344,002 research outputs found
Practical Supply Chain Management Knowledge from Industry-Academia Dialogue
Value co-creation, which can be defined as a joint initiative by two or more supply chain members to create value that cannot be created by the sole effort of one member, is a cornerstone concept in Supply Chain Management (SCM). To provide needed clarity about the concept, the invitation-only summit World Class Supply Chain 2017: Value Co-creation , was convened on May 10th, 2017 in Milton, Ontario. The summit brought together accomplished executives, scholars, and students in the SCM field to engage in dialogue directed at uncovering actionable insights about three crucial issues: The business benefits of value co-creation The actions required for successful value co-creation The obstacles to value co-creation and ways to overcome them
The deliberations covered an extensive range of content that included concrete real-world examples to reinforce the insights. Those insights can be summarized in the following three major points: Information technology innovations can (a) come from an industryâs established players instead of only from new entrants and (b) significantly improve not only standard operational efficiency metrics in supply chains but also how supply chains parties interact with each other to create value. The suite of key success factors in value co-creation spans three major stages of activities for any organization: (i) preparing for its discussions with potential co-creation partners, (ii) having those discussions with an intent to find common ground on the most important partnership parameters, and (iii) managing the ongoing relationship(s) with selected partners. To be better poised for future success in value co-creation, todayâs young, upcoming professionals (e.g., internship and entry-level jobs) must have jobs that are designed with a view to nurturing interpersonal skills in forming and sustaining effective inter-organizational business relationships
Electronic Reverse Auctions: Spawning Procurement Innovation in the Context of Arab Culture
Government e-procurement initiatives have the potential to transform local institutions, but few studies have been published of strategies for implementing specific e-procurement tools, particularly involving procurement by a foreign government adapting to local culture in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA). This case describes procurement at a forward operating base (FOB) in Kuwait in support of operations in Iraq. The government procurers had to deal with a phenomenon unique to the MENA region: wasta. Wasta is a form of social capital that bestows power, influence, and connection to those who possess it, similar to guanxi in China. This study explores the value proposition and limitations of electronic reverse auctions (eRA) with the purpose of sharing best practices and lessons learned for government procurement in a MENA country. The public value framework provides valuable theoretical insights for the implementation of a new government e-procurement tool in a foreign country. In a culture dominated by wasta, the suppliers enjoyed the transparency and merit-based virtues of eRAâs that transferred successfully into the new cultural milieu: potential to increase transparency, competition, efficiency, and taxpayer savings. The practices provided herein are designed specifically to help buyers overcome structural barriers including training, organizational inertia, and a lack of eRA policy and guidance while implementing a new e-procurement tool in a foreign country
What does it take to make integrated care work? A âcookbookâ for large-scale deployment of coordinated care and telehealth
The Advancing Care Coordination & Telehealth Deployment (ACT) Programme is the first to explore the organisational and structural processes needed to successfully implement care coordination and telehealth (CC&TH) services on a large scale. A number of insights and conclusions were identified by the ACT programme. These will prove useful and valuable in supporting the large-scale deployment of CC&TH. Targeted at populations of chronic patients and elderly people, these insights and conclusions are a useful benchmark for implementing and exchanging best practices across the EU. Examples are: Perceptions between managers, frontline staff and patients do not always match; Organisational structure does influence the views and experiences of patients: a dedicated contact person is considered both important and helpful; Successful patient adherence happens when staff are engaged; There is a willingness by patients to participate in healthcare programmes; Patients overestimate their level of knowledge and adherence behaviour; The responsibility for adherence must be shared between patients and health care providers; Awareness of the adherence concept is an important factor for adherence promotion; The ability to track the use of resources is a useful feature of a stratification strategy, however, current regional case finding tools are difficult to benchmark and evaluate; Data availability and homogeneity are the biggest challenges when evaluating the performance of the programmes
Implementing centralised IT service management: drawing lessons from the public sector
[Abstract]: The IT service management model represents a paradigm shift for IT organisations as it deemphasizes the
management of IT assets and focuses on the provision of quality end-to-end IT services. This paper presents part
of an in-depth study that examines the experience of a government agency, Queensland Health, in the
implementation of a centralised IT service management model based on the ITIL framework. The paper sheds
light on the challenges and breakthroughs, distils a set of critical success factors and offers a learning
opportunity for other organisations. Outsourcing some activities and tool requirements to vendors was seen as
one contributor to success although ensuring effective technology transfer to in-house staff was also necessary.
