New Concepts for Efficient Consumer Response in Retail Influenced by Emerging Technologies and Innovations

The retail industry is continuously confronted with new challenges and experiences a transformation from a supplier’s market to a buyer's market. It is, thus, essential for the retail industry to consequently focus on, anticipate and fulfil consumer’s demands. Technologies and innovative business solutions can help to support to establish a required customer experience and, thereby, gain a competitive advantage. A multitude of new services and products, channels as well as players can already be identified which drive the transformation. Therefore, retailers need to understand current trends and technologies and identify as well as implement relevant solutions for their transformation since otherwise, new players will dominate the market. Hence, this dissertation aims to review and analyse new technologies which are coupled with innovative business activities in order to provide customer-centric retailing. For this purpose, this dissertation consists of five articles and derives four major contributions which introduce different approaches to establishing consumer satisfaction. Firstly, a core technology for retail is artificial intelligence (AI) which can be meaningful applied along the entire value chain and improve retailers’ positions. Two focus areas have been identified in this context which are (i) the optimisation of the entire retail value chain with the help of AI with the aim to derive transparency and (ii) the improvement of consumer satisfaction and relationship. Secondly, focussing on the consumer-retailer relationship in the digital era, a concept with a data architecture is proposed based on a real use case. The outcome was that a specific customer orientation based on data can increase the brand value and sales volume. Thirdly, the work presents that new shopping concepts, named unmanned store concepts, gain continuous growth. Unmanned store concepts employ a variety of new technologies, are characterised by attributes of speed, ease, as well as comfort, and are deemed to be the new ideal of the expectations of modern buyers. Two different directions have been deeper analysed: (i) walk-in stores and (ii) automated vending machines. The critical success factors for the usage of unmanned store solutions are distance as well as high consumer affinity for innovations. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has a huge impact on retail, a continuous innovation capability still needs to be established. Finally, this work introduces a tool for systematic innovation management considering the current circumstances. Taken as a whole, this dissertation with its five articles deals with significant research questions which have not been approached so far. Thereby, the literature is extended by the introduction of novel insights and the provision of a deeper understanding of how retailers can transform their business into a more consumer-oriented way

Understanding VR/AR in marketing & sales for B2B: an explorative study

Abstract. The research explored the impact of immersive reality technologies, particularly VR and AR, in marketing and sales for the B2B sector. Study interests were fuelled by both an industrial hype and vehement investments on these technologies, especially in the last five years. However, the potential of these technologies is still unexplored and widely misunderstood by businesses as the innovations are slowly taking off. Additionally, existing literature showed a need to clearly define various simulated realities in the continuum, including VR and AR, as well as a general misunderstanding of the potential of immersive reality technologies, and a shortage of studies covering holistically different VR/AR applications in marketing, especially for the B2B sector. Therefore, this research aims to bridge the gap between managerial and academic’ understanding by providing a holistic framework explaining the impact of immersive reality technologies in B2B marketing and sales and provide a clear distinction between VR and AR in the Virtuality-reality continuum. This research also aims to assist marketers and managers in embracing these technologies to better meet the needs of future generations. The study adopted a qualitative exploratory approach allowing researchers to gain an in-depth understanding of the topic from an industrial perspective. The study used an abductive thematic analysis approach to analyse empirical results and ten semi-structured interviews with eleven VR/AR providers for primary data collection. Results were structured based on four main themes, namely: VR and AR definitions, customer technology adoption factors, VR/AR impact and applications on B2B marketing, and last, VR/AR impact on sales performance outcomes. This study contributes to the existing literature by proposing a tentative definition for each terminology “VR” and “AR” separately that merges academic perspectives and industry insights. Overall, empirical study suggests that immersive reality technologies can affect both marketing activities and sales performance outcomes for the B2B sector. However, successfully embracing these technologies calls for collaboration to overcome financial, technical and social barriers while also enhancing aspects like the user experience to step out of the still immature VR/AR market. VR and AR together have an impact on marketing for B2B by enhancing customization, non-verbal communication, learning and experiential marketing while also creating memorable experiences that stick in the minds of the consumer. Concerning the customer’s purchasing journey, this study extends existing literature to cover all customer purchasing stages, including the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. Results emphasize the pre-purchase phase as the most impacted by immersive reality technologies, followed by post-purchase and purchase stages, respectively. Finally, this study suggests that the use of VR/AR as sales support tools can yield positive efficiency returns through higher task performance and a reduction in sales-related costs, and positive effectiveness returns through greater customer and social engagement, stronger collaborative business relationships and the enhancement of proactive (sales planning) and reactive (adaptive selling) behaviours in the sales process

