Choosing an optimal channel mix in multichannel environments

In the last two decades, particularly with the advent of the Internet, multichannel strategies have come to the fore in business-to-business marketing. Multichannel strategies allow firms to reach customers in multiple ways, increasing the firms' reach. In addition, multichannels allow customers to reach businesses by using their preferred channel (e.g., Internet, salesforce, or value-added reseller). The advantages of reaching increasing number of customers through multiple channels (e.g., sales, trial, profit) are partially offset by two potential negative effects of multiple channels. First, multiple channels create conflict that may dissuade some channels' members from carrying the firm's product. Second, with an increase in the number of channels carrying the product, the sales derived from each new channel drops making it difficult for a firm to recover its costs. Based on these considerations, the paper provides a framework that will allow firms to develop optimal channel mix in multichannel environments. We test the framework in the context of a software firm and provide academic and managerial implications.     

Linking account portfolio management to customer information: Using customer satisfaction metrics for portfolio analysis

When appropriate variables are used, account portfolio analyses engender a convenient framework for the relationship composition of companies and allow management to reconsider which customers and relationship dimensions need attention. Based on an industrial company's key account relationships, the portfolio approach considered in this study employs Customer Satisfaction (CS) metrics as a portfolio dimension and suggests a new and more customer oriented approach to account portfolio analysis. Proposed portfolio matrices provide insights into the strength and stability of customer relationships. Furthermore, the matrices force managers to adopt a future perspective on customer relationships by evaluating the business potential of customers along with CS information and allow prioritization with respect to resource allocation. The study attempts to put forward customer heterogeneity in industrial markets and offers a managerial guideline embracing customer specific marketing actions. In addition, the paper proposes a new use for CS information in strategic decision making.     

Legal unbundling can be a golden mean between vertical integration and ownership separation

We study an industry in which an upstream monopolist supplies an essential input at a regulated price to several downstream firms. Legal unbundling means in our model that a downstream firm owns the upstream firm, but this upstream firm is legally independent and maximizes its own upstream profits. We allow for non-tariff discrimination by the upstream firm and show that under quite general conditions legal unbundling never yields lower quantities in the downstream market than ownership separation and integration. Therefore, typically, consumer surplus will be largest under legal unbundling. Outcomes under legal unbundling are still advantageous when we allow for discriminatory capacity investments, investments into marginal cost reduction and investments into network reliability. If access prices are unregulated, however, legal unbundling may be quite undesirable.     

Differences in large and small firm responses to environmental context: strategic implications from a comparative analysis of business formations

Despite growing recognition of some strategic advantages held by small firms, little comparative research has been performed on the advantages and disadvantages accruing to firm size. In order to delineate the differential responses of small and large businesses to their environmental context, we perform a comparative analysis of the impact of industry structural characteristics on the formation of large and small businesses in a large sample of U.S. manufacturing industries from 1977 to 1987. The results suggest that small businesses possess certain resources that allow them to overcome some barriers which create greater difficulties for their larger counterparts, as well as allow small businesses to exploit certain industry opportunities more readily than larger ones. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Infrastructure Contracts: Trust and Institutional Updating

This paper discusses trust and trust perceptions in infrastructure contracts and supporting institutions. We focus on perceptions of the trustworthiness of the government purchasers of infrastructure services by the supplying companies and by the governments themselves. In particular, we allow for trust updating and trust misalignments, which may give rise to ‘undertrusting’ and ‘overtrusting’. The core of the paper sets out a game theoretic model of contracts with dynamic adjustment of trust perceptions, which we use to explore the impact of trust misalignment both on economic efficiency (measured by expected welfare) and on investment levels. We explore flexible contracts with and without pre-payments, rigid contracts (which do not allow for post-investment renegotiation), and hybrid contracts. We then compare the efficiency of the flexible contracts to that of hybrid contracts using as a criterion the expected welfare implications of each contract. The model is used to shed light on current issues on the sustainability of private investment infrastructure contracts in developed and in developing countries, including the role of regulatory institutions.     

