This dissertation analyzes the economic incentives involved in three distinct supply chain and revenue management decision environments. The first study examines the adoption of the percent deviation contract in a supply chain to induce the buyer to share some of the demand risk in an environment in which the buyer would typically place her order when she has full knowledge of the customer demand levels. The subgame-perfect Nash Equilibrium decisions are characterized, and the percent deviation is shown to achieve full supply chain channel coordination in cases where a simpler contract cannot. Pareto-improving examples based on industry demand data are presented and discussed. The second section considers a revenue management problem for sports and entertainment organizations. Given that the organization starts the selling season by offering ticket packages exclusively, the optimal time during the selling season for the organization to begin selling individual-event tickets is derived. Extensions of the base model are developed to include multiple ticket packages and heterogeneous ticket packages. The model is illustrated using empirical data sets obtained from the Georgia Tech Athletic Department and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The third section develops a model of vendor-controlled category management in which vendors are in charge of the stocking and assortment decisions for a given amount of shelf space at a vendor when the retailer retains control over the retail price. The subgame-perfect Nash Equilibrium strategies for two vendors and a single retailer are analyzed, and a revenue-sharing contract is shown to coordinate the channel when the vendors can produce multiple brands in a given product category and shelf space is sufficiently large or small.

SINYA company is a 3C distribution operator having distributed PCs and relevant hardware for more than 20 years since 1989. The company set up its first branch in JianGuo Computer Warehouse in 1995 with a shop only 15 square meters. The operating revenue had grown from NTD 300,000 to NTD20 million per month after 4 years painstaking development then. Since that so many customers joked about waiting for a long queue for buying a computer due to the rapid growing, the company decided to open another shop with higher capacity around 80 square meters, making the revenue more than 25 million monthly. Thus, the company could create more than NTD 400 million revenues annually with the two shops only in sum less than 100 square meters. SINYA company currently runs 30 branch stores making 1.6 billion operating revenues a year. Every Supplier, such as Intel, Microsoft, ASUS and even Sony, regards SINYA company as the third largest local chain store distributor in Taiwan. Branding Strategy is necessary for an enterprise to operate its sustainable business absolutely. However, as we know, the business opportunity is quite limited in a local market. The way to provide an enterprise an enough room to grow continuously means that an enterprise needs to target at the international market if an enterprise does want to run a business sustainably. Thus, in order to get more chances to step into the international markets from a local market like Taiwan, the SINYA company must create the business model and profit model to meet the demand of the international market, or even surpass any other outstanding competitors in the international chain store distribution markets. Referring to the international market, the SINYA company takes the markets both in China and South East Asia as the first 2 alternatives, especially in China, a place speaking the same language as we do with a big market, which is undoubtedly worth being researched aggressively for us. Of course, the development of 3C channels in China has advanced a lot these years under the assistance partly from Taiwanese businessmen and some efforts made by mainlanders. Some channels even have strong competiveness in the internationalized market. Nevertheless, as we know, competition is inevitable when running a business. Therefore, I believe that trying best to strengthen the company¡¦s multi-facet operational ability and to lead the enterprise with customer oriented and innovative thoughts is the necessary strategy for an enterprise to run their business sustainably so as to gain a good result. China is a large market with potential, more available virtual channels and the opportunity to develop its legal environment gradually, i.e. a good chance for the development of an enterprise. However, hardly could a new entrant break through the barrier to take part in the China¡¦s market in a short time, even a healthy enterprise as SINYA company which has the advantages of good operation efficiency, pricing policy, professional service personnel, innovative and adaptive abilities. There can be some factors as below: 1. Unhealthy taxation institution. 2. Unsound legal protection for the business environment provided by the government sectors. In addition, there are also some unsolved weaknesses from the SINYA company itself: 1. The Brand is not known enough. 2. Financial Capacity needs to be strengthened. 3. The strategy of vertical integration to strengthen the advantage of the products diversification should be implemented continuously. Found in this research, there are also some short and middle term opportunities exited for the SINYA company in the China market.So, the SINYA company can take into account some factors as below: 1. Duplicate other successful experiences to authorize its brand. 2. The Gap between Urban and Rural provides the virtual platform an unlimited potential. The market of some level 3 to 6 cities can be developed.

