Search results for: hotel customers

Authors: Balwinder Singh, Veerpaul Kaur Mann

Abstract:

The COVID-19 had a dramatic impact on several countries across the world. National governments have imposed widespread restrictions to prevent the growth of this pandemic. The new health competitive scenario induced by the COVID-19 crisis raised many issues on how business activities should be reorganized due to the difficulties of physical interactions with distributors, suppliers and customers. The pandemic has particularly affected the whole marketing processes because of the relevant issues emerged in managing physical sale channels and interactions with one another, both in the Business-to-Consumer and in the Business-to-Business markets. Recent research about the appropriate actions and strategies that could help firms overcome the crisis has highlighted the key role of digital technologies that may ensure connections and, thus, help business activities to run smoothly. This could be true, especially with the emergence of strong limitations on physical interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic. In such a scenario, the online channel becomes the most important conducive for online customers to get in contact with the firm and carry out online purchasing activities.

Keywords: COVID-19, business, digital marketing, online customers

Procedia PDF Downloads 56

Authors: Ibrahim Elshaer, Samar Kamel

Abstract:

Organizational politics (OP) has received a great deal of attention in the management literature due to its popularity, mystery, and potential advantages for those how can use it. It involves the use of power and social networks within an organization to promote interests and gain potential benefits. Its implication for human resource (HR) management decisions is heretofore one of its least studied aspects, and awaits further investigation. Therefore, it is our intention to investigate certain relations between organizational politics and the validity of HR decisions in addition to the expected dysfunctional consequences. The study is undertaken on two HR management practices- Performance appraisal (measured by the distributive justice scale) and downsizing- depending on data gathered from the hotel industry in Egypt; a developing Non-Western country, in which Political practices of HR management are common in public and private organizations. Data was obtained from a survey of 600 employees in the Egyptian hotel industry. A total of 500 responses were attained. 100 uncompleted questionnaires were excluded leaving 400 usable with response rate of around 80%. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the causal relationship between the research variables. The analysis of the current study data reveals that organizational politics is negatively linked to the perception of distributive justice of performance appraisal, additionally, the perception of distributive justice in performance appraisal is positively linked to the perception of validity in the downsizing decisions and finally the perception of OP is negatively linked to the perception of downsizing decisions validity. This study makes three important contributions. First although there have been several studies on OP, the majority of these studies have focused on examining its effect on employees’ attitudes in workplace. This empirical study helps in identifying the influence of OP on the effectiveness and success of HR decisions and accordingly the organizational system. Second, it draws attention to OP as an important phenomenon that influence HR management in hospitality industry, since empirical evidences concerning OP in the hospitality management literature are meager. Third, this study contributes to the existing downsizing literature by examining OP and low distributive justice as challenges of the effectiveness of the downsizing process. Finally, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no empirical study in the tourism and hospitality management literature has examined the effect of OP and distributive justice on the workplace using data gathered from the hotel industry in Egypt; a developing non-Western setting.

Keywords: organizational politics, performance appraisal, downsizing, structural equation modeling, hotel industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 409

Authors: Mahdi Bastan, Ali Mohammad Ahmadvand, Fatemeh Soltani Khamsehpour

Abstract:

Health organizations’ sustainable development has nowadays become highly affected by customers’ satisfaction due to significant changes made in the business environment of the healthcare system and emerging of Competitiveness paradigm. In case we look at the hospitals and other health organizations as service providers concerning profit issues, the satisfaction of employees as interior customers, and patients as exterior customers would be of significant importance in health business success. Furthermore, satisfaction rate could be considered in performance assessment of healthcare organizations as a perceived quality measure. Several researches have been carried out in identification of effective factors on patients’ satisfaction in health organizations. However, considering a systemic view, the complex causal relations among many components of healthcare system would be an issue that its acquisition and sustainability requires an understanding of the dynamic complexity, an appropriate cognition of different components, and effective relationships among them resulting ultimately in identifying the generative structure of patients’ satisfaction. Hence, the presenting paper applies system dynamics approaches coherently and methodologically to represent the systemic structure of customers’ satisfaction of a health system involving the constituent components and interactions among them. Then, the results of different policies taken on the system are simulated via developing mathematical models, identifying leverage points, and using scenario making technique and then, the best solutions are presented to improve customers’ satisfaction of the services. The presenting approach supports taking advantage of decision support systems. Additionally, relying on understanding of system behavior Dynamics, the effective policies for improving the health system would be recognized.