Another success factor was centralisation of IT services. Commitment of senior management was also crucial as
was a recognition of the need for effective change management to transform the organisational culture to a
service-oriented focus
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Stakeholders' Impact on Turnaround Performance: The Case of German Savings Banks
This study explores how savings banks as powerful stakeholders of SMEs in Germany assess turn-around performance. It tests the impact of the support provided by German savings banks and distressed SMEsâ actions with survey data from corporate advisors. The results show that structural and continuing support foster turnaround performance. This support is conducive in the initial stage of turnaround but negligible in the recovery stage. Contributing to stakeholder theory and turnaround management, the findings shed light on the factors that motivate a selected stakeholderâs involvement and SMEsâ ability to engage in actions fostering this stakeholderâs support for a turnaround
Giving the customer a voice: A study of market research methods and their perceived effectiveness in NPD
There is a widely held view that a lack of, ââŠcustomer understanding,â is one of the
main reasons for product failure (Eliashberg et al., 1997, p. 219). This is despite the
fact that new product development (NPD) is a crucial business process for many
companies. The importance of integrating the voice of the customer (VoC) through
market research is well documented (Davis, 1993; Mullins and Sutherland, 1998;
Cooper et al., 2002; Flint, 2002; Davilla et al., 2006; Cooper and Edgett, 2008;
Cooper and Dreher, 2010; Goffin and Mitchell, 2010).
However, not all research methods are well received, for example there are
studies that have strongly criticized focus groups, interviews and surveys (e.g.
Ulwick, 2002; Goffin et al, 2010; Sandberg, 2002). In particular, a point is made that,
ââŠtraditional market research and development approaches proved to be particularly
ill-suited to breakthrough productsâ (Deszca et al, 2010, p613). Therefore, in
situations where traditional techniquesâinterviews and focus groupsâare
ineffective, the question is which market research techniques are appropriate,
particularly for developing breakthrough products? To investigate this, an attempt was
made to access the knowledge of market research practitioners from agencies with a
reputation for their work on breakthrough NPD. We were surprised to find that this
research had not been conducted previously.
In order to make it possible for the sample of 24 market research experts
identified for this study to share their knowledge, repertory grid technique was used.
This psychology based method particularly seeks out tacit knowledge by using indepth
interviews. In this case the interviews were conducted with professionals from
leading market research agencies in two countries. The resulting data provided two
unique insights: they highlighted the attributes of market research methods which
made them effective at identifying customersâ needs and they showed how different
methods were perceived against these attributes.
This article starts with a review of the literature on different methods for
conducting market research to identify customer needs. The conclusions from the
literature are then used to define the research question. We explain our choice of
methodology, including the data collection and analysis approach. Next the key
results are presented. Finally, the discussion section identifies the key insights,
clarifies the limitations of the research, suggests areas for future research, and draws
implications for managers.
We conclude that existing research is not aligned with regard to which
methods (or combination of methods) are best suited to the various stages of the NPD
process. We have set out the challenges and our own intended work in this regard in
our section on âfurther researchâ. Also, the existing literature does not explicitly seek
the perceptions of practitioner experts based in market research agencies. This we
have started to address, and we acknowledge that further work is required.
Although our research in ongoing, it has already yielded the first view of a
model of the perceptions of 24 expert market researchers in the UK and Denmark.
Based on the explanation of these experts, the model situates a derived set of
categories in a manner that reflects the way in which they are inter-linked. We believe
that our model begins to deal with the gaps and anomalies in the existing research into
VoC methods
Transmission losses cost allocation in restructed electricity market environment
During these recent decades, the restructuring system of electricity market
has been taken places around the whole world. Due to the restructuring
(deregulation), the electrical power system has been divided into three separates
categories according to the function. First stage of power system is the generation
companies (GENCOs), followed by transmission companies (TRANSCOs) and
distribution companies (DISCOs). The competitive environment will be handling by
a non-profit entity, independent system operator (ISO) that functioning as the system
securities that have to make sure that the power system continues to operate in a
stable and economical manner. However, restructuring system can give effect during
the energy transmission. One of the transmission issues is regarding the power
losses. To overcome the losses, generators must generate more power. The issue
regarding the transmission losses in deregulated system is how to allocate it to the
user and charge them in fair ways as in for instance the pool trading model, it is hard
to trace the power contribution and losses of each user in transmission line. In
addition, the users didnât want to pay the losses, it means that the ISO have to
responsible for the losses and it will be unfair to put the responsible to ISO alone.
Therefore, in this project, the allocation of transmission losses and loss cost methods
which are the pro-rata and proportional sharing method will be investigated.
Comparison between those methods will be done in order to identify which types of
method that reflect an efficient and fair way to distribute the cost of the transmission
losses to the user. These chosen methods will be tested on IEEE bus system
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Investigating the impact of cross-cultural on CRM implementation: a comparative study
In a competitive world there is a need for companies to maximise all their resources. One of the resources that are often overlooked is that of existing customer base. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a tool that is becoming increasingly popular as it provides a method of maximising existing customer resource as well as adding value from the customersâ perception. CRM consists of three simultaneous considerations that drive CRM strategy: (1) people, business culture and relationships, (2) processes, and (3) technology. In a globalise economy, cross-cultural is becoming of extreme importance to many researchers and practitioners, but there is a lack of literature on the impact of cross-cultural on CRM implementation. Multinational organizations face the situation of how to adopt CRM implementation process according to differences in culture factors from country to country
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