The quality –competitiveness factor of the organizations based on knowledge

In the present frame, marked by economic crisis, globalization of competition, the quality of products and services is the reference point of any organization. Continuous improvement of product quality and service has become new references in the current economic landscape, highly complex located in a permanent dynamic, characterized by fast diversification and renewal of supply of goods under the impact of the rapid development of science and technology, globalization of markets, facilitated by developments in telecommunications, the growth of customers requirements and society. The competitive advantage of organizations obtained through high quality products and services gather new values in the frame of knowledge based economy.quality, competitiveness, knowledge, investment, efficiency

Product customisation: an empirical study of competitive advantage and repeat business

Empirical evidence is presented from 24 UK based manufacturing companies, all offering a degree of product customisation, with most having a significant Engineer-to-order (ETO) element. The majority of the companies are SME’s, with the associated limited managerial resources. The evidence addresses the issues of competitive advantage, including a detailed investigation of the strategic importance of repeat business. It contrasts its results with those generally found in the literature and concludes that there are significant differences in the order winners/ qualifiers. In particular, the evidence suggests that customisation is an order qualifier rather than an order winner; as it is increasingly unlikely that competitors will only offer a more standard product. Thus alternative order winners are needed and often price becomes the most significant factor, rather than being a mere order qualifier. Four different types of repeat business are then identified and the strategic importance of repeat business is discussed. It is indicated that for some ETO companies, repeat business is perceived to be an important method to reduce costs and achieve business stability. However, a number of the other companies studied saw repeat business as infeasible and hence need to find other ways to reduce costs and improve company performance measures, such as lead times. Future research to extend this work into a longitudinal study is proposed. Issues to explore are how the importance of repeat business has changed, and how the companies have evolved in terms of the degree of customisation offered versus that offered by their competitors

Competitive Advantage and Internationalization of Italian Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Firms

The paper aims at exploring the factors needed by small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises to obtain a successful positioning in the international market and at identifying what there is at the root of their competitive advantage. Using a sample of 519 small and medium sized firms, with 20 to 250 employees, operating in five Italian regions, the empirical evidence reveals that the competitive advantage of Italian small enterprises is based upon a combination of elements such as price, differentiation and high technical standards of the product. According to this study, to be competitive in respect of price remains however the imperative of Italian SMEs’ behaviour in international markets.Competitive Advantage, Internationalization, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Manufacturing Firms

In search of the drivers of high growth in manufacturing SMEs

Though considerable attention in the extant literature has been devoted to growth and performance of firms, there is a dearth of research on high growth firms. Furthermore, the majority of literature in this area focuses on large firms while research on high growth small firms is underdeveloped. This paper investigates the drivers of high growth in manufacturing SMEs. Following a number of focus group interviews with six managing directors of manufacturing firms, a number of drivers of high growth were identified and investigated in a sample of 207 manufacturing SMEs. The results of this study indicate that high growth firms place a greater emphasis on external drivers such as strategic orientation, their operating environment and the use of e-commerce compared with firms having static or declining sales. The analysis shows that high growth firms compete largely on the basis of price. While high growth firms have increased their sales by over 30% during the past three years or longer, it is questionable if manufacturing firms can sustain their competitive advantage without recourse to greater research and development, and innovation in the longer term

SMEs and virtual R&D teams: a motive channel for relationship between SMEs

In today?s dynamic marketplace, manufacturing companies are under strong pressure to introduce new products for long-term survival with their competitors. Nevertheless, every company cannot cope up progressively or immediately with the market requirements due to knowledge dynamics being experienced in the competitive milieu. Increased competition and reduced product life cycles put force upon companies to develop new products faster. In response to these pressing needs, there should be some new approach compatible in flexible circumstances. This paper presents a solution based on the popular Stage-Gate system, which is closely linked with virtual team approach. Virtual teams can provide a platform to advance the knowledge-base in a company and thus to reduce time-to-market. This article introduces conceptual product development architecture under a virtual team umbrella. The paper describes all the major aspects of new product development (NPD), NPD process and its relationship with virtual teams, Stage-Gate system finally presents a modified Stage-Gate system to cope up with the changing needs. It also provides the guidelines for the successful implementation of virtual teams in new product development

Co-creative pricing (CCP) : a conceptual development of consumers’ participation in pricing practicing in services

