Buyer Financing in Pull Supply Chains: Zero-Interest Early Payment or In-House Factoring?

This study investigates the efficacy of zero-interest early payment financing (alternatively referred to as early payment) and positive-interest in-house factoring financing in a pull supply chain with a capital-constrained manufacturer selling a product through a capital-abundant retailer. Early payment is the prepayment of a wholesale cost to the manufacturer, whereas in-house factoring is a loan service provided to the manufacturer by a branch financing firm of the same retailer. We find that the retailer prefers early payment financing to bank financing when the manufacturer’s production cost is low. If the retailer instead offers positive-interest in-house factoring financing to the manufacturer, then the financing equilibrium domain enlarges as compared to bank financing. Interestingly, early payment financing can outplay positive-interest in-house factoring financing if the production cost is considerably low; otherwise, vice versa. When the production cost is big enough, the retailer will not provide either early payment or in-house factoring. Furthermore, our main qualitative result sustains with an identical wholesale price across all three financing schemes and the financing equilibrium domain of early payment shrinks as demand variability grows

Online peer-to-peer lending platform and supply chain finance decisions and strategies

Online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform is an emerging FinTech business model that establishes a link between investors and recipients of capital in supply chains (SCs). Businesses face capital constraints impacting directly on their final product price and demand. This article studies optimal decisions and operational strategies in a logistics network considering two capital-constrained manufacturers who produce products of different qualities and sell them to a retailer having deterministic demand over a specific period. The high quality product manufacturer borrows capital through an online P2P lending platform with a service fee, while the low quality product manufacturer pre-sells products for competing with the high quality product manufacturer. In this study, we find optimal prices of the SC participants, service rate of the online P2P platform and percentage of the pre-ordering quantity of the retailer. We analyse optimal Stackelberg and Nash equilibrium of the SC participants. We find that an increase in the amount of opportunity cost will cause a decrease in the pre-ordering quantity of the retailer affecting the SC profit in numerous ways. The online P2P lending platform should consider the amount of the retailer’s target profit in determining the platform’s service rate. We posit some practical insights based on our numerical study and observations for SC managers enabling them to take appropriate measures about their optimal strategies according to the networks’ existing economic conditions

Determinants of Capital Structure in the Presence of Supply Chain Activities of Listed Construction Firms in Vietnam

The study aims to identify the capital structure determinants in the presence of the supply chain of the listed construction firms in Vietnam. The determinants of capital structure are factors affecting firm financial leverage, including firm profitability, size, growth rate, fixed assets, liquidity, interest coverage and state ownership along with the supply chain activities. The study is based on a data of 53 listed construction firms in the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange over the period 2014-2018. The results indicated that the supply chain activities along with other determinants except profits and liquidity have a positive association with the capital structure of the listed construction firm in Vietnam. These findings guided to the policymakers that they should enhance the intensions towards the determinant of the capital structure along with supply chain activities to improve the organizational performance.

Operations Management under Financial Frictions

The main purpose of this dissertation is to study the emerging operations issues under financial frictions, in the contexts of supply chain finance and crowdfunding platform; and to identify the implications for individuals and businesses. In Chapter 1, A Supply Chain Theory of Factoring and Reverse Factoring , we develop a supply chain theory of factoring (recourse and non-recourse) and reverse factoring showing when these post-shipment financing schemes should be adopted and who really benefits from the adoption. Factoring is a financial arrangement where the supplier sells accounts receivable to the factor against a premium, and receives cash for immediate working capital needs. Reverse factoring takes advantage of the credit rating discrepancy between small supplier and large retailer, and enables supplier\u27s factoring at the retailer\u27s rate. Given the supplier\u27s credit rating and the trade credit term, recourse factoring is preferred when the supplier\u27s cash investment return rate is relatively high; non-recourse factoring is preferred within certain medium range; otherwise, factoring should not be adopted. Both factoring schemes, if adopted, benefit both the supplier and the retailer, and thus the overall supply chain. Further, we find that reverse factoring may not be always preferred by suppliers among other short-term financing options (bank loans, recourse and non-recourse factoring). Retailers should only offer reverse factoring to suppliers with low, but above a threshold, to medium cash investment return rates. The optimally designed reverse factoring program can always increase the retailer\u27s profit, but it may leave the supplier indifferent to his current financing option when followed by aggressive payment extension. Interestingly, our results suggest that it is often preferable for the retailer to extend reverse factoring to certain suppliers without any request for payment extension, and leverage the supplier\u27s willingness to carry extra inventory that increases the overall supply chain efficiency. In Chapter 2, Crowdfunding under Social Learning and Network Externalities , we investigate how the presence of both social learning and network externalities affects the strategic interaction between a crowdfunding firm and forward-looking consumers. In rewards-based crowdfunding, a firm (campaigner) pre-sells a new product and solicits financial contributions from the crowd (consumers) to cover production costs. When a crowdfunding product with uncertain quality is first introduced, consumers may choose to strategically delay their purchase in anticipation of product quality reviews. Our research yields three main insights. First, we find that in the presence of social learning and strong network externalities, an upward-sloping demand curve may arise. This so-called \textit{Veblen effect} occurs due to the interaction between social learning and strong network externalities. Second, we show that network externalities have important implications for the optimal crowdfunding reward choice. In particular, under strong network externalities, the optimal reward will induce all consumers to either adopt the product early or adopt the product late; whereas under weak network externalities, the consumers will possibly adopt the products in different periods. Third, we characterize the optimal reward strategy under financial constraints and quantify its impact on the optimal reward choice and the induced purchase pattern from consumers. These insights provide useful guidance on how firms can exploit the benefits of crowdfunding. In Chapter 3, Crowdfunding vs. Bank Financing: Effects of Market Uncertainty and Word-of-Mouth Communication , we investigate a firm\u27s optimal funding choice when launching an innovative product to the market with both market uncertainty and word-of-mouth (WoM) communication. Bank financing is a traditional source of capital for small businesses, whereas crowdfunding has recently emerged as an alternative fund-raising solution to support innovative ideas and entrepreneurial ventures. Conceivably, crowdfunding could potentially replace some of the conventional roles of bank financing, but puzzles linger over when crowdfunding is a better funding choice. We characterize the firm\u27s optimal pricing strategies under the two funding choices (i.e., bank financing and crowdfunding), compare their performances, and investigate the corresponding implications on social welfare. Among other results, we find that the firm\u27s optimal funding choice and pricing strategy depend critically on the market uncertainty, the WoM, and the initial investment requirement. More specifically, the firm would adopt intertemporal pricing under crowdfunding, where the exact format is determined by the WoM and market uncertainty; under bank financing, however, the firm should always charge a fixed price invariant to those parameters. Moreover, market uncertainty has a non-monotonic effect on the optimal funding choice: Bank financing is preferred only when the market uncertainty is within an intermediate range. The impact of initial investment requirement on the choice of funding schemes shares qualitatively a similar trend. Finally, contrary to the conventional wisdom, we find that more active social interactions in crowdfunding, although beneficial to the firm, may hurt consumers and even reduce social welfare

