Competitive bidding, where the project is awarded to the lowest bidder, is a basic part of the construction industry. This method of project delivery is designed to promote healthy competition in an attempt ensure the lowest price for the project. A contractor knows that lowering a bid price increases his probability of being awarded the project. However, without a clear understanding of the market in which he is competing, he can not know how low he should bid in order to win. One of the most important competitive forces in a competitive bidding market is the how low the contractors are willing bid, i.e., how aggressively they are pursuing the project. Contractors need a simple way to examine the level of aggressiveness in their market. The purpose of this research is to develop a methodology to enable contractors to better understand this level of aggressiveness. The level of aggressiveness is quantified by the ratio of the low bid to the pack price, where the pack price is defined as the lower of the two bids that are closest together. The examination of two competitive bidding markets--the Virginia Department of Transportation market between 1996 and 1998 and the Tennessee Department of Transportation market from 1996 to 1998--tests the validity of the methodology. The methodology for estimating the level of aggressiveness in a competitive bidding market produces a set of success curves and charts, which can be used by contractors to optimize their competitive bid amounts for future projects. / Master of Science

<p>Course:        Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 ECTS</p><p> </p><p>Topic:          The Impact of Strategic Purchasing on an Organization’s Profitability</p><p>                     A Case Study of Ghana Telecom Company        </p><p>                                         </p><p> </p><p>Supervisor:     Mats Viimne</p><p>Background:  The purchasing function contributes directly to the operating results and</p><p>                       profitability of an organization. It has been argued out that, the fact that</p><p>                       purchasing is responsible for spending more than 60 percent of an organization’s    </p><p>                       sales dollars highlights the profit-enhancing potentials of the purchasing on an</p><p>                       organization.</p><p> </p><p>                                 </p><p>Problem:       How can strategic purchasing affect the profitability of an organization?</p><p> </p><p>Purpose:       The purpose of this research is to describe how strategic purchasing impact on</p><p>                      the profitability of Ghana Telecom Company.    </p><p> </p><p>Method:      The author collected both primary and secondary data in order to fulfill the  </p><p>                    purpose of the paper; the primary data was gathered directly from relevant sources</p><p>                    in Ghana Telecom Company, through telephone and email interviews. The</p><p>                    secondary data was obtained from indirect sources, such as textbooks, articles, and</p><p>                    websites. The method used can be described as a qualitative.</p><p> </p><p>Conclusion: An organization’s purchasing strategy is becoming recognized as a strategic weapon</p><p>                    equal in importance to its marketing, conversion and finance strategies as pointed</p><p>                     out by Dobler et al. Ghana Telecom Company’s strategic approach to buying include</p><p>                    multiple sourcing, short-term contracting and competitive bidding as a measure</p><p>                    towards increasing its profitability by being able to source at the lowest cost, and</p><p>                    having other sourcing alternatives, which leads to cost reduction.</p>

Sustainable production and consumption have become more important internationally, which has led to the transformation of market structures and competitive situations into the direction of servitisation. This means that manufacturing companies are forced to compete through the supply of services as opposed to products. Particularly the suppliers of long-life products such as submarines and airplanes no longer simply sell these products but provide their capability or availability. Companies such as Rolls-Royce Engines achieve 60% of their revenue through selling a service rather than the engine itself. For a manufacturing company, the shift towards being a service provider means that they usually have to bid for service contracts, sometimes competitively. In the context of competitive bidding, the decision makers face various uncertainties that influence their decision. Ignoring these uncertainties or their influences can result in problems such as the generation of too little profit or even a loss or the exposure to financial risks. Raising the decision maker’s awareness of the uncertainties in the form of e.g. a decision matrix, expressing the trade-off between the probability of winning the contract and the probability of making a profit, aims at integrating these factors in the decision process. The outcome is to enable the bidding company to make a more informed decision. This was the focus of the research presented in this thesis. The aim of this research was to support the pricing decision by defining a process for modelling the influencing uncertainties and including them in a decision matrix depicting the trade-off between the probability of winning the contract and the probability of making a profit. Three empirical studies are described and the associated decision process and influencing uncertainties are discussed. Based on these studies, a conceptual framework was defined which depicts the influencing factors on a pricing decision at the bidding stage and the uncertainties within these. The framework was validated with a case study in contract bidding where the uncertainties were modelled and included in a decision matrix depicting the probability of winning the contract and the probability of making a profit. The main contributions of this research are the identification of the uncertainties influencing a pricing decision, the depiction of these in a conceptual framework, a method for ascertaining how to model these uncertainties and assessing the use of such an approach via an industrial case study.

