RFID in the supply chain: lessons from European early adopters

Purpose Radio frequency identification (RFID) is increasingly being presented as a technology with the potential to improve supply chain performance, but empirical evidence from early adopters is sparse. This paper aims to rectify this scarcity and contribute to a more informed discussion in and between academic and practitioner communities. Design/Methodology/Approach The paper is based on a conceptual model of factors influencing the success of adoption efforts. It then reports the results of a survey of 612 European supply chain managers, focusing on the 128 respondents who have begun RFID trials. Findings A significant influence on operational deployment is the presence of mandates from key customers requiring the technology’s use. Customer mandates also impact the anticipated benefits of a faster sales cycle and of enhanced systems integration, though the relationships are complex. By contrast, greater cost reduction benefits are anticipated in two industries where mandates are less common – industrial goods and logistics. Perceived organizational innovativeness positively impacts anticipated ROI from RFID. Companies adopting a ‘slap and ship’ approach are less likely to anticipate pricing benefits than those integrating RFID into enterprise systems Research Limitations/Implications The limitations of the paper include the limited sample size of early adopters. In addition, qualitative research is needed into RFID supply chain applications and into different approaches to IS integration of RFID, to inform future survey work. Practical Implications This paper informs supply chain managers and senior decision makers who are examining the potential of RFID technology. It offers guidance on what issues to look for when adopting this technology, approaches to take and the benefits that might be accrued. Originality/Valuer This paper offers a major contribution to understanding the current status of the adoption of RFID in European supply chains. This understanding is put in the context of the wider literatures on supply chain management and the adoption of information systems and te

The impact of different touchpoints on brand consideration

Marketers face the challenge of resource allocation across a range of touchpoints. Hence understanding their relative impact is important, but previous research tends to examine brand advertising, retailer touchpoints, word-of-mouth, and traditional earned touchpoints separately. This article presents an approach to understanding the relative impact of multiple touchpoints. It exemplifies this approach with six touchpoint types: brand advertising, retailer advertising, in-store communications, word-of-mouth, peer observation (seeing other customers), and traditional earned media such as editorial. Using the real-time experience tracking (RET) method by which respondents report on touchpoints by contemporaneous text message, the impact of touchpoints on change in brand consideration is studied in four consumer categories: electrical goods, technology products, mobile handsets, and soft drinks. Both touchpoint frequency and touchpoint positivity, the valence of the customer's affective response to the touchpoint, are modeled. While relative touchpoint effects vary somewhat by category, a pooled model suggests the positivity of in-store communication is in general more influential than that of other touchpoints including brand advertising. An almost entirely neglected touchpoint, peer observation, is consistently significant. Overall, findings evidence the relative impact of retailers, social effects and third party endorsement in addition to brand advertising. Touchpoint positivity adds explanatory power to the prediction of change in consideration as compared with touchpoint frequency alone. This suggests the importance of methods that track touchpoint perceptual response as well as frequency, to complement current analytic approaches such as media mix modeling based on media spend or exposure alone

How organisations generate and use customer insight

The generation and use of customer insight in marketing decisions is poorly understood, partly due to difficulties in obtaining research access and partly because market-based learning theory views knowledge as a fixed asset. However, customer insight takes many forms, arrives at the organisation from increasingly diverse sources and requires more than mere dissemination if it is to be useful. A multiple case study approach is used to explore managerial practices for insight generation and use. Multiple informants from each of four organisations in diverse sectors were interviewed. Findings reveal the importance of value alignment and value monitoring across the insight demand chain, to complement the information processing emphasis of extant research. Within the firm, the study suggests the importance of customer insight conduct practices including insight format, the role of automation and insight shepherding, to complement the much-researched process perspective. The study provides a basis for assessing the effectiveness of insight processes by both practitioners and scholars

An investigation into the impact of decision support systems on strategic marketing planning practice

Relatively few companies gain the benefits from marketing planning claimed by prescriptive literature. This results from cognitive, procedural, resource, organisational, cultural and data availability barriers to effective planning. Research in other domains suggests that decision support systems (DSS) could assist in reducing some of these barriers. The research aim was therefore to examine whether and how DSS could be used to improve strategic marketing planning practice. The research method incorporated: iterative development of a DSS named EXN4AR a formative evaluation of the prototype system using a survey and a multiple-case study; and a further multiple-case study of users of other, related systems to explore the extent to which the results from the EXMAR evaluation could be generalised. The study confirms that software can play a valuable role in reducing some of the barriers to effective planning. Systems can assist with the effective application of analytical marketing tools through automated calculations, graphical display and on-line guidance, thus reducing the technical marketing knowledge required. Support for fast iteration allows these tools to be used to facilitate group strategy debates. Endeavours to move planning out of the hands of specialists and into cross-functional teams can be further aided by cross-functional analyses and by automated assistance with managing the complexity of multiple-level plans. The electronic format can support moves towards continuous planning based on a live marketing model of the business, helping the organisation to respond to internal or external changes without the constraints of the annual planning cycle. Other barriers such as cultural problems must, however, be reduced by other means. Various factors contributing to success in system implementation are identified, including top management support, sufficiently wide planning team definition, appropriate definition of planning units, sufficiently flexible planning procedures, ease of use, and a system that is seen as empowering rather than controlling

New Phases of Water Ice Predicted at Megabar Pressures

Based on density functional calculations we predict water ice to attain two new crystal structures with Pbca and Cmcm symmetry at 7.6 and 15.5 Mbar, respectively. The known high pressure ice phases VII, VIII, X, and Pbcm as well as the Pbca phase are all insulating and composed of two interpenetrating hydrogen bonded networks, but the Cmcm structure is metallic and consists of corrugated sheets of H and O atoms. The H atoms are squeezed into octahedral positions between next-nearest O atoms while they occupy tetrahedral positions between nearest O atoms in the ice X, Pbcm, and Pbca phases.Comment: submitted to Physical Review Letters on Jan 25, 201

Sequestration of noble gases in giant planet interiors

The Galileo probe showed that Jupiter's atmosphere is severely depleted in neon compared to protosolar values. We show, via ab initio simulations of the partitioning of neon between hydrogen and helium phases, that the observed depletion can be explained by the sequestration of neon into helium-rich droplets within the postulated hydrogen-helium immiscibility layer of the planet's interior. We also demonstrate that this mechanism will not affect argon, explaining the observed lack of depletion of this gas. This provides strong indirect evidence for hydrogen-helium immiscibility in Jupiter

Vascular Plants of Holmes County, Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Biological Sciences, Kent State UniversityHolmes County, Ohio, located in a geologically and biologically interesting portion of the state and yet little known botanically, was the object of a floristic study during the growing seasons of 1970 and 1971. The result of this study, a catalog listing 1,061 vascular plant species, is statistically summarized. This summary is prefaced by a brief discussion concerning the natural areas of Holmes County and the history of its vegetation