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1 – 10 of over 137000The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive…
Abstract
The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.
This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.
The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.
This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.
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Judy Zolkiewski and Peter Turnbull
The importance of effective planning and management of an organization’s array of customer and supplier relationships is self‐evident, yet relatively little research has been…
Abstract
The importance of effective planning and management of an organization’s array of customer and supplier relationships is self‐evident, yet relatively little research has been published which develops our academic or managerial understanding of the conceptual and practical problems inherent in this issue. This paper is written from an interaction and network perspective and critically reviews existing customer and supplier portfolio analysis and considers the implications of using such an approach for the management of relationships. The notion of relationship portfolios in the context of network theory is reviewed and the authors suggest that portfolios provide an alternative method of network conceptualization and analysis and that such portfolios may be a key factor in successful relationship management.
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An important managerial task in business‐to‐business marketing is the strategic management of supplier‐customer relationships, which is concerned with a portfolio of…
Abstract
An important managerial task in business‐to‐business marketing is the strategic management of supplier‐customer relationships, which is concerned with a portfolio of relationships. A review of existing customer portfolio theories reveals that: most of the portfolio dimensions have not yet been empirically validated; the theoretical base of relevant dimensions may be conceptually inadequate in terms of strategy analysis; and the link between customer portfolio dimensions and customer performance has not yet been examined. Attempts to address these gaps in the literature by studying customer portfolios of large UK‐based banks. The main results indicate that the common industrial organization perspective may only give a short run picture of customer performance. Suggests that long run positioning value of a customer portfolio can be accounted for by resource‐based analysis and strategic approach to customer portfolio analysis. Concludes with a discussion of the results and implications.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss issues related to customer churn behavior in digital libraries (DLs) and demonstrate the successful application of Survival Analysis for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss issues related to customer churn behavior in digital libraries (DLs) and demonstrate the successful application of Survival Analysis for understanding customer churn status and relationship duration distribution between customers and libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies non-parametric methods of Survival Analysis to analyze churn behaviors of 8,054 customers from a famous Chinese digital library, and a cluster method to make customer segmentation according to customer behavioral features.
Findings
The customer churn rate of the given library is very high, so as to the churn hazard in early three months after customer's registration on the web site of the library. There is clear difference in both customer survival time and churn hazard among customer groups. It is necessary to strengthen customer churn analysis and customer relationship management (CRM) for DLs.
Research limitations/implications
The studied samples are mainly based on customers from one digital library and some hypotheses have not been strictly proven due to the absence of relevant empirical researches.
Practical implications
This study provides a reasonable basis for decision making about CRM in DLs.
Originality/value
Most previous researches about information behavior concentrate on information seeking behavior in DLs, seldom discuss customer switching behavior. The paper discusses issues related to customer churn analysis and illustrates the adaptation of Survival Analysis to understand customer churn status and relationship duration distribution in DLs.
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Yajun Wang, Xinyu Meng, Chang Xu and Meng Zhao
This paper aims to analyze high-quality papers on the research of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) for product and service quality improvement from 2009 to 2022, in order to fully…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze high-quality papers on the research of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) for product and service quality improvement from 2009 to 2022, in order to fully understand their historical progress, current situation and future development trend.
Design/Methodology/Approach
This paper adopts the bibliometrics method to analyze the relevant literature, including publishing trend and citation status, regional and discipline area distribution, and influential publications. Secondly, the VOSviewer is used for literature co-citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis to obtain the basic literature and research hotspots in this research field.
Findings
Firstly, the study finds that the number of publications basically shows an increasing trend, and those publications are mainly published in tourism journals. In addition, among these papers, China has the largest number of publications, followed by the USA and South Korea. Through co-citation analysis of literature and keyword co-occurrence analysis, 22 foundational papers and six main research topics are obtained in this paper. Finally, this paper elaborates on the development trend of the research topic and future research directions in detail.
Originality/value
This is the first paper that uses bibliometrics to analyze and review relevant researches on eWOM for product and service quality improvement, which is helpful for researchers to quickly understand its development status and trend. This review also provides some future research directions and provides a reference for further research.
