Dr. Meghna Verma - Ramaiah Institute

Dr. Meghna Verma

Associate Professor

  • Email: meghna@msrim.org
  • Ext: 230

About The Faculty

Dr. Meghna Verma has completed her Ph.D. in Airport Retail, focusing on retail product purchase behaviour of domestic passengers, from the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) Bengaluru. Before that, she did her MBA in Marketing and HR and M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics. She has been a faculty of marketing and analytics at RIM since 2009. She has over 22 years of industry, teaching, and research experience. She has worked with reputed industrial firms like Anchor Electronics & Electricals Ltd., Nilkamal Plastics Ltd., Time Packaging Ltd., and Unichem Pharma (Foreva Division).

Dr. Meghna Verma is actively involved in research projects. She was a co-investigator in Indo –Dutch Research Project, 'The Kumbh Mela Experiment (KME)' funded jointly by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Govt. of India, and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). She is also the recipient of a research grant of nearly Rs.11 lakhs for the project titled "Institutionalizing Gender SMART and Gender Astute Mobility", funded by Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), Govt. of Karnataka, India. Dr.Verma contributed in-kind to the DULT Award-winning project, Clean Air Street testbed - Church Street First, and co-authored three chapters in the report titled, "Church Street First-Impact Assessment of Pedestrianizing an Urban Street an urban street in Terms of Quality of Life." She has presented her research work on KME in Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Denmark; Amsterdam Business School, Netherlands; Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, and also at special session of KME in the 6th Conference of Transportation Research Group of India (CTRG-2021) hosted by NIT Trichy.

Dr.Verma has published many research papers in Journals listed in ABDC and SJR ranking and presented research papers at conferences held in IIT Bombay, IIM Indore, Brazil, and Sri Lanka, to mention a few.

She has delivered invited webinars in various institutes on 'Demarketing' advocating sustainability and local brands suggesting strategies to transform them into global brands.

Dr. Meghna Verma is a reviewer of reputed journals of Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, and Springer, like Journal of Convention and Tourism, Travel Behaviour and Society, Case Studies on Transport Policy, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, etc. She has traveled to many countries across the globe, including, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Russia, Brazil, U.K., USA, Portugal, France, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, for both personal and professional work.

Dr.Verma was the resource person for the capacity building workshop for DULT, GOK, officials on 'Marketing of Sustainable Transport – A Case Study of Cycle Day Bangalore,' data analytics workshop (organised by IISc.), workshops on how to conduct Focus Group Discussions (FGD) for their Sustainable Mobility Accord (SuMA) project. She was also one of the resource persons for a GIAN course on travel behaviour, organised by IISc.

During her tenure at RIM, she was conference coordinator during the 2010 and 2012 RIM conferences, Faculty incharge –Alumni Matters for three years, Mentored students of Marketing Club for three years, organised self defense workshop for girl students of RIM and has been an active member of multiple functional committees.

Area of Research

Dr. Meghna Verma's research work mainly focused on tourism, women safety, social media marketing, e-tailing, marketing of sustainable transport services, crowd behaviour in mass religious events, etc. Her ongoing work is in the area of Airport Retail,  application of AI in marketing, and Gender SMART Mobility.

Courses Taught: Consumer Behaviour and Market Research, Marketing Management, Retail Management, Services Marketing, Business Analytics, Business Research Methods, Statistics for Managers, Operations Research.

Education

Dr.Meghna Verma has completed her Ph.D. in Airport purchase behaviour of domestic passengers from Indian Institute of Science(IISc.), Bangalore; M.B.A. in Marketing & HR from Vikram University, Ujjain, and M.Sc  in Applied Mathematics from Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal.

