The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms attempt to increase the profitability of specific groups of extant customers by achieving adjustments in customer behaviour…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms attempt to increase the profitability of specific groups of extant customers by achieving adjustments in customer behaviour that consequently lead to reduced costs associated with serving these customers.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper takes the form of multiple case studies in the retail banking sector. Three specific initiatives launched by European retail banks for the stated (partial) purpose of modifying customer behaviour in order to reduce customer‐related costs are evaluated.
Findings
The findings from the three case studies show that strategies that aim to modify customer behaviour in a positive way can successfully decrease the costs of interacting with customers while at the same time maintaining and even increasing customer retention and customer‐related revenues.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to an assessment of three initiatives carried out by three European banks. The findings bring the issue of costs into customer relationship management in a constructive manner, abandoning the view of cost reductions as a necessary evil or drastic measure to handle problematic customers.
Practical implications
Marketing and customer relationship managers who consider strategies to change customer behaviour in a cost‐reducing way as a complement to traditional revenue and loyalty enhancement strategies will expand their opportunities to achieve increases in customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer equity (CE).
Originality/value
The paper reclaims the management of costs as a key customer management activity, thereby answering calls for more attention to cost issues in marketing.
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Markus Johansson, Lovisa E. Nord, Rudolf Kopecký, Andreas Fhager and Mikael Persson
The purpose of this study is to develop and compare two methods of determining the total field, including phase information, when only field amplitudes have been measured on a set…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop and compare two methods of determining the total field, including phase information, when only field amplitudes have been measured on a set of planes in the near field of a complex electromagnetic source.
Design/methodology/approach
The first method is a gradient‐based optimization algorithm, based on the adjoint fields. The second method employs an optimization algorithm based on the phase angle gradients of a functional.
Findings
The first method, the adjoint field method, is functioning well for a 2D test case. The second method, the phase angle gradient method, gives very good results for 3D test cases.
Research limitations/implications
The next step is to test the methods with results from real measurement data.
Practical implications
The developed methods are intended for use in dosimetry studies and other applications, where the field distribution from electromagnetic sources are needed.
Originality/value
The methods extend previously made constant phase approximations. The present methods are useful in situations where the electromagnetic source is hard to model.
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Andreas Norrman and Oskar Henkow
Logisticians propose changes to improve supply chains, and legal practitioners do likewise, but from a different perspective. Proposals from one domain increasingly have an impact…
Abstract
Purpose
Logisticians propose changes to improve supply chains, and legal practitioners do likewise, but from a different perspective. Proposals from one domain increasingly have an impact on the other due to e.g. globalization – but cross-disciplinary knowledge often seems limited. The purpose of this paper is to facilitate interaction between the domains by increasing the level of joint understanding of the principles used in each domain, and to look at the potential frictions and challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
Management principles for efficient logistics and supply chain management as well as key principles governing the legal systems are summarized on both a paradigmatic and an action level. Illustrations from practice are presented. These have been obtained by a cross-functional team which has interviewed both logisticians and lawyers. Findings are based on cross-functional comparative analysis of principles and illustrations.
Findings
Frictions between operational principles were found to exist in each domain, with some principles harder to reconcile than others. There are also challenges between the two paradigms of logistics and law that influence the operational principles.
Research limitations/implications
One implication is that the knowledge gap, challenges and frictions between the professions and domains, both in practice and academia, would benefit from more research.
Practical implications
Although it may seem trivial, logisticians and lawyers need to cooperate better. The research shows on a fundamental level, with practical examples, the challenges and frictions that occur.
Originality/value
The cross-functional approach with law, and the discussion and comparison of principles.
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Understanding the challenges and opportunities of policy coherence when dealing with wicked problems is a particularly relevant approach to policy analysis. Coherence and…
Abstract
Understanding the challenges and opportunities of policy coherence when dealing with wicked problems is a particularly relevant approach to policy analysis. Coherence and complexity condition each other in the context of the different policy domains, jointly offering an enabling debate angle to account for and unbox policy success and failure. A complexity perspective invites an analysis of the interdependencies between the different elements of a system (Argyris & Schön, 1996). This is very similar to the ambition of policy coherence of promoting synergies between policy domains in order to encourage policy success (Nilsson et al., 2012). The current chapter looks at the nexus between policy coherence and complexity, analyzing lessons learned from the UK context while aiming to fulfill policy commitments related to the policy goals of the Sustainable Development Framework. Looking at the United Kingdom's policy journey includes analyzing the ambitions of the United Kingdom as a European country with global presence, aiming for policy coherence and integrating, for example, its security, defense, development, and foreign policy strategies, through the Integrated Review, therefore creating the institutional arrangements for materializing ambitions across different policy domains.