Keywords: customer satisfaction, healthcare, scenario, simulation, system dynamics

Procedia PDF Downloads 415

Authors: Yalisa Tonsorn

Abstract:

The objectives of this study are 1) to study the readiness of Thai tour operators in order to prepare for being ASEAN members, 2) to study opportunity and obstacles of the management of Thai tour operators, and 3) to find approach for developing value chain in order to enhance the management efficiency of Thai tour operators in order to support free trade within the framework of ASEAN cooperation. The research methodology is mixed between qualitative method and quantitative method. In-depth interview was done with key informants, including management supervisors, medium managers, and officers of the travel agencies. The questionnaire was conducted with 300 sampling. According to the study, it was found that the approach for developing value chain to enhance the management efficiency of Thai travel agencies in order to support free trade within the framework of ASEAN cooperation, the tour operators must give priority to the customer and deliver the service exceeding the customer’s expectation. There are 2 groups of customers: 1) external customers referring to tourist, and 2) internal customers referring to staff who deliver the service to the customers, including supervisors, colleagues, or subordinates. There are 2 issues which need to be developed: 1) human resource development in order to cultivate the working concept by focusing on importance of customers, and excellent service providing, and 2) working system development by building value and innovation in operational process including services to the company in order to deliver the highest impressive service to both internal and external customers. Moreover, the tour operators could support the increased number of tourists significantly. This could enhance the capacity of the business and affect the increase of competition capability in the economic dimension of the country.

Keywords: AEC (ASEAN Economic Eommunity), core activities, support activities, values chain

Procedia PDF Downloads 352

Authors: Sajad Shokohuyar, Mahsa Zomorrodi Anbaji, Saghar Pouyan Shad

Abstract:

According to fast technology growth, modern banking tries to decrease going to banks’ branches and increase customers’ consent. One of the problems which banks face is securing customer’s password. The banks’ solution is one time password creation system. In this research by adapting from acceptance of technology model theory, assesses factors that are effective on banking in Iran especially in using one time password machine by one of the private banks of Iran customers. The statistical population is all of this bank’s customers who use electronic banking service and one time password technology and the questionnaires were distributed among members of statistical population in 5 selected groups of north, south, center, east and west of Tehran. Findings show that confidential preservation, education, ease of utilization and advertising and informing has positive relations and distinct hardware and age has negative relations.

Keywords: security, electronic banking, one time password, information technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 453

Authors: Prabin Raj Gautam

Abstract:

Entrepreneurship in tourism sectors, particularly hotel entrepreneurship has contributed to Nepalese Gross Domestic Production (GDP). The tourist standard and star hotels in developing countries have not only been generating revenues but also providing international hospitality to the guest in the local areas. For doing so, these hotel enterprises must need to implement different business strategies to enhance and maintain their international business benchmark. The Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) is core for making business strategies. Meanwhile, the corruption is labeled as negative factor for economic development. This paper presents the relationship between EO of Nepalese star hotels and organizational corruption. The study employed questionnaire survey as data collection tool under the quantitative methodology. Five hypotheses are developed and tested. After gathering the data form 216 questionnaire distributed to CEOs/Managers of the sample hotels, the findings show that out of five dimensions of EO, only autonomy, pro-activeness, and innovativeness are not significant to organizational corruption; however, risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness are found significant contributor. The descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling are employed to describe the data and fit the model.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orientation, organizational corruption, dimensions

Procedia PDF Downloads 318

Authors: Wanida Suwunniponth

Abstract:

The purpose of this research was to study the factors of characteristic of business, website quality and trust affected intention to use electronic payment systems for online purchasing. This survey research used questionnaire as a tool to collect the data of 300 customers who purchased online products and used an electronic payment system. The descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze data. The results revealed that customers had a good opinion towards the characteristic of the business and website quality. However, they have a moderate opinion towards trust and intention to repurchase. In addition, the characteristics of the business affected the purchase intention the most, followed by website quality and the trust with statistical significance at 0.05 level. For particular, the terms of reputation, communication, information quality, perceived risk and word of mouth affected the intention to use the electronic payment system. In contrast, the terms of size, system quality and service quality did not affect intention to use an electronic payment system.

Keywords: electronic payment, intention, online purchasing, trust

Procedia PDF Downloads 247

Authors: Rasha Alhendawi

Abstract:

This research will give the introductory ideas for cultural adaption of B2C E-Service design in Germany. By the intense competition of E-Service development, many companies have realized the importance of understanding the emotional and cultural characteristics of their customers. Ignoring customers’ needs and requirements throughout the E-Service design can lead to faults, mistakes, and gaps. The term of E-Service usability now is changed not only to develop high quality E-Services, but also to be extended to include customer satisfaction and provide for them to feel local.

