A neural network approach to predicting price negotiation outcomes in business-to-business contexts

Price premiums are a key profit driver for long-term business relationships. For sellers in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, it is important to have appropriate strategies to negotiate price increases without trading off the relationships with their buyers. This paper aims to understand the annual price negotiation processes of companies by predicting whether a seller’s reservation price, target price, and initial offer positively affect the price negotiation outcome between the sellers and buyers. Data from 284 B2B relationships of a chemicals supplier based in Germany was used to examine our research model. In order to capture the non-linear decisions that are involved in price negotiations and to address collinearity among negotiations’ determinants, neural network analysis was used to predict the factors that influence price negotiation outcome. The neural network model was then compared with the results from regression analysis. Compared to regression analysis, the neural network has a lower standard error, and it showed that target price played a more important role in B2B price negotiations. The neural network was also able measure non-linear, non-compensatory decisions that are involved in price negotiations. The results imply that neural networks should be more widely used by researchers to address the threats that multi-collinearity poses. For companies, the results imply that price targets should be actively managed, e.g. through clear financial aims or through seminars aiming to help sales personnel to establish more challenging negotiation aims

Брэндинг как эффективный инструмент товарной политики в маркетинге

In the article the notion brendaniabbatis to distinguish between legal and psychological approach to the understanding of the brand. From the legal point of view is considered only the trade mark of the manufacturer of the product and subject to legal protection. From the point of view of consumer psychology (consumer research) we are talking about the brand as the information stored in the memory of consumers