Because of the improving technology and the fast delivering information, the traditional trade business industry is downgrade. And because of customer¡¦s cost down, the OEM company gross margin is also downgrade. Makalot and Li&Fung are in the clothes industry. Their business models are not like other company, and have better performance. Therefore, the research choose Makalot and Li&Fung become the case company. The research investigates company¡¦s history and strategy position how to affect to choose the value activities, to keep the relationship with supplies and customers. Further, the research wants to know the different between Makelot and Li&Fung and to reason Makalot and Li&Fung¡¦s business model. The research has some result. The company¡¦s strategy position will affect the value activities in industry and the customers, supplies relationship. Although the Makelot and Li&Fung have different business model, they also achieve the goal to cost down, fast delivering product and good quality. The research hope Makelot and Li&Fung can be an example to other small companies in Taiwan.

Supply chain management involves inter-organizational interactions and integration as a whole, sharing operational resources and information among supply chain members, and an objective to optimize the supply chain performance. Among the management processes exists uncertainty that disrupts operational performance. The uncertainty occurs when supply chain members have insufficient information for decision making. The lack of information transparency leads to a rise in each member¡¦s cost and inventory level, inefficiency in capacity utilization, reduction of business values, etc. For these reasons, this study holds that information sharing can effectively deal with uncertainty and improve the performance of the whole supply chain. This research mainly studies information sharing in a supply chain and proposes a theoretical framework of information sharing. It investigates by a case study the uncertainty that the focal company faces in demand, supply, and manufacturing process, explores the company¡¦s current status of information sharing, and researches the factors that may influence information sharing. The results show that PCB (Printed Circuit Board), a highly customized product with a short life cycle and a simple combination of raw materials, has a supply chain of divergent differentiation. PCB has a higher demand uncertainty, but that uncertainty can be effectively reduced by information sharing and process coordination with demand side customers. Besides, the order fulfillment process may be improved as a result. Based on inter-organizational coordination, information sharing through vendor managed inventory mechanism will facilitate supply chain collaboration, and ease the significant influence of bullwhip effect on upstream PCB manufacturers. In this way, PCB manufacturers can share risks and profits with customers. Furthermore, the extent of trust and risk may influence the process of information sharing. A greater extent of trust helps members to share information with each other. Nevertheless, it is considered risky to share sensitive information, which is regarded as a bargaining power.

The enterprise battlefield is estate, enterprise is among estate competitiveness manage the success or failure key. Though M. Porter brings forward competition strategy think: Enterprise will be confronted with ¡¥stuck in the middle¡¦ awkward situation if being able to not to choose from cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategy alternative. Afterwards, Porter indicates that in one book "Country Competitive Advantage ": Have a lot of enterprise indeed cost to be led with differentiation use together, and have the fine achievement effect; In other words, if cost leadership and differentiation manage to be used simultaneously, both multiply effect general stronger. In supply chain, the production logistics system must give consideration to cost, quality, deliver achievement effects such as scheduled time and safety; Except taking that cost leadership as target, field delivering customer regard such as scheduled time and safety in quality, is shown differentiation, is also that the tactics planning and management taking supply chain as the lifting competitive advantage competing for unit times middle, entire supply chain planning and management system manages a target. How will the production logistics system of modern enterprise change to adapt to the new tactics plan under give consideration to cost leadership and differentiation strategies? Study is from case study according to Task-Technology Fit Theory originally, produce what logistics management acts as role in development process of knowing the case company supplying chain in estate, manpower includes topic for discussion and method of work encountered by whose especially with information technology complementing each other; Interview studying process is middle, being to permeate a depth mainly, that discusses the collocation relevance document with the viewpoint, arrange out reference pattern of may be for estate's supplying chain construction the system producing a logistics management of having competition. Childbirth studying main observation is limited originally logistics management reality affair, the pad `produces the planning and management' pattern , hopes a modest spur to induce someone to come forward with his valuable contributions with construction, develop so-called ¡¥production logistics¡¦ theory.

