Much of the literature on microfinance performance has concentrated on the effects of institution-specific practices, but there have been comparatively few attempts to analyze how the broader economic environment affects the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs). Drawing on the work of Ahlin and Lin (2006), who find that numerous macroeconomic indicators affect MFI performance, this p...

Given the objective of maximizing the wealth of existing shareholders, this paper discusses some of the issues that arise in attempting to measure the performance of individual businesses within a bank. The paper describes two return measures – return on assets within a business and the return on the ‘equity’ of an individual business – and discusses the appropriate bench-marks. The paper ends ...

Facing pressures from an increasingly competitive business environment, manufacturing SMEs are called upon to implement strategies that are enabled and supported by information technologies and e-business applications. Based on the Internet and Web technologies, these include applications such as ecommunication, e-commerce, e-business intelligence and e-collaboration. From a contingency theory ...

Business performance management (BPM) has emerged as a critical discipline to enable enterprise to manage their business solutions in an on demand fashion. BPM applications promote an adaptive means by emphasizing the ability to monitor and control both business processes and IT events. However, most BPM processes and architectures are usually linear and rigid; and once done, will be very hard ...

Due to violent and ferocious competition and global changes of new trends, directions and new ways of doing business, financial institutions grapple with new challenges and opportunities in today business. The advancement in technology, information and communication has forced banks and financial institutions into hard competition.  In this new technology era, people as the customers are t...