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The purpose of the study is to examine the moderating effects of support service quality (SSQ) on marketing information services sophistication (MISS) and bank’s core competencies within banking sector.

To collect the data, the questionnaire approach and random sampling are chosen. The survey sample consisted of 180 banking branches information technology managers in Sudan’s banking industry.

The study evidenced that the effect of SSQ on the relationship between MISS and bank’s core competencies is a quasi-moderator and also indicate that the two components of MISS are positively and significantly associated with bank’s core competencies.

The study is conducted in Sudan banking industry and generalization could be limited. Future studies will replicate the study in different industries or countries.

For the managers’ practice, the findings showed that MISS can deliver superior performance and efficiency (such as proper work flow, employee satisfaction, reducing complaints or enquiries and competitive capabilities) if it reinforced or strengthened by SSQ.

Empirical results support the positive link between MISS, SSQ and top core competencies. The benefit of that contribution is performance excellence competencies at the market.

To investigate the relationship between service practices, service performance, business performance and information technology (IT) sophistication.

A conceptual framework is developed, incorporating dimensions of services practice and service performance and structural equation modeling is used to test the model with data from 231 companies.

This paper extends the basic service practice‐service performance relationship by incorporating the interaction effects of IT sophistication in a contingency framework. Previous studies found mixed support for the direct effects of IT sophistication on service performance.

Using single informants leads to common methods bias.

Companies need to identify how IT contributes to service effectiveness from a customer perspective.

This study adds to the emerging literature of the relationship between services management and information technology.

The intensity of competition has increased within the retail banking industries in virtually all developed economies. Creating a sustainable competitive advantage, therefore, has become of paramount importance. One way through which retail banks have sought to create this sustainable competitive advantage has been the utilisation of information technology to support the marketing function. In light of this, this paper hypothesizes that marketing information system technology can leverage this sustainable competitive advantage ahead of other marketing technologies which bank management have implemented or are thinking of implementing. An analysis of the current use of marketing information system technology, however, reveals low levels of sophistication throughout the UK and Irish retail banking industries. Given this fact, the factors involved in successfully implementing marketing information system technology are presented. Empirical evidence was drawn from 48 postal questionnaires conducted in the UK and Ireland and ten case studies undertaken in the UK, USA and Australasia. Results show that marketing sophistication, organisational size, and previous implementation experience were all critical factors in a successful implementation process.

An updated version of the original (1985) text, the book covers all aspects of marketing and selling bank services: the role of marketing; behaviour of customers; intelligence, planning and organisation; product decisions; promotion decisions; place decisions; price decisions; achieving sales. Application questions help to focus the readers' minds on key issues affecting practice.

Despite the much publicised advantages of a website for SME exporters, the level of website sophistication, as well as the factors which inhibit or stimulate exporting SMEs to develop their website beyond a basic level of sophistication, are still unknown. The literature is prone to discuss website establishment and development simultaneously, splitting firms into adopters and non-adopters, yet websites may be established and then neglected, or be continually developed. This paper introduces an instrument for measuring website sophistication within an export marketing context, and proposes and empirically tests a model that depicts factors impacting on perceived advantages of a website and website sophistication levels. The results identify export diversity and environmental pressure as key determinants of perceived advantage of a website which in turn is a good predictor of website sophistication. The firm internal resources, i.e. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) knowledge and time, in conjunction with entrepreneurship orientation also determine an SME exporter's website sophistication level.

A Process Model During the last five years, American businesses have increasingly accepted the notion that product quality is necessary for them to compete in today′s world markets. Product quality, in the context here, can be defined by an agreed set of standards and tolerance limits between the firm and its customers. Quality is achieved through the successful creation of form, possession, time, place, and quantity utilities for the firm′s products. Control must be implemented in order to ensure that these utilities are created to meet the standards and tolerance limits agreed upon by the firm and its customers. The purpose of exercising control is to ensure that desired results are attained from an activity or process. As such, it is important to exercise control over the logistics activities to make sure that time, place, and quantity utilities are created in accordance with customer needs. The purpose of this monograph is to present a rather comprehensive discussion of the concept of control. Specific control concepts presented include a discussion of the link between control and quality, the development of the characteristics of control and levels of sophistication of control, the presentation of an eclectic process control model, and suggestions to managers on how to implement the control process over logistics activities.

During the last several decades, logistics has increasingly emerged as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. This article incorporates recent work in services marketing on customer information acquisition, with research on industrial buying behavior to help logistics service providers understand and manage their customers’ information acquisition and purchase activities for logistics services.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following questions: are sophisticated consumers more likely to be satisfied with their purchases? Are consumers who are more knowledgeable more apt to feel in control of their purchase decisions? Are they more likely to believe the transaction was fair? Are they less likely to have cognitive dissonance post‐purchase?

An empirical study examining the role of consumer sophistication on consumers' purchase satisfaction was conducted with a national sample of approximately 700 home purchasers.

The results revealed that shopping sophistication is a key determinant of whether consumers are satisfied with their purchase experience. Sophistication not only seems to affect satisfaction but also customer perceptions of control, fairness and dissonance.

Implications for marketing strategy and suggestions for future research are discussed.

This paper suggests that perception of sophistication plays a much more important role in affecting consumer purchase satisfaction than previously understood. Consequently, businesses need to be much more active in educating consumers so that they are better able to make more informed purchase decisions. Ultimately, by helping to facilitate this information flow, consumers will be more satisfied with the products and services they purchase, develop a greater loyalty to the company providing the data and be more likely to purchase similar products and services in the future.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

Many leading firms across Europe are harnessing information technology to cultivate customer service as a valuable asset to achieve strategic superiority. The key findings of this IT/customer service adoption study emphasize three main points. First information technology acts as an enabling tool in achieving customer service advantages in three ways: clerical effectiveness/automation; operational efficiency; and/or information generation and strategic effectiveness or transformation. Second, customer service is being nurtured as a valuable asset in differentiating products in one or more of four forms: distribution, transaction, relationship and/or strategic. Third, there is a direct positive correlation between the exploitation of IT in customer service and the degree of information orientation. The conclusion presents a model of this adoption process of IT in customer service. These findings reflect “leading” business practice in the use of IT in customer service.