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Strategy Question: How do we determine and prioritize which products/services need action?

Summary: This very important tool helps provide a perspective on where product/service improvements are needed relative to performance and margin parameters. It is designed to provide a concise “current state” assessment of product/service offerings using three categories: (1) No deficiency — competitive in both Product and Price/Cost areas (color coded white), (2) One deficiency — Product performance or Price/Margin deficiency (color coded gray); and (3) Two deficiencies — Product performance and Price/margin deficiency (color coded black). When these product/service deficiencies are displayed relative to the most important market segments (ranked in decreasing order of priority), the tool output serves as an insightful baseline from which to scope, frame, define and prioritize product improvement and margin-enhancement projects needed. Your list of potential projects begins here. Many of the prior tools come together at this point. Through previous tools, the markets, environment, and the current competitive positions of the products or services are understood. This tool helps to define a structure to pull all this information together in a simple way to add perspective toward defining and prioritizing potential actions.

We study how price dispersion varies with product characteristics at a popular online price comparison site – Shopper.com. Our primary finding suggests that price dispersion in online markets varies with product characteristics and firm behavior. We also find evidence that the level of dispersion varies with the percent of firms listing price information in multiple categories. When the percent of firms listing prices in multiple categories is relatively high (low), price dispersion is low (high).

Discrete choice models are widely used for estimating the effects of changes in attributes on a given product's likely market share. These models can be applied directly to situations in which the choice set is constant across the market of interest or in which the choice set varies systematically across the market. In both of these applications, the models are used to determine the effects of different attribute levels on market shares among the available alternatives, given predetermined choice sets, or of varying the choice set in a straightforward way.

Discrete choice models can also be used to identify the “optimal” configuration of a product or service in a given market. This can be computationally challenging when preferences vary with respect to the ordering of levels within an attribute as well the strengths of preferences across attributes. However, this type of optimization can be a relatively straightforward extension of the typical discrete choice model application.

In this paper, we describe two applications that use discrete choice methods to provide a more robust metric for use in Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency (TURF) applications: apparel and food products. Both applications involve products for which there is a high degree of heterogeneity in preferences among consumers.

We further discuss a significant challenge in using TURF — that with multi-attributed products the method can become computationally intractable — and describe a heuristic approach to support food and apparel applications. We conclude with a summary of the challenges in these applications, which are yet to be addressed.

This paper uses the results of a questionnaire survey to conduct exploratory research into the importance of product costs in decision-making. The results of the research reveal that product costs are at least important in selling price, make-or-buy, cost reduction, product design, evaluating new production process and product discontinuation decisions. Product costs that were used directly in decision-making were more important than those that were used as attention directing information and they were more important in product mix, output level and product discontinuation decisions in continuous production processes manufacturing. In general, the importance of product costs in decision-making did not vary between the methods used to allocate and assign overheads to product costs, and it was not related to operating unit size, product differentiation, competition and the level of satisfaction with the product costing system.

In the context of digitalisation, issues related to the promotion of cloud technologies are becoming of paramount importance, including SaaS products, the demand for which has increased significantly. In the promotion of products, an important role is played by the marketing information system (MIS) of the organisation, the effective functioning of which allows one to obtain the necessary information for making informed management decisions.

The chapter aims to develop methodological approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of promoting SaaS products using MIS.

The chapter analyses the demand for cloud services on a global scale and in Russia. The authors identified and systematised the features, advantages, disadvantages and competitive advantages of SaaS products for owners and users.

A methodical approach to evaluating the effectiveness of promoting SaaS products using MIS based on a developed system of indicators is proposed and tested, including indicators that characterise work with customers during the sales funnel, indicators that characterise customer loyalty and economic indicators that characterise the efficiency of the funnel sales in general.

The authors developed a system of indicators for evaluating the functioning of the organisation's MIS for promoting SaaS products, by types of marketing tools that are subsystems of the MIS. The proposed methodological approach allows substantiating the directions for increasing the efficiency of promoting SaaS products and the directions for improving the MIS.