Keywords: human computer interaction (HCI), usability, cultural usability, E-Services, business-to-consumer (B2C), e-services

Procedia PDF Downloads 437

Authors: Haifeng Wang, Haili Zhang

Abstract:

Most movie recommendation systems have been developed for customers to find items of interest. This work introduces a predictive model usable by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who are in need of a data-based and analytical approach to stock proper movies for local audiences and retain more customers. We used classification models to extract features from thousands of customers’ demographic, behavioral and social information to predict their movie genre preference. In the implementation, a Gaussian kernel support vector machine (SVM) classification model and a logistic regression model were established to extract features from sample data and their test error-in-sample were compared. Comparison of error-out-sample was also made under different Vapnik–Chervonenkis (VC) dimensions in the machine learning algorithm to find and prevent overfitting. Gaussian kernel SVM prediction model can correctly predict movie genre preferences in 85% of positive cases. The accuracy of the algorithm increased to 93% with a smaller VC dimension and less overfitting. These findings advance our understanding of how to use machine learning approach to predict customers’ preferences with a small data set and design prediction tools for these enterprises.

Keywords: computational social science, movie preference, machine learning, SVM

Procedia PDF Downloads 260

Authors: Burcu Oralhan, Zeki Oralhan, Nilsun Sariyer, Kumru Uyar

Abstract:

Data mining has been becoming more and more important and a wide range of applications in recent years. Data mining is the process of find hidden and unknown patterns in big data. One of the applied fields of data mining is Customer Relationship Management. Understanding the relationships between products and customers is crucial for every business. Customer Relationship Management is an approach to focus on customer relationship development, retention and increase on customer satisfaction. In this study, we made an application of a data mining methods in telecommunication customer relationship management side. This study aims to determine the customers profile who likely to leave the system, develop marketing strategies, and customized campaigns for customers. Data are clustered by applying classification techniques for used to determine the churners. As a result of this study, we will obtain knowledge from international telecommunication industry. We will contribute to the understanding and development of this subject in Customer Relationship Management.

Keywords: customer churn analysis, customer relationship management, data mining, telecommunication industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 316

Authors: Khoi A. Nguyen, Rodney A. Stewart, Hong Zhang

Abstract:

Advanced metering technologies coupled with informatics creates an opportunity to form digital multi-utility service providers. These providers will be able to concurrently collect a customers’ medium-high resolution water, electricity and gas demand data and provide user-friendly platforms to feed this information back to customers and supply/distribution utility organisations. With the emergence of blockchain technology, a new research area has been explored which helps bring this multi-utility service provider concept to a much higher level. This study aims at introducing a breakthrough system architecture where smart metering technology in water, energy, and gas (WEG) are combined with blockchain technology to provide customer a novel real-time consumption report and decentralized resource trading platform. A pilot study on 4 properties in Australia has been undertaken to demonstrate this system, where benefits for customers and utilities are undeniable.

Keywords: blockchain, digital multi-utility, end use, demand forecasting

Procedia PDF Downloads 171

Authors: Siri-Orn Champatong

Abstract:

This research aimed to study the relationship between attitudes toward marketing mix and customers’ repurchase intention of Thai dessert in case of Ekachai Salee Suphan’s shop in Thailand. This study employed by survey and quantitative research and the questionnaire was used to collect the data from 385 sampled of customers who visited at Ekachai Salee Suphan's shop in Thailand. The descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis was used to analyze data. The research found that the customers’ perception on the overall and individual aspects of attitudes toward marketing mix include products, prices, promotions, and physical characteristics were at very good level, but distribution channels, staffs, and management process were at good level. Furthermore, the hypothesis tests found that attitudes toward overall marketing mix had relationship with individual aspects of intention that were the repurchase intention, willingness to recommend others to repurchase, and possibility to repurchase with statistical significance level of 0.01.

Keywords: intention, repurchase, service marketing mix, Thai dessert

Procedia PDF Downloads 254

Authors: Majid Mohammadi, Mohammad Yosef Zadeh, Vahid Naderi Darshori

Abstract:

The main purpose of this research is concreting of satisfaction literature for obtain index with online content in carmaker industry. The study measures customer satisfaction of online and collect from similar studies with reference to a model of online satisfaction, they are attempting to complete. Statistical communities of research are online customers' carmaker Iran Khodro has been buying the company's products in the last six months. One of the innovative measures in this study is that, customer reviews are obtained through an Internet site. Reliability of the data collected in this study, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was approved. The coefficient of 0.828 was calculated for the questionnaire. To test the hypothesis, the Pearson correlation coefficient was used. To ensure the correctness of initial theoretical model, we used regression analyzes and structural equation weight and finally, the results obtained with little change to the basic model of research, are improved and completed. At last obtain the perceived value has most direct effect on online car customers satisfaction.

