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This article reports on the influence of the enterprise type on the purchasing decision process within selected product types and phases by using analysis of variance on data from Greek manufacturing and utility enterprises. Our study examined the influence of enterprise type on four parameters of the purchasing decision process, across two different product types and four phases of the purchasing process. The results suggested that all but one parameter varied considerably among the different types of enterprises, and that companies adopt an appropriate structural configuration, which fits to the attributes of the purchased items and the mission of the enterprises.

Supplier selection for defence procurement is a crucial function of a Ministry of Defence. The Ministry spends huge amounts of money each year to procure a vast array of equipment, goods and services. The ongoing financial crisis demands less subjective and more cost-saving methods for selecting a supplier. The approach advocated in this article integrates Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Goal Programming (GP) in order to combine conflicting criteria to select the best suppliers and allocate optimum order quantities among them. This paper presents a model close to real-world situations. Findings demonstrate that cost savings is a feasible result along with a viable combination of conflicting criteria in the suppliers' selection area.

Investigates whether institutional and industrial organizations buying capital items exhibit different patterns of structural configuration across the purchasing cycle. Measures the structure of the purchasing function by three composite parameters especially developed for this research. These parameters express aspects of articulation, depth of analysis and decentralization respectively, and are measured for each of four purchasing cycle phases. Using regression analysis on data from certain Greek organizations, aims to investigate the differences in the purchasing structure arising from capital items purchases of institutions and industrial organizations respectively. This can help industrial marketeers to adapt their strategies to institutions′ purchasing patterns.

This paper aims to provide a strategic approach to the improvement of customer service performance and apply it to a food supplier that distributes its products to food multiple retailers' stores (from now on, the term “retailers” instead of “food multiple retailers' stores” will be used to represent hypermarkets, supermarkets or neighbourhood stores).

To attain the performance's enhancement, the requirements are: the identification, evaluation and selection of customer service elements and the establishment of measures as well as performance standards. To identify service elements, previous research and the food supplier's as well as the retailers' viewpoints were taken into consideration. To evaluate service elements, 40 retailers were asked to rate the elements' importance and the two competitors' performance. The usable questionnaires were subjected to correlation analysis, paired‐samples t‐test and multiple ANOVA. To select the appropriate service elements, on which measures and performance standards would be established, positioning matrices were also formed.

With respect to sausage market in Greece, the analysis points out that the supplier should apply measures in the service elements order completeness, invoice error‐free, on‐time delivery, delivery of products without defects, efficient handling of returned products, informing about shortages in the orders, providing technical information and efficient handling of customers' requests. The performance should be improved in the first three elements and maintained as it is in the remaining five elements.

The study provides insight into the customer service elements which a supplier should measure and into which of them a supplier should improve its performance or maintain it. Moreover, the elements that constitute customer service in the Greek sausage sector are identified.