Keskustelu yhteisestä arvonluonnista on saavuttanut yhä laajempaa huomiota niin nykypäivän tieteellisteoreettisessa markkinointikirjallisuudessa kuin käytännössä. Suosiosta huolimatta keskustelusta on jäänyt miltei tyystin huomioimatta arvokäsitteen eräs varsin oleellinen ulottuvuus: hinta. Siitä syystä on ensiarvoisen tärkeää tutkia hinnan merkitys arvokäsitteen, yhdessä tuottamisen ja hinnan muodostamassa suhteiden kolmiossa, sillä vaihdannassa hinta on yksi arvonmuodostuksen tärkeimmistä osatekijöistä. Toissijaisia tutkimusmenetelmiä käyttäen, tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus on pyrkiä käsitteellistämään yhteinen hinnanluonti arvon lisääjänä. Niinikään tutkimus tarjoaa mallinnuksen niistä vallitsevista olosuhteista, jotka ovat arvon muodostuksessa välttämättömiä. Esitetty malli perustaa juurensa palvelumarkkinoinnin Service-Dominant Logic -ajattelusta, muodostaen fuusion yhdessä ARA-mallin ja markkinointikeskustelussa vallalla olevan elämysmarkkinointiajattelun kanssa. Tutkimus edistää yhteisen arvonluonnin tieteellistä keskustelua syventämällä jo olemassa olevaa tietoa arvon muodostuksesta. Lisäksi, tutkimus edistää käytännön tietämystä esittämällä eksploratiivisen avauksen hinnoittelun dynaamisesta yhteisajattelusta haastamalla markkinoijia ajattelemaan myös hinnoittelua uudesta innovatiivisesta yhteiseen arvonluontiin perustuvasta näkökulmasta. Nykyajan asiakkaat ovat yhä halukkaampia, pystyvämpiä sekä resursseiltaan rikkaampia osallistumaan hinnoittelupäätöksiin kuin aikaisemmin. Yhdessä tuotettu arvo hinnoittelun kautta tarjoaa vaihtoehtoisen ajattelutavan pitkään vallinneelle yritysten sisäänpäin suuntautuneelle hinnoitteluajattelulle ja esittää, että kääntämällä katse asiakkaan suuntaan, saavutetaan todellinen arvo, sellaisena kuin asiakas sen määrittelee. Tutkimuksessa esiin tuotu ajattelutapa tarjoaa uusia mahdollisuuksia vaihtoehtoisille hinnoittelumenetelmille sekä palveluinnovaatioille.Co-creation debate has increasingly become a key topic in the contemporary services marketing theory and practice. Domains of co-creation and value have thus far attracted plenty of academic interest, however, there is an evident deficiency of one essential dimension of value: price. In the triangular relation of co-creation, value and price, it is of high importance to research the role of price, as it is one of the prime components contributing to the formation of value in an exchange. Using secondary research methods, this research works towards a conceptualization of CCP and offers a model of the conditions that need to be in place for value through CCP to occur. The model builds its foundations on Service-Dominant Logic debate. Combined together with the ARA model, and the prevalent thinking of experiential marketing, the work contributes to the academic co-creation literature by adding to the knowledge of value creation. Further, it presents an explorative opening of dynamic pricing thinking for practitioners by challenging the marketers to think their pricing from an innovative co-creation based view. Co-created pricing offers an alternative logic to inwardly focused value creation of the firm and suggests that by turning the focus on the customer, the true value, as perceived by the customer, is captured. Today’s customers are increasingly willing, capable and rich in their resources to participate in pricing decisions, thereby offering an opportunity for alternative pricing methods and service innovations

Sustainable Value Proposition Design in a Product-Service System

Many companies have started to add services to their tangible products in order to defend themselves from increased competition from low-cost economies. Research regarding the transition towards product-service systems (PSS) and how the PSS providers' business models are affected exists, but there is a lack of research regarding how the suppliers to the PSS providers are affected by the transition towards PSS. Therefore, this thesis studies the situation for a supplier/partner to an OEM that has changed their business model to a PSS providing one. As the first step in a development of a new business model aims this thesis to provide guidelines for how to set up value propositions suitable for a supplier/partner in this new environment. When technologically complex products, such as aircraft engines, are provided through PSS offerings it is hard to translate customer needs into quality parameters, which makes it hard to sustain the value to customer over time. Therefore, how to keep the value offering sustainable over time is also investigated in this thesis. The aim of this study was to investigate how a sustainable value proposition can be designed for a product and technology supplier/partner to an OEM that offers PSS solutions. The research has been performed through studying relevant literature and collecting empirical data from a case company through semi-structured interviews and a workshop. The case company in this research is Volvo Aero Corporation (VAC). The empirical findings show that VAC wants to offer product-service bundled solution, which fit the whole spectra of PSS value propositions, to their partners/customers. To be able to deliver these different types of product-service bundled solutions different value propositions that suit the different kinds of PSS offerings are needed. Requirements that must be fulfilled to be able to offer and deliver the different types of value propositions exist in terms of securing sufficient information access, aligning the incentives of all actors involved and achieving an internal consensus of what is delivered

BUILDING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH MARKETING, MANUFACTURING AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT STRATEGY: A CASE STUDY OF METAL PRODUCT SMEs IN TEGAL

This research investigates how the marketing strategy, manufacturing strategy and environment management create SMEs competitive advantage that will improve SMEs business performance. It gives both theoretical and managerial implications about steps must be taken by SMEs to improve their business performance through the competitive advantage gained from the marketing strategy, manufacturing strategy, and the ability to manage the environment. This research includes a data set from 121 SMEs. Results show that the manufacturing and environment management strategy positively affects SMEs competitive advantage, and the competitive advantage also positively affects SMEs business performance. Marketing strategy implemented didn’t affect the competitive advantage. This research proved that for now, the competitive advantage of metal product SMEs in Tegal lay on their ability to create product in accordance with consumers want. Metal SMEs always maintain their flexibility and product quality with competitive prices. To gain the competitive advantage, SMEs must have the ability to adjust with political and economics transformation such as general election or city major and governor transformation. Because of its flexibility, metal SMEs in Tegal can easily adjust with the transformation of political and economical climate. The last thing that must be noted from this research is that metal SMEs in Tegal didn’t implement the marketing strategy well because of the job-order system. The competitive advantage will be more perfect if the company also have superb marketing strategy