Keywords: customer satisfaction, online satisfaction, online customer, car

Procedia PDF Downloads 405

Authors: Nattapong Techarattanased

Abstract:

The purposes of this research are to make comparisons in respect of the behaviors on the use of the services of metered taxi classified by the demographic factor and to study the influence of the recognition on service quality having the effect on usage behaviors of metered taxi services of consumers in Bangkok Metropolitan Areas. The samples used in this research are 400 metered taxi service users in Bangkok Metropolitan Areas and use a questionnaire as the tool for collecting the data. Analysis statistics is mean and multiple regression analysis. Results of the research revealed that the consumers recognize the overall quality of services in each aspect include tangible aspects of the service, responses to customers, assurance on the confidence, understanding and knowing of customers which is rated at the moderate level except the aspect of the assurance on the confidence and trustworthiness which are rated at a high level. For the result of a hypothetical test, it is found that the quality in providing the services on the aspect of the assurance given to the customers has the effect on the usage behaviors of metered taxi services and the aspect of the frequency on the use of the services per month which in this connection. Such variable can forecast at one point nine percent (1.9%). In addition, quality in providing the services and the aspect of the responses to customers have the effect on the behaviors on the use of metered taxi services on the aspect of the expenses on the use of services per month which in this connection, such variable can forecast at two point one percent (2.1%).

Keywords: consumer behavior, metered taxi service, satisfaction, service quality

Procedia PDF Downloads 223

Authors: A. Al Drees, A. Alahmari, R. Almuwayshir

Abstract:

The advanced information technology is becoming an important factor in the development of financial services industry, especially the banking industry. It has introduced new ways of delivering banking to the customer, such as Internet Banking. Banks began to look at electronic banking (e-banking) as a means to replace some of their traditional branch functions using the Internet as a new distribution channel. Some consumers have at least more than one account, and across banks, and access these accounts using e-banking services. To look at the current net worth position, customers have to login to each of their accounts and get the details and work on consolidation. This not only takes ample time but it is a repetitive activity at a specified frequency. To address this point, an account aggregation concept is added as a solution. E-banking account aggregation, as one of the e-banking types, appeared to build a stronger relationship with customers. Account Aggregation Service generally refers to a service that allows customers to manage their bank accounts maintained in different institutions through a common Internet banking operating a platform, with a high concern to security and privacy. This paper presents an overview of an e-banking account aggregation approach as a new service in the e-banking field.

Keywords: e-banking, account aggregation, security, enterprise development

Procedia PDF Downloads 327

Authors: Riktesh Srivastava

Abstract:

Online Shopping have established an astonishing evolution in the last few years. And it is now apparent that B2C architecture is becoming progressively imperative channel for even traditional brick and mortar type traders as well. In this completion knowing customers and predicting behavior are extremely important. More important, when any customer logs onto the B2C architecture, the traces of their buying patterns can be stored and used for future predictions. Such a prediction is called Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Earlier, we used Net Present Value to do so, however, it ignores two important aspects of B2C architecture, “market risks” and “big amount of customer data”. Now, we use RFM- Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value to estimate the CLV, and as the term exemplifies, market risks, is well sheltered. Big Data Analysis is also roofed in RFM, which gives real exploration of the Big Data and lead to a better estimation for future cash flow from customers. In the present paper, 6 factors (collected from varied sources) are used to determine as to what attracts the customers to the B2C architecture. For these 6 factors, RFM is computed for 3 years (2013, 2014 and 2015) respectively. CLV and Revenue are the two parameters defined using RFM analysis, which gives the clear picture of the future predictions.

Keywords: CLV, RFM, revenue, recency, frequency, monetary value

Procedia PDF Downloads 220

Authors: Pedram Behyar, Zahra Bayat

Abstract:

The internet and web are changing ways of “far reaching scope and potential for transformation of the marketing functions”. The web is developing in a faster rate than any previous new communication medium. The website of destination has become a crucial branding channel, that is why all businesses are changing their way to communicate with their customers to encounter their needs and wants in better ways. Website provides numerous opportunities for businesses to strengthen their relationship with their customers. One of these opportunities is website component that enables internet users to make two-way communication with the businesses.

