This paper suggests a business process between the collaborative companies that want to extend globally sales and delivery service with restricted physical branches in their own areas. The companies integrate their business processes for sales and delivery services using a shared product taxonomy table. In order to perform the collaborative processes, they need the algorithm to exchange their own products. We suggest a similar product finding algorithm to compose the product taxonomy table that defines product relationships to exchange them between the companies. The main idea of the proposed algorithm is using a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) to find the utility values of products in a same product class of the companies. Based on the values we determine what products are similar. It helps the product manager to register the similar products into a same product sub-category. The companies then allow consumer to shop and purchase the products at their own residence site and deliver them or similar products to another sites.
Purpose: We provide a condition-based maintenance policy where a surrogate variable is used for monitoring system performance. We constructed a risk function by taking into account the risk and losses accompanied with erroneous decisions. Methods: Assuming a unique degradation process for the performance variable and its specific relationship with the surrogate variable, the maintenance policy is determined. A risk function is developed on the basis of producer's and consumer's risks accompanied with each decision. With a strategic safety factor considered, the optimal threshold value for the surrogate variable is determined based on the risk function. Results: The condition-based maintenance is analyzed from the point of risk. With an assumed safety consideration, the optimal threshold value of the surrogate variable is provided for taking a maintenance action. The optimal solution cannot be obtained in a closed form. An illustrative numerical example and solution is provided with a source code of R program. Conclusion: The study can be applied to situation where a sensor signal is issued if the system performance begins to degrade gradually and reaches eventually its functional failure. The study can be extended to the case where two or more performance variables are connected to a same surrogate variable. Also estimation of the distribution parameters and risk coefficients should be further studied.
Purpose - The purpose of this study is to identify the critical factors that restaurant management should consider strategically when making a decision after COVID-19 under the digital transformation and non-contact service expansions environment. Design/methodology/approach - The thirty six experts and managers who have 5 years or more experience in restaurant industry in Korea participate this study. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and SER-M were used to analyze the experts' opinion Findings - As a result of the analysis, 'management environment' (0.313) showed the highest relative importance priority, followed by 'brand (0.263)', 'management characteristics (0.254)', and 'physical factors (0.17)'. And, as for the sub-factor value, 'lifestyle (0.087)', 'awareness (0.084)', 'consumer desire (0.075)', and 'loyalty (0.068)' were ranked highest among the 19 influencing critical factors. Research implications or Originality - In the case of large restaurant enterprises, it is judged that the subject(CEO, Management) is actively pursuing a strategy to acquire the necessary resources for the given environment of digital transformation and customer demand for non-contact services. On the other hand, in the case of middle and small restaurant enterprises, it seems that they are fully aware of the demand for expansion of non-contact services and the digital transformation required in the post COVID-19 era, but information technology utilization ability, usage experience, technology acceptance ability, and education and training support for this are only available to large enterprises.
In today's society with its emphasis on unlimited information access, control of available information about high-technology products is often vital to their success. When a product is released, consumers may initially be attracted through information about its remarkable internal and external features. They may also perceive a degree of congruence between their own personalities and the product image as more information becomes available over time. Consumers' changing impressions of the product may influence personality congruence negatively or positively. These changes and their effects on preference for high-technology products are the focus of this paper. A survey was given to a sample of 206 students at K University to investigate the degree to which consumer behavior can be influenced by personality congruence. The need for clear and definite product knowledge in this process and the effect of product information on preference were also investigated. Three analyses were conducted. The results of Analysis 1 showed the influence of personality congruence on preference for high-technology products. Judgments about personality congruence were based on non-compensatory rather than compensatory information processing. The respondents considered certain aspects of a product's personality rather than the product as a whole when making preference decisions. The results of Analysis 2 indicated that when less information was available about a product, consumers who perceived high personality congruence with the product tended to have higher preference for it compared to those who perceived low personality congruence with the product. On the other hand, when consumers were given more information, no difference was observed in the impact of personality on preference between perceived high and low personality congruence. Lastly, the results of Analysis 3 showed that when consumers with high need for closure (NFC) perceived high congruence between their own personalities and a product, objective information regarding the product was not used in decision-making: instead, judgments about the product were based on perceived personality congruence. On the other hand, high-NFC consumers who perceived low personality congruence between themselves and the product tended to require more information about the product in order to give it a positive evaluation. In contrast, low-NFC consumers who perceived high personality congruence felt comfortable with large amounts of information. For low-NFC consumers who perceived low congruence, the level of information had no influence on preference.
