Designing Free Sofware for Marketing: A Game Theoretic Approach

We develop a vertical differentiation game-theoretic model that addresses the issue of designing free software samples for attaining follow-on sales. When software samples are akin to durable goods, a Monopolist giving a free sample away is likely to engender the cannibalization of sales of its commercial product. We analyze the optimal design of free software according to two characteristics: the trial time allotted for sampling (potentially renewable) and the proportion of features included in the sample. We find that these two dimensions play different roles whenever the software product is innovative or standard. We draw implications regarding the effectiveness of marketing strategies depending on the type of software product offered by a Monopolist.Vertical Differentiation, Monopolist, Free sample, Software, Durable goods, Sales Cannibalization, Optimal Design.

Certification of Pork Products

The objective of this paper is to provide insights on the welfare distributional impact on consumer and producer welfare resulting from the development and implementation of a credence certification program in the U.S. pork sector. The certification program can provide various levels of tracking and tracing in the marketing chain. The modeling framework follows that of Nilsson (2005), which encompasses product differentiation and substitution across meat products at the consumer level and across live animal types at the farm level. Processors and retailers have potentially bilateral market power and can supply either or both certified and conventional meat products. One of the key findings is that while as the conventional market contracts and the certified market expands as expected, the magnitude depends on whether suppliers are single-or multiproduct providers. On aggregate, total welfare increases by 15 to 24 percent depending on industry structure.Marketing,

Modeling and optimization of remanufacturing operations of spent products for sustainability

