Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-191).

Marketers use relationship marketing in order to establish mutually beneficial long-term relationships with their customers as a means to retain these customers in the competitive market environment. Relationship marketing should, however, not be used to target each and every customer as not all customers want to build long-term relationships with organisations. In order to identify the most profitable customers to target through relationship marketing, organisations should consider their customers' relationship intentions to form long-term relationships with them. The primary objective of this study was to determine young adults' (aged 18 to 25) relationship intentions towards the South African cell phone network providers they use, namely Vodacom, MTN or Cell C. This was done by considering the five constructs used to measure relationship intention, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss. A focus group was used to determine which features related to cell phone network providers young adults consider when selecting a cell phone network provider. This data was used to develop a self-administered questionnaire, which was distributed among respondents studying at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University in the North-West Provirice. A convenience (non­ probability) sampling method was used and a total of 315 respondents participated in this study. The distribution between the cell phone network providers was Vodacom (115), MTN (101) and Cell C (99). Initial data analysis revealed that 73% of respondents had high relationship intentions, while the remainder (26%) had low relationship intentions of forming long-term relationships with their respective cell phone network providers. By means of a factor analysis it was determined that the five relationship intention factors, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss, were valid and reliable to measure the relationship intentions of respondents. The results further indicated that respondents with a t"iigh relationship intention are more involved with thei r cell phone network providers and feared losing thei r relationships with their cell phone network providers more than those respondents with a low relationship intention. Furthermore, respondents from the different cell phone network providers do not view the five factors comprising relationship intention differently, but they do differ with regards to other factors related to cell phone network providers. It was found that the majority of respondents regard Vodacom (not necessarily the respondent's cell phone network provider) as the cell phone network provider with the latest technology, as being the quickest, having the best coverage, best handsets, coolest image and best service. The majority of respondents regard Cell C as being the cheapest and MTN as being the most expensive. Results also indicate that respondents' parents play an important role with regard to the choice of their cell phone network providers as the majority of respondents' parents initially chose the cell phone network providers and pay their cellular expenses. It is recommended that cell phone network providers should target young adults' parents with a view to gain a foothold in the young adult market. Furthermore, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should determine how their customers perceive them as compared with competitors in order to better position themselves and to improve communication with young adults. Most importantly, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should identify those young adults with high relationship intentions (those young adults who are more involved with and fear losing their relationship with the cell phone network provider more) in order to retain them by attempting to build long-term relationships with these young adults through dedicated relationship marketing efforts. Recommendations for future research include examining relationship intention with regards to other age groups (such as scholars and adults), other service industries and other geographical areas. Furthermore, the influence which young adults exert on decisions concerning cell phone network providers and the influence of parents on young adults' product and service choices, can be explored in future research by means of the family decision roles. / Thesis (M.Com. (Marketing Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Marketers use relationship marketing in order to establish mutually beneficial long-term relationships with their customers as a means to retain these customers in the competitive market environment. Relationship marketing should, however, not be used to target each and every customer as not all customers want to build long-term relationships with organisations. In order to identify the most profitable customers to target through relationship marketing, organisations should consider their customers' relationship intentions to form long-term relationships with them. The primary objective of this study was to determine young adults' (aged 18 to 25) relationship intentions towards the South African cell phone network providers they use, namely Vodacom, MTN or Cell C. This was done by considering the five constructs used to measure relationship intention, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss. A focus group was used to determine which features related to cell phone network providers young adults consider when selecting a cell phone network provider. This data was used to develop a self-administered questionnaire, which was distributed among respondents studying at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University in the North-West Provirice. A convenience (non­ probability) sampling method was used and a total of 315 respondents participated in this study. The distribution between the cell phone network providers was Vodacom (115), MTN (101) and Cell C (99). Initial data analysis revealed that 73% of respondents had high relationship intentions, while the remainder (26%) had low relationship intentions of forming long-term relationships with their respective cell phone network providers. By means of a factor analysis it was determined that the five relationship intention factors, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss, were valid and reliable to measure the relationship intentions of respondents. The results further indicated that respondents with a t"iigh relationship intention are more involved with thei r cell phone network providers and feared losing thei r relationships with their cell phone network providers more than those respondents with a low relationship intention. Furthermore, respondents from the different cell phone network providers do not view the five factors comprising relationship intention differently, but they do differ with regards to other factors related to cell phone network providers. It was found that the majority of respondents regard Vodacom (not necessarily the respondent's cell phone network provider) as the cell phone network provider with the latest technology, as being the quickest, having the best coverage, best handsets, coolest image and best service. The majority of respondents regard Cell C as being the cheapest and MTN as being the most expensive. Results also indicate that respondents' parents play an important role with regard to the choice of their cell phone network providers as the majority of respondents' parents initially chose the cell phone network providers and pay their cellular expenses. It is recommended that cell phone network providers should target young adults' parents with a view to gain a foothold in the young adult market. Furthermore, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should determine how their customers perceive them as compared with competitors in order to better position themselves and to improve communication with young adults. Most importantly, it is recommended that cell phone network providers should identify those young adults with high relationship intentions (those young adults who are more involved with and fear losing their relationship with the cell phone network provider more) in order to retain them by attempting to build long-term relationships with these young adults through dedicated relationship marketing efforts. Recommendations for future research include examining relationship intention with regards to other age groups (such as scholars and adults), other service industries and other geographical areas. Furthermore, the influence which young adults exert on decisions concerning cell phone network providers and the influence of parents on young adults' product and service choices, can be explored in future research by means of the family decision roles. / Thesis (M.Com. (Marketing Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (PhD) - Institute for Social Research, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. / Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Institute for Social Research, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-243).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Andrew, Alfred, Committee Member ; Durgin, Gregory, Committee Member ; Li, Geoffrey, Committee Member ; Ingram, Mary Ann, Committee Member ; Stuber, Gordon, Committee Chair.