Internet commerce has been growing at a rapid pace for the last decade. Many firms try to reach wider consumer markets by adding the Internet channel to the existing traditional channels. Despite the various benefits of the Internet channel, a significant number of firms failed in managing the new type of channel. Previous studies could not cleary explain these conflicting results associated with the Internet channel. One of the major reasons is most of the previous studies conducted analyses under a specific market condition and claimed that as the impact of Internet channel introduction. Therefore, their results are strongly influenced by the specific market settings. However, firms face various market conditions in the real worlddensity and disutility of using the Internet. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of various market environments on a firm's optimal channel strategy by employing a flexible game theory model. We capture various market conditions with consumer density and disutility of using the Internet.
shows the channel structures analyzed in this study. Before the Internet channel is introduced, a monopoly manufacturer sells its products through an independent physical store. From this structure, the manufacturer could introduce its own Internet channel (MI). The independent physical store could also introduce its own Internet channel and coordinate it with the existing physical store (RI). An independent Internet retailer such as Amazon could enter this market (II). In this case, two types of independent retailers compete with each other. In this model, consumers are uniformly distributed on the two dimensional space. Consumer heterogeneity is captured by a consumer's geographical location (ci) and his disutility of using the Internet channel (${\delta}_{N_i}$).
shows various market conditions captured by the two consumer heterogeneities.
(a) illustrates a market with symmetric consumer distributions. The model captures explicitly the asymmetric distributions of consumer disutility in a market as well. In a market like that is represented in
(c), the average consumer disutility of using an Internet store is relatively smaller than that of using a physical store. For example, this case represents the market in which 1) the product is suitable for Internet transactions (e.g., books) or 2) the level of E-Commerce readiness is high such as in Denmark or Finland. On the other hand, the average consumer disutility when using an Internet store is relatively greater than that of using a physical store in a market like (b). Countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria, or the market for "experience goods" such as shoes, could be examples of this market condition.
summarizes the various scenarios of consumer distributions analyzed in this study. The range for disutility of using the Internet (${\delta}_{N_i}$) is held constant, while the range of consumer distribution (${\chi}_i$) varies from -25 to 25, from -50 to 50, from -100 to 100, from -150 to 150, and from -200 to 200.
summarizes the analysis results. As the average travel cost in a market decreases while the average disutility of Internet use remains the same, average retail price, total quantity sold, physical store profit, monopoly manufacturer profit, and thus, total channel profit increase. On the other hand, the quantity sold through the Internet and the profit of the Internet store decrease with a decreasing average travel cost relative to the average disutility of Internet use. We find that a channel that has an advantage over the other kind of channel serves a larger portion of the market. In a market with a high average travel cost, in which the Internet store has a relative advantage over the physical store, for example, the Internet store becomes a mass-retailer serving a larger portion of the market. This result implies that the Internet becomes a more significant distribution channel in those markets characterized by greater geographical dispersion of buyers, or as consumers become more proficient in Internet usage. The results indicate that the degree of price discrimination also varies depending on the distribution of consumer disutility in a market. The manufacturer in a market in which the average travel cost is higher than the average disutility of using the Internet has a stronger incentive for price discrimination than the manufacturer in a market where the average travel cost is relatively lower. We also find that the manufacturer has a stronger incentive to maintain a high price level when the average travel cost in a market is relatively low. Additionally, the retail competition effect due to Internet channel introduction strengthens as average travel cost in a market decreases. This result indicates that a manufacturer's channel power relative to that of the independent physical retailer becomes stronger with a decreasing average travel cost. This implication is counter-intuitive, because it is widely believed that the negative impact of Internet channel introduction on a competing physical retailer is more significant in a market like Russia, where consumers are more geographically dispersed, than in a market like Hong Kong, that has a condensed geographic distribution of consumers.