Keywords: marketing communication, brand image, usability, privacy and security, personalization and customization, responsiveness, customer online web experience

Procedia PDF Downloads 504

Authors: Burcu Oksuz, Volkan Altıintas, Zulfiye Acar Senturk

Abstract:

Though in the academic literature, it is emphasized that Public Relations (PR) should not be seen only as media relations, in practise, the media relations has a very dominant position at the communication studies carried out by many companies. There are many PR practitioners who have journalism background. However the number of the practitioners who have started to work in the sector after having PR education at the universities has been highly increasing. Therefore, it can be said that previous journalist dominance has diminished at the public relations sector in Turkey. However, by virtue of the fact that some companies and practitioners consider the media coverage the first priority of PR, this much is certain that the dominant position of media relations is ongoing. On the other hand, still many companies measure the success of their PR by how much place their companies have taken. This situation creates major pressure on the PR practitioners to have close relations with the media members and to make them write articles about their companies. Thereupon, PR practitioners have to take the time for the media relations and the media relations comes into prominence more than the other PR functions. The aim of this study is to reveal the PR functions at the companies and to evaluate the position of the media relations in the PR studies. Therefore, it is aimed to find out at what extend the discourse of “Public relations is not media relations” is accepted in practice and actualised. Accordingly, a research about 15 hotel enterprises which are located in the city of İzmir will be carried out. İzmir as one of the most important tourism destinations has many hotels. The PR/corporate communications managers will be interviewed profoundly within the scope of this study and PR functions performed by hotels will be discussed in details in consideration of the datum obtained.

Keywords: media relations, public relations, public relations practitioners, Turkey

Procedia PDF Downloads 384

Authors: Nikita Katyal, Shaurya Uppal

Abstract:

This paper tackles the significant challenge of accurately classifying customers within a retailer’s customer base. Accurate classification is essential for developing targeted marketing strategies that effectively engage this important demographic. To address this issue, we propose a method that utilizes Large Language Models (LLMs). By employing LLMs, we analyze the metadata associated with product purchases derived from historical data to identify key product categories that act as distinguishing factors. These categories, such as baby food, eldercare products, or family-sized packages, offer valuable insights into the likely household composition of customers, including families with babies, families with kids/teenagers, families with pets, households caring for elders, or mixed households. We segment high-confidence customers into distinct categories by integrating historical purchase behavior with LLM-powered product classification. This paper asserts that life stage segmentation can significantly enhance e-commerce businesses’ ability to target the appropriate customers with tailored products and campaigns, thereby augmenting sales and improving customer retention. Additionally, the paper details the data sources, model architecture, and evaluation metrics employed for the segmentation task.

Keywords: LLMs, segmentation, product tags, fine-tuning, target segments, marketing communication

Procedia PDF Downloads 23

Authors: S. R. Nikhashemi, Laily Haj Paim, Ali Khatibi

Abstract:

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test a hypothesized model explaining Malaysian hypermarket customers’ perceptions of brand trust (BT), customer perceived value (CPV) and perceived service quality (PSQ) on building their brand loyalty (CBL) and generating positive word-of-mouth communication (WOM). Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from 374 Malaysian hypermarket customers from Mydin, Tesco, Aeon Big and Giant in Kuala Lumpur, a metropolitan city of Malaysia. The data strongly supported the model exhibiting that BT, CPV and PSQ are prerequisite factors in building customer brand loyalty, while PSQ has the strongest effect on prediction of customer brand loyalty compared to other factors. Besides, the present study suggests the effect of the aforementioned factors via customer brand loyalty strongly contributes to generate positive word of mouth communication.

Keywords: brand trust, perceived value, Perceived Service Quality, Brand loyalty, positive word of mouth communication

Procedia PDF Downloads 482

Authors: Guilherme Gorgulho, Carlos Roberto Camello Lima

Abstract:

Due to the competitive market in which companies are currently engaged, the constant changes require companies to react quickly regarding the variability of demand and process. The changes are caused by customers, or by demand fluctuations or variations of products, or the need to serve customers within agreed delivery taking into account the continuous search for quality and competitive prices in products. These changes end up influencing directly or indirectly the activities of the Planning and Production Control (PPC), which does business in strategic, tactical and operational levels of production systems. One area of concern for organizations is in the short term (operational level), because this planning stage any error or divergence will cause waste and impact on the delivery of products on time to customers. Thus, this study aims to optimize the efficiency of production scheduling, using different sequencing strategies in an automotive company. Seeking to aim the proposed objective, we used the computer simulation in conjunction with lean manufacturing to build and validate the current model, and subsequently the creation of future scenarios.