Course:        Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 ECTS   Topic:          The Impact of Strategic Purchasing on an Organization’s Profitability                      A Case Study of Ghana Telecom Company                                                     Supervisor:     Mats Viimne Background:  The purchasing function contributes directly to the operating results and                        profitability of an organization. It has been argued out that, the fact that                        purchasing is responsible for spending more than 60 percent of an organization’s                            sales dollars highlights the profit-enhancing potentials of the purchasing on an                        organization.                                     Problem:       How can strategic purchasing affect the profitability of an organization?   Purpose:       The purpose of this research is to describe how strategic purchasing impact on                       the profitability of Ghana Telecom Company.       Method:      The author collected both primary and secondary data in order to fulfill the                       purpose of the paper; the primary data was gathered directly from relevant sources                     in Ghana Telecom Company, through telephone and email interviews. The                     secondary data was obtained from indirect sources, such as textbooks, articles, and                     websites. The method used can be described as a qualitative.   Conclusion: An organization’s purchasing strategy is becoming recognized as a strategic weapon                     equal in importance to its marketing, conversion and finance strategies as pointed                      out by Dobler et al. Ghana Telecom Company’s strategic approach to buying include                     multiple sourcing, short-term contracting and competitive bidding as a measure                     towards increasing its profitability by being able to source at the lowest cost, and                     having other sourcing alternatives, which leads to cost reduction.

This dissertation investigates the latent but critical effects of risk attitude on competitive success in construction applying an evolutionary approach. The approach considers contractors as individual entities competing with each other for common job opportunities, and competition as an evolutionary process in the market. In construction, competitive bidding is the major mechanism of competition. Bidding itself is an important managerial function in a construction organization while it is risky since the actual cost of a job is unknown. Therefore, contractors' risk-taking in competition is an essential element in the construction business. Individuals may behave differently in competition depending on their own risk attitude which defines what risks can be accepted or not in an organization. Depending on the differences in risk-taking, the result of a competition varies. How contractors compete, that is, how they take risks in competition affects the competition among themselves. Also, contractors' performance is differentiated through competition to decide successful firms and unsuccessful firms. The current study investigates the effects of risk attitude, which is the latent basis for contractors' different behaviors in competition. The current investigation is unique in that it combines: 1) an evolutionary approach; 2) behavioral decision-making under uncertainty; 3) multi-level analyses from the individual to the aggregate; and 4) a long-term perspective on firms' success and life-cycles (birth, death, survival, growth, contraction, and market diversification). The developed evolutionary model simulates and analyzes competition among contractors in the competitive bidding environment. A new method is proposed to represent contractors' different risk-taking behaviors depending on their own risk attitude. The analysis accounts for contractors' differences in risk-taking, their performances through competition, and corresponding organizational changes in life-cycles at the individual level, and aggregate patterns evolving at the population level as resultants of competition over long time periods. The study finds that risk attitude is a latent but dominant competitive characteristic of contractors by identifying the critical effects of risk attitude on competitive success. The results provide new insights on competition and recommendations for contractors' competitive success, which are not available using conventional approaches.

<p>Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has been a topic of discussion since the dawn of democracy in April 1994. Due to the entrenched inequalities of the past, economic empowerment is very important for the economic growth of the majority of South Africa&rsquo / s citizens. However, significant economic enrichment of black people has not been made, despite, economic success, legislation, state policies and programme interventions. This economic growth is to be realised through the use of preferential procurement as a policy tool for BEE. Whilst sufficient legislation has been enacted to regulate preferential procurement, to favour black people, much still seems to be lacking in the enforcement of the laws in public procurement. Central to the challenges of preferential procurement is the disharmony between the Framework legislation governing preferential procurement and BEE. This discord has seen two visions being followed for preferential procurement / the Procurement Act refers to the beneficiaries of BEE as historically disadvantaged individuals (HDI / