Sanjeev Swami

Channel Coordination in Green Supply Chain Management

Environmental consciousness has become increasingly important in everyday life and business practice. The effort to reduce the impact of business activities on the environment has been labelled as green supply chain management. Any major greening project would require efforts on the part of the entire supply chain. However, very few studies have addressed the issue of coordinating the green supply chain. We consider the problem of coordination of a manufacturer and a retailer in a vertical supply chain, who put in efforts for ‘greening’ their operations. We address some pertinent questions in this regard such as extent of effort in greening of operations by manufacturer or retailer, level of cooperation between the two parties, and how to coordinate their operations in a supply chain. The greening efforts by the manufacturer and retailer result in demand expansion at the retail end. The decision variables of the manufacturer are wholesale price and greening effort, while those of the retailer are retail price and its greening effort. We find that the ratio of the optimal greening efforts put in by the manufacturer and retailer is equal to the ratio of their green sensitivity ratios and greening cost ratios. Further, profits and efforts are higher in the integrated channel as compared to the case of the decentralized channel. Finally, a two-part tariff contract is found to produce channel coordination in this problem. A numerical example illustrates the results.

How Complex Do Movie Channel Contracts Need to Be

The motion picture industry is characterized by a dynamic market environment, limited shelf space and product category management, and consequently, complex channel contracts specifying the split of box office revenue between distributors and exhibitors. Although such a contracting practice creates a considerable administrative effort and channel conflict, it is not clear whether such complexity is necessary for superior channel performance. This study investigates this question by analyzing the impact of movie contract structure on movie scheduling and channel member profitability. We develop and analyze a game-theoretic model using the genetic algorithm approach and a decision support system, SilverScreener, to capture strategic behaviors of channel members in a complex market environment. We find that simpler two-part tariff or 50/50 split contracts perform as well as the current contracts. Thus, the complexity of the market environment need not be reflected in the complexity of the channel contracts. Channel contract structure has significant impact on channel member profitability and the exhibitors movie-scheduling behavior. In particular, our results indicate that the flat rate contract structure represents an attractive alternative to the current practice for distributors.

Advertising strategies for new product diffusion in emerging markets: Propositions and analysis

We develop advertising strategies for a firm which has a new product for which demand exists in an emerging market. However, the primary channels for distribution of the firms product do not exist, because either the market has not been opened up, or the firm has not entered the market. Therefore, the consumers use the secondary channels in other markets. The current research seeks to answer questions such as: (i) Is it beneficial to advertise for the product before the market opens? (ii) What should be the difference in advertising before and after the market opens? (iii) What is the effect of various parameters (such as the likelihood of product adoption for the primary and secondary channels, market potential and coefficient of innovation and imitation) on the optimal advertising policies? The above problem is relevant for the situation faced by Japanese electronics goods manufacturers before they entered the Indian market; or a company, which has regional presence in one part of a country (say, urban), and gets access to another part later (e.g., rural). The problem is modeled as an optimal control problem. Relevant propositions are developed for optimal normative advertising policy. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate key policy results.

Evolutionary approach to the development of decision support systems in the movie industry

This paper reports the development and implementation of a decision support system in a non-traditional domain - the motion picture industry. The approach reported here is evolutionary, and the model was designed to assist exhibition executives in movie scheduling. After an earlier successful collaboration in scheduling a single theater with multiple screens, we now turn to the multi-theater multi screens situation, describing the problems encountered in that situation and how we have dealt with them. Using a quasi-experimental design, the decision support system was estimated to improve the net margin by over US

Website characteristics, user characteristics and purchase intention: mediating role of website satisfaction

900,000 on an annual basis. The paper describes the implementation process and the performance evaluation metrics that had been agreed upon with the management.

A typology of Indian hypermarket shoppers based on shopping motivation

Present research examines the mediation effects of website satisfaction on the relationship between website and user characteristics, and purchase intention. The website and user characteristics are presented in terms of their information and entertainment properties (i.e., profiles). The results reveal that website satisfaction mediates the relationship between purchase intention and website characteristics. The relevant characteristics of the website are informativeness, organisation of information elements, entertainment properties and organisation of entertainment elements. The significant mediating effect of website satisfaction is also obtained for the relationship between purchase intention and a user characteristic, namely, information seeking tendency.

A case study on redesign of supply chain network of a manufacturing organization

Purpose – Hypermarket is the most successful amongst organised retail formats in India. The purpose of this paper is to identify segments of hypermarket shoppers based on shopping motivation. The study profiles the identified segments on demographic characteristics and shopping outcomes, and compares the shopping motivation of hypermarket consumers with that of traditional store shoppers. Design/methodology/approach – The study involved a survey of 201 actual shoppers in a hypermarket and that of 117 actual shoppers in 20 traditional stores. Principal components analysis of the motives for shopping at hypermarket and traditional store identified the respective dimensions of shopping motivation. Cluster analysis of the factor scores obtained on shopping motivation at hypermarket revealed the typology of hypermarket shoppers. Chi-square test and MANOVA were used to profile the identified segments of hypermarket shoppers on demographic characteristics and shopping outcomes respectively. Findings – Results re...

Heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches for multi-period shelf-space optimization: the case of motion picture retailing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the case of a manufacturing firm situated in an industrial city of India, focusing on supply chain management issues of the concerned organization from two operational perspectives: supply side (or the procurement side) and the distribution side of the system.Design/methodology/approach – The authors first considered the outsourcing decision‐making problem in a static environment using analytical expression by means of a variable fraction of demand. Next, the authors extended the scope of this problem by considering outsourcing decisions in a dynamic environment, using the sequential decision‐making approach with various operational and inventory factors. Finally, the authors carried out the study of the distribution side of the supply chain of industry using discrete event simulation.Findings – It was observed that, in the case study organization, because of the rather unstructured approach in dealing with the outsourcing perspective, the authors suggeste...

Impact of Information Sharing in Alternative Supply Chain Network Structures

The retail industry is in a highly competitive situation currently. The success of the industry depends upon the efficient allocation of products in the shelf space. Several previous authors have developed mathematical models for optimal shelf-space allocation. We extend the prior research in the direction of the multi-period problem and introduce more realistic characteristics, such as product demand perishability, pricing contract and cross-elasticity. The new characteristics help us address the case of the real-life movie allocation problem in multiplexes. We formulate a linear integer programming model to represent the problem. The proposed model shows a potential benefit of at least 11% increase in revenue for a multiplex theatre situation as compared to the existing methods. We also propose two greedy heuristics and a genetic algorithm to solve the same problem. A computational study shows that the genetic algorithm performs better than the existing method.

A discrete dynamic programming approach towards optimal outsourcing policy in supply chain management

Given the inherent uncertainties pervading the operational environment within real-world supply chains, it becomes imperative for each partnering echelon to focus on individual information requirements from the viewpoint of global optimization of overall supply chain SC performance. With this in perspective, it is expedient to explicitly model the SC network to synchronize activities across the cooperating partners. This research is concerned with the performance behaviour of two different SC network structures given different design and control parameters adopted by the partnering echelons within the assumed SC configurations. Accordingly, the authors developed discrete event simulation models of two hypothetical supply chain structures and exploit the Taguchi experimental design procedure as a vehicle for conducting the simulation experiments and analyzing its outcome. The results highlight the relative effects of the assumed design and controlling factors on system-wide SC performance and identify appropriate combinations of these factors for optimal performance concerned. For the average inventory level performance measure, key results reveal that sharing of demand information between partnering echelons should not automatically be taken for granted as a direction for performance enhancement.