In last century, the world has witnessed a great deal of technological and industrial progress. Branded products manufacturers have been competing in introducing new versions of their products frequently. Retailers and banks have been developing relaxed paying systems to fund the purchase of these new products. Exchanging strategies have been initiated by companies for customers to exchange their old version product for the latest versions. Such exchanging strategies are famous for vehicles, mobiles, and electrical appliances. Hence, a huge amount of unused or spent products are generated every day. Many researchers have been developing different models for dealing with the decisions related to remanufacturing operations. However, there is no decision making system the manufacturers could use for cost / benefit assessment of disassembling and recovering these products that considers the following points: (1) evaluating the value of recovering the whole product versus value associated with recovering its disassembled items , (2) using Multi-Objective Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) to assign spent products and their items to various recovery alternatives considering their received physical conditions, (3) selection of operations for items is not limited by a fixed regular production-hour capacity for each operation, (4) model assumptions, constraints, and formulation that satisfy the three aspects of sustainability, which are economic, social responsibility, and environmental aspects in one step model , (5) considering other vital dimensions which are the quality of recovered products and the minimum batch size for vending recycled materials, (6) utilizing the recycling operation in the optimum way that increases revenue from vending isolated materials. The thesis addresses these points using mathematical modeling and optimization for the remanufacturing operations of spent products. The aim of this study is achieved through modeling the problem using a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming technique with two objective functions considering net profit maximization and total disposal weight minimization. Maximizing the net profit over specified planning periods satisfies the economic aspect of sustainability. Minimizing the total weight at all items assigned to disposal over specified planning periods satisfies the environmental aspect of sustainability. Initiating fair refunding system for spent products satisfies social responsibility aspect of sustainability. The optimum solutions of the model provides: optimal disassembly sequence of items, number of each item assigned to various recovery operations of the remanufacturing unit, specification of the required total regular production hours, total needed number of workers, and specification of the number of workers hired and fired. For verifying the proposed model and its LINGO code, the data of a simplified version of the trailer case study was used to display the model and tracking the displayed model to assure that the generated code exactly matches the model formulation, and to discover and correct any logical error. Then, the model was run several times to assure the accuracy of the model and to test the functionality of all the model mathematical equations. Its target was to assure that the integration of the model constraints exactly matched the logic of solving the problem, and the mathematical equation succeeded in expressing the model goals. A case study that involves a numerical real- life critical problem in Egypt is solved considering only the first objective function, which is targeting feasible solutions for the collected trailers that are prohibited to move on the Egyptian roads. The results show that the remanufacturing of semi-trailers from the collected trailers is the most profitable solution for the good-condition trailers, while applying the cannibalization operation on the bad conditions trailers is the most profitable solution for the case. The remanufacture unit would make a net profit of L.E 8,878,800 for applying this solution at the end of the three planning periods. In case the remanufacture unit decided to restrict its recovery activities to the good condition trailers, the net profit of scenario 2 is L.E 20,499,100 at the end of the three planning periods, which is associated with an increase of L.E 11,620,300 in profit compared to recovering different conditions trailers. A professional sensitivity analysis is implemented using the factorial design to accurately decide the significant input parameters that impact the net profit and total disposal weight at the end of the three planning periods for the trailers numerical problem. This factorial sensitivity analysis is designed to test 3 factors for 5 levels. Therefore, 53=125 runs are conducted of all possible combination of these factors (input parameters), and the determination of output responses corresponding to each combination. Hence, the significant input parameters that impact the decisions were concluded. The input parameters that were selected are: selling prices, refund costs, and direct labor processing costs. The output responses that were selected are the net profit and the total disposal weight. It was discovered that changing the selling prices of the output products from the recovery operations which are refurbishing, repairing, remanufacturing, and cannibalization, and the selling prices of the recycled materials has the most influential impact on the net profit , and has the only significant impact on the total disposal weight at the end of the three planning periods. The refund costs paid to the end users for compensating them of getting their products is the second significant factor on the net profit at the end of the three planning periods. Hence, it is crucial to specify these selling prices and refund costs wisely. Two approaches are used to solve the multiple objectives of the modified trailer case study, and to create a set of non-dominating solutions for the referred case which are: Minimax weighting method and constrained method. The most profitable and worst environmental non-dominated solution happened when the referred case was solved using the constrained method at bounding the disposal to 14870.3 kg, where the net profit value reaches its maximum of L.E 8,183,012, when the total weight of the items assigned to disposal reaches its peak of 14835.3 kg. This first best environmental non-dominating solution happened when the case was solved using the constrained method at bounding the disposal to 0 kg, where the net profit value reaches its minimum of L.E 7, 425,400. Solving the referred case using Minimax weighting methods is resulted in balancing solution of two competing objectives. The generated set of non-dominated solutions demonstrated the multi-objective nature of the proposed model

The sale of the Portuguese operations of Carrefour

In 2007, Carrefour decided to put up for sale their Portuguese operations, consisted of 12 hypermarkets, 11 licenses to open new stores and 8 gas stations. Many things were speculated during the process, but in the end Sonae ended up buying the operations for 600 million euros. This case study provides insights about the food retailing market at the time and an overview of the top 3 players in Portugal, Sonae, Auchan and Jerónimo Martins. The main goal of this thesis is a reflection about the advantages, disadvantages and what would happen if any of the other two would have bought it instead of Sonae. The financial situation of the companies is analysed, as well as their investments, their assets and their location, their portfolios and their strategies. In the end, there will be presented a conclusion about which company would have benefited the most from this deal. It is given in the case all the information the reader needs to have a clear vision of the market at the time, the companies and to draw his own conclusions about what happened and what could have happened.Em 2007, o Carrefour decidiu pôr à vendas os seus ativos, que consistiam em 12 hipermercados, 11 licenças para a abertura de novos e 8 postos de combustível. Muito foi especulado durante este processo, mas no fim acabou por ser a Sonae a vencer, pagando 600 milhões de euros. Esta caso apresenta considerações sobre o mercado do retalho alimentar na altura e uma apresentação das 3 maiores empresas neste sector, a Auchan, a Jerónimo Martins e a Sonae. O principal objectivo desta tese é a reflecção sobre as vantagens, desvantagens e sobre o que teria acontecido se alguma das outras empresas, que não a Sonae, tivesse ganho a compra do Carrefour. É analisada a situação económica das empresas, os seus investimentos à época, quais os seus ativos e a sua disposição geográfica, os seus portfólios e as suas estratégias. No fim, para concluir, é defendido que uma das 3 empresas seria a mais beneficiada com este negócio. No caso é dada toda a informação que o leitor precisa para ter uma visão clara sobre o sector em 2007, sobre as empresas e sobre toda a informação que precisa para chegar às suas próprias conclusões sobre o que se passou e sobre o que se podia ter passado

