Tradeoffs in Supplier Attribute Ratings in Supplier Selection across Strategic versus Non-Strategic Purchases

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This research identifies a customer perspective that is often ignored, neglected, or undervalued in B-to-B sales – the nature of the product itself. The pivot point is whether the product/service desired is strategic (critical to the company’s mission) or non-strategic (not critical to the company’s mission).

Methodology/Approach: A conjoint analysis was conducted for both types of purchases (strategic and non-strategic), assessing the tradeoffs and espoused preferences of four key attributes involving both the supplier and the product across three performance levels – (1) stability of the supplier, (2) reliability, (3) competitive pricing and (4) product quality.

Findings: The results indicate that B-to-B customers do make tradeoffs between suppliers based on stability, reliability, pricing and product quality. The direction of the tradeoffs depends on whether the purchase is a strategic or non-strategic acquisition. The results suggest that suppliers would benefit from understanding the relationship of their products and services to the B-to-B customer’s mission when the supplier is deciding how to improve performance.

Research implications: Too often there is a disconnect between B-to-B salespeople and their customers resulting in suppliers failing to reach performance goals. The research focuses on the importance of B-to-B salespeople uncovering whether or not the customer considers the nature of the product being considered as strategic or non-strategic to their business. The research helps to explain some of the mixed findings in the supplier selection literature.

Practical implications: The research points to the fact that customers analyze and make decisions differently depending on the type of product. Additionally, the research highlights the importance to customers of understanding the potential legal and financial risk of suppliers. This is important in that traditionally suppliers tend to focus on product features and benefits in their selling efforts. These results indicate that they should spend significant time discussing factors that illustrate legal and financial risk reduction to the customer of dealing with their companies.

Originality/Value/Contribution: The study offers a new look at an age-old problem of enhancing sales performance through a new lens by considering the nature of the product (strategic versus non-strategic) through the perspective of the customer. The findings help to explain the mixed results of previous research. To date, the nature of the product and tradeoffs of attributes that customers are willing to make depending on that product classification have not been the focus, though the results suggest that understanding customer decision-making through this lens may enhance supplier success.     

Supplier price concessions: A longitudinal empirical study

The competitive nature of today’s business-to-business markets requires companies to continually look for ways to reduce costs; one of the easiest of which is to demand price reductions from suppliers. In this research, price reduction demands and the corresponding concessions given by 238 suppliers to the six major North American Automotive original equipment manufacturers during 2001–2007 are analyzed utilizing a simultaneous equation model. The three stage least squares estimates indicate that suppliers are willing to give higher price concessions when buyers align specific interfacing characteristics and processes with their suppliers so that the suppliers perceive greater opportunities for future business and profit. These results provide, for the first time, an understanding of the dynamic nature of the impact of buyer–supplier relational components on supplier price concessions.

制造业供应链评价的质量指标实证研究

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供应链模式下制造企业选择供应商的模糊方法

在制造企业的供应链管理中,供应商选择在企业采购中具有重要地位,因此,如何正确选择供应商就成为一个重要课题。本文提出了供应商选择的模糊评价方法,并进行了实例分析,结果显示具有较好的使用价值。     

连锁零售企业供应商评价指标体系构建研究

分析生产企业和零售企业在选择评价供应商时的差异,总结已有指标体系在设计方面存在的不足,结合连锁零售企业的经营特点,构建连锁零售企业选择和评价供应商的指标体系,为连锁零售企业在实际应用中提供帮助,使其能挑选出较为合适的供应商。     

基于灰色理论的人力资源外包供应商评价

在人力资源外包过程中选择最佳的人力资源外包供应商作为合作伙伴,对企业成功实施人力资源外包有着决定性影响。本文引入递阶多层次灰色评价法以及熵技术,在评价指标体系的基础上结合专家打分,进行外包供应商的灰色评价与选择,为企业正确评价选择外包供应商提供了一种科学有效的方法。     

客户资源价值评价体系设计

对客户资源价值进行评价,以识别高价值客户是企业价值最大化的要求。目前企业在这方面的工作有很大的不足,而且现有的客户生命周期价值评价体系虽然在理论上可以实现对客户资源价值的评价,但实际操作困难。针对这种情况,在深入分析客户资源价值内涵的基础上设计一个新的评价体系,从客户当前价值、未来价值、非货币价值、潜在价值和保持价值五个方面进行指标设计,将对客户生命周期价值的计算转化为对一系列指标的打分,解决了客户资源价值评价的可操作性问题,将有助于企业正确开展客户关系活动。     

Measuring the Consequences of Using Diverse Supplier Evaluation Teams: A Performance Frontier Perspective

This article focuses on the postperformance evaluation of a supplier set by a buyer evaluation team. It explores the use of data envelopment analysis and the assurance region technique to measure the impact that conforming or disparate evaluation teams can have on the perception of supplier performance. As a result, this work makes the case for moving the notion of performance scorecards usage to the next level. For researchers the work demonstrates the case for dual accountability and the construction of performance frontiers motivated by an actual setting using many of the important dimensions discussed in the empirical literature. For managers, the work demonstrates one way of action‐based decision making in performance management that recommends courses of action in the buyer–supplier interface. Several other practice‐based interpretations for managers are also discussed.     

