Tender Pricing of Infrastructure Projects: Affecting Factors

Prioritizing B2B marketing capabilities: Crossvergence in advanced and emerging economies

PurposeConsiderable amount of purchases in business-to-business (B2B) markets make through the tendering process. As technology keeps driving B2B procurement, both the supplier/contractor and buyer firms have settled down in their respective roles in the electronic-tendering environment. Researchers have ignored the supplier-side e-tender-driven marketing process that might lead to substantively successful financial performance. The purpose of this study is to improve the performance of an e-tender-driven marketing process of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) incorporating the stakeholder's inputs.Design/methodology/approachDiscrete event simulation modelling (DESM) has been used as a methodology to model, analyse and improve the process with the involvement of stakeholders at every stage of the study. Different scenarios are analysed to identify the near-optimal scenario based on agreed-upon key performance indicators.FindingsScenario that incorporated man-power sharing and eliminating avoidable activities gives the near-optimal solution for implementation.Research limitations/implicationsThis study highlights that better insights can be gained by adopting the process-oriented view of the marketing–operations interface. Embracing a stakeholder-based consultative approach gives research a more practical outlook and reduces the gap between theory and practice. Suggestions for further research are provided.Practical implicationsB2B organizations, where lines between marketing and operations are blurred, can improve their marketing processes by implementing operations research tools.Originality/valueThis study provides an attempt to improve the performance of a supplier-side e-tender-driven marketing process of an OEM using the DESM methodology incorporating stakeholder's inputs.

Performance improvement of supplier-side e-tender-driven marketing process

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate the cardiology department’s operational system for improving flexibility by minimizing the patient waiting time and simultaneously maximizing the utilization of service capacity in an uncertain environment. This article also proposes a policy framework that suggests a pool of additional resources and inter-firm collaboration can boost healthcare service delivery excellence.Design/methodology/approachA discrete event simulation (DES) approach is followed for modeling patient flow and determining the service capacity to respond to demand variability and uncertainty. The model's outputs are used to minimize patient waiting time, maximize the utilization of the resources and match the service capacity with the patient demand.FindingsThis research has tested two hypotheses and proved that an increase in waiting time decimates the throughput rate, and additional resources deployment in bottleneck activity positively impacts the throughput rate. The simulated scenarios prescribe an enhanced service capacity with quality care and further contribute to operational performance in reduced waiting time and cost. The results indicate that flexibility reduces the patient waiting time and maximizes the throughput rate.Practical implicationsThe study guides the healthcare policymakers to develop flexible competence and facilitate service mechanisms that are adaptive and robust while operating under a volatile environment. The article contributes to the healthcare literature that conjoins flexibility through simulation and resource utilization.Originality/valueThis research is based on real-life primary data collected from healthcare providers. This study adds value to the healthcare systems to adopt strategic decisions to build flexibility through resource allocation, sharing and coordinated care.

A study on how to achieve flexibility in healthcare process: a simulation-based approach


Purpose
Family businesses feature prominently in economies, including the South African wine industry, using websites to convey their family identity. This research paper aims to explore the family identity elements that family wineries use on their websites, their alignment and how these are communicated online.


Design/methodology/approach
Based on Gioia’s methodology, a two-pronged approach was used to analyze 113 wineries’ websites’ text using Atlas. ti from an interpretivist perspective.


Findings
South African wineries use corporate identity, corporate personality and corporate expression to illustrate their familiness on their websites. It is portrayed through their family name and heritage, supported by their direction, purpose and aspirations, which emerge from the family identity and personality. These are dynamic and expressed through verbal and visual elements. Wineries described their behaviour, relevant competencies and passion as personality traits. Sustainability was considered an integral part of their brand promise, closely related to their family identity and personality, reflecting their family-oriented philosophy. These findings highlight the integration that exists among these components.


Practical implications
Theoretically, this study proposes a family business brand identity framework emphasising the centrality of familiness to its identity, personality and expression. Using websites to illustrate this familiness is emphasised with the recommendation that family businesses leverage this unique attribute in their identity to communicate their authenticity.


Originality/value
This study contributes to understanding what family wineries communicate on their websites, specifically by examining the elements necessary to create a family business brand based on the interrelationship between family identity, personality and expression with familiness at its core, resulting in a proposed family business brand identity framework.


https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JPBM-11-2021-3751/full/pdf?title=the-interrelationship-of-family-identities-personalities-and-expressions-on-family-winery-websites

The interrelationship of family identities, personalities, and expressions on family winery websites

The purpose of this paper is to study practices associated with corporate brand alignment enacted by marketing managers in an emerging business to business market.,The “Marketing-as-practice” perspective is used to examine brand alignment-related practices. A five months fieldwork was undertaken wherein primary data were collected using in-depth interviews of 30 managers representing steel, mining, energy, engineering consulting and Information Technology/Information Technology-Enabled Services' sectors along with observational data from event sites and industry meets. Secondary data stemmed from marketing plans and events' rosters. Data were analysed adopting the practice turn.,The constitution of three practices concerning brand alignment is unearthed: (1) practice of identifying key stakeholders, (2) practice of narrativization of brand promises and (3) practice of engaging key stakeholders.,This study highlights the dynamic nature of corporate brand alignment requiring a continuous gap analysis to verify coherency between internal and external brand elements. It also highlights the elicited relation between alignment, authenticity and advocacy. Suggestions for further research are provided.,This study elucidates managers' role as intrapreneurs in the process of alignment and provides a possible solution to the new marketing myopia which impairs stakeholder management.,This research identifies that brand alignment is not an abstract concept but a set of practices that help convert the symbolic capital held in brands into cultural and social capital.

Corporate brand alignment in business markets: a practice perspective

The purpose of this study is to investigate the phenomenon of corporate branding in an emerging business market and unearth issues specific to the research setting. Phenomenology serves the purpose. Data stem from in-depth interviews of 20 managers representing various sectors of the economy. Data so obtained is analysed to elicit themes that characterise the phenomenon. Elicited themes highlight the role played by corporate brands in managing multi-stakeholder relationships, tender-driven procurement, and the process of internationalisation, typical to the study context. This study advances research by highlighting the effects of a collectivist culture on managing relationships across multiple stakeholders of the brand. It also emphasises that the emotional aspects of branding are not just critical to consumer markets but also to business markets. It further suggests that corporate branding gives credibility to organisations from emerging markets enabling them to garner the support necessary for entering international markets.

Piyush Pranjal

Papers

Corporate brand alignment in business markets: a practice perspective

Performance improvement of supplier-side e-tender-driven marketing process

Corporate branding in an emerging business market: a phenomenological perspective