The service sector is a major segment of the economy and contributes to the gross national product in a significant manner. It complements the manufacturing sector as organizations become global in nature. Sources of raw material may be quite dispersed from the manufacturing site. Further, not all manufacturing may take place in one particular location. Based on the availability of expertise and the required operations to produce the product, components, subassemblies, or assemblies could be produced in different geographical locations. This creates the necessity to transport raw material, components, or assemblies in a timely manner from one location to another based on the needs of the supply chain. All customers prefer not only an efficient delivery system but also one that is damage-free. In this chapter, we consider a model whereby service organizations offer a contract for damage protection based on product value. The objective is to determine the premium to be charged by the service organization so as to at least break even or accomplish a desired profit margin.

Product intervention power is introduced under the markets in financial instruments regulation (MiFIR) and packaged retail and insurance-based investment products (PRIIPs) Regulation for all EU Member States and gives National Competent Authorities (NCAs), European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), and European Banking Authority (EBA) powers to monitor financial products (and services) under their supervision and to “temporarily” prohibit or restrict the marketing, distribution, or sale of certain financial instruments, or to intervene in relation to certain financial activities or practice. This extends the supervisory measures defined in MiFID II to any PRIIPs (including insurance-based investment products “IBI products”) that would not otherwise fall under the scope of MiFID II. Product intervention power is given to the NCAs, and in order to use power, it requires to take the specifics of the individual case into account and a series of conditions, criteria, and factors to fulfill. Moreover, ESMA and the EBA have a type of control function and ability to override national regulators on product. The aim of product intervention powers is to ensure strengthening of investor protection, but given the potential significant impact of this power, calls into question of possibility to delay innovation and slow down product developments on the capital market.

This paper provided an overview of supervisory measures on product intervention, that is, scope of the product intervention power, criteria, factors, and risks which have to be taken into consideration when using this regulator’s tool.

This systematic literature review used bibliometric and science mapping as a means of exploring and understanding the evolution and landscape of research in the counterfeiting of products and goods. The review sought to document the size, growth trajectory and geographic distribution of counterfeiting research, identify high-impact scholars and documents, and explore the intellectual structure of the field. We identified 403 peer-reviewed articles published in the SCOPUS database, within subject areas of business, social sciences, economics, decision-making, arts and humanities, and psychology. We used VOSviewer software to analyse the data set of SCOPUS-indexed articles. Using citation analysis, the review identified the most cited scholars, documents, journals and most productive countries publishing research on counterfeiting. Aiming to identify highly influential documents whose impact in counterfeiting research has been sustained over time, we conducted a co-citation analysis. Apart from identifying main aspects of knowledge production through citation and co-citation analysis, we employed keyword co-occurrence analysis to illuminate research fronts in counterfeiting research, notably: anti-counterfeiting strategies for combating crime; counterfeiting and intellectual property rights; counterfeiting of luxury products; consumer ethics; consumer psychology and brand protection. We conclude that bibliometric analysis and science mapping offer a novel and useful means of investigating the development of this field of study.

Growing environmental challenge awareness among consumers is today's business reality that pushes for sustainable product development. Governments, industries, and consumers' attention are significantly moved from traditional products to eco-friendly product development. Green product development is the future for manufacturing businesses' survival in most markets. Green product development is an emerging phenomenon and, unfortunately, lacks theoretical and empirical research regarding effective organizational policies and practices for green product development. This study aims at filling research gaps towards green product development by highlighting green employee aspects influenced by leadership for sustainable business growth. The study hypothesized relations between the green effect of transformational leadership on green product development as an outcome through green behaviour, green climate, and green innovative creativity. Data was collected from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Karachi through a self-administered survey questionnaire. Results revealed significant support for hypothesized relations through the partial least square statistical tool. This study contributes theoretical and empirical advancement in past literature wherein leadership style influences employee behaviour that leads to predict product development from an environmental perspective. Study inferences suggest for visionary green leadership style for sustainable business growth. Limitations of this study regarding other variable inclusiveness, sampling, and geography are potential extensions for further scholarly investigation.