Arpan Kumar Kar

A Study to Compare Relative Importance of Criteria for Supplier Evaluation in e-Procurement

Purchasing is the primary point of contact with most supply-chain partners and thus extremely crucial for the performance of the supply chain specifically and in overall for the firm. Understanding how the various criteria for evaluating suppliers play a role is crucial for a better understanding of the dynamics of the supply chain. This study attempts to find out the relative importance of the various criteria in the decision making process for supplier selection in e-procurement using a multi-response fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. The objective of the study was to capture the dynamics of these criteria in the Indian manufacturing industries.

A model for pricing emergent technology based on perceived business impact value

Pricing is a major challenge in the marketing of emergent industrial technologies. Because of this challenge, a good strategy would be to price them based on the perceived value they would have to the client firm. Now often, such technologies have multiple attributes or features, the relative importance and the benefits of which would be different for each client. So the total perceived value from such technology would vary from client to client. This paper proposes a novel way to capture the perceived value an emergent technology may provide to the client by treating the problem as a multi-criteria decision making one. A multi-response fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is adapted for capturing the trade-offs amongst the multiple value drivers, to estimate the perceived value of the emergent technology with multiple attributes or features. The proposed methodology attempts to address a few limitations of regression-based techniques developed for the same purpose. The estimated perceived value is used to devise a pricing strategy. Finally, a hypothetical case has been used to demonstrate the proposed technique.

A Soft Classification Model for Vendor Selection

is that they need huge amount of data points to train the models properly and hence are not suitable for adaptation in many business applications where the number of available data points to train similar decision support models is too less. A classification technique using fuzzy linear programming and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process has been proposed in this paper which addresses this challenge for providing decision support in the vendor selection problem where data availability is a challenge.

Non-contractible value creation in buyer-supplier networks - a case study

The investigation of buyer supplier networks has been popular in both information systems and supply chain management literature. This study first discusses the background of how and why the buyer-supplier network structure and size changed with increased adoption of information systems in purchasing. Then it focuses on how supplier consolidation can lead to the initiation of vendor value management programs, which presents opportunities for the co-creation of non-contractible value for both the buyer and supplier. The study explores the relevance of the key sources of non-contractible value, i.e., non-contractible quality, supplier technological investments, information exchange, responsiveness, trust, and flexibility; through a case study. While exploring theses sources for non-contractible value, the focus has been limited to the context of direct sourcing only. This descriptive study was conducted in one of the largest steel manufacturers, in close liaison with the vendor value management team within the procurement practice of the firm.

Service Specific Approach in Determining Spousal Influence in Family Decision Making

The study focuses on how spousal dynamics influences the choice of institution for primary education of ward in India. The study has been categorically done in a SEC B city in India.

Pricing of IT Products Based on Value Provided to Customers

Pricing of IT products often becomes a huge challenge for most managers of product development teams, especially if the product is new to the specific category. This challenge arises since the potential clients on being contacted seldom is able calculate the returns on his investment on the product. Thus strictly from a business point of view, the client fails to see how the product will benefit him objectively. Thus even products with huge potential fail to hit off. This papers attempts to provide a working solution to this problem for the managers of the development teams.

eBusiness Enablement: Implications for Business Strategy

In the emerging global economy, ecommerce and ebusiness have increasingly become a necessary component of business strategy and a strong catalyst for economic development. This study focuses on the various models of business strategy and how they get impacted through ebusiness enablement. The five frameworks studied, virtual market conceptualization, value chain model, resource based model, Porter’s generic strategy framework and the five forces modeling of the industry, all address various aspects of the firm which functions in a particular market which is its industry. The 5 frameworks studied provide the practitioners a perspective of how internet enablement can affect the firm’s overall competitiveness and strategy.