浅析不同营销方式对消费者的影响

面对日新月异的互联网技术,如今的营销传播越来越像是一种公司和消费者之间的私人对话。营销人员也在每时每刻让自己的品牌成为消费者谈论的对象。个性化的宣传以及在恰当的时间对恰当的人讲述,是营销人员成功的关键因素。在本文中,我们将讨论公司如何才能将他们的营销方式变的个性化,从而获得更多的影响力。文中首先我们要评价直销和互动营销,接下来我们将讨论口碑营销,最后讨论人员营销和销售团队。     

企业专利价值评估 问题与对策

专利资产对于我国企业的高质量发展有着无法低估的作用,在专利交易、出资、质押和融资日益频繁的市场环境下,针对企业专利价值评估的问题和对策探究就显得尤为重要。本文从专利价值评估的信息获取、专利价值评估的法律准则、专利价值的评估方法以及评估人员的专业性四个方面,通过整理国内学者的文献研究,分析企业专利价值评估的实际情况,提供了四点对策建议,以期推动企业专利价值评估的研究与发展。     

外资收购中的国内品牌价值评估

在世界经济进一步全球化、自由化发展的环境下 ,品牌已成为企业的战略性资源与企业管理的核心 ,是企业竞争优势和长期利润的基础。品牌价值评估方法已被当作尖端的商业评估工具而广为使用。在外资收购我国品牌价值评估中存在品牌价值被忽视和没有找到合适的评估方法两大误区 ,使我国企业蒙受重大损失。我国对品牌价值评估不妨采用成本法、市场比较法和收益法 ,以便更能反映品牌的真实价值     

电子商务环境下客户价值评价模型研究

本文分析了在电子商务环境下对客户价值进行评价的必要性,在传统的客户价值评价指标的基础之上结合电子商务的特点提出了电子商务环境下的客户价值评价指标,并且结合层次分析法,构建出电子商务环境下的客户价值评价模型。     

企业价值增长的评价

结合feltham-ohlson股权估价模型和增长期权的理论与方法,构建企业价值增长评价模型。对价值增长额进行度量时既考虑到了“已到位”资产水平上长期价值的增长,又考虑到未来增长机会带来的价值增长。另外,模型通过引入feltham-ohlson搭建了价值增长额与会计数据的桥梁,为投资者的投资分析提供了方便条件。     

Assessing Value Co-Creation and New Product Success from Cultural Orientations and Relationship Marketing Perspectives

This study's main objective was to assess value co-creation and new product success among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia by incorporating cultural orientations and relationship marketing perspectives. The samples were purposely selected in two sectors: handcraft and food and drink. They were approached through a door-to-door distribution of the questionnaires. The findings indicated that relationship quality can enhance value co-creation and new product success when SMEs have a favorable combination of learning, market, and entrepreneurial orientations. However, this study suggests that SMEs do not utilize their relationships as arenas for learning and learning orientation can affect relationship quality only when it is supported by the other orientations.     

对劳动价值论的几点再认识

劳动价值论是马克思强有力的分析工具,至今仍具有很强的应用价值。商品经济条件下,信息、技术、企业家才能是新的生产要素。其中信息、技术属于生产资料,其本身不创造价值,企业家才能是一种特殊的劳动力。企业家和科技、信息工作者的劳动同工人的劳动一样是价值创造的重要源泉。我国现阶段消灭剥削的途径在于劳动力转化为资本。     

阿马蒂亚·森的价值限制定理研究

在简单介绍投票悖论的基础上 ,较系统地阐述了阿马蒂亚·森解决投票悖论问题的对策———价值限制定理 ,并对其进行了较为客观的评价。     

关于并购中目标企业价值评估方法的探寻

我国目前采取的企业价值评估方法主要是重置成本法,既无法适应企业价值评价的需要,也难以找到能与被评估企业直接进行比较的类似企业或可与之相比较交易的案例。现金流量贴现法、期权定价法可正确地反映企业现实的经营情况和未来的发展趋势,相对真实地反映了企业的价值,提高了评估结果的有用性,是可行的评估方法     

“价值投资型”股票估价方法研究

随着近两年证券市场结构性大调整 ,价值投资组合已成为机构投资者的主导策略 ,而证券估价是价值投资和证券筛选型投资组合的核心技术。我国证券市场历史较短 ,针对其衍变特征和估价现状 ,研究较为适合我国证券市场的“价值投资型”股票的估价方法大有俾益。     

An empirical study on critical success factors for electronic commerce in the Chinese publishing industry

Critical success factors for electronic commerce (e-commerce) have been a hot topic in both the academe and industry. This paper puts forward hypotheses on success factors for e-commerce of traditional companies first. Then, it conducts an empirical study on the Chinese publishing industry in order to verify the hypotheses. After testing the validity and reliability of the data, this paper verifies the hypotheses with regression analyses, and finally identifies factors impacting e-commerce success such as leadership, strategy, organization, management, IT, customers, comprehensive functions of website and customer-oriented functions. In addition, customers, strategy, IT and comprehensive functions of website are identified as the critical factors impacting e-commerce success. This research not only stimulates e-commerce research in China, but also has an instructional effect on the implementation of e-commerce so that Chinese publishing enterprises can increase the success rate of their e-commerce objectives. Translated from Xitong Gongcheng Lilun yu Shijian 系统工程理论与实践 (System Engineering Theories and Practice), 2006, 26(2): 27–35