Affiliations

  • Currently Associate Professor, RIM
  • Prof Meghna Verma has worked with reputed industrial firms like Anchor Electronics & Electricals Ltd., Nilkamal Plastics Ltd., Time Packaging Ltd., Unichem Pharma (Foreva Division).
  • Research Scholar at Indian Institute of Science
  • She is a Reviewer of Reputed Journals of Elsevier, Taylor and Francis and Springer, like Journal of Convention and Tourism (Q3-SJR Ranking), Travel Behaviour and Society (Q1-SJR Ranking), Case Studies on Transport Policy (Q1-SJR Ranking), Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment (Q1-SJR Ranking), Public Transport (Q2-SJR Ranking)

Editorial Board Member of Journal ‘Transportation Management’, https://systems.enpress-publisher.com/index.php/TM/about/editorialTeam

Awards and Recognitions

  • Dr.Meghna Verma is the recipient of Rs.11 Lakh research grant for the project titled, "Institutionalizing Gender SMART and Gender Astute Mobility." The project duration is 6 months, from 18th October to 18th April 2022 and has been extended by another 3 months. The project is funded by Directorate of Urban Land Transport, Government of Karnataka, under ASPIRE program 2020-21 and is being carried out in collaboration with Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

  • Contribution to Award-winning project of DULT, GOK: Dr.Verma contributed in kind to the DULT Award-winning project, Clean Air Street testbed - Church Street First, and co-authored three chapters in the report titled, "Church Street First-Impact Assessment of Pedestrianizing an Urban Street an urban street in Terms of Quality of Life." The detailed report on the same project can be viewed using the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JuPy38DwHWSpvhoO2IKOtsYY03AjjteL/view . She was also an adviser to DULT on social media outreach in this project.

  • DULT was the recipient of the "Commendation Award" by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, GOI, under the State that has implemented the Best Urban transport project in 2020-21. The project was implemented in association with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Energy Systems Catapult, Urban Morph, etc. DULT also received a "Certificate of Special Recognition" as part of the "Volvo India Innovation Award 2021" on 10th November 2021 for the same project.

  • Prof. Meghna Verma was one of the co-investigators in Indo –Dutch Research Project titled, “The Kumbh Mela Experiment (KME): Measuring and Understanding the dynamics of mankind’s largest crowd,” funded jointly by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Govt. of India and Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Netherlands. The project has been mentioned as one of the best-use cases of Artificial Intelligence in the country by NITI Aayog in its white paper titled, National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence’.

  • Recipient of “Best Paper Award” for the research paper -Verma Meghna, Mathew Rachel (2014), “SCRM-A Sustainable Marketing Strategy or a Threat”, Conference on Emerging Trends in Business, Christ University, December ,11-12,2014 - Bangalore

  • She has publications in high impact Journals like Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, Sustainable Cities and Society, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Journal of Transport Geography, Indian Journal of Marketing, Prabandhan: Indian Journal of Management, International Journal of Tourism Policy.

  • Invited to deliver guest lecture at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany.