The objective of the study was to develop a management framework for internal logistics in the Department of Education in Gauteng. For the purpose of this study internal logistics was defined as the complete process of obtaining goods and services from the compiling and processing of requisitions to the payment of invoices and the record keeping of all transactions to achieve organisational objectives. Internal logistics entails purchase planning, specification development, supplier research, contract administration and quotations, ordering and inventory control. The management of internal logistics can enhance productivity and performance within the value chain, improving service delivery, the outcome of the audited financial statement and ultimately the optimal spending of the allocated budget per financial year. For three consecutive financial years (2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2008/2009) GDE received a qualified audited financial statement. For financial years 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 GDE succeeded to receive an unqualified audited financial statement. To maintain this achievement and ultimately receive a clean audit financial statement, it is necessary to evaluate all the business processes, specifically within supply chain management, contributing to the audit findings. Supply Chain Management (SCM) is in some way the completion of the circle of financial management. It is important for GDE to develop a uniform internal logistics framework that would enable them to also gain the maximum from its annual allocated budget. It is also critical that the internal logistics are attended to as soon as possible to have a positive input towards the audited financial statement. A literature study was done on the concepts of the value chain, supply chain management and the management of knowledge. A questionnaire was designed, based on the findings in the literature, and used to measure the efficiency of the internal logistics in the District offices. The state of the internal logistics at the District offices was assessed through survey questionnaires to extract the data. It became evident that certain gaps and problems exist in relation to internal logistics at the District offices and that knowledge management is related to these gaps and problems. Internal logistics has a link with the elements of supply chain management as investigated in the literature study. The elements of supply chain management can to be broken down into clear activities for the management of internal logistics. The key area of concern is that the internal logistics within SCM are not acknowledged and therefore not properly managed in the District offices. The result of this is that the allocated budget is not optimally utilised and also receives qualifications from the audited financial statement. A practical framework to manage internal logistics is proposed for the Department of Education to assist with the problems, and to bridge the gaps found after analysing the questionnaires. The findings of the empirical study were used as the basis of the framework. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are drawn and rendered in order to improve the logistics management of the Department of Education in Gauteng. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

This study considers whether or not optimizing process metrics and settings across a supply chain gives significantly different outcomes than consideration at a firm level. While, the importance of supply chain integration has been shown in areas such as inventory management, this study appears to be the first empirical test for optimizing process settings. A Partial Least Squares (PLS) procedure is used to determine the crucial components and indicators that make up each component in a supply chain system. PLS allows supply chain members to have a greater understanding of critical coordination components in a given supply chain. Results and implications give an indication of what performance is possible with supply chain optimization versus local optimization on simulated and manufacturing data. It was found that pursuing an integrated approach over a traditional independent approach provides an improvement of 2% to 49% in predictive power for the supply chain under study.