The analysis developed here uses an outward perspective to understand how a complexity reading of the United Kingdom's efforts for achieving the SDGs can unveil an understanding of how and if its nature as a global governance actor within the Sustainable Development Framework has changed in significant ways and which are the potential related challenges.
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Julius Dahms and Andreas Bardenhagen
This paper deals with the estimation of the necessary masses of propulsion components for multirotor UAS. Originally, within the design process of multirotors, this is an…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper deals with the estimation of the necessary masses of propulsion components for multirotor UAS. Originally, within the design process of multirotors, this is an iterative problem, as the propulsion masses contribute to the total takeoff mass. Hence, they influence themselves and cannot be directly calculated. The paper aims to estimate the needed propulsion masses with respect to the requested thrust because of payload, airframe weight and drag forces and with respect to the requested flight time.
Design/methodology/approach
Analogue to the well-established design synthesis of airplanes, statistical data of existing electrical motors, propellers and rechargeable batteries are evaluated and analyzed. Applying Rankine and Froude’s momentum theory and a generic model for electro motor efficiency factors on the statistical performance data provides correlations between requested performance and, therefore, needed propulsion masses. These correlations are evaluated and analyzed in the scope of buoyant-vertical-thrusted hybrid UAS.
Findings
This paper provides a generic mathematical propulsion model. For given payloads, airframe structure weights and a requested flight time, appropriate motor, propeller and battery masses can be modelled that will provide appropriate thrust to lift payload, airframe and the propulsion unit itself over a requested flight time.
Research limitations/implications
The model takes into account a number of motors of four and is valid for the category of nano and small UAS.
Practical implications
The presented propulsion model enables a full numerical design process for vertical thrusted UAS. Hence, it is the precondition for design optimization and more efficient UAS.
Originality/value
The propulsion model is unique and it is valid for pure multirotor as well as for hybrid UAS too.
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Simone Guercini, Andrea Runfola, Andrea Perna and Matilde Milanesi
This chapter builds upon two case studies, in Flensburg (Germany) and Essunga (Sweden), within the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education project Organisation…
Abstract
This chapter builds upon two case studies, in Flensburg (Germany) and Essunga (Sweden), within the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education project Organisation of Provision to Support Inclusive Education (OoP). The cases highlight general policy issues and challenges relating to inclusion in Europe and, more specifically, the complex question of how to change school culture and structures in order to increase the inclusive capability of schools, thereby raising the achievement of all learners. The cases illustrate the need for co-ordinated changes both at municipal-political and administrative level and at school level. The findings also highlight the importance of what Kim and Mauborgne (Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2003). Tipping point leadership. Harvard Business Review, April, 61–69.) termed ‘tipping-point leadership’ in a study on positive transformation of the New York Police Department’s culture and structures during the mid-1990s. In Flensburg and Essunga, the leaders at different levels co-operated in an extraordinary situation and created a common crisis awareness among the staff, an understanding of the necessity to change, and ways to support the professional organisation to develop a new, more inclusive thought-action style with greater influence on learner achievement.
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Suvi Nenonen and Kaj Storbacka
The last two decades have seen a surge of interest in the concept of value in business markets. Furthermore, extant literature suggests that value capture can be conceptualized as…
Abstract
Purpose
The last two decades have seen a surge of interest in the concept of value in business markets. Furthermore, extant literature suggests that value capture can be conceptualized as the return on the firm's customer assets. However, the existing customer asset management literature has a strong bias towards consumer markets. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to create a conceptual framework for managing customer assets for improved value capture in a business market context, and to illustrate the use of the framework empirically.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors approach the topic with conceptual development and a longitudinal case illustration from a globally operating forestry product firm.
Findings
The findings of the study indicate that B2B firms can increase their value capture by dividing their customer base into customer portfolios, which are managed with differentiated customer management concepts targeted to increase the economic profit contribution of each customer portfolio.
Practical implications
The business practitioners in B2B contexts are likely to find the proposed customer portfolio approach to managing the customer assets more approachable than the prevailing customer lifetime models. In order to gain maximum value capture benefits from portfolio-specific customer management concepts, they should be approached cross-functionally instead of limiting them to the domains of marketing and sales.
Originality/value
The study contributes to literature on value capture and customer asset management by providing a framework for managing customer assets for increased value capture that is applicable to business markets and circumvents the majority of challenges associated with the customer lifetime value models.