D. Quinn Mills

Seniority versus ability in promotion decisions

Responses to a telephone survey of managers in 276 companies show that in those companies the senior employee is more likely to be promoted over the junior employee in cases in which the vacancy is posted, the relevant employment unit is small, the position is not managerial, and the manager feels required by company policy to select senior applicants. Unionism is not a significant independent factor. The author concludes that employees are often advanced to higher paying jobs not because of their superior skill, ability, or performance, as the human capital model may imply, but because of their greater length of service.

Customer Management as the Origin of Collaborative Customer Relationship Management

The marketing departments of retailers and manufacturers speak more often in their analyses about “hybrid” consumers — customers who do not demonstrate behavior consistent with simple categories. The smart shopper, one with a Jaguar in the parking lot of a discount hypermarket, is a reality, just as is the college student in a boutique wine shop. Because of this seemingly paradoxical customer behavior, it is becoming more and more difficult for retailers and manufacturers to identify and retain valuable customers.

Collaborative Customer Relationship Management (CCRM)

Since the early nineties, the concept of Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) via vertical collaboration has raised the potential level of collaboration among manufacturers and retailers to new heights. ECR consists of two areas of cooperation: logistics and marketing. ECR implementation in the consumer goods market to date has been primarily in logistics because potential cost reductions are more easily obtainable there.

Transition Shock: Can the East Get There From Here?

After sudden political liberalization, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union seem poised to abandon administrative-command planning and embrace market socialism (which stops somewhere short of American-style capitalism). However, using the Soviet Union as a case in point, careful analysis of all plausible transition paths from the current system to Westernstyle markets suggests that prospects for success are dim. The revolution of rising expectations in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe sparked by Gorbachevs program of political liberalization is on a collision course with the immediate possibilities for fundamental economic change. The East is likely to be politically unstable for a long period, nor can the West alter this situation with massive foreign assistance because the Eastern nations cannot utilize the credits effectively. The Western business community therefore must be very constrained in its expectations about progress in the East and should approach the issues of private investment and governmental aid accordingly.

The Integration of Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship Management

It’s not only the focus on CRM that allows companies to outperform their competition. Companies so far rarely integrate supply chain management and customer relationship management. By integrating these business processes companies are able to break through and achieve a number of improvements in their financial and performance metrics that would have been unachievable using only stand alone CRM and SCM techniques. JDA Chief Technology Officer Scott Hines coined the term ISCRM; Integrated Supply Chain and Customer Relationship Management. Later in this part of this book, a local US case study of JDA and a global study conducted by Deloitte Consulting show how the integration of demand-generating and supply-chain operations through information technologies help companies to create an outstanding value proposition. Superior performance in sales, market share, customer service etc. can be achieved by creating digital loyalty networks. To build this network, companies must develop not only a customer strategy, but also a partner and supply chain strategy to support customer loyalty. There is great potential in the development of ECR via focusing on the consumer to meet his or her needs. There is also significant potential in the integration of the supply and demand sides with the help of respective IT capabilities and well-developed digital platforms.

New Ways of Category Management

The retail sector is currently one of intense competition, great opportunity and great risk. For example, stagnating productivity per unit of retail space, excess total retail space and hyper competition from Wal-Mart and Target have driven firms like K-Mart into bankruptcy. A retailer that tries to differentiate itself from competition primarily through offering aggressive prices often faces catastrophic results.

Conclusions and Key Takeaways

The last chapters showed how fast the consumer goods industry develops. ECR as a concept has not yet come to an end. ECR is a tool to satisfy consumer needs, but it needs vertical cooperation, innovation and technological advancements.

Online-Marketing-Controlling — Neue Wege in der Erfolgsmessung von Marketingmaßnahmen

Die bekannten Entwicklungen an den internationalen Märkten zwingen immer mehr Unternehmen, durch effizientes Online-Marketing Effizienzpoteniale zu nutzen. Online-Marketing bietet für pure player, aber auch traditionelle Handelsunternehmen die Möglichkeit, interaktiv mit dem Kunden zu kommunizieren — zu höchstmöglicher Kosteneffizienz. Erfolgsmodelle effizienten Online-Marketings bestehen in den Bereichen Mass Customization, Virales Marketing, Permission Marketing und eCRM. Neben der Umsetzung dieser Konzepte muss allerdings auch ein weiterer Vorteil des Online-Marketing genutzt werden: die Nutzung digitaler Online-Daten zur Effizienzmessung im Rahmen des Marketing-Controlling. Die jeweiligen Zielsetzungen des Online-Marketing sollten in einer Scorecard erfasst werden — und mit entsprechenden Leistungsindikatoren und Steuerungsgrößen unterlegt werden. Das Marketingcontrolling der Zukunft wird die Integration der Erfolgsmessung im Internet leisten müssen — v.a. die Integration zwischen Offline und Online Marketing wird zur Herausforderung des kommenden Jahrzehnts und wird seinen Teil dazu beitragen, dass die Mehrzahl der traditionellen Firmen einen Wandlungsprozess zu einem integrierten Mix von „old“ und „new“ Economy vollziehen werden.