Managing the challenges of today’s economic landscape

This volume combines twelve chapters written by fifteen academics from four countries namely Germany, Italy, Thailand, and Turkey. They are mainly based upon the outputs of the WIBF’s annual International Business Conferences. With this regard, we thank all participants for their contributions to the discussions, the referees for their time and energy, and the chapter authors in this volume for their willingness and expertise.Managing the Challenges of Today’s Economic Landscape / Emin Akçaoğlu and Rainer Wehner -- Digitizing the Sales Process of SMEs: Development Tendencies and Relevant Technologies / Heiko Fischer, Thomas Berger and Sven Seidenstricker -- The Impact of Sustainability on Innovation in the Apparel Industry / Laura Schmiedle -- The Role of Savings Cooperatives as Financial Institutions to Provide Funds to SMEs in Thailand / Anucha Wittayakorn-Puripunpinyoo -- Do Management Accountants Need to Consider Gender in Supporting Decision-Making? / Björn Baltzer -- Economic Aspects as the Fundament of Commercial Law An Outline Based on Warranty Claims within a Supply Chain / Artur R. Fabisch -- Environmental Taxes and Sustainability in the European Union: Cases of Germany and Ireland / Rainer Wehner and Emin Akçaoğlu -- Innovation Formula and Innovation Test Bed: Development of an Instrument to Determine the Innovation Status in the Present / Gerhard Hube -- Cross Cultural Comparative Study of Sustainability Awareness in European Education: Cases of Italy, Germany Romania / Elia Francesca Pacelli -- Open Innovation Paradigm as Sustainability Booster in Supply Chains / Sabrina Salsano -- Green Finance for Sustainability: Practices by Turkish Banks / Yağmur Rençber and Halit Targan Ünal -- Developing Multicultural Leaders for International Entrepreneurship: An Examination of Effective Leadership Styles / Jessica Mante

Customer relationship value in the business-to-business railway market of Southern Africa

This study involves establishing imperative customer relationship value antecedents and mediators within the business-to-business (B2B) railway industry of Southern Africa and determining whether these relationship value antecedents and mediators will achieve customer retention as an outcome. The goal is to create a conceptual model for the B2B railway industry of Southern Africa, which will be done through reviewing well-established theories and past literature on the topics of relationship marketing, relationship value, and retention within the B2B industry. After an examination of the existing literature, a proposed conceptual model will be developed and tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a sample of 265 B2B supplier companies operating in the Southern African railway market. The CFA represents the measurement model of this research, which proposes the relationship value antecedents, mediators, and their influence on retention within the B2B railway industry of Southern Africa. Secondly, structural equation modelling (SEM) will be conducted, in order to test relation-ships with latent factors. The results indicate that the factors of service, supplier, relational, and financial performance are important antecedents, and that satisfaction and relationship value are significant mediators of customer retention in the B2B railway industry of Southern Africa.Business ManagementD. Admin. (Business Management

The meaning of environmentally sustainable brand in the business of machine manufacturer

