Alignment of operations strategy: Exploring the marketing interface

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that can help managers to overcome barriers to alignment of operations strategy at the interface with marketing. Design/methodology/approach - This objective required the application of a procedure based on strategic consensus and a deeper analysis, such that the delimitation of the study in a single case was mandatory. The strategic processes of interfacing involve managerial attributes that are subject to the influence of human aspects and, therefore, the research method used a qualitative approach. The protocol design included the following data sources: interviews, document reviews and researcher observations. The categorisation was made based on the theoretical references, the frequency of observations, common responses and information from documents. Findings - The balance between intra-functional trade-offs, joint research on the competitive context, reflections on the understanding of customer needs and operational performance, and understanding of inter-functional trade-offs were the main factors verified. They effectively support decisions associated with interface processes and promotes the integration of these processes. They can generate inputs that enable managers to achieve an appropriate balance among alternatives in light of various trade-offs. Practical implications - These factors make possible new connections between strategic processes in the context of operations and marketing functions. The formations of these strategies are aligned through a better understanding of both threats and opportunities by means of a joint analysis of the competitive context. The presented findings can be used to develop a clear definition of strategic objectives of operations and a more appropriate treatment of market needs. Originality/value - The findings from the research can be considered as new elements for promoting alignment in the formation process of the operations strategy. Little research to date has examined the operations-marketing strategic interface of companies in the context of strategic consensus. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The determinants of the quality of Sales-Marketing Interface in a Multinational Customer Brand Focused Company: The Latin American Branches

Customer evolution and changes in consumers, determine the fact that the quality of the interface between marketing and sales may represent a true competitive advantage for the firm. Building on multidimensional theoretical and empirical models developed in Europe and on social network analysis, the organizational interface between the marketing and sales departments of a multinational high-growth company with operations in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay is studied. Both, attitudinal and social network measures of information exchange are used to make operational the nature and quality of the interface and its impact on performance. Results show the existence of a positive relationship of formalization, joint planning, teamwork, trust and information transfer on interface quality, as well as a positive relationship between interface quality and business performance. We conclude that efficient design and organizational management of the exchange network are essential for the successful performance of consumer goods companies that seek to develop distinctive capabilities to adapt to markets that experience vertiginous changes

Recruitment advertising and corporate image : The HRM-marketing interface

Extended abstract.

Sales-marketing interface and company performance. Is information use the missing link?

Over the last couple of years there has been an ongoing debate on how sales managers contribute to organizational value. Direct measures between sales-marketing interface quality and company performance are compromised, as company performance is influenced by a plethora of other factors. We advocate that the use of sales information is the missing link between sales-marketing relationship quality and organizational outcomes. We propose and empirically test a model on how sales-marketing interface quality affects managerial use of sales information, which in turn leads to enhanced organizational performance. We found that marketing managers rely on sales information if they think that their sales counterpart is trustworthy. Integration between the sales-marketing function contributes to a trust-based relationship.

Logistics integration processes in the food industry

This paper analyses the integration process that firms follow toimplement Supply Chain Management (SCM). This study has beeninspired in the integration model proposed by Stevens (1989). Hesuggests that companies internally integrate first and then extendintegration to other supply chain members, such as customers andsuppliers.To analyse the integration process a survey was conducted amongSpanish food manufacturers. The results show that there are companiesin three different integration stages. In stage I, companies are notintegrated. In stage II, companies have a medium-high level of internalintegration in the Logistics-Production interface, a low level ofinternal integration in the Logistics-Marketing interface, and a mediumlevel of external integration. And, in stage III, companies have highlevels of integration in both internal interfaces and in some of theirsupply chain relationships.

The impact of marketing oriented product development on new product performance = A marketing orientált termékfejlesztés hatása az új termék teljesítményre

In the new product innovation management literature a lot of empirical studies have supported the importance of marketing orientation as a key success factor of new products. The purpose of this paper is to examine on a Hungarian sample if there is a connection between marketing oriented product development and new product performance. Firms were clustered into two product performance categories. ANOVA analysis showed significant correlation between R&D/marketing interface and new product performance, while variables associated with costumer orientation were not significant. The study was based on data “In Global Competition 2004 – 2006” survey. This paper was presented at the INCODE conference (INCODE, 2008). = Számos felmérés bizonyítja, hogy az új termékek sikerét nagyban elősegíti a marketing orientált fejlesztési gyakorlat. A „Versenyben a világgal 2004-2006” felmérés adatbázisán ennek relevanciáját vizsgáltuk. A vonatkozó szakirodalomból kiindulva, a felmérés kérdőívéből kiválasztottuk azokat a változókat, amelyekkel a marketing orientált termékfejlesztés leginkább jellemezhető. Öt változóval írtuk le a fogyasztó orientációt, míg egy változónk volt a K+F/marketing együttműködésre. Eredményeink szerint azok a vállalatok, amelyeknél a K+F és a marketing részlegek szorosan együttműködnek, jobb termékfejlesztési teljesítményt érnek el. Ugyanakkor a fogyasztó orientáció és a termékfejlesztési teljesítmény között nem találtunk szignifikáns kapcsolatot. A tanulmány megjelent a pécsi INCODE konferencia kötetében (INCODE, 2008).