Keywords: computational simulation, lean manufacturing, production scheduling, sequencing strategies

Procedia PDF Downloads 271

Authors: Seyed Reza Agha Seyed Hosseini, Nicolas Hamelin

Abstract:

Many marketing executives are looking for a comprehensive plan for delivering quality services and products that will create a distinct and unforgettable long-term experience for customers in dealing with their brand. Various brand management experts believe that a company looking to enhance its brand experience in the minds of customers should have a plan to increase customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty. The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of brand experience in customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Ayandeh Bank branches in Tehran. The study employed a quantitative methodology. For data gathering, a questionnaire was utilised to measure all the variables of the research. The statistical population of the study consisted of all the customers of Ayandeh Bank branches in Tehran, and the study data was gathered from 400 respondents. The findings indicate that brand experience has a direct and meaningful impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and, furthermore, that customer satisfaction has a direct and significant effect on customer loyalty in the branches of Ayandeh Bank in Tehran.

Keywords: brand experience, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, bank

Procedia PDF Downloads 259

Authors: Epaminondas G. Kyriakidis, Theodosis D. Dimitrakos, Constantinos C. Karamatsoukis

Abstract:

The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a well-known problem in Operations Research and has been widely studied during the last fifty-five years. The context of the VRP is that of delivering products located at a central depot to customers who are scattered in a geographical area and have placed orders for these products. A vehicle or a fleet of vehicles start their routes from the depot and visit the customers in order to satisfy their demands. Special attention has been given to the capacitated VRP in which the vehicles have limited carrying capacity of the goods that must be delivered. In the present work, we present a specific capacitated stochastic vehicle routing problem which has realistic applications to distributions of materials to shops or to healthcare facilities or to military units. A vehicle starts its route from a depot loaded with items of two similar but not identical products. We name these products, product 1 and product 2. The vehicle must deliver the products to N customers according to a predefined sequence. This means that first customer 1 must be serviced, then customer 2 must be serviced, then customer 3 must be serviced and so on. The vehicle has a finite capacity and after servicing all customers it returns to the depot. It is assumed that each customer prefers either product 1 or product 2 with known probabilities. The actual preference of each customer becomes known when the vehicle visits the customer. It is also assumed that the quantity that each customer demands is a random variable with known distribution. The actual demand is revealed upon the vehicle’s arrival at customer’s site. The demand of each customer cannot exceed the vehicle capacity and the vehicle is allowed during its route to return to the depot to restock with quantities of both products. The travel costs between consecutive customers and the travel costs between the customers and the depot are known. If there is shortage for the desired product, it is permitted to deliver the other product at a reduced price. The objective is to find the optimal routing strategy, i.e. the routing strategy that minimizes the expected total cost among all possible strategies. It is possible to find the optimal routing strategy using a suitable stochastic dynamic programming algorithm. It is also possible to prove that the optimal routing strategy has a specific threshold-type structure, i.e. it is characterized by critical numbers. This structural result enables us to construct an efficient special-purpose dynamic programming algorithm that operates only over those routing strategies having this structure. The findings of the present study lead us to the conclusion that the dynamic programming method may be a very useful tool for the solution of specific vehicle routing problems. A problem for future research could be the study of a similar stochastic vehicle routing problem in which the vehicle instead of delivering, it collects products from ordered customers.

Keywords: collection of similar products, dynamic programming, stochastic demands, stochastic preferences, vehicle routing problem

Procedia PDF Downloads 267

Authors: Khaled Moh. Alhamad

Abstract:

This paper describes a tabu search heuristic for a ship routing and scheduling problem (SRSP). The method was developed to address the problem of loading cargos for many customers using heterogeneous vessels. Constraints relate to delivery time windows imposed by customers, the time horizon by which all deliveries must be made and vessel capacities. The results of a computational investigation are presented. Solution quality and execution time are explored with respect to problem size and parameters controlling the tabu search such as tenure and neighbourhood size.

