David Walters

Demand chain management+response management=increased customer satisfaction

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to understand the current developments in business models that are aimed at meeting changing market characteristics, many of which require specific customer service responses.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a conceptual model that is based on research into the applications of response management.Findings – This paper suggests validity of the proposed model but also identifies the need for further research.Practical implications – The paper assumes that management has the awareness and the skills set to manage and deliver added value to customers by implementing a more relevant model.Originality/value – This paper offers examples of organisations that are responding to market and customer expectations using response management models.

Cooperative innovation: a value chain approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to briefly review earlier contributions to partner/cooperative innovation with the aim of evaluating the application of the concept to the increasingly popular virtual/value chain business model.Design/methodology/approach – A number of example cases of partner/cooperative innovation are examined and, although these are limited in number, it would appear that a classification of types of partner/cooperative innovation is possible.Findings – Partner/cooperative innovation combines elements of process and product innovation management within a “network structure” to create a product‐service response that neither partner could create using its own resources. They extend in both directions of the supply chain (upstream and down stream) and include supplier relationship management such as that demonstrated between Dell and its myriad of suppliers, and examples of customer relationship management such as the relationship that Caterpillar has built with its distributor/serv...

Drivers of falling interaction costs in global business networks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the interactions that are engaged in when specialist organizations collaborate in business networks organized around global value chains. Interaction costs are defined as including transaction costs plus the costs for exchanging information and ideas. The view is forwarded that as interaction costs decrease, potential business partners have greater scope to interlink their business strategies and operations to co‐create value.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on ideas linking the emergence of new forms of organization, technology and innovation, and global business strategy. In particular, its focus is on how ICT is transforming the ways in which organizations around the globe interlink through innovative approaches to operational and strategic imperatives.Findings – Three factors that are either reducing interaction costs or increasing the effectiveness or frequency of interactions are identified and examined: the convergence of technologies, ...

Competition, Collaboration, and Creating Value in the Value Chain

The network structure has expanded the nature of organisational economics from a limited perspective, based upon economies of scale (within which the firm became volume oriented striving to achieve its minimum cost/volume position on its long-run average cost curve (Chandler 1962), to a ‘collective’ perspective based upon a notion of dispersed operations (i.e., the complete range of value creation, production, delivery and service provision). It is no longer sufficient to be the lowest cost provider in a market but rather it is now essential to be the most effective and efficient solution provider: end-user markets are product-service dominated. These may be PRODUCT-service markets, however in the New Economy many industrial markets are product-SERVICE markets: the customers are aware of product application performance but are often more influenced by service-maintenance availability rather low prices, hence the approach by major manufacturers of such products as aero-engines which are priced by the hour of serviceable use. To be effective it is essential that suppliers and customers understand each others’ expectations (value drivers) and costs (value driver response costs). The complexities of markets encourage a network approach, one in which “solutions” to customers’ “problems” may take on a PRODUCT-service format or (increasingly) a product-SERVICE offer and the solutions will cross a number of international borders as well as a number of intra and inter-organisational boundaries during the process.

Market centricity and producibility

Purpose – Operations management and marketing have played important roles in contributing towards an ongoing corporate objective of delivering enhanced customer satisfaction. Focusing on the concept of producibility, this paper aims to explore the potential for developing an inter-disciplinary approach to market centric value delivery. Design/methodology/approach – For its approach, the paper uses a review of the literature and analyses a number of company examples to highlight the benefits of extending design for manufacture and assembly (DMFA) into the operational processes of physical distribution and service support management. Findings – A solution will be an increase in design for manufacturing or producibility engineering. Changes to achieve this will not only reflect the short-term “drivers” of performance, cost and time management but also “industry performance drivers” such as knowledge management, technology management, relationship management, and process management. In the development of an i...

Additive Manufacturing: Current Status and Future Prospects

The potential implications of additive manufacturing or 3D printing technology are being recognized across a number of different industries. In developed countries where the traditional manufacturing sector has experienced decline, the developments in additive manufacturing present potential opportunities for growth. The paper presents the outcomes of preliminary data analysis from an exploratory survey of senior managers working in the additive manufacturing sector in the Australasian region. The analysis suggests that while there has been progress, there is scope for improving technologies and reducing costs in order to facilitate wider adoption of and greater business value from 3D printing.

Ubiquity and integration in m-Health: Implications for brand management

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the widespread changes impacting consumers and business in the e-Landscape, with a focus upon the idea that market pull is resulting in demand for m-Health, which encompasses mobile health related devices and applications that enable consumers to manage healthcare anywhere, anytime and with security. The e-Landscape model is reviewed and implementation issues are broached by exploring the notions of the value proposition and value chain networks. The value proposition is regarded as a central organizing principle around which a business can be configured. This enables managers to align changing customer needs, resources, internal relationships and external partnerships, to deliver the brand promise to the marketplace.

Using the Product Life Cycle as a Basis for a Product-Service Strategy Model

The recent financial problems of the 2008/10 GFC and the likelihood of similar events occurring in 2012/13 has ‘spooked’ business and consumer confidence and has resulted in fierce competition in both B2C and in the derived demand companies in B2B markets. The problems are exacerbated by the very slow recovery response of developed economy business organizations, many facing competition from Asian companies whose business models have become sophisticated and are moving rapidly away from their traditional “high volume/low value” manufacturing expertise towards a “low volume/high value” value proposition thereby threateningwell established traditional western companies; some are moving away from tangible/hardware products towards becoming solution providers.

Opportunities for Collaboration in the ‘Asian Century’

The migration of manufacturing into Asia, notably China and India, has been accompanied by varying degrees of concern by western (traditional) businesses. Initially the use of offshoring by high volume/low value manufacturers was seen as a means by which they could remain price competitive; however the more recent moves by Asian manufacturers into the high value/low volume markets has become both an economic and a political issue in what currently is shaping up to be a more serious economic downturn than the “2008/9 GFC”. The move towards reshoring has been driven by the equalisation of wage rates in Asia and the softening of labour attitudes in western manufacturing countries, specifically in North America: where recently some runaway plants returned home, and there are some positive economic incentives to encourage more domestic sourcing. The paper discusses the current and future opportunities for Western companies in this scenario and suggests there is scope for collaboration between Asian and Western organisations.

Aligning marketing and operations for more effective and efficient ‘total operations’

As the current financial crisis deepens businesses seek more efficiency in managing their responses to customer demand. For many organisations this presents difficulties as the need to create, or maintain, competitive advantage in declining markets has required greater focus on fit for purpose and time for response; typically this has created a requirement for a coordinated response from marketing and operations management. This paper identifies changes that have occurred in both activities and suggests how coordinated interaction between them can achieve improved value delivery.