Price and Value Do we 'really' understand?

The Indian customer is credited as being 'value'conscious. I think this is a ploy used by retailers and manufacturers who use the term value when they actually mean price. Discount retailers are showing the way here. The customer - do you think she is sure what is good value?

We are used to awarding the contract to L1 the lowest bidder. We are happy to buy a 2 litre pressure cooker for the lowest price without comparing the steel used, materiel used for making the handles, functionality or aesthetics of design. When I see this even in institutional purchases it pains me. Are we imagining that customers are aware about how to look for value? Do let me know what you think

Research in Business Schools - Does Industry find B schools competent?

Everyone knows that research is paramount for any institution of higher education, however, we need to understand why this is not happening. The three main stake holders  Industry, Institutions and Faculty/researchers have different issues to address

Industry:

• Does not think it is worthwhile to associate with faculty who are purely theoreticians with no understanding of business reality.
• Faculty not competent to research and  deliver any valuable input 
• SME's can benefit a lot if they can associate with small schools, however, none of these have faculty who can do any customised research.
• Industry associations are spending little or no monies on research. It is only individual companies who want research to address their particular issues and so there is no way to fund research generic research which addresses broader issues impacting industry as a whole.

Institutions:

• Hire faculty with no industry experience 
• Workload allotted has no place for industry interaction or research. Teaching, Teaching, and Teaching about business only from reading text books!
• Only association that can be contemplated is with large companies/MNC's with a hope for placements or large research funding....mainly a 'image' building measure. 

Faculty:

• No training or experience in understanding research opportunities in the world of business
• Research limited to work towards Phd, getting grants, or publication credit. 
• Research is for 'adding to the body of knowledge' not to help business solve or understand real life problems.
• Plenty of research is being carried out across the world to find a cure for AIDS/Cancer or bird flu. How many business researchers are working on the problem of attrition? or decision making ( not using mathematical models but on how heuristics are developed and used). Am sure there is a research happening, the issue is how much and how relevant.

whooo...I need to improve this post. Will edit it next week in the meanwhile I am posting it with a hope that I will get some good insights on this topic