Research

Publications
Journal and Other Publications
  1. Bhat, F.A., Meghna Verma, Verma, A.  (2022). "Measuring and Modelling Electric Vehicle Adoption of Indian Consumers". Transportation in Developing Economies 8, 6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40890-021-00143-2, Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland Emerging Sources Citation Index, Web of Science
  2. Verma, A., Verma, Meghna., Yadav, V. et al. (2021). “An Exploratory Analysis of Activity Participation and Travel Patterns of Pilgrims in the World’s Largest Mass Religious Gathering: A Case Study of Kumbh Mela Ujjain, India. Transportation in Developing Economies, 7: 27 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s40890-021-00137-0
  3. Meghna Verma, BR Naveen (2021). “Covid-19 impact on buying behaviour”, IIM-Ahmedabad Journal: VIKALPA The Journal of Decision Makers, Volume 46(1) https://doi.org/10.1177/02560909211018885 46(1) 27–40, June 2, 2021
  4. Meghna Verma, Ashish Verma, I Narsaria (2021). “Measuring sentiments and attitude of people toward self-drive rental car services in Bangalore City, India”.  Transportation Letters, The International Journal of Transportation Research,Taylor& Francis,  https://doi.org/10.1080/19427867.2021.1914966 SJR-Q2 (2020 Rating).
  5. Verma, A., Verma Meghna., Sarangi P., Yadav V., Manoj M., (2021). “Activity participation, Episode Duration and Stop-making behavior of Pilgrims in a Religious Event: An Exploratory Analysis” Journal of Choice Modelling, Volume 38,100267, Elsevier, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocm.2021.100267  SJR-Q1 (2020 Rating).
  6. Meghna Verma, A Verma, M Khan (2020), “Factors Influencing the Adoption of Electric Vehicles in Bengaluru”, Springer Publication, Transportation in Developing Economies 6 (2), 1-10
  7. I Narsaria, Meghna Verma, A Verma, (2020), “Measuring Satisfaction of Rental Car Services in India for Policy Lessons”, Elsevier Journal, Case Studies on Transport Policy Q1 in SJR 2019
  8. H Trivedi, Meghna Verma, (2019) “Exploring the influence of Service Quality on the Religious Tourists' experience”, Taylor & Francis, International Journal of Tourism Policy 9 (3), 181-200, Q4 in SJR Ranking 2019
  9. Meghna Verma, P Sarangi (2019), “Modeling attributes of religious tourism: A study of Kumbh Mela, India”, Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 1-29, Taylor and Francis Publication, Q3 in SJR ranking
  10. Verma A., Verma Meghna., Rahul T. M., Khurana S., Rai A., (2019) “Measuring Accessibility of Various Facilities by Walking in World’s Largest Mass Religious Gathering - Kumbh Mela”. Elsevier Journal, Sustainable Cities and Society, 45, pp 79-86, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.11.038A - SJR- Q1
  11. Verma A,  Verma Meghna, T M Rahul, S Khurana, A Rai  (2018), “Acceptable Trip Distance for Walking in Mass Religious Gatherings-A Case Study of World’s Largest Human Gathering Kumbh Mela in Ujjain” , India , Elsevier, Sustainable Cities and Society, 41, pp 505-512 SJR- Q1
  12. Verma, Meghna., Verma A, Sagar Khurana (2018), Influence of Travel Motivation and Demographic Factors on Tourist Participation on World’s Largest Mass Religious Gathering –The Kumbh Mela, Prabandhan: Indian Journal of Management, Volume 11; Issue 8, ISSN No. 0975-2854, SJR-Q3-2019 Ranking
  13. Verma Meghna., Rahul T. M., Vinayak P., Verma, A. (2018) “Influence of Childhood and Adulthood Attitudinal Perceptions on Bicycle Usage in the Bangalore City”, Elsevier, Journal of Transport Geography, 72, pp.94-105, SJR -Q1, ABDC -A
  14. Meghna Verma, S. Supriya (2018), Measuring Attitude towards Green Products, M S M S Ramaiah Management Review, Volume 9, Issue 3, ISSN-0975-7988
  15.  Meghna Verma, Yashank H.M(2018), An Analysis of Factors Affecting Airport Shopping Behavior of Air Travelers in Bangalore, M S Ramaiah Management Review, Volume 9, Issue 3, ISSN-0975-7988
  16. Meghna Verma, Manoj M., Verma A. (2017), “Analysis of Aspiration for Owning a Car Among Youths in a City of a Developing Country, India”. Transportation in Developing Economies (TiDE), Springer, 3(1), pp.1-9.
  17. Meghna Verma, Manoj M., Rodeja N., Verma A. (2017). “Service Gap Analysis of Public Buses in Bangalore With Respect to Women Safety”. Transportation Research Procedia, Elsevier, 25(C), pp.4326-4333.
  18. Meghna Verma, M. Manoj, Verma A (2016), “Analysis of the influences of attitudinal factors on car ownership decisions among urban young adults in a developing country like India”, Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Elsevier Journal, SJR-Q2, ABDC-A
  19. Meghna Verma, T.M. Rahul, Reddy P.V., Verma A (2016), “The factors influencing bicycling in the Bangalore city”, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier Journal, Volume 89, pp. 29-40
  20. Meghna Verma, (2015), "Growing Car Ownership and Dependence in India and its Policy Implications”; Case Studies on Transport Policy, Elsevier. 3(3), pp. 304-310. SJR-Q2, ABDC-C
  21. Meghna Verma, Saranya R (2014), “Role of Gender in Influencing Consumer’s Attitude Towards On-Line Advertising ", Indian Journal of Marketing, Volume 44, Issue 12, pg.32-46, December 2014, ISSN No. 0973-8703;
  22. Meghna Verma, Verma A., Ajith P., Sneha S, (2014), “Urban Bus Transport Service Quality and Sustainable Development: Understanding the Gaps”, Indian Journal of Transport Management, Volume 38; Number 2, pp. 98-112, ISSN 0972-5695
  23. Meghna Verma (2013) “Developing Corporate Visual Identity (CVI) in Indian Context.” Business Review (IBR), Vol 3, Issue 1, pp.46-54, e-ISSN 2249-5444, p-ISSN 2249-816
  24. Meghna Verma (2013) “3G Users Perception of Service Quality: Indian Perspective”, PES Business Review, Vol.8, Issue 1, pp.47-58. ISSN 0973 – 919X
  25. Meghna Verma, Anvekar S, (2011) “Emotional Support and Work-Life Balance: A study of Married Women Employees”, M.S. Ramaiah Management Review, Vol.III, Issue 1, pp.94-98, ISSN: 0975-7988.
  26. Meghna Verma (2010), Book Review: “Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus”, by Tim Hindle, in M S Ramaiah Management Review Journal, Vol.2, Issue 2, pp.50, ISSN No. 0975-7988.;
  27. Meghna Verma, Anvekar S (2010) “Propelling Corporate India: Strategies Challenges”, Edited Book of Abstracts, Excel Publishers, India ISBN:978-93-80697-06-2.