This thesis focuses on developing an environmentally sustainable industrial brand and its marketing. The main goal of the research was to find out what is the meaning of a sustainable industrial brand in the business of a machine manufacturer. The goal was approached with the aim of three different research questions related to customer experience, the utilization of a sustainable industrial brand in the communication and marketing of an industrial company and understanding the industrial buying decision process. This thesis used two research methods to answer the research questions. The chosen research methods were literature review and semi-structured interviews. In the literature review, articles dealing with the topic published in the last 10 years were familiarized. Based on the articles, two lists of recommendations were created. One list of actions that can be used to improve the environmentally sustainable industrial brand image and the other list of techniques that could be used for marketing an environmentally sustainable industrial brand. Nine Teams interviews were used to collect data directly from customers and potential new customers. The same list of questions was used in all interviews. In this way, it was possible to collect customers' opinions about current marketing activities, as well as their needs about what kind of issues related to sustainable development they would like marketing to contain in the future. The collected data was analyzed in such a way that the result of the data reduction method of the literature review was two lists of recommended actions and techniques, and the interview data was divided by thematic analysis by each research question. As the final result of the research, based on the data collected through the literature review and semi-structured interviews, action proposals are created to unite sustainable development with branding and marketing. The action proposals are divided into four different phases and by implementing the different phases it is possible for the company to improve the brand image among different stakeholders. In further research proposals, it is recommended to take into account also the economic and social dimensions of sustainable development in addition to environmental dimension. The means by which companies could be committed to implement actions related to sustainable development should also be further researched. Sustainable development and its advancing is currently a very relevant topic, according to this research it is believed that a big change will already take place by 2030.Tässä diplomityössä keskityttiin ympäristön kannalta kestävän teollisen brändin ja sen markkinoinnin kehittämiseen. Työn päätavoitteena oli selvittää mikä merkitys kestävällä teollisella brändillä on työkonevalmistajan liiketoiminnassa. Tavoitetta lähestyttiin kolmen eri tutkimuskysymyksen avulla, jotka liittyivät asiakaskokemukseen, kestävän teollisen brändin hyödyntämiseen teollisuusyrityksen viestinnässä ja markkinoinnissa sekä teollisen ostopäätösprosessin ymmärtämiseen. Työssä käytettiin kahta tutkimusmenetelmää, joilla tutkimuskysymyksiin pyrittiin vastaamaan. Valitut tutkimusmenetelmät olivat kirjallisuuskatsaus ja puolistrukturoitu haastattelututkimus. Kirjallisuuskatsauksessa tutustuttiin viimeisen 10 vuoden aikana julkaistuihin aihetta käsitteleviin artikkeleihin. Artikkeleiden pohjalta laadittiin kaksi suosituslistaa. Yksi lista toimista, joilla ympäristön kannalta kestävää teollista brändikuvaa voitaisiin parantaa, ja toinen lista tekniikoista, joita ympäristön kannalta kestävän teollisen brändin markkinoinnissa voitaisiin käyttää. Yhdeksällä Teams-haastattelulla kerättiin dataa suoraan asiakkailta ja potentiaalisilta uusilta asiakkailta. Kaikissa haastatteluissa käytiin läpi sama lista kysymyksistä. Tällä tavalla saatiin kerättyä asiakkaiden mielipiteitä nykyisistä markkinointitoimista sekä myös toiveita siitä minkälaisia kestävään kehitykseen liittyviä asioita markkinoinnin haluttaisiin pitävän sisällään tulevaisuudessa. Kerätty data analysoitiin niin, että datan vähennys menetelmän avulla kirjallisuuskatsauksen tuloksena on kaksi listausta suositelluista menetelmistä ja haastatteludata jaettiin temaattisen analyysin avulla tutkimuskysymyksittäin. Tutkimuksen lopputuloksena kirjallisuuskatsauksen ja puolistrukturoitujen haastattelujen avulla kerätyn tiedon pohjalta luotiin toimintasuositukset kestävän kehityksen yhdistämiseksi brändäykseen ja markkinointiin. Toimintasuositukset on jaettu neljään eri vaiheeseen, jotka toteuttamalla yrityksen on mahdollista parantaa brändimielikuvaa eri sidosryhmien keskuudessa. Tulevaisuuden tutkimusehdotuksissa suositellaan ottamaan huomioon myös kestävän kehityksen taloudellinen ja sosiaalinen ulottuvuus ympäristöllisen näkökulman lisäksi. Myös keinoja, joilla yritykset saataisiin sitoutettua toteuttamaan kestävän kehityksen mukaisia toimia tulisi tutkia edelleen. Kestävä kehitys ja sen edistäminen on tällä hetkellä erittäin ajankohtainen aihe, tämän tutkimuksen mukaan suuren muutoksen uskotaan tapahtuvan jo vuoteen 2030 mennessä

