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Composites based on fiber are commonly used in high-performance building materials. The composites mostly use petrochemically derived fibers like polyester and e-glass, due to their advantageous material features like high stiffness and strength. All the same, these fibers also have important shortcomings related to energy consumption, recyclability, initial processing expense, resulting health hazards, and sustainability. Increasing environmental awareness and new sustainable building technologies are driving the research, development, and usage of “green” building materials, especially the development of biomaterials.

In this chapter, the natural fiber evaluation approach is applied, which covers a diverse set of criteria. Consequently, the comparative assessment of diverse natural fiber types is applied through the use of an expert decision system approach. The best performing fiber choice is made by comparatively evaluating the materials related to green building. The proposed fiber can be used and applied by green building material manufacturing companies in various countries or locations as a reference when selecting the fiber with the best performance.

Nowadays, fast and unpredictable changes are common in most countries. Organizations are trying to survive in an environment that shows obvious signs of wear and tear. At the same time, sustainability has been arousing an obvious interest for years, in both the business and academy fields. The global perspective of the sustainable phenomenon as well as the objectives and goals to be achieved have turned into the Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the horizon set in 2030. This chapter is part of SDG 9, which proposes innovation as a means to contribute to sustainability and create wealth in nations; thus, sustainable innovation constitutes a basic and growing paradigm, which makes it possible to achieve SDG 9. Furthermore, the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on companies and their way of innovation managing is exposed. Finally, guidelines are proposed so that organizations can be more responsible and sustainable.

Customers in business-to-business markets are sellers of goods and services on their own. Thus, business-to-business suppliers may exert an influence on their customers’ buying decisions when performing marketing activities toward the customers of the customers by employing the concept of “multistage marketing”. Multi-stage marketing involves all sales-related measures which are aimed at the subsequent market stages (“customers of the customer”) which follow one or several primary customers in order to influence the buying behavior of these primary customers. Although the positive impacts of such activities are known, business-to-business companies often exclude the customers further along in the downstream supply chain from their marketing plans. But in a business-to-business context, the demand is always derived from buying decisions made further down the supply chain. The primary customers buy products or services because they want to use them – directly or indirectly – for either the production or the sale of other goods and services. Hence, derived demand, which can be traced to the end-user's primary demand, can be seen as the basis of multistage marketing.

The most common form of multistage marketing is ingredient (co-)branding, which occurs when a marketer providing an ingredient or component to an OEM advertises the ingredient to the customer of the assembled product. In addition to ingredient branding, this chapter identifies several other forms of multistage marketing and examines the underlying dimensions and processes of the phenomenon. The design of a marketing strategy using the concept of multistage marketing and its preconditions are discussed on a theoretical basis and are illustrated through concrete examples. The chapter provides a number of best practice examples in order to elucidate the issues concerning multistage marketing and its application in a company's marketing strategy serving business-to-business markets.

This chapter offers an overview of the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the textile industry and in particular, the textile colouration and finishing industry. The advent of new technologies such as AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) has changed many businesses and one area AI is seeing growth in is the textile industry. It is estimated that the AI software market shall reach a new high of over US$60 billion by 2022, and the largest increase is projected to be in the area of machine learning (ML). This is the area of AI where machines process and analyse vast amount of data they collect to perform tasks and processes. In the textile manufacturing industry, AI is applied to various areas such as colour matching, colour recipe formulation, pattern recognition, garment manufacture, process optimisation, quality control and supply chain management for enhanced productivity, product quality and competitiveness, reduced environmental impact and overall improved customer experience. The importance and success of AI is set to grow as ML algorithms become more sophisticated and smarter, and computing power increases.

In part because of the complexity and large risks involved, branding plays an important role in business-to-business (B2B) markets. Although marketers of B2B brands must do many of the things that marketers of any kind of product or service must do, six guidelines that are more unique to B2B settings can be defined.

First, the entire organization should understand and support branding and brand management. Employees at all levels and in all departments must have a complete, up-to-date understanding of the vision for the brand and their role. A brand mantra – a short three- to five-word summary of the essence of a brand – can help with this vertical and horizontal alignment.

Second, a corporate branding strategy should be adopted if possible with a well-defined brand hierarchy. Ideally, sub-brands would be created that combined a well-known and highly credible corporate brand name with descriptive product modifiers.

Third, to avoid falling into a commoditization trap, sufficient differentiation must be established to justify price premiums. To sustain that premium, it may be necessary to “frame” value perceptions to ensure that customers appreciate a brand's differences. Fourth, one often overlooked means of differentiation is to link brands to relevant non-product-related brand associations related to customer service, well-respected customers, or clients, etc.

Fifth, emotional associations related to a sense of security, social or peer approval, and self respect can also be linked to the brand and serve as sources of brand equity. Finally, customers must be carefully segmented both within and across companies and tailored marketing programs developed for these different segments.

Adopting these six guidelines will increase the likelihood of creating a strong B2B brand, reaping all the benefits that such an achievement entails.