Conference Papers

  1. Santi Rai, Meghna Verma (2022). Drivers And Barriers of Tourist Destination: Case study of North-East Tourism. 04-05 Feb 2022, International Conference on Insights in Marketing (ICIM 2022)  with the theme Sustainable Marketing for a Better World, Rajagiri Business School Kochi Kerala. Presented by the student.
  2. R Ganesh Kumar and Meghna Verma (2021). Role of ethnocentrism in purchase behaviour of Indian consumers post-covid-19 pandemic. 16-18th Dec’2021, International Conference for Markets and Development (ICMD), 16th Biennial Conference, IIM Trichy.
  3. F.A. Bhat, Meghna Verma, A. Verma (2021). Measuring and Modelling Electric Vehicle Adoption of Indian Consumers, 6th Conference of Transportation Research Group of India (CTRG), December 14-17, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India (Funded by Institute).
  4. Puja Bhowmick, Meghna Verma (2021), Measuring the factors influencing the usage of Augmented Reality in online purchase 12th February 2021, 'International Conference on Rigor, Relevance and Resilience & Management Research' (SICBM 2021), organized by SIBM Hyderabad, India. Paper Published as a book chapter in An Anthology of Multi-Functional Perspectives in Business and Management Research, Volume 2, ISBN: 978-93-91260-12-5. Presented by the student.
  5. Sheikh Abdul Munnaf, Meghna Verma (2021), Measuring Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Automobile Maintenance Service Centers using SERVPERF Framework, 5th February 2021, International Conference on Insights in Marketing (ICIM 2021) jointly organized by Rajagiri Business school, Kochi, Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, Kochi and Vives University of Applied Sciences, Belgium. Presented by the student.
  6. Puja Bhowmick, Meghna Verma (2021), Drivers of Online Shopping: How Disruptive Technologies are Enhancing Consumer Experience in Decision Making Process? January 30-31, 2021 in PIMR XV International Conference on Rethinking Business Strategies, Entrepreneurial Challenges and Societal Values in a Changed Global Scenario organised by Prestige Institute of Management and Research, Indore (Contribution in Absentia)
  7. Nidhi Singh, MeghnaVerma, (2020), A study on the impact of COVID-19 on Currency Exchange and Stock Market Virtual Conference on, Global Deceleration: Emergence of New Economy, 27th August 2020, RIM, Bangalore. Presented by the student.
  8. Meghna Verma, Aishwarya Chandrashekar, (2020), Sentiment Analytics on Indian Restaurants with user-generated content-A case study of India, 13th International Conference On Marketing (MARKCON) Indus Business Academy, 9-11 January 2020. Presented by the student.
  9. Hitendra Trivedi, Meghna Verma, (2019), Measuring Sentiments of Netizens towards Kumbh Mela 2019, 26-29 July 2019, NASMEI 2019 Summer Marketing & Information System Conference organised by IIM Indore
  10. Meghna Verma, S.Sana Nashita, (2019), Role of Digital feedbacks: Measuring sentiments through Tweets, a case of OLA, 10th  International conference - ICADIWT 2019 held at RIM Presented by the Student.
  11. Meghna Verma, N. Rodeja, M. Malayath, A Verma (2019), Young women's perception of safety in public buses: A study of two Indian cities (Ahmedabad and Bangalore), 15th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR), 25 -31 May 2019, IIT Bombay, Mumbai.
  12. Meghna Verma, Rahul T.M., Verma A (2017), Bicycling in Developing countries- Role of Gender, 4th Conference of Transportation Research Group of India (CTRG), 17th to 20th Dec. 2017, IIT Bombay, India.
  13. Meghna Verma, Manoj M., Rodeja N., Verma A. (2017). Service Gap Analysis of Public Buses in Bangalore With Respect to Women Safety, 14th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR), July 10-15, 2016, Shanghai, China, Published in Elsevier, Transportation Research Procedia, 25, 4322-4329.
  14. Meghna Verma, Manoj, M., and Verma, A. (2015). Analysis of aspiration for owning a car among youths in a city of a developing country, India. 3rd Conference of Transportation Research Group of India (CTRG), 17th to 20th Dec. 2015, Kolkata, India.
  15. Meghna Verma, Roopakiran Yeluri, (2015), Airport Retailing in India – Opportunities and Challenges Airport Development Series Conference (AIRDEV conference), 4th to 6th Nov. 2015, IISc, Bangalore.
  16. Meghna Verma, Rahul T.M., Reddy P.V., Verma A. (2015), Attitude of people towards bicycling in the Bangalore city, International Conference on Advances in Highway Engineering and Transportation Systems, University of Moratuwa, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 10-12 Aug. 2015.
  17. Meghna Verma, Mathew Rachel, (2014) SCRM-A Sustainable Marketing Strategy or a Threat, Conference on Emerging Trends in Business, Christ University, 11-12, December 2014 – Bangalore; This paper received Best Paper Award; in the conference. Presented by the student.
  18. Meghna Verma, Verma A., Ajith P., Sneha S., (2013) Urban Bus Transport Service Quality and Sustainable Development: Understanding the Gaps, Selected Proceedings, 13th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR), July 15-18, 2013, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  19. Meghna Verma, Chandrasekharan M., (2013), Antecedents and Barriers of E-Loyalty, 7th International Conference, Organised by The International Society for Competitiveness (ISC), Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA, and Department of MBA, PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, India, November 22-23, 2013. Paper published in Outcome-Based Competitive Strategies: Issues Challenges, (2014), ISBN:978-81-8429-109-4. Presented by the student.
  20. Meghna Verma, (2012) Logo Modification: An effective marketing strategy for enhancing corporate visual identity by Indian Corporate going global, NCETB-2012

