Differences in forecasting approaches between product firms and product-service systems (PSS)

This paper examines the forecasting implications for Product-Service Systems (PSS) applications in manufacturing firms. The approach taken is to identify the scope of operations for PSS applications by identifying all the activities associated with the total cost of ownership (TCO). The paper then develops a revenue model for manufacturing firms providing PSS applications. The revenue model identifies three generic revenue streams that provide the basis for discussion on the differences in forecasting approaches between product firms and Product-Service Systems (PSS) in manufacturing firms. The forecasting approaches are different due to the nature of customer involvement in the service aspect of PSS applications. This necessitates an understanding of the customer service experience and the factors affecting this such as the service profit chain which links profitability, customer loyalty and service value to employee satisfaction, capability and productivity. The forecasting approaches identified raises forecasting challenges for each of the three generic revenue sources. These challenges vary from the difficulty in obtaining the service user’s viewpoint through to difficulties in determining market acceptance of PSS applications

An Empirical Study of Operational Performance Parity Following Enterprise System Deployment

This paper presents an empirical investigation into whether the implementation of packaged Enterprise Systems (ES) leads to parity in operational performance. Performance change and parity in operational performance are investigated in three geographically defined operating regions of a single firm. Order lead time, the elapsed time between receipt of an order and shipment to a customer, is used as a measure of operational performance. A single ES installation was deployed across all regions of the subject firm\u27s operations.Findings illustrate parity as an immediate consequence of ES deployment. However, differences in rates of performance improvement following deployment eventually result in significant (albeit smaller than pre-deployment) performance differences. An additional consequence of deployment seems to be an increased synchronization of performance across the formerly independent regions

Financial Reporting for Environmental and Social responsibility: A Normative Strategic Concept

Corporate responsibility demands that firms address environmental and social values in their firm’s policy and key performance indicators. These are integrated through strategic planning and require firms to merge the longer term environmental and social values with short term economic objectives and performance measures. Each firm’s strategy will differ. This paper provides a normative reporting concept to connect the financial implications associated with longer term planning for environmental and social values, with short term accounting reports. Reporting variants adapted from total cost assessment, life cycle costing, variable costing are integrated to offer upstream information based on a product segment view.Strategy, environmental reporting, life cycle costing, cost systems, multi-period accounting, multi-stage fixed costs.

Supply chain intelligence: benefits, techniques and future trends

Supply Chain Management is a philosophy to manage logistical processes in complex systems, that are very difficult to integrate and analyze. Such systems can be effectively analysed by the use of Business Intelligence applications. The capability to make the right decision at the right time in collaboration with the right partners is the definition of the successful use of BI. This paper explains the need for Supply Chain Business Intelligence and introduces the driving forces for it’s implementation. New technologies such as data mining, and their role in BI systems are also discussed. Finally, key BI trends and technologies that will influence future systems are described.supply chain, business intelligence, data mining

Corporate governance, enterprise risk management, and inter-temporal risk transfer

This work is an initial attempt to describe the interconnections among corporate governance, enterprise risk management, and the phenomena of inter-firm risk transfer that occurs in combination with firms’ income smoothing. Corporate governance is conceived as a set of rules according to which a firm is managed and governed by its top managers. Extant literature on corporate governance has pointed out the benefits of the adoption, at a firm level, of a comprehensive enterprise risk management process. We note that, although such an adoption favors the smoothing of a firm’s income, in smoothing the income a firm, it also gives rise to an inter-temporal transfer of risk from the firm itself to its stakeholders, specifically to suppliers and employees. Such transfer of risk depends on the strength of a firm contractual power and on the structural relationships established by a firm with its stakeholders. We therefore argue that larger-sized organizations affiliated with a business group are likely to smooth income to a greater extent than smaller-sized organizations unaffiliated with a business group. The paper also offers some discussions of the findings and points out some important issues to be addressed in future studies

Managing Complexity in Modern Farming

Modern farming in Australia is no longer simple. Farms are large, multi-enterprise businesses underpinned by expensive capital investments, changing production technologies, volatile markets and pervasive regulation. The complexity of modern broadacre farming leads to the question: what is the nature of the relationship between farm business complexity and farm profitability? This study uses bioeconomic farm modelling and employs eight measures of complexity to examine the profitability and complexity of a wide range of broadacre farming systems in Australia. Rank order correlations between farm profitability and each measure of complexity show inconsistent relationships, although the most profitable farming systems are found to be reasonably complex on several criteria. Among the set of highly profitable systems are found some characterised by less complexity. Using the farmer’s annual hours worked as a measure of complexity that affects current farm management, the trade-off between profit and this measure of complexity is found not to be large. A case is outlined where the farmer’s annual hours worked could be reduced by 9 percent for a 3 percent reduction in farm profit. If farmers’ workloads are proving problematic now and in the future, then agricultural R&D, service delivery and policy development will need to focus much more on being highly attractive to time-poor farm managers.complexity, farm modelling, management, profitability, Farm Management,