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Analysis of Business and its Environment in Nepal
Essence of Nepalese Business Environment
Dr. Mahendra Pd. Shrestha and Dhruba K Gautam
Publisher: Asmita Books Publishers and Distributors, Kathmandu.
Pages: 1.97 to 5.70+Annexures
Price: Rs. 235.00
First Edition: August 2005
Literature on Business Strategy and Environment teaches us that business environment is complex, dynamic, multi-faceted and has far reaching impact on business. A manager thus needs to assess the nature; audit environmental influence; identify key competitive forces; and diagnose competitive position, key opportunities and threats before strategic position is determined.
A changing environment can create new opportunities and at the same time it destroys old ones. Therefore, business needs to be in time with its external environment. Current predictions are that the environment for all organizations will become even more uncertain with every passing year. As more and more markets become global, the number of factors a company must consider in any decision-making becomes huge and more complex.
Literature further teaches us that environmental uncertainty is a threat to strategic managers because it hampers their ability to develop long range plans and to make strategic decisions to keep the business in equilibrium with its external environment. But environmental uncertainty is also an opportunity. It creates a new playing field in strategic decision-making where creativity and innovation can play a major role.
Managers must scan the organization’s external environment to identify possible opportunities and threats and its internal environment to know its strengths and weaknesses. Environmental scanning is about monitoring and evaluate information from the external and internal environments and their dissemination to key people within the business.
Marketing Guru, Philip Kotler says that successful companies take an outside-inside view of their business. They recognize that the environment is constantly presenting new opportunities and threats, and they understand the importance of continuously monitoring and adapting to that environment. Many companies fail to see change as opportunity. They ignore or resist changes until it is too late. Many companies have passed through difficult times because they ignore macro-environmental changes. Every manager in an organization needs to observe the outside environment the macro-environtmental forces that affect the organization, its consumer markets, its markets and its competitors. Companies and their suppliers, marketing intermediaries, customers, competitors and public all operate in a macro-environment of forces that shape opportunities and pose threats. These forces represent “noncontrollable” which the company must monitor and respond to.
Essences of Nepalese Business Environment, a book under review, jointly authored by Dr. Mahendra Pd. Shrestha and Dhruba K Gautam, both having years of teaching and practical experience, has been written against these setting and backgrounds. The book starts with a quote “failing to plan is planning to fail. The only constant in the modern world is change”. Above quotation rightly captures the essence of business environment.
The book is divided into five main chapters. Chapter one deals with the macro environment and Michael E. Porters’ Competitive Environment with particular reference to Nepal. Chapter Two is devoted to Social Responsibility of Business together with Social Audit and Consumerism. Similarly, Chapter Three focuses on Nepali business environment that deals with several environmental components. Asian Business Environment is discussed in detail in Chapter Four and it further dwells on Regional Blocks and various facets of South Asian Regional Free Trade Area (SAFTA). The last Chapter deals on Global Business Environment that covers Global Economic Outlook, Multinational Enterprise, Globalization and World Trade Organization (WTO).
The authors’ assertions that “an effort to link and illustrate the text with relevant Nepali cases wherever possible and further contains series of anecdotes that have been boxed at appropriate places” are found in several places. The book, as a matter of fact, seems to have been written for Bachelor, Masters and Executive MBA students. Definitely, the central focus of the book is towards meeting the academic needs of the students. In addition, the book would be equally useful and helpful for the general public, business enterprises and other sectors to understand the dynamics of business environment in Nepal.
This book is an addition to already existing textbooks on Nepali business environment, however, it is written differently in terms of style, information, and presentation. One additional point that is noticed is that the book incorporates a case study on Nepal Medical College, Kathmandu. Definitely, this is a new effort made by the authors. It is realized that case studies help to understand the issues better. Though more cases would have made the book even better, even a single case is an improvement as the practice of including case is very rare among the Nepali authors of management books.
The authors, however, should pay attention to incorporate more important and pertinent issues on Nepali business environment to make the book more useful and resourceful.
Highlighting Positive Impacts of FDI
Book: Foreign Direct Investment in Nepal
Author: Raghu Bir Bista
Publisher: Centre for Integrated Development Studies
Price: Rs. 350 (paperback)
Printed at: Hisi Printing Press, Lalitpur
Pages: 119 – XI
Available in paperback and hard cover
When the conflict afflicted Nepal need to attract foreign investment, to augment the capital base, understanding the dynamics of FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) automatically receives high importance. Considering it, Raghu Bir Bista, Lecturer of Economics in TU, has brought out a book “Foreign Direct Investment in Nepal” after what he calls several years of research. Published by CIDS, the book makes impact assessment of FDI at macro and micro levels. Bista says as there are capital and technology bottle-necks in Nepal’s industrial development despite a huge natural resource potential, FDI can be helpful.
This book will be helpful to the research fellows as it provides a wide range of information and data about FDI in Nepal. The writer has presented his analysis based on various examples on how the FDI contributed to the economy mainly in employment generation, GDP and government revenue. He has also analysed the FDI contribution in enhancing corporate social responsibility in Nepal.
The data are particularly based on official publications of HMG as well as case studies of various industrial enities like Shree Bhrikuti Pulp, Nepal Lever (now Unilever Nepal), Hulas Steel, Lotus Energy and Nepal Feed which are some of the examples of industrial units operating with FDI. And these provide some interesting clues about FDI in Nepal. The author with the backing of his research gives some quite interesting facts on historical background of FDI, government policies on FDI, its trends and structure in Nepal and how FDI affects the social and economic sector of the country. For example, under Corporate Social Responsibility heading (p 63), it shows that the investment of Lotus Energy in social sector far outpaces similar investment by larger industrial units with FDI.
The book is divided into six chapters and 14 Annexes. Various tables and graphs enrich the book. The data are presented in a quite easy to use manner and the layout is nice, though there too are some printing errors. However, the book serves a lot to fill the lacuna of a reference book on FDI in Nepal.
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