Structuring III-structured policy issues: Further explorations in a methodology for messy problems

This paper extends previous work in the development of a methodology for ill-structured policy problems. It argues that recent advances in the structure and logic of argumentation allow one to develop a new basis for treating policy issues. In brief, policies may be viewed as the outcome of a process of reasoning (argumentation) whose purpose is to establish the basis (rationale) for the policy. This paper shows how the tools of symbolic logic may be applied to handle arguments containing strong inconsistencies. The tools presented allow treatment of one of the most fundamental issues concerned with ill-structured problems, the divergence between opposing formulations or perceptions of a problem.     

Regulatory inhibitions on the development of electronic message systems in the USA

The present regulatory environment for electronic message systems in the USA is characterized by complex overlapping and blurring of jurisdictions. The author makes an argument for general deregulation of the market for EMS to allow for more competition and investment, and that, where regulation is required, the FCC be the sole regulatory agency.     

Information technology as a determinant of organizational learning and technological distinctive competencies

This study aims to assess the role played by information technology (IT) in organizational learning (OL) considered as a process of knowledge creation and determined by the interaction of stocks and flows variables. We also examine how IT and OL influence both business performance and the development of the technological distinctive competencies (TDCs), as well as the latter's influence on leading the firm towards better outcomes. These relationships have been tested via an empirical analysis carried out with a sample of 140 industrial companies, applying a structural equation linear model according to the Partial Least Squares (PLS) methodology. Our findings allow us to confirm that IT acts as an enabler of the OL process and influences on the development of TDCs, which allow the achievement of a better business performance. Such competencies are also the result of OL, thus demonstrating the influences of them both on perceived organizational performance.     

Pricing Augmented Commercial Services

The delivery of augmented services is a powerful demonstration of innovative product/service management. Based on well-executed scanning and positioning efforts, augmented services allow marketers to obtain a premium price for their innovative ness by delivering more than what consumers have learned to expect. For this purpose, Roberto Friedmann and Warren French have developed the notion of an augmented service. They then proceed to outline the necessary considerations and procedures for creating an augmented service that commands a premium price in its market.     

Commitment and monopoly pricing in durable goods models

This article investigates the issue of commitment by a durable goods monopolist. Two models of the interaction between durability, recycling, and market power are compared. The two differ according to the ability of the seller to credibly commit to a given sales strategy. This article takes the standard durable goods monopoly model, extends it to allow for depreciation, and compares the monopoly markup with Swan's predicted markup for a recycled good. The difference between the two models is shown to reduce to a single parameter in the markup equation.     

Demand,Information, and Competition: Why Do Food Prices Fall at Seasonal Demand Peaks?

Prices for seasonal food products fall at demand peaks. Price declines are not driven by falling agricultural input prices; indeed, farm to retail margins narrow sharply. I use electronic scanner data from a sample of US supermarkets to show that seasonal price declines are closely linked to market concentration, and are much larger in markets with several rivals than where a single brand dominates. Seasonal demand increases reduce the effective costs of informative advertising, and increased informative advertising by retailers and manufacturers in turn may allow for increased market information and greater price sensitivity on the part of buyers.     

Value Creation by Toolkits for User Innovation and Design: The Case of the Watch Market

This study analyzes the value created by so-called "toolkits for user innovation and design," a new method of integrating customers into new product development and design. Toolkits allow customers to create their own product, which in turn is produced by the manufacturer. In the present study, questions asked were (1) if customers actually make use of the solution space offered by toolkits, and, if so, (2) how much value the self-design actually creates. In this study, a relatively simple, design-focused toolkit was used for a set of four experiments with a total of 717 participants, 267 of whom actually created their own watches. The heterogeneity of the resulting design solutions was calculated using the entropy concept, and willingness to pay (WTP) was measured by the contingent valuation method and Vickrey auctions. Entropy coefficients showed that self-designed watches vary quite widely. On the other hand, significant patterns still are visible despite this high level of entropy, meaning that customer preferences are highly heterogeneous and diverse in style but not completely random. It also was found that consumers are willing to pay a considerable price premium. Their WTP for a self-designed watch exceeds the WTP for standard watches by far, even for the best-selling standard watches of the same technical quality. On average, a 100% value increment was found for watches designed by users with the help of the toolkit. Taken together, these findings suggest that the toolkit's ability to allow customers to customize products to suit their individual preferences creates value for them in a business-to-consumer (B2C) setting even when only a simple toolkit is employed. Alternative explanations, implications, and necessary future research are discussed.     