M.Sc. (Information Technology) / A new particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm that produces solutions to the xed spectrum frequency assignment problem (FS-FAP) is presented. Solutions to the FS-FAP are used to allocate frequencies in a mobile telecommunications network and must have low interference. The standard PSO algorithm's velocity method and global selection is ill suited for the frequency assignment problem (FAP). Therefore using the standard PSO algorithm as base, new techniques are developed to allow it to operate on the FAP. The new techniques include two velocity methods and three global selection schemes. This study presents the results of the algorithm operating on the Siemens set of COST 259 problems and shows that it is viable applying the PSO to the FAP.

No description available.

No description available.

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Computer Science in the School of Computer Science. Faculty of Science November 21, 2016. / There is stiff competition for customers and market share in the South African telecommunications industry amongst the four predominant mobile service providers, namely Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom Mobile. The First National Bank (FNB) through one of its entities, FNB Connect, has also joined this intensely competitive environment. These companies face a constant challenge of having to come up with new and innovative ways of attracting new customers and retaining their current ones. Cell C has embarked on a good strategy of claiming solid market share and growing itself against the competition by using the Private Label Promotions (PLP) group, a leading BEE Level 3 company that provides a variety of business solutions, to market GetMore, its value-added service package. A recommender system could be used to suggest and promote the items available in this package to existing and potential clients (users). There are different approaches to recommendation, the most widely used ones being the collaborative and content-based recommendation. The collaborative filtering approach uses the ratings of other users to recommend the items the current (active) user might like. In the content-based approach, items are recommended in terms of their content similarity to items a user has previously liked, or elements that have matched a user’s attributes (features). Hybrid recommendation approaches are used To eliminate the drawbacks individually associated with the CF and CBF approaches and to leverage their advantages. One of the aims of this research was to design and implement a prototype hybrid recommender system that would be used to recommend Cell C’s GetMore package to current and potential subscribers. The system was to implement matrix factorisation (collaborative) and cosine similarity (content-based) techniques. Several experiments were conducted to evaluate its performance and quality. The metrics used included Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC). We expected the proposed hybrid recommender system would leverage the advantages provided by its different components and demonstrate its effectiveness in providing Cell C’s customers with accurate and meaningful recommendations of its GetMore package services. Keywords: Content-based Recommendation, Collaborative Recommendation, Hybrid Recommendation, Cosine Similarity, Matrix Factorisation, Association Rule Mining, J48 Classifier, Decision Table, Naive Bayes, Simple K-means, Expectation Maximization, Farthest First, Predictive Apriori / LG2017

by Tung Yee Shing. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 53). / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.v / LISTOF TABLES --- p.vi / Chapter CHAPTER I --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER II --- OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE --- p.2 / Chapter CHAPTER III --- SMARTONE TELECOMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS LIMITED --- p.4 / History --- p.4 / Benefits from the Initial Public Offering --- p.5 / The Three Brands --- p.5 / The Three Focuses --- p.6 / Diversification --- p.9 / Recent Performance --- p.10 / Chapter CHAPTER IV --- THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES --- p.12 / Government Regulations --- p.12 / Technology --- p.14 / Economic Factors --- p.15 / Social Factors --- p.18 / Chapter CHAPTER V --- THE INDIVIDUAL DEPTH INTERVIEWS --- p.19 / Interviewees' Profile --- p.19 / Perception on Network Quality --- p.20 / Usefulness of Mobile Phone --- p.21 / Usefulness of Value-added Services --- p.22 / Handset Selection --- p.23 / Introduction of the Personal Communications System (PCS) --- p.24 / Effect of Mobile Number Portability --- p.25 / The Student Segment --- p.26 / Chapter CHAPTER VI --- THE SURVEY --- p.28 / Sampling Frame --- p.28 / The Final Sample --- p.28 / Research Findings --- p.29 / Current Usage --- p.29 / Attitude --- p.31 / Information Sources --- p.33 / Chapter CHAPTER VII --- THE DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS --- p.34 / Chapter CHAPTER VIII --- CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS --- p.37 / The Environment --- p.37 / The customers --- p.37 / Need Recognition --- p.38 / Information Search --- p.39 / Evaluation of Alternatives --- p.39 / Purchase Decision --- p.40 / Postpur chase Behavior --- p.40 / SmarTone's Strategies --- p.41 / Corporate Level Strategy --- p.41 / Recommendations --- p.44 / APPENDIX --- p.48 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.53