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Beverley R. Lord, Yvonne P. Shanahan and Benjamin M. Nolan
As Lindsay (1994, 1995) encourages validation of existing results, this research replicates Guilding and McManus (2002) in a New Zealand (NZ) context. The usage and perceived…
Abstract
As Lindsay (1994, 1995) encourages validation of existing results, this research replicates Guilding and McManus (2002) in a New Zealand (NZ) context. The usage and perceived merit of customer accounting practices were lower in NZ than in the Australian study. Few of the regressions where customer accounting usage and perceived merit were dependent variables revealed a statistically significant role for competition intensity and market orientation. There was some minor support for the perceived merit of customer accounting being higher in companies experiencing medium levels of competition intensity.
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Bruno Busacca, Michele Costabile and Fabio Ancarani
This paper focuses on customer value analysis and measurement, framing customer value management as one of the main antecedents of the company value-creation process. The paper…
Abstract
This paper focuses on customer value analysis and measurement, framing customer value management as one of the main antecedents of the company value-creation process. The paper builds on three main pillars. First, the paper highlights the critical role of customer value in business-to-business markets, focusing on the links between the company's ability to manage customer value-creation processes and the positive financial and economic outcomes generated by loyalty effects. Secondly, the paper develops key analytical stages for an understanding of customer value. The focus is on the customer value-chain concept, including consideration of the customer information and acquisition process and its decision rules. Third, the paper illustrates the measurement process, offering an organizational framework for selecting the most suitable method for measuring perceived customer value. The methodological alternatives range from desk measures (e.g., technical computation of the total cost of ownership (TCO)) to field analysis, like those considered under both compositional and the decomposition approaches (e.g., conjoint analysis). The paper concludes with remarks on the managerial implications of these measures, as well as offering suggestions for further research on value for the customer.
Li‐Wei Mai and Mitchell R. Ness
Analyses customer satisfaction with mail‐order speciality foods in the UK and examines the relationship between satisfaction with eight attributes of mail‐order speciality food…
Abstract
Analyses customer satisfaction with mail‐order speciality foods in the UK and examines the relationship between satisfaction with eight attributes of mail‐order speciality food and their association with overall satisfaction and likelihood of future purchase. Univariate analysis reveals that a high proportion of mail‐order customers experience satisfaction with each of the eight mail‐order attributes, reflected in a high proportion of customers who are satisfied overall and who intend to repurchase the products in the future. Canonical correlation analysis reveals a statistically significant relationship between one set of variables, overall satisfaction and likelihood of future purchase, and another set of variables, the eight mail‐order attributes. Consequently the results indicate that customer satisfaction is associated with service aspects of mail‐order such as the order process and delivery service as well as physical product attributes such as product quality.
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Evangelos Grigoroudis, Panagiotis Kyriazopoulos, Yannis Siskos, Athanasios Spyridakos and Denis Yannacopoulos
Internet service providers (ISPs) constitute a highly competitive market, while the unstable market conditions directly affect customer preferences and make ISPs to develop a…
Abstract
Purpose
Internet service providers (ISPs) constitute a highly competitive market, while the unstable market conditions directly affect customer preferences and make ISPs to develop a “mass customization” strategy, individualizing services and approaching every customer in an individual way. However, customization requires an in‐depth analysis of current customer preferences and an evaluation of future behavior. The main objective of the paper is to present a framework for analyzing changes of customer preferences.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents detailed results of independent customer satisfaction surveys conducted in different time periods in the Greek ISP market. The analyses are based on non‐parametric statistical techniques and the multicriteria satisfaction analysis method, which is a multicriteria preference disaggregation approach.
Findings
Results are mainly focused on the evaluation of potential trends of e‐customer preferences. Furthermore, results of a benchmarking analysis are also presented, based on the evolution of satisfaction levels for the quality characteristics of the provided services.
Research limitations/implications
Future research in the context of the presented study may be focused on satisfaction benchmarking analysis, given the rapid changes of the market conditions. An extended satisfaction survey will give the ability to analyze customer preferences in comparison with the main ISP competitors.
Practical implications
The presented study may help organizations in highly competitive markets dominated by rapid technological progresses to track short‐term changes of customer preferences.
Originality/value
The analyses presented are based on the combination of multicriteria analysis and non‐parametric statistics. The main advantage of these methods is that they respect the qualitative (ordinal) form of collected survey data.
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