Consumer finance: challenges for operational research

Consumer finance has become one of the most important areas of banking, both because of the amount of money being lent and the impact of such credit on global economy and the realisation that the credit crunch of 2008 was partly due to incorrect modelling of the risks in such lending. This paper reviews the development of credit scoring—the way of assessing risk in consumer finance—and what is meant by a credit score. It then outlines 10 challenges for Operational Research to support modelling in consumer finance. Some of these involve developing more robust risk assessment systems, whereas others are to expand the use of such modelling to deal with the current objectives of lenders and the new decisions they have to make in consumer finance. <br/

Operations research in consumer finance: challenges for operational research

Consumer finance has become one of the most important areas of banking both because of the amount of money being lent and the impact of such credit on the global economy and the realisation that the credit crunch of 2008 was partly due to incorrect modelling of the risks in such lending. This paper reviews the development of credit scoring,-the way of assessing risk in consumer finance- and what is meant by a credit score. It then outlines ten challenges for Operational Research to support modelling in consumer finance. Some of these are to developing more robust risk assessment systems while others are to expand the use of such modelling to deal with the current objectives of lenders and the new decisions they have to make in consumer financ

Conceptualising the impact of information asymmetry on through-life cost: case study of machine tools sector

Information asymmetry (IA) in terms of contextual variety and importance is one of the most challenging aspects of through-life costing in product-service systems (PSS). IA is an imbalance in the information, data and knowledge shared among the parties involved in a contractual agreement. In manufacturing systems under PSS, interaction and effective communication among several parties who are involved in a contractual agreement, rely on the continuity and accuracy of information and context. In such systems, contextual variety exhibits complexity and uncertainty in through-life costing and subsequently in PSS cost assessment. Although the economic aspect of PSS has been studied previously, the impact of IA on through-life cost and for different PSS solutions has not been detailed. Considering manufacturing value chains, this paper introduces a new concept of PSS-hierarchy to perform through-life costing in the presence of IA for various PSS solutions. Moreover, this paper proposes a generic life-cycle model for different PSS solutions to assess the total cost of ownership (TCO). The proposed model has been developed to support decisions on contract design in manufacturing systems. This study considers the manufacturer, service provider and customer perspectives to develop the TCO model using a machine tool manufacturing case study

""Counting Your Customers" One by One: An Individual Level RF Analysis Based on Consumer Behavior Theory"

In customer relationship management (CRM), ad hoc rules are often employed to judge whether customers are active in a "non-contractual" setting. For example, a customer is considered to have dropped out if he or she has not made purchase for over three months. However, for customers with a long interpurchase time, this three-month time frame would not apply. Hence, when assessing customer attrition, it is important to account for customer heterogeneity. Although this issue was recognized by Schmittlein et al. (1987), who proposed the Pareto/NBD "counting your customers" framework almost 20 years ago, today's marketing demands a more individual level analysis. This research presents a proposed model that captures customer heterogeneity through estimation of individual-specific parameters, while maintaining theoretically sound assumptions of individual behavior in a Pareto/NBD model (a Poisson purchase process and a memoryless dropout process). The model not only relaxes the assumption of independence of the two behavioral processes, it also provides useful outputs for CRM, such as a customer-specific lifetime and retention rate, which could not have been obtained otherwise. Its predictive performance is compared against the benchmark Pareto/NBD model. The model extension, as applied to scanner panel data, demonstrates that recency-frequency (RF) data, in conjunction with customer behavior and demographics, can provide important insights into direct marketing issues, such as whether long-life customers spend more and are more profitable.

Managing Quality under Heterogeneous Consumer Demand and Product Quality, October 2005

Based on accepted advances in the marketing, economics, consumer behavior, and satisfaction literatures, we develop a micro-foundations model of a firm that needs to manage the quality of a product that is inherently heterogeneous in the presence of varying customer tastes or expectations for quality. Our model blends elements of the returns to quality, customer lifetime value, and service profit chain approaches to marketing. The model is then used to explain several empirical results pertaining to the marketing literature by explicitly articulating the trade-offs between customer satisfaction and costs (including opportunity costs) of quality. In this environment firms will find it optimal to allow some customers to go unsatisfied. We show that the relationship between the expected number of repeated purchases by an individual customer is endogenous to the choice of quality by the firm, indicating that the number of purchases cannot be chosen freely to estimate a customer’s lifetime value

Database Marketing In Travel And Tourism

An increasing number of organisations are developing customer databases in a bid to get closer to their customers and gain competitive advantage. This report investigates the practice of database marketing among different travel and tourism sectors, including airlines, hotels, museums and tour operators, and draws on UK and international examples. It compares direct marketing and database marketing and examines the different levels of sophistication at which database marketing can be practiced, the role of customer loyalty schemes, the ways in which a database can be segmented, the role of consumer data profiling companies and current developments in database marketing. The use of database marketing for customer retention and business acquisition is also investigated. In order to ensure true customer relationship building it is vital for the industry to leverage the information on their databases and provide customer recognition through the delivery of personalised service. Business acquisition through customer retention is likely to be a key strategy in future through the use of data-mining and cross-selling techniques. The report concludes that organisations must create a new marketing environment by moving away from transaction marketing towards the principles of customer relationship management

Measuring Customer Value and Market Dynamics for New Products of a Firm:An Analytical Construct for Gaining Competitive Advantage

The role of customer value has been largely recognized over time by the firms as an instrument towards stimulating market share and profit optimization. The customer values for a new product of firm in competitive markets are shaped more by habits, reinforcement effects, and situational influences than strongly-held attitudes. A strong and sustainable customer value associated with a new product launched by a firm may also lead to build the customer loyalty in the long run. An analysis of the new product-market structuring based on customer value may be developed well within the microeconomic framework of a firm. The measure of customer value as the efficiency of new product may be viewed from the customer’s perspective towards a ratio of outputs (e.g., perceived use value, resale value, reliability, safety, comfort) that customers obtain from a product relative to inputs (price, running costs) that customers have to deliver in exchange. However, the aggregate returns on the customer value towards the new product from the perspective of a firm may be observed manifesting in enhancing the market share, market coverage and augmenting profit in a given market. There has not been many contributions emerged in the past addressing the measurement of the customer value as an intangible asset of the firms, though substantial literature is available discussing the customer relations and loyalty building perspectives. This paper attempts to critically examine the available literature on the subject, discuss a model that provides a framework for analyzing the variables associated with customer value and to identify potential research areas. A basic premise of the paper is that the focus should be on maximizing total customer value and customer satisfaction which are inter-dependent in the decision making process towards buying new products. The framework of the construct is on a proposed model which integrates all aspects so as to maximize the potential of the organization and all its subsystems to create and sustain satisfied customers. The discussion in the paper on the customer value gaps in the process of marketing new products explores the possible situations that may lead to lower the customer value.New product management, customer value measurement, market coverage, aggregate returns, market penetration, model construct and estimation, profitability