Loyalty Programmes: Practices, Avenues and Challenges

<div align=justify>Complexity of modern business requires managers to strive for innovative strategies to acquire and retain customers in any product market field. As acquiring new customers is getting costlier day by day, business organizations have offered continuity/loyalty programmes to retain/reward existing customers and maintain relationships. The premise of CRM is that once a customer is locked in, it will be advantageous to both the organization as well as customer to maintain relationships and would be a win-win situation for both. Consumers find it beneficial to join such programmes to earn rewards for staying loyal. Through loyalty programmes, firms can potentially gain more repeat business, get opportunity to cross-sell and obtain rich customer data for future CRM efforts (Yuping Liu, 2007). This paper, exploratory in nature, attempts to provide a conceptual overview of Loyalty in organized retail sector, outlines practices of grocery retail outlets in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the state of Gujarat and the seventh-largest urban agglomeration in India, with a population of 56 lakhs (5.6 million). It also throws light on consumer expectations, perceptions and problems faced through indepth exploration. Based on literature review and environment in India, an emerging economy, it attempts to predict future of such programmes specifically in Indian organised retail sector and discusses managerial challenges of managing loyalty programmes and provides agenda for future research directions.</div>

Mobile Payments in the Netherlands: Adoption Bottlenecks and Opportunities, or… Throw Out Your Wallets

Het doel van dit onderzoek is het analyseren van de marktgrootte van mobiel betalen en de bijbehorende omzetbasis, alsmede de invoering van knelpunten, om inzicht te verkrijgen in de introductie en ontwikkeling van mobiele bankservices in Nederland. Het onderzoek beschrijft verscheidene aspecten van mobiel betalen/mobiel bankieren in Nederland. Onderwerpen als implementatie, wetgeving, geschatte businesscase, aanbevolen businessmodel, ontwikkelingsscenario’s, een SWOT - analyse van technische oplossingen, organisatorische knelpunten, een analyse van de redenen van succes en falen en openstaande problemen en uitdagingen komen aan de orde. Het voornaamste doel van het onderzoek is het trachten te beantwoorden van de vraag of er een markt voor mobiel betalen is in Nederland en een analyse geven van waarom mobiele bankservices niet succesvol zijn geweest in Nederland. Bovendien dient gemeld te worden dat de focus van dit verslag lag op microbetalingen, waar over het algemeen betalingen tot €10 onder verstaan worden.The purpose of this research report is to analyse the mobile payment market size and its revenue basis, as well as adoption bottlenecks, in view of establishing the adoption and deployment of mobile banking services in The Netherlands. The research report describes various aspects with regard to mobile payments/mobile banking in The Netherlands. Issues like implementation, regulatory framework, estimated business case, deployment scenario’s, recommended business model, a SWOT analysis of the technical solutions, organisational bottlenecks, an analysis of the reasons for success and failures, and open issues and challenges are addressed. The main aim is to try to answer the question whether there is a market in The Netherlands for mobile banking services, and providing an analysis of why M-banking services have not been so successful in The Netherlands. Furthermore, it needs to be mentioned that the focus of this paper was on micro-payments, which are generally considered to be payments of up to €10

Measuring the Lifetime Value of a Customer in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry

In this study, we propose a flexible framework to assess Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) context. We address the substantive and modeling challenges that arise in this setting, namely (a) multiple-discreteness, (b) brand-switching, and (c) budget constrained consumption. Using a Bayesian estimation, we are also able to infer the consumer’s latent budgetary constraint using only transaction information, thus enabling managers to understand the customer’s budgetary constraint without having to survey or depend on aggregate measures of budget constraints. Using the proposed framework, CPG manufacturers can assess CLV at the focal brand-level as well as at the category-level, a departure from CLV literature which has mostly been firm-centric. We implement the proposed model on panel data in the carbonated beverages category and showcase the benefits of the proposed model over simpler heuristics as well as conventional CLV approaches. Finally, we conduct two policy simulations describing the role of the budget constraint on CLV as well as the asymmetric effects of pricing in this setting and develop managerial insights in this context

Beyond promotion-based store switching: Antecedents and patterns of systematic multiple-store shopping (revised version).