Plan de Empresa Virtual Gnosis

El presente Business Plan se ha diseñado con el ánimo de crear la empresa Virtual Gnosis. Dicha empresa operará en el sector de la informática y la industria de software, dentro de la prestación de Servicios de TI. La empresa se centrará en la gestión de la información y el conocimiento del talento humano de las organizaciones, a través de la creación de AVAI (Ambientes Virtuales de Aprendizaje Inmersivo). El mercado objetivo son las instituciones educativas y los conglomerados de PYMES. A continuación se exponen con detalle los aspectos de operaciones, marketing, financieros y administrativos de la empresa propuesta.

Las TIC en la administración de la cadena de suministro y su incidencia en el desempeño operacional

Las tecnologías de la información han empezado a ser un factor importante a tener en cuenta en cada uno de los procesos que se llevan a cabo en la cadena de suministro. Su implementación y correcto uso otorgan a las empresas ventajas que favorecen el desempeño operacional a lo largo de la cadena. El desarrollo y aplicación de software han contribuido a la integración de los diferentes miembros de la cadena, de tal forma que desde los proveedores hasta el cliente final, perciben beneficios en las variables de desempeño operacional y nivel de satisfacción respectivamente. Por otra parte es importante considerar que su implementación no siempre presenta resultados positivos, por el contrario dicho proceso de implementación puede verse afectado seriamente por barreras que impiden maximizar los beneficios que otorgan las TIC.

Revolution in sales:The impact of social media and related technology on the selling environment

Over the years several articles have tracked the impact of technology on various aspects of the sales domain. However, the advent of social media and technologies related to social media has gone largely unnoticed in the literature. This article first provides brief attention to changing aspects of technology within the sales environment, leading to the identification of social media as a dominant new selling tool. A qualitative approach (focus groups) is employed to explore the breadth of current technology usage by sales managers and salespeople. Analysis of the data, collected in the United States and the United Kingdom, reveals six major themes: connectivity, relationships, selling tools, generational, global, and sales/marketing interface. Results provide evidence of a revolution in the buyer-seller relationship that includes some unanticipated consequences both for sales organization performance and needed future research contributions.

Essays on Supply Chain Finance

I study how a larger party within a supply chain could use its superior knowledge about its partner, who is considered to be financially constrained, to help its partner gain access to cheap finance. In particular, I consider two scenarios: (i) Retailer intermediation in supplier finance and (ii) The Effectiveness of Supplier Buy Back Finance. In the fist chapter, I study how a large buyer could help small suppliers obtain financing for their operations. Especially in developing economies, traditional financing methods can be very costly or unavailable to such suppliers. In order to reduce channel costs, in recent years large buyers started to implement their own financing methods that intermediate between suppliers and financing institutions. In this paper, I analyze the role and efficiency of buyer intermediation in supplier financing. Building a game-theoretical model, I show that buyer intermediated financing can significantly improve supply chain performance. Using data from a large Chinese online retailer and through structural regression estimation based on the theoretical analysis, I demonstrate that buyer intermediation induces lower interest rates and wholesale prices, increases order quantities, and boosts supplier borrowing. The analysis also shows that the retailer systematically overestimates the consumer demand. Based on counterfactual analysis, I predict that the implementation of buyer intermediated financing for the online retailer in 2013 improved channel profits by 18.3%, yielding more than $68M projected savings. In the second chapter, I study a novel buy-back financing scheme employed by large manufacturers in some emerging markets. A large manufacturer can secure financing for its budget-constrained downstream partners by assuming a part of the risk for their inventory by committing to buy back some unsold units. Buy back commitment could help a small downstream party secure a bank loan and further induce a higher order quantity through better allocation of risk in the supply chain. However, such a commitment may undermine the supply chain performance as it imposes extra costs on the supplier incurred by the return of large or costly-to-handle items. I first theoretically analyze the buy-back financing contract employed by a leading Chinese automative manufacturer and some variants of this contracting scheme. In order to measure the effectiveness of buy-back financing contracts, I utilize contract and sales data from the company and structurally estimate the theoretical model. Through counterfactual analysis, I study the efficiency of various buy-back financing schemes and compare them to traditional financing methods. I find that buy-back contract agreements can improve channel efficiency significantly compared to simple contracts with no buy-back, whether the downstream retailer can secure financing on its own or not.

