New business and economic models in the connected digital economy

This paper discusses business models as a systemic phenomenon as opposed to traditional reductionistic approaches of business disciplines. It presents the ways connectivity change economic models due to the availability of consumption data as an economic resource, markets forming at consumption spaces, and how industries could disrupt one another when connected through consumption technologies. The paper further suggests that the challenges posed by connectivity results in the redrawing of traditional firm and market boundaries. It proposes for more research into modularity, transaction costs, the future role of the firm, and the necessary transformation of businesses to stay agile in a connected digital economy

Homo Datumicus : correcting the market for identity data

Effective digital identity systems offer great economic and civic potential. However, unlocking this potential requires dealing with social, behavioural, and structural challenges to efficient market formation. We propose that a marketplace for identity data can be more efficiently formed with an infrastructure that provides a more adequate representation of individuals online. This paper therefore introduces the ontological concept of Homo Datumicus: individuals as data subjects transformed by HAT Microservers, with the axiomatic computational capabilities to transact with their own data at scale. Adoption of this paradigm would lower the social risks of identity orientation, enable privacy preserving transactions by default and mitigate the risks of power imbalances in digital identity systems and markets

Service transformation and the new landscape of performance-based contracting: an executive briefing

Executive briefin

Service innovation and the role of science, technology, engineering and mathematics: ten challenges for industry, academia and government

"White paper, Centre for Service Research

Differentiation, self-selection and revenue management

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/rpm/index.htmlThis paper takes an interdisciplinary approach towards revenue management, incorporating economics and marketing concepts and proposing that firms employ a dynamic service differentiation so that consumer needs are met more closely. To locate market segments, the paper proposes that firms employ segmentation based on self-selection, providing consumers with an array of choices that are truth revealing and allowing firms to price discriminate without the need to predetermine segments. Through differentiation and self selection, uncertainty could also be reduced. Furthermore, self selection could also allow firms to reduce the costs of coordinating and monitoring rate fences

Does direct marketing need to have a direction?

Pre-print; author's draftThis article proposes that direct marketing does not need to have a direction (i.e. that of the firm seeking out customers). Effort spent on seeking customers could also be spent on compelling customers to seek out the firm, through increased product choices. Applying information economics into marketing, the paper provide examples as well as principles on how to design products that also assist marketers to segment through self-selection. The firm should therefore closely weigh the cost of reaching out to customers (with high wastage) against the cost of producing an array of products such that each consumer’s choice is market-separating and that draws the customer to the firm

Service innovation: converting Pareto loss into revenue

Pre-print; author's draftConsumers' choices depend on the net value they get after taking into account both monetary and non-monetary costs incurred from the purchase. This paper looks at the need to revise the understanding of value relating to price, that is replacing consumer surplus with net value and incorporating price and non-price outlays into the expected outlay to gain a better understanding of buyers' choices and the role of price within that choice. The term Pareto loss was coined to describe the situation where neither the buyer nor the seller benefits from the non-monetary costs incurred by the buyer. The ability to identify Pareto losses in a firm's service enables the firm to innovate, resulting in its ability to increase price, increase demand or improve customer satisfaction. Furthermore, technology has given rise to new distribution channels for selling, thus different Pareto losses exist for different channels and converting such Pareto losses would give rise to many permutations in pricing

Seven challenges to combining human and automated service

Author's pre-print version. The definitive version is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.co

A demand-based model for the advanced and spot pricing of services

Author's draft of article published in Journal of Product & Brand Management, 2009, available online at http://www.emeraldinsight.com

Establishing a service channel: a transaction cost analysis of a channel contract between a cruise line and a tour operator

Pre-print; author's draft dated March 29, 2005Services marketing literature treats the distribution of services as distributing service delivery, as opposed to service sales. Yet, many services are not delivered at the time of the sale, and the firm is selling a promise that the service will be delivered at some future time. This paper shows that this advanced selling has serious transaction cost implications to the firm and a potential intermediary. Through a case study, and using a transaction cost approach, a contract between a cruise line and a tour operator is analyzed. The results show that service intermediaries aren’t able to take inventory and are unable to demonstrate their commitment. Consequently, both parties would be unwilling to establish a contract. However, commitment can be achieved through the intermediary investing in relationship-specific assets that it could recover, subject to performance. Similarly, the firm could pledge its capacity for its investment in the specific assets. Such a mechanism aligns the interests of both