Memberships

Member, World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS).

Training and Consultancy

Dr. Meghna Verma has initiated and coordinated the Winter School as a part of Chetana Program of the Department of IT and BT, Government of Karnataka. Program was hosted by the institute.

Conducted Capacity Building Workshop on “Marketing of Sustainable Transport – A Case Study of Cycle Day Bangalore”, for officials of Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), Bangalore on 16th January 2015.

Completed two projects assigned by Institute

1.1 Meghna Verma, Snehal M, Sairam, 2018, Consultancy report on Competitive based pricing strategy for LiveActive Pain Oil.

1.2Meghna Verma, Snehal M, Sairam, 2018, Consultancy report on Competitive based pricing strategy for LiveActive Pain Balm.

2.Meghna Verma, Aravinda Reddy M N, “Market Survey Report to Evaluate the demand and necessity of certification course on CCTV Installation and Maintenance Conducted for Ramaiah Polytechnic College., January 2019

Invited Talks:

  • Invited speaker for Three-day National Webinar Series on “Unlock India –A Management Perspective” from 6th to 8th June 2020 organised by JSPM’s Rajarshi Shahu College of Engineering, Department of MBA, Pune, Maharashtra. Delivered webinar on “Demarketing: A Required Wave in Marketing during and post COVID-19 Pandemic.”  
  • Resource person for a webinar on “Leverage The COVID-19 Pandemic for Better Quality of life through Demarketing”, held on 13th June 2020, organised by Mahakal Institute of Management, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh 
  • Resource person for a Webinar on “Pandemic Time: Should we move from The Age of Marketing to the Age of Demarketing?”, held on 27th June 2020, organised by G H Raisoni University, School of Management Studies, Amravati, Maharashtra.