Blockchain-based reputation models for e-commerce: a systematic literature review

The Digital Age is the present, and nobody can deny that. With it has come a digital transformation in various sectors of activity, and e-commerce is no exception. Over the last few decades, there has been a massive increase in its utilization rates, as it has several advantages over traditional commerce. At the same time, the rise in the number of crimes on the Internet and, consequently, the understanding of the risks involved in online shopping has led consumers to become more cautious, looking for information about the seller and taking it into account when making a purchase decision. The need to get to know the merchant better before making a purchase decision has encouraged the creation of reputation systems, whose services play an essential role in today's e-commerce context. Reputation systems act as mechanisms to reduce information asymmetry between consumers and sellers and establish rankings that attest to fulfilling standards and policies considered necessary for shops operating in the digital market. The critical problems in current reputation systems are the frauds and attacks that such systems currently have to deal with, which results in a lack of trust between users. These security and fraud issues are critical because users' trust is commonly based on reputation models, and many of these current systems are not immune to them, thus compromising e-commerce growth. The need for a better and safer model emerges with the development of e-commerce. Through reading the articles and pursuing the answers to the primary questions, blockchain is data register technology to be analysed in order to gain a better acknowledgment of the potential of such technology. More research work and investigation must be done to fully understand how to create a more assertive reputation model. Thus, this study systematizes the knowledge generated by reputation models in E-commerce studies in Scopus, WoS databases, and Google Scholar, using PRISMA methodology. A systematic approach was adopted in conducting a literature review. The need for a systematic literature review came from the knowledge that there are reputation systems that mitigate some of the problems. In addition to identifying some indicators used in reputation models, we also conclude that these models could help provide some insurance to buyers and sellers, with a commitment to being a problem solver, being able to mitigate known problems such as Collusion, Sybil attacks, laundering attacks, and preventing online fraud ranging from ballot stuffing and bad-mouthing. Nevertheless, the results of the present work demonstrate that even though these reputation models still cannot solve all of the problems, attacking one fraud opens the door to an attack. The architecture of the models was identified, with the realization that a few lacks that need to be fulfilled

The art of online arbitrage: essential practices for third-party sellers

The topic of arbitrage is an essential concept in the financial world. It involves taking advantage of price discrepancies for an asset or security across different markets. The emerging third-party retail and online e-commerce arbitrage sellers industry is growing and becoming a popular income source for many individuals. While there is various research on arbitrage and its impact on the economy, there is scant literature on third-party retail e-commerce arbitrage selling. The goal of this research is to build upon existing scholarly work by examining optimal methods, tactics, and obstacles encountered by e-commerce arbitrage sellers who operate through third-party retail platforms. A phenomenological methodology was employed to capture the firsthand experiences of seasoned professionals in the field. Twelve third-party e-commerce sellers who met inclusion criteria were interviewed and asked 11 interview questions designed to elicit detailed and nuanced answers. Thematic analysis was employed to code and categorize the interview data. Forty-nine overarching themes were identified and condensed to create the ACES Framework, which can be used as a guide for success in third-party retail e-commerce arbitrage selling

Preferred customer status, supplier satisfaction and their contingencies

Over the last decades, firms shift increasingly from traditional in-house value creation strategies to cooperative buyer–supplier relationships as a source of value creation and competitive advantage. To reap extensive benefits from relationships with suppliers, assuring supplier satisfaction and achieving preferred customer status are key for buyers. In the past, several mechanisms have been identified that influence supplier satisfaction and preferred customer status; however, little is known about the role of major contingency factors such as: product type, dependencies and power influencing them. This dissertation focuses on the potential of preferred customer status to mitigate the negative effects of buyer dependency, the influences of a buyer’s power usage on supplier satisfaction, and potential perception differences of preferred status in buyer-supplier relationships. Additionally, this dissertation adds novel methods (i.e. partial least squares point predictions and polynomial regressions with response surface modeling) together with a dyadic perspective to supplier satisfaction and preferred customer research. These methods enable an assessment of the predictive abilities of models, reveal curvilinear interaction effects and discover asymmetric relationships between factors, which would have not been discovered otherwise