Determining and evaluating new store locations using remote sensing and machine learning

Decision making for store locations is crucial for retail companies as the profit depends on the location. The key point for correct store location is profit approximation, which is highly dependent on population of the corresponding region, and hence, the volume of the residential area. Thus, estimating building volumes provides insight about the revenue if a new store is about to be opened there. Remote sensing through stereo/tri-stereo satellite images provides wide area coverage as well as adequate resolution for three dimensional reconstruction for volume estimation. We reconstruct 3D map of corresponding region with the help of semiglobal matching and mask R-CNN algorithms for this purpose. Using the existing store data, we construct models for estimating the revenue based on surrounding building volumes. In order to choose the right location, the suitable utility model, which calculates store revenues, should be rigorously determined. Moreover, model parameters should be assessed as correctly as possible. Instead of using randomly generated parameters, we employ remote sensing, computer vision, and machine learning techniques, which provide a novel way for evaluating new store locations.WOS:000679318000002Scopus - Affiliation ID: 60105072Science Citation Index ExpandedScience Citation Index ExpandedQ4ArticleArticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılmayan - HAYIRAğustos2021YÖK - 2020-2

The Effects of Organic Products on Conventional Products and Retailer Assortment Planning

The rapid growth in organic products has posed a major challenge to conventional retailer assortment planning. On the one hand, conventional retailers, driven by the relatively high margins of organic products, have increased organic product offerings. On the other hand, the shelf space for conventional retailers has remained the same, with newly opened stores much smaller in sizes. Therefore, retailers need to carefully manage their conventional product assortments to harvest the benefit of offering and increasing organic product assortments. In order to manage the assortment efficiently, conventional retailers need to understand how organic products would affect their existing products, consumers, and supply chain relationships. From the two essays that comprise this dissertation, the first essay aims to explain how organic products would affect retailers’ conventional assortments, as well as how supply chain power would shift the connection between organic assortments and conventional assortment. The second essay estimates the substitution effect between organic products and conventional products, and how consumers choose between organic and conventional products while multiple other product attributes also present. Research questions proposed in the essays are answered by statistical analysis of difference-in-difference analysis, instrumental variable regressions, and structural estimations on retailer scanner panel data that contains weekly product sales over a 4-year time horizon. Our findings suggest that a market expansion effect due to the introduction and expansion of organic products outweighs the operational costs for increasing both organic and conventional assortments. However, the supply chain power structure between retailers and manufacturers as well as retailer shelf space constraints will shift the relationship between organic and conventional assortments. We also find that consumers are more price-sensitive in organic products, and organic condition, product style, and seller attributes are all highly influential in shaping consumers’ purchasing decisions

The sharing economy

In the last few years, a new technological, economic, social and cultural phenomenon is emerging: the so-called sharing economy. The upheaval introduced by the Web 2.0 allowed the birth of multi-sided platforms which are able to coordinate users without the need of intermediaries. Beyond the positive analysis of the paradigm, on which there is anyway little academic consensus, the economic implications are profound and antithetical: on one hand, it is clear that there has been an increment of the efficiency of the markets disrupted by the Sharing Economy, but on the other it is evident as well how much room this new paradigm made for a possible exploitation of labor, tax evasion and monopolistic behavior by these peer-to-peer platforms. This work aims to paint the big picture of a phenomenon which is as much new as controversial