The Trading Agent Competition (TAC) is an international forum which promotes high quality research regarding the trading agent problem. One of the TAC competitive scenarios is Supply Chain Management (SCM) where six agents compete by buying components, assembling PCs from these components and selling the assembled PCs to customers. In this paper, we describe the strategies implemented in the Cr...

The Trading Agent Competition (TAC) is an international forum which promotes high-quality research regarding the trading agent problem. One of the TAC competitive scenarios is Supply Chain Management Procurement Challenge (SCM-PC) where three agents compete by buying components, assembling PCs from these components and selling the manufactured PCs to customers. The idea of SCM-PC is the develop...

The case describes a hugely successful example of IT-driven strategy, the Lands’ End custom tailored apparel initiative. In less than a year, 40% of Lands’ End customers buying chinos and jeans from the firm’s web site were buying tailored products. Over 20% of these customers never made a purchase over the web before. The case explores mass customization and web-based customer service initiati...

CRM literature has considered the role of relationship quality (satisfaction, trust and commitment), but its respective effects on relationship maintenance (retention) and relationship development (cross-buying) are unnoticed. This research proposes an integrated model of CRM and investigates its impact on relationship quality, relationship maintenance, and relationship development. Specificall...

CRM literature has considered the role of relationship quality (satisfaction, trust and commitment), but its respective effects on relationship maintenance (retention) and relationship development (cross-buying) are unnoticed. This research proposes an integrated model of CRM and investigates its impact on relationship quality, relationship maintenance, and relationship development. Specificall...

A search model based on Burdett and Judd (1983) is developed where consumers encounter salespeople who have the option of making an active selling effort. This effort is good for consumers if it increases the benefits of buying whereas it is bad for them if it increases the cost of not buying. For a broad range of parameters, equilibria feature a strictly positive fraction of salespeople who ma...

Online group buying is an effective marketing method. By using online group buying, customers get unbelievable discounts on premium products and services. This not only meets customer demand, but also helps sellers to find new ways to sell products sales and open up new business models, all parties benefit in these transactions. During these bleak economic times, group buying has become extreme...

A look at how industrial customers make purchase decisions. Understanding why and how customers make purchase decisions is vital to maximizing profitable sales, developing new products, growing companies and developing predic-tive sales models. Many sales managers and salespeople have prescribed rules of thumb or rubrics that detect and analyze " buying signals, " but these are rarely tested an...

Competition in the electric service industry is highlighting the importance of a number of issues affecting the nature and quality of customer service. The quality of service(s) provided to electricity customers may be enhanced by competition, if doing so offers service suppliers a competitive advantage. On the other hand, service quality offered to some consumers could decline if utilities foc...