Keywords: heuristic, scheduling, tabu search, transportation

Procedia PDF Downloads 506

Authors: Seher Arslankaya, Bahar Uludağ

Abstract:

Meeting the needs and demands of customers and pleasing the customers are important requirements for companies in food sectors where the growth of competition is significantly unpredictable. Customer satisfaction is also one of the key concepts which is mainly driven by wide range of customer preference and expectation upon products and services introduced and delivered to them. In order to meet the customer demands, the companies that engage in food sectors are expected to have a well-managed set of Total Quality Management (TQM), which sets out to improve quality of products and services; to reduce costs and to increase customer satisfaction by restructuring traditional management practices. It aims to increase customer satisfaction by meeting (their) customer expectations and requirements. The achievement would be determined with the help of customer satisfaction surveys, which is done to obtain immediate feedback and to provide quick responses. In addition, the surveys would also assist the making of strategic planning which helps to anticipate customer future needs and expectations. Meanwhile, periodic measurement of customer satisfaction would be a must because with the better understanding of customers perceptions from the surveys (done by questioners), the companies would have a clear idea to identify their own strengths and weaknesses that help the companies keep their loyal customers; to stand in comparison toward their competitors and map out their future progress and improvement. In this study, we propose a survey based on customer satisfaction measurement method and its statistical analysis for sales and logistic activities of food firms. Customer satisfaction would be discussed in details. Furthermore, after analysing the data derived from the questionnaire that applied to customers by using the SPSS software, various results obtained from the application would be presented. By also applying ANOVA test, the study would analysis the existence of meaningful differences between customer demographic proportion and their perceptions. The purpose of this study is also to find out requirements which help to remove the effects that decrease customer satisfaction and produce loyal customers in food industry. For this purpose, the customer complaints are collected. Additionally, comments and suggestions are done according to the obtained results of surveys, which would be useful for the making-process of strategic planning in food industry.

Keywords: customer satisfaction measurement and analysis, food industry, SPSS, TQM

Procedia PDF Downloads 249

Authors: Phatthanan Chaiyabut

Abstract:

The purposes of this research were to identify the perception of customers towards Krung Thai Bank’s image and to understand the customer attitude towards Krung Thai Bank’s image in Bangkok, Thailand. This research utilized quantitative approach and used questionnaire as data collection tool. A sample size of 420 respondents was selected by simple random sampling. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents received information, news, and feeds concerning the bank through televisions the most. This information channel had significantly influenced on the customers and their decisions to utilize the bank’s products and services. From the information concerning the attitudes towards overall image of the bank, it was found that the majority respondents rated the bank’s image at the good level. The top three average attitudes included the bank’s images in supports government's monetary policies, being renowned and stable, and contributing in economical amendments and developments, with the mean average of 4.01, 3.96 and 3.81 respectively. The attitudes toward the images included a business leader in banking, marketing, and competitions. Offering prompt services, and provided appropriate servicing time were rated moderate with the attitudes of 3.36 and 3.30 respectively.

Keywords: attitude, image, Krung Thai Bank, perception

Procedia PDF Downloads 414

Authors: Nur Sahver Uslu, Ali̇ Hakan Büyüklü

Abstract:

Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) costs are significant in the aviation industry. On the other hand, companies that provide MRO services to the aviation industry but are not dominant in the sector, need to determine the right strategies for sustainable profitability in a competitive environment. This study examined the operational real data of a small medium enterprise (SME) MRO company where analytical methods are not widely applied. The company's customers were divided into two categories: airline companies and non-airline companies, and the variables that best explained profitability were analyzed with Logistic Regression for each category and the results were compared. First, data reduction was applied to the transformed variables that went through the data cleaning and preparation stages, and the variables to be included in the model were decided. The misclassification rates for the logistic regression results concerning both customer categories are similar, indicating consistent model performance across different segments. Less profit margin is obtained from airline customers, which can be explained by the variables part description, time to quotation (TTQ), turnaround time (TAT), manager, part cost, and labour cost. The higher profit margin obtained from non-airline customers is explained only by the variables part description, part cost, and labour cost. Based on the two models, it can be stated that it is significantly more challenging for the MRO company, which is the subject of our study, to achieve profitability from Airline customers. While operational processes and organizational structure also affect the profit from airline customers, only the type of parts and costs determine the profit for non-airlines.