Marketing performance measurement in the marketing-finance interface

Marketing and finance are both facing challenges in the constantly changing business environment. Finance is challenged to change its role from cost control to value-adding business partner while marketing needs to be able to demonstrate its accountability so how it contributes to firm performance. Finance is the key partner for marketing to prove its impact by helping marketing to measure its actions. By doing so, finance can also emphasize its business partner role. There is not a lot of research conducted of the relationship between marketing and finance departments. The aim of this study is to investigate how the professional differences of marketing and finance and their forms of cooperation affect marketing performance measurement. Literature of marketing and finance disciplines, their cooperation, performance implications of their interface as well as the roles of marketing performance measurement, performance measurement system and measures were reviewed. This research was conducted as a qualitative case study among senior management of marketing and finance in the sporting goods company. The data collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and secondary data was described and classified and connections were made. The results of the study show that the nature of marketing and finance disciplines has many effects on their cooperation and performance measurement. Due to the ambiguous nature of marketing, measuring its performance is still seen as a challenge but digitalization is helping the measurement. It was indicated that marketing and finance professionals need to have different skillsets in order to perform their roles effectively and thus cooperation is needed. Marketing performance needs to be measured with both financial and nonfinancial measures. Both marketing and finance interviewees highlighted the importance of marketing measures over financial measures. Measuring marketing performance comprehensively is seen as a challenge since marketing and finance cooperation is still shaped by the cost control and budget management roles, rather than performance measurement. We recognized three constraints affecting this cooperation and performance measurement: people, time and software. If marketing and finance would develop deeper cooperation, they could create comprehensive performance measurement system that improves organizational performance.

Cooperação interfuncional no desenvolvimento de novos produtos : a interface marketing-engenharia

A cooperação interfuncional é o calcanhar-de-aquiles do processo de desenvolvimento de novos produtos. Todas as tentativas de diminuir-se o tempo de desenvolvimento impulsionaram cada vez mais o trabalho conjunto das diversas áreas. Somadas à importância de uma atuação integrada, especialmente das áreas de Marketing e Engenharia, para o sucesso dos novos produtos no mercado, essas tentativas formam um cenário de interfuncionalidade que se torna o eixo do processo de desenvolvimento. Porém a cooperação entre as funções nesse cenário não se dá de forma natural e, muitas vezes, torna-se um empecilho que prejudica o processo. Assim, este trabalho foi desenvolvido no sentido de trazer algumas luzes à compreensão da dinâmica da cooperação entre as áreas de Marketing e Engenharia no desenvolvimento de novos produtos. Isso foi feito através da análise dos mecanismos de integração existentes na literatura e daqueles utilizados pelas empresas. A metodologia utilizada contou com duas etapas: uma de revisão bibliográfica, que permitiu identificar os mecanismos de integração elaborados e apresentados pela literatura das áreas de Engenharia da Produção e de Marketing e os elementos que influenciam a cooperação interfuncional; e uma de estudo de casos, que analisou os mecanismos de integração utilizados por duas empresas localizadas no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Associando-se a revisão bibliográfica à análise dos casos, chegou-se a um conjunto de 11 fatores intervenientes na cooperação interfuncional e à relação desses fatores entre si e com os mecanismos de integração utilizados. A realização deste trabalho permitiu, de um lado, a identificação e análise de aspectos essenciais da cooperação interfuncional e, de outro, demonstrou a complexidade envolvida nesse tema e a necessidade de futuros trabalhos para uma compreensão mais completa do mesmo.

A interface pesquisa e dsenvolvimento e marketing no processo de desenvolvimento de novos produtos

Estudo exploratório com 19 indústrias de alimentos, que classifica o processo de desenvolvimento de novos produtos encontrados, avalia o nível de informação, envolvimento dos departamentos de P&D e Marketing nas atividades do processo e discute as fases de geração de idéais, seleção de amostras e pesquisas mercadológicas, bem como a decição sobre o lançamento de novos produtos