A relational insight of brand personification in business-to-business markets

Customers find it difficult to differentiate between competing products based on their functional aspects. The shortening life cycle of products due to quick adoption of technological innovations by competitors makes it difficult for them to identify products based on specifications. The contemporary academic literature related to relationship marketing and brand management is passionate about customer and consumer psychology but little attention has been given to the brand selection criteria of resellers as business customers of the brand. This paper combines branding and relationship marketing as two broad functions of marketing. The paper argues upon the role of human representatives of the brand as brand personified in managing these two functions of marketing in business-to-business markets. The proposal of the paper is to use human representatives as a tool for the execution of relationship marketing and branding strategies. The objective behind using human representatives is to maximize the mindshare of resellers towards the brand and create value for them beyond products and service

Information strategy development in the UK and Ireland: a role for Aleph

This paper looks at the role of the Ex Libris Strategy Group of UK and Irish Chief Librarians. It then analyses the role of Information provision at a strategic level in Universities in the UK. The paper identifies a Top Ten Wish List for development and partnership working with Ex Libris, comprising: Back to Basics, the Corporate Context, E-Journals, E-Books, Open Access, OAI compliance, the Catalogue, Management Information, Virtual and Managed Learning Environments, and international developments in information provision. The paper concludes that libraries must: support the institutional Mission, be seen to deliver, support their customers, and be cost-effective. Ex Libris software and products have an important role to play in delivering this agenda

The e-revolution and post-compulsory education: using e-business models to deliver quality education

The best practices of e-business are revolutionising not just technology itself but the whole process through which services are provided; and from which important lessons can be learnt by post-compulsory educational institutions. This book aims to move debates about ICT and higher education beyond a simple focus on e-learning by considering the provision of post-compulsory education as a whole. It considers what we mean by e-business, why e-business approaches are relevant to universities and colleges and the key issues this raises for post-secondary education

Investment and Instability

Although recent research has repeatedly found a negative association between investment and political instability, the existence and direction of causality between these two variables has not yet been investigated. This paper empirically tests for a causal and negative long-run relationship between political instability to investment. It finds that there is a robust causal relation from instability to investment, and that it is positive. In other words, an increase in political instability Granger causes an increase in investment. We identify three different theories that can explain this result.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39721/3/wp337.pd