Keywords: aircraft, aircraft components, aviation, data analytics, data science, gini index, maintenance, repair, and overhaul, MRO, logistic regression, profit, variable clustering, variable reduction

Procedia PDF Downloads 33

Authors: Sagir Abubakar

Abstract:

The electronic means of transaction has provided an opportunity especially for commercial banks to entice more customers that will subsequently boost their return on investment. It moves them from traditional marketing into digital marketing and gives them a competitive advantage over others in the same industry.The paper, therefore, examined the competitive advantage of the electronic marketing strategy among commercial banks branches in Bauchi state. The main objective of the study was to determine the impact of e-marketing strategy as a competitive advantage among commercial banks branches in Bauchi state and to evaluate the level of enlightenment campaign offered by the commercial banks branches to their customers on e-marketing. The study obtained data from the staff of the five (s) selected banks branches as the respondents to answer the questionnaire. The research is a quantitative research, where the data where obtained using questionnaire. 100 questionnaires were distributed and analyzed using SPSS’s regression analysis. The research among other findings discovered that, the e-marketing has led to a significant improvement in the banking industry and is expected to continue because of the improvement in the ICT sector. It was also found out that most customers are not aware of the electronic products offered by commercial banks branches in Bauchi state. Some of factors affecting the adoption of e-marketing by banks as indicated from the findings include: top management commitment, government policy on ICT and availability of ICT personnel. The study recommended that commercial banks branches should engage in enlightenment campaign about the existing of their e- products/services, management should place an incentives in order to raise the interest of customers to patronize the products/services online.

Keywords: e-marketing strategy, competitive advantage, banks, Bauchi State

Procedia PDF Downloads 322

Authors: Protik Basu, Indranil Ghosh, Pranab K. Dan

Abstract:

Lean management is an integrated socio-technical system to bring about a competitive state in an organization. The purpose of this paper is to explore and integrate the role of customers and suppliers with the internal practices of the Indian manufacturing industries towards successful implementation of lean manufacturing (LM). An extensive literature survey is carried out. An attempt is made to build an exhaustive list of all the input manifests related to customers, suppliers and internal practices necessary for LM implementation, coupled with a similar exhaustive list of the benefits accrued from its successful implementation. A structural model is thus conceptualized, which is empirically validated based on the data from the Indian manufacturing sector. With the current impetus on developing the industrial sector, the Government of India recently introduced the Lean Manufacturing Competitiveness Scheme that aims to increase competitiveness with the help of lean concepts. There is a huge scope to enrich the Indian industries with the lean benefits, the implementation status being quite low. Hardly any survey-based empirical study in India has been found to integrate customers and suppliers with the internal processes towards successful LM implementation. This empirical research is thus carried out in the Indian manufacturing industries. The basic steps of the research methodology followed in this research are the identification of input and output manifest variables and latent constructs, model proposition and hypotheses development, development of survey instrument, sampling and data collection and model validation (exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling). The analysis reveals six key input constructs and three output constructs, indicating that these constructs should act in unison to maximize the benefits of implementing lean. The structural model presented in this paper may be treated as a guide to integrating customers and suppliers with internal practices to successfully implement lean. Integrating customers and suppliers with internal practices into a unified, coherent manufacturing system will lead to an optimum utilization of resources. This work is one of the very first researches to have a survey-based empirical analysis of the role of customers, suppliers and internal practices of the Indian manufacturing sector towards an effective lean implementation.

Keywords: customer management, internal manufacturing practices, lean benefits, lean implementation, lean manufacturing, structural model, supplier management

Procedia PDF Downloads 179

Authors: Sagir Abubakar

Abstract:

The electronic means of transaction has provided an opportunity especially for commercial banks to entice more customers that will subsequently boost their return on investment. It moves them from traditional marketing into digital marketing and gives them a competitive advantage over others in the same industry. The paper, therefore, examined the competitive advantage of the electronic marketing strategy among commercial banks branches in Bauchi state. The main objective of the study was to determine the impact of e-marketing strategy as a competitive advantage among commercial banks branches in Bauchi state and to evaluate the level of enlightenment campaign offered by the commercial banks branches to their customers on e-marketing. The study obtained data from the staff of the five (s) selected banks branches as the respondents to answer the questionnaire. The research is a quantitative research, where the data where obtained using questionnaire. 100 questionnaires were distributed and analyzed using SPSS’s regression analysis. The research among other findings discovered that the e-marketing has led to a significant improvement in the banking industry and is expected to continue because of the improvement in the ICT sector. It was also found out that most customers are not aware of the electronic products offered by commercial banks branches in Bauchi state. Some of factors affecting the adoption of e-marketing by banks as indicated from the findings include: top management commitment, government policy on ICT and availability of ICT personnel. The study recommended that commercial banks branches should engage in enlightenment campaign about the existing of their e- products/services, management should place an incentive in order to raise the interest of customers to patronize the products/services online.

Keywords: e-marketing strategy, competitive advantage, banks, Bauchi State

Procedia PDF Downloads 480