In this paper, we demonstrate both theoretically and empirically that single-purpose multiple store shopping is not only driven by opportunistic, promotion-based motivations, but may also result from a longer term planning process based on stable store characteristics. We find that consumers may systematically visit multiple stores to take advantage of two types of store complementarity. In the case of 'fixed cost complementarity', consumers alternate visits to high and low fixed cost stores to balance transportation and holding costs against acquisition costs. 'Category preference complementarity' occurs when different stores offer the best value for different product categories, and may induce consumers to visit these stores together on combined shopping trips. In both cases, multiple store shopping leads to a shift from share-of-customers to share-of-wallet retail competition.Multiple store shopping; Spatial competition; Store choice; Planning; Processes; Characteristics; Complementarity; Cost; Costs; Category; Preference; Value; Product; Shopping trip; Competition; Choice; Patterns;

Customer habits in a B2B context : impacts on cash flow level and volatility

Hábitos estão presentes em uma grande parte do dia-a-dia das pessoas. À medida que são repetidas ações com resultados satisfatórios em contextos estáveis, as respostas para ações futuras começam a ser ativadas automaticamente na memória de um indivíduo. Com o tempo, as decisões tornam-se menos impulsionadas por objetivos e intenções e, desta forma, um hábito é formado. Medidas empíricas de hábitos baseadas em dados de transações de clientes foram desenvolvidas pela área de marketing e vincularam comportamentos habituais de pessoas na hora da compra e o impacto financeiro nas empresas. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar o impacto de comportamentos habituais no contexto B2B de transações entre fabricantes e varejistas. O responsável por efetuar uma compra em uma empresa pode comparar especificações, preços e avaliar os concorrentes antes de fazer um pedido. No entanto, é praticamente impossível avaliar todos os produtos sempre que for necessária uma compra para reabastecer estoques ou para solicitar um item vendido no catálogo por um vendedor dentro da loja. Portanto, espera-se que com o tempo, uma parte das transações que são realizadas começam a ser conduzidas por comportamentos habituais de alguém envolvido no processo de compra. Esta dissertação propõe medir os hábitos de compra e promoção em um banco de dados de transações e aplicar análises quantitativas para avaliar como os hábitos impactam os níveis de fluxo de caixa e a volatilidade dos mesmos. Uma análise posterior é proposta para comparar como os clientes habituais se relacionam com os clientes mais valiosos da empresa e uma simulação é proposta para analisar o impacto de uma eventual aquisição de clientes. Os resultados mostram que os hábitos mais fortes de compra aumentam os níveis de fluxo de caixa, mas também afetam positivamente a volatilidade do fluxo de caixa. Em contrapartida, os hábitos de promoção, com o passar do tempo, tendem a gerar fluxos de caixa menos voláteis que os hábitos de compra, mas com a desvantagem de diminuir os níveis dos mesmos.Habits are widespread in most of life. As people repeat actions with satisfactory outcomes in stable contexts, responses start to become automatically retrieved in memory. Over time decisions become less driven by goals and intentions, and therefore, a habitual behavior is formed. Empirical measures of habits based on customer transactions data were developed by marketing scholars and have linked habitual behaviors of people when purchasing and their impact on firms’ performance. This dissertation aims to analyze the impact of habitual behaviors in the context of business-to-business transactions with manufacturers and retailers. The responsible for buying in a firm may compare specifications, prices and assess competitors before making a purchase. However, it is unfeasible to evaluate all products every time it is required a purchase to replenish stocks or to order a sold item in a catalog by a sales employee. Therefore, it is expected that over time, a portion of repeat transactions start to be driven by habitual behaviors of someone involved in the process of buying. This dissertation proposes to measure the Purchase and Promotion Habits in a database of transactions and to apply quantitative analyzes to evaluate how habits affect cash flow levels and their volatility. A later analysis is proposed to compare how regular customers relate to the company's most valuable customers and a simulation is proposed to analyze the impact of eventual customer acquisition. The results show that stronger Purchase Habits increase cash flow levels, but also positively affect cash flow volatility. On the other hand, Promotion Habits, over time, tend to generate less volatile cash flows than Purchase Habits, but with the disadvantage of reducing their levels

Millennium bcp´s role in the mobile payments environment

CEMSMobile is increasingly becoming a centrepiece of the bank’s channel strategy. The rise of mobile payments initiatives in Portugal is an indicator for the sustained interest of this channel’s potential. In this paper, “Millennium bcp’s role in the mobile payments environment”, an overview of the mobile payments market attractiveness is provided, as well as the different trends in business models and technologies that are shaping the evolution of this market. These insights were used to develop an actionable entry strategy for Millennium bcp to seize the mobile payments opportunity

Customer Relationship Management : Concept, Strategy, and Tools -3/E

Customer relationship management (CRM) as a strategy and as a technology has gone through an amazing evolutionary journey. After the initial technological approaches, this process has matured considerably – both from a conceptual and from an applications point of view. Of course this evolution continues, especially in the light of the digital transformation. Today, CRM refers to a strategy, a set of tactics, and a technology that has become indispensable in the modern economy. Based on both authors’ rich academic and managerial experience, this book gives a unified treatment of the strategic and tactical aspects of customer relationship management as we know it today. It stresses developing an understanding of economic customer value as the guiding concept for marketing decisions. The goal of this book is to be a comprehensive and up-to-date learning companion for advanced undergraduate students, master students, and executives who want a detailed and conceptually sound insight into the field of CRM