New application of game theory in supply chain management = A játékelmélet újszerű alkalmazása az ellátási lánc menedzsmentben

Game theory has become an essential tool in the analysis of supply chains with multiple players who often have different interests. In this study, we use the game theory to examine the possibility of decision optimization and achieving equilibrium in the operation of the supply chain. Our goal is to determine the optimal agreement between the wholesaler and the retailer(s) to minimize the total cost in the supply chain in the given situation. The research method used in the study enriches the literature on the topic by linking the minimization of costs not to abstract evaluation metrics but to the stock order item size often calculated in real business as well. This facilitates the interpretation of the strategies and decision motivations used by the members of the supply chain

A supply chain strategy for digital camera products

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-70).by Qian Wu.S.M.M.B.A

What Caused the Recent Surge of FDI into Japan?

In recent years, foreign direct investment (FDI) in Japan has jumped to unprecedented levels. This paper examines the underlying reasons, looking at both the international factors - the global boom in FDI and mergers & acquisitions(M&A) during 1998-2000 - and domestic regulatory, structural and other changes. It is argued that while domestic changes created the necessary conditions for Japan to participate in the global M&A boom, FDI inflows failed to develop a momentum of their own. Thus, rather than the result of a sudden transformation of the country into a major destination for global FDI flows, the recent surge in Japan was primarily driven by global trends.

Blockchain for supply chain traceability and anticounterfeiting: the oracles’ enabling role

Blockchain and physical oracles in the Collectible Industry. Supply chain fairness and bargaining power in agriculture supply chain: the blockchain effect. Unlocking the Blockchain Potentials through Oracles: Empirical Evidences on Supply Chain Challenges and Performance

Virtual transshipments and revenue-sharing contracts in supply chain management

This dissertation presents the use of virtual transshipments and revenue-sharing contracts for inventory control in a small scale supply chain. The main objective is to maximize the total profit in a centralized supply chain or maximize the supply chain\u27s profit while keeping the individual components\u27 incentives in a decentralized supply chain. First, a centralized supply chain with two capacitated manufacturing plants situated in two distinct geographical regions is considered. Normally, demand in each region is mostly satisfied by the local plant. However, if the local plant is understocked while the remote one is overstocked, some of the newly generated demand can be assigned to be served by the more remote plant. The sources of the above virtual lateral transshipments, unlike the ones involved in real lateral transshipments, do not need to have nonnegative inventory levels throughout the transshipment process. Besides the theoretical analysis for this centralized supply chain, a computational study is conducted in detail to illustrate the ability of virtual lateral transshipments to reduce the total cost. The impacts of the parameters (unit holding cost, production cost, goodwill cost, etc.) on the cost savings that can be achieved by using the transshipment option are also assessed. Then, a supply chain with one supplier and one retailer is considered where a revenue-sharing contract is adopted. In this revenue-sharing contract, the retailer may obtain the product from the supplier at a less-than-production-cost price, but in exchange, the retailer must share the revenue with the supplier at a pre-set revenuesharing rate. The objective is to maximize the overall supply chain\u27s total profit while upholding the individual components\u27 incentives. A two-stage Stackelberg game is used for the analysis. In this game, one player is the leader and the other one is the follower. The analysis reveals that the party who keeps more than half of the revenue should also be the leader of the Stackelberg game. Furthermore, the adoption of a revenue-sharing contract in a supply chain with two suppliers and one retailer under a limited amount of available funds is analyzed. Using the revenue-sharing contract, the retailer pays a transfer cost rate of the production cost per unit when he obtains the items from the suppliers, and shares the revenue with the suppliers at a pre-set revenue-sharing rate. The two suppliers have different transfer cost rates and revenue-sharing rates. The retailer will earn more profit per unit with a higher transfer cost rate. How the retailer orders items from the two suppliers to maximize his expected profit under limited available funds is analyzed next. Conditions are shown under which the optimal way the retailer orders items from the two suppliers exists