Brand Community Oriented Channel Coordination: An Empirical Study on Chinese Tire Market

Members of traditional tyre marketing channel aims to maximize profit for individual business, even at the cost of overall benefit of tyre marketing channel and tyre manufacturers, resulting in high channel cost. Practice focusing on channel relationship marketing has alleviated the tension among channel members. Yet profit diluted by disorderly competition in this industry has deteriorated channel performance. There is growing need to research on how to enhance channel performance and ensure benefit of channel members. Focus of related research is shifting from customers to relationship marketing, forming a trend in theoretical research on brand relationship. Branding is a fundamental element for competitive advantage and value creation for business today. Setting up a high-value brand in highly-competitive marketing environment has been the focus of marketers. Brand community research based on customer relationship also becomes the new hotspot in theoretical research on brand relationship. Existing research on relationship marketing only takes channel relationship or customer relationship into account. Research on channel relationship seldom consider the influence of final consumers on channel performance while research on final consumers usually ignore the channel relationship, setting apart these two most significant players in relationship marketing rather than combine them together. In fact, channel and end user are interactive. Discontinuity in channel relationships will affect customer experience brought by the products or service to end user, while review and purchase on products or service by final consumers will influence the performance of channel members. Considering the limitations of existing research, this article researched the potential mutual influence between channel relationship and customer relationship for the first time. Based on theory of channel relationship and customer relationship, including the manufacturers’ non-direct-profit relationship investment to end users by leveraging brand community, it proposes the industry brand community-oriented channel relationship model. Integrating these two factors in relationship marketing would bring new perspective and reference for related research. Based on proposed research model, this article gains scale through reference to related research, qualitative analysis and pretest. Based on field research on retailers and end users in replacement market for truck and bus tyre industry in China, using statistical analysis such as CFA(Confirmatory factor analysis), structure equation modeling and regression equation, the findings of positive research on industry brand community-oriented channel relationship model proposed by this article are listed as below. 1) Not only channel relationship influences channel performance, brand community based on end user relationship also influences channel performance, which is consistent with the proposition of this article. 2) Theories regarding channel relationship marketing and customer relationship marketing are applicable to truck and bus tyre industry in China. 3) Non-direct-profit RSIs by manufacturers would indirectly influence channel performance through brand community integration Based on literature review, model proposition and positive finding, the theoretical and practical contribution of this article includes the following aspects. 1) In the research of relationship marketing, not only the interactive influence of different B2B channel players shall be included, end users’ influence shall be considered as well. ‘Push’ strategy shall integrate with ‘pull’ strategy. Research on end users and channels could be integrated through brand community integration, which would be complimentary to existing research, also could be theoretical reference and practical guide to marketing practice. 2) This positive research proves that theories of relationship marketing is applicable to tyre industry in China. China’s market is unique and tyre industry has its own features compared to other industries. This research finds that trust and commitment of channel members and relationship investment by seller significantly influence the channel member performance. External environment has a moderating effect on channel member performance. Therefore, manufacturer shall pay attention to external environment, especially market diversity and changing environment, to adjust strategy accordingly. Manufacturer shall also communicate with agents and retailor to enhance trust and commitment. This article provides positive evidence and reference for relationship marketing theory. 3) This thesis contributes to clarify how manufactures’ non-direct-profit RSIs influence performance by retailor and other channel members. It is proved that although manufactures do not face consumers directly, its non-direct-profit RSIs will affect the end users’ trust and commitment to company and brand, and further influence their brand community identity, and ultimately channel members’ performance. 4) This research proposes comprehensive model on industry goods relationship marketing from theory, which is highly relevant for industry goods relationship marketing in China. Industry goods has its unique features. Manufacturer shall ensure channel member’s performance by outstanding channel relationship marketing, as well as form brand community integration through relationship investment on end user, to improve channel member’s performance and sales. Research has shown that the “push strategy” and “pull strategy” could organically combined and this conclusion provides theoretical guide and practical suggestion for companies’ marketing