计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis

https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1270&context=mgmt_fac

Qualitative case studies in operations management: Trends, research outcomes, and future research implications

A channel of distribution consists of different channel members each having his own decision variables. However, each channel member's decisions do affect the other channel members' profits and, as a consequence, actions. A lack of coordination of these decisions can lead to undesirable consequences. For example, in the simple manufacturer-retailer-consumer channel, uncoordinated and independent channel members' decisions over margins result in a higher price paid by the consumer than if those decisions were coordinated. In addition, the ensuing suboptimal volume leads to lower profits for both the manufacturer and the retailer.

This paper explores the problems inherent in channel coordination. We address the following questions.

---What is the effect of channel coordination?

---What causes a lack of coordination in the channel?

---How difficult is it to achieve channel coordination?

---What mechanisms exist which can achieve channel coordination?

---What are the strengths and weaknesses of these mechanism?

---What is the role of nonprice variables (e.g., manufacturer advertising, retailer shelf-space) in coordination?

---Does the lack of coordination affect normative implications from in-store experimentation?

---Can quantity discounts be a coordination mechanism?

---Are some marketing practices actually disguised quantity discounts?

We review the literature and present a simple formulation illustrating the roots of the coordination problem. We then derive the form of the quantity discount schedule that results in optimum channel profits.

This article was originally published in Marketing Science, Volume 2, Issue 3, pages 239--272, in 1983.

Managing Channel Profits

The article reviews the book “Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy,” by Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian.

Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy

Environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery (ECMPRO): A review of the state of the art

We analyze a scenario where a manufacturer with a traditional channel partner opens up a direct channel in competition with the traditional channel. We first consider that in order to mitigate channel conflict the manufacturer, who chooses wholesale prices as a Stackelberg leader, commits to setting a direct channel retail price that matches the retailer’s price in the traditional channel. We find that the specific equal-pricing strategy that optimizes profits for the manufacturer is also preferred by the retailer and customers over other equal-pricing strategies. We next consider the implications of the equal-pricing constraint through a numerical experiment that indicates that the equal-pricing strategy is appropriate as long as the Internet channel is significantly less convenient than the traditional channel. If the Internet channel is of comparable convenience to the traditional channel, then the manufacturer has tremendous incentive to abandon the equal-pricing policy, at great peril to the traditional retailer.

/pdf/boiling-frogs-pricing-strategies-for-a-manufacturer-adding-a-3w2t0dr89t.pdf

Boiling Frogs: Pricing Strategies for a Manufacturer Adding a Direct Channel that Competes with the Traditional Channel

Surveys suggest that supply chain risk is a growing issue for executives and that supplier reliability is of particular concern. A common mitigation strategy is for the buying firm to expend effort improving the reliability of its supply base. We explore a model in which a firm can source from multiple suppliers and/or exert effort to improve supplier reliability. For both random capacity and random yield types of supply uncertainty, we propose a model of process improvement in which improvement efforts (if successful) increase supplier reliability in the sense that the delivered quantity (for any given order quantity) is stochastically larger after improvement. We characterize the optimal procurement quantities and improvement efforts and generate managerial insights. For random capacity, improvement is increasingly favored over dual sourcing as the supplier cost heterogeneity increases, but dual sourcing is favored over improvement if the supplier reliability heterogeneity is high. In the random yield model, increasing cost heterogeneity can reduce the attractiveness of improvement, and improvement can be favored over dual sourcing if the reliability heterogeneity is high. A combined strategy (improvement and dual sourcing) can provide significant value if suppliers are very unreliable and/or capacity is low relative to demand.

Mitigating Supply Risk: Dual Sourcing or Process Improvement?

Competitive advantage through take-back of used products

Motivated by a recent antitrust ruling against Hill–Rom, one of the two dominant American suppliers of hospital beds, we develop a stylized model to investigate the consequences of used product take-back on firms, industry and customers. Our findings suggest that by taking back and reselling refurbished products, a manufacturer can increase both profit margins and sales––to the detriment of a non-interfering competitor. In our model, customers are always better off under product take-back, but it depends on the degree of competition, whether firms use the benefits of takeback primarily to increase their margins or to pass them on to the customers by lowering their prices. The first firm to offer take-back, in some cases, can deter its competitors from following this profitable strategy, especially if it has an existing advantage in terms of lower production cost or higher market share. Contrary to the claim of Hill–Roms competitor, we find a ‘‘legitimate business justification’’ for Hill–Roms reduction of new product prices. 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Production, Manufacturing and Logistics Competitive advantage through take-back of used products

Organizations can create volume flexibility---the ability to increase capacity up or down to meet demand for a single service---through the use of flexible labor resources e.g., part-time and temporary workers, as compared to full-time workers. Although organizations are increasingly using these resources, the relationship between flexible labor resources and financial performance has not been examined empirically in the service setting. We use two years of archival data from 445 stores of a large retailer to study this relationship. We hypothesize and find that increasing the labor mix of temporary or part-time workers shows an inverted U-shaped relationship with sales and profit while temporary labor mix has a U-shaped relationship with expenses. Thus, although flexible labor resources can create volume flexibility for a firm along multiple dimensions, it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.

Wendell G. Gilland

Papers

Boiling Frogs: Pricing Strategies for a Manufacturer Adding a Direct Channel that Competes with the Traditional Channel

Mitigating Supply Risk: Dual Sourcing or Process Improvement?

Competitive advantage through take-back of used products

Production, Manufacturing and Logistics Competitive advantage through take-back of used products

Volume Flexibility in Services: The Costs and Benefits of Flexible Labor Resources