UK strategy - the momentum of change

In July 1980, the UK government set into motion a programme of reform for telecommunications. The British Telecommunications Act 1981 maintains British Telecom's exclusive privilege but provides for market entry in network transmission, services and attachments. The process continues with a new Telecommunications Bill, currently being considered by Parliament, which will make shares available to the public and allow for the creation of a new Office of Telecommunications (OFTEL). Jonathan Solomon considers the impact of the new legislation on the UK telecommunications environment.     

关于企业改制评估增值所得税问题的实践分析

国有企业改制应以资产评估结果作为确定股东在改制后公司的出资依据。针对如何以资产评估结果确认股东出资并缴纳所得税问题,以及目前政策规范和实务操作层面存在差异等问题,从4个层面对差异形成的原因进行了深入探讨。在此基础上提出建议:统一国有企业改制评估增值的认定和处理方式,对评估增值产生的所得税统一作为国有出资处理,并允许作为计税基础。     

The impact of different fibre access network technologies on cost,competition and welfare

Using a novel approach to the evaluation of new network technologies that combines an engineering cost model with a differentiated multi-player oligopoly model with wholesale access regulation this article evaluates the choice among different Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) architectures. The cost modelling relies upon an engineering bottom-up approach that feeds into a competition model. For addressing competition the pyramid model was chosen, which is an extension of the Hotelling model to multiple firms/services. The paper solves for price setting Nash equilibria between an incumbent, wholesale-access-based entrants and cable as an additional fully integrated network competitor. Welfare tradeoffs are highlighted with respect to cost differences and QoS differences between the various FTTH architectures and between the modes of regulation. According to the analysis architectures that can be unbundled (and that allow for greater speeds) outperform, from a social welfare perspective, architectures that (realistically) allow only for bitstream access.     

A Metropolitan Transaction-Based Commercial Price Index: A Time-Varying Parameter Approach

This study examines the usefulness of time-varying parameter techniques for constructing reliable transaction-based commercial price indices for metropolitan areas. Time-varying parameter techniques allow the implicit prices of differing quality characteristics to vary intertemporally, overcoming the potential bias imposed by holding implicit prices fixed and simply interpreting time dummy variables as in a conventional hedonic approach. This paper empirically investigates three time-varying parameter methods (Chained, Laspeyres, and Paasche) and considers the potential for sample selection bias. Precision measures are constructed to examine the reliability of the respective indices.     

Homeownership Effects of Alternative Mortgage Instruments*

Most of the interest in alternatives to the standard mortgage instrument has centered on the ability of the alternatives to improve on the performance of the mortgage instrument over the business cycle. The focus in this paper is on the long-term effects on homeownership rates and associated additional residential construction. The instruments are found to offer potentially large increases in homeownership rates by reducing monthly mortgage payments. Widespread adoption of those instruments causing larger payment reductions would allow around one million more households to become owner-occupants. The demand for new single-family homes would increase over the long run by 3 to 4 percent a year. Homeownership could be further increased by a time-limited subsidy directed at moderate income families.     

Satellite communications : US policy considerations

Regulatory decisions have controlled the possible technical alternatives in the use of artificial satellites, for both domestic and international telecommunications, since the enactment by the US Congress of the Communications Satellite Act of 1962. At the same time, advancements in technology have caused satellite systems to play a larger role in telecommunications. An updating of the 1934 Communications Act would allow for a more definitive statement of national satellite policy and for a revised regulatory standard. This article reviews some of the principle factors which have influenced communications satellite policy, and offers additional issues for consideration that can affect the development of communications satellite markets, systems and services.