difference between the post-purchase and post-usage evaluation of the performance of the product/service and the expectations held prior to the purchase (Sharma and Ojha, 2004).

In banking industry, being competitive is already a given factor. Customers expect that banks should be strong enough even if there are uncertainties in the country, most especially in the financial stream. In the long run, the customer satisfaction can be the key element of the organization to prepare another strategy (Gitman and McDaniel, 2005). Thereby it can enhance its further success and long lifecycle.

The dream of every organizations and so the banks;  having a satisfied customer will be injection for its success and basis to continue its business lifecycle, if achieved through continuous delivery of satisfactions by reducing resistance and reluctance of the customers towards the bank’s offered products and services. If not, just a respite and waste of time and fund.

However, keeping customers is also dependent on a number of other factors. These include a wider range of product choices, greater convenience, better prices, and enhanced income (Storbacka et al., 1994).

Whereas, Ioanna (2002) further proposed that product differentiation is impossible in a competitive environment like the banking industry. Banks everywhere are delivering the same products. For example, there is usually only minimal variation in interest rates charged or the range of products available to customers. Bank prices are fixed and driven by the marketplace. Thus, bank management tends to differentiate their firm from competitors through service quality. Service quality is an imperative element impacting customers’ satisfaction level in the banking industry. In banking, quality is a multi-variable concept, which includes differing types of convenience, reliability, services portfolio, and critically, the staff delivering the service.

The study showed that increased use of service quality and professional behaviors (such as formal greetings) improved customer satisfaction and reduced customer attrition. This is well documented in a study by Leeds (1992), who documented that approximately 40 percent of customers switched banks because of what they considered to be poor service. Leeds further argued that nearly three-quarters of the banking customers mentioned teller courtesy as a prime consideration in choosing a bank.

Several studies are conducted in this setting regarding the customer satisfaction. In those studies, the contradiction occurs in variables that affect the Customer satisfaction. In some studies, price and variety of product/services are major factors affecting the customer satisfaction with some other. While in some other studies there is an inverse finding that there is no possibility to differentiate their price and services, thereby they have less or no impact in Customer satisfaction.

2.2  Theoretical Framework

There are several variables that affect the Customer Satisfaction level. In this study only organizational factors are considered to measure customer satisfaction of MBL. It is expected that those independent variable have more variability with dependent 

Chapter-3

Methodology

Methodology refers the steps that will be adopted in this study. The more systematic method gives the more actual results for the study. The method for this study includes research plan and design, description of sample, data collection procedure and data analysis plan.

3.1 Research Plan and Design

A research design is the planned specification of methods and procedures for acquiring the information needed to structure to solve the problems.

The research design used in this study is descriptive. It includes survey and fact finding enquiries to fulfill different objectives. It will use the available data from primary and secondary sources. Structured questionnaire will be used to gather the information through primary sources.

3.2 Description of the Sample

In this study customer is the single sampling segment. The sample size of thirty five despondence will be used by considering the budget and time constraints. Among them twenty five respondents will be the customer of MBL and remaining ten respondents will be the customer of any other two banks. The entire respondents to meet the determined sample size will be selected randomly in six days of data collection. But, definitely the more effort will be given to include the respondents as explained above (i.e. male and female, those who know well about the quality of services provided by MBL and its competitors and the like). 

A concept paper for report on insurance industry of Nepal

Concept Paper

General overview of Insurance Industry of Nepal

Insurance in Nepal is still in the growth stage despite being 65 years old. The first insurance company was established in Nepal in 1947. Before that some insurance companies from India were operating in Nepal. The development of insurance business is closely related to the beginning of industrialization in Nepal around 1940. The first joint stock company, Biratnagar Jute Mills, was established in 1936. The first bank, Nepal Bank Limited was established in 1973. During that period many industries came up in the Terai belt. The Second World War began immediately after. Indian entrepreneurs came to Nepal to establish factories. There was a need for the factories to be backed by insurance. Indian companies took the initiative to ensure those industries. Nepal bank provided loan to entrepreneurs. To insure these loans, Nepal Bank established Nepal insurance and transport company in 1947 as its subsidiary which was truly first Nepal insurance company. That company now operates as Nepal Insurance Company. Now 65 years after the first Nepali insurance company set up, there are 10 insurance companies with more than 450 branches throughout the country. In terms of number of companies, number of policies sold and revenue earned, there has been spectacular rise in the insurance business. There are still many areas that the Nepali insurance sector has not been able to cover, but there is no denying the act that the sector is witnessing accelerated growth. Beema Samiti (Insurance Board) an autonomous body, established to develop, systemize, regularize and regulate the insurance business of Nepal under Insurance Act, 1992.

Purpose

This report is prepared to get insight of Nepalese insurance industry. Insurance is becoming the matter of concern in every sector. But still very few are in the coverage of insurance industry. There are still more than 25% of total populations who have strong financial condition to receive insurance. But why they are not interested to get insurance? This report will also focus on this question.

Methodology

This report will be prepared by using primary and secondary data. Primary data are collected from direct interaction and discussion with professionals and secondary data are collected from different insurance company and insurance board.

Anticipated Outcomes/ Benefits

There are very few studies regarding the insurance industry. This study will benefited all the parties who have concern with and interest in insurance by unearthing the current and possible challenges, opportunities and by providing solution to reap benefit and the way to escape from difficulties.