The objective of the study was to develop a management framework for internal logistics in the Department of Education in Gauteng. For the purpose of this study internal logistics was defined as the complete process of obtaining goods and services from the compiling and processing of requisitions to the payment of invoices and the record keeping of all transactions to achieve organisational objectives. Internal logistics entails purchase planning, specification development, supplier research, contract administration and quotations, ordering and inventory control. The management of internal logistics can enhance productivity and performance within the value chain, improving service delivery, the outcome of the audited financial statement and ultimately the optimal spending of the allocated budget per financial year. For three consecutive financial years (2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2008/2009) GDE received a qualified audited financial statement. For financial years 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 GDE succeeded to receive an unqualified audited financial statement. To maintain this achievement and ultimately receive a clean audit financial statement, it is necessary to evaluate all the business processes, specifically within supply chain management, contributing to the audit findings. Supply Chain Management (SCM) is in some way the completion of the circle of financial management. It is important for GDE to develop a uniform internal logistics framework that would enable them to also gain the maximum from its annual allocated budget. It is also critical that the internal logistics are attended to as soon as possible to have a positive input towards the audited financial statement. A literature study was done on the concepts of the value chain, supply chain management and the management of knowledge. A questionnaire was designed, based on the findings in the literature, and used to measure the efficiency of the internal logistics in the District offices. The state of the internal logistics at the District offices was assessed through survey questionnaires to extract the data. It became evident that certain gaps and problems exist in relation to internal logistics at the District offices and that knowledge management is related to these gaps and problems. Internal logistics has a link with the elements of supply chain management as investigated in the literature study. The elements of supply chain management can to be broken down into clear activities for the management of internal logistics. The key area of concern is that the internal logistics within SCM are not acknowledged and therefore not properly managed in the District offices. The result of this is that the allocated budget is not optimally utilised and also receives qualifications from the audited financial statement. A practical framework to manage internal logistics is proposed for the Department of Education to assist with the problems, and to bridge the gaps found after analysing the questionnaires. The findings of the empirical study were used as the basis of the framework. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are drawn and rendered in order to improve the logistics management of the Department of Education in Gauteng. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Because the business environment has changed (e.g., volatility in demand, curtailment of product life cycle, changing of information technology, and so forth), corporate supply chains become more network-connected and involve more business partners. Whether the company has the capability to operate well in such supply chain network becomes a significant issue. To fulfill this need, this research aims to develop a framework for measuring the supply chain capability. The literature review and company interviews allow us to propose four capabilities and relative measurements. A field survey is then conducted in the Taiwan PC industry to assess the measurements. To ensure the measurements are valid, we apply two-step measurement assessments: the factor analysis and initial reliability are first conducted and then followed by item-total correlation, optimal reliability coefficients, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. The resulting model is an 18-item and three-dimension construct. The three dimensions are: (1) reducing transaction related risk, (2) promoting good relationship, and (3) managing environment change. The confirmatory factor analysis then suggests us to arrange the three dimensions in two groups. The first group includes the first dimension, indicating the firm capability, and the second group includes the other two, expressing the inter-firm capability. We further explore the relationships between the supply chain capabilities and IOS adoption, as well as supply chain roles. It is interestingly to note that different IOS requires different capability and so does different supply chain roles. Therefore, the contribution of this research can be two-folded: first, the managers can use this reference framework to diagnose the supply chain capability of their own firms, finding their strength and weakness. Second, managers can use the framework to evaluate the capability of their partners and better gauge the characteristics of the supply chain collaboration. This research can also contribute to the IT literature as the researchers can build upon this model to further examine of the factors that are discovered.

This research aims to examine how, and to what extent, the advanced network technology such as custom-built large-scale network, or internet-based technology contribute to the correlations between supply chain drivers and performance measures. The uniqueness of the research is to use network technology as a leverage factor, instead of merely one of the supply chain drivers, to analyse how it would impact on the correlations between supply chain drivers and performance measures. Through literature review, we identified the key drivers in supply chain and the key performance indicators as independent and dependent variables respectively for data analysis in the research. We consider the utilisation of network technology as a selection variable in the analysis. We also proposed a set of research questions and hypotheses resulting from the literature review. The subsequent data analyses attempted to find answers for these questions and test the validity of the hypotheses. This was achieved by a field survey for 1035 major Australian firms through a structured questionnaire. The response rate of the survey was 20.8%. All these data were analysed with statistical models such as reliability test, multi-collinearity test, MANOVA procedures, factor analysis, and multiple regression modelling to validate whether the survey was robust and how the leverage factor (network technology) would impact on the correlations between supply chain drivers and performance measures. Each research question and hypothesis was reviewed, validated, and concluded based on the results from data analysis. The key findings from the data analysis support the perception that the network technologies with their external customers and suppliers dramatically affect the correlations between supply chain drivers and performance measures. Statistically it actually determines whether the supply chain will success or fail when comparing firms using the technologies with firms not using them. In general, the impact on the correlations is directional and positive. A set of validated theoretical models was also proposed to depict the dynamics between supply chain variables under the influence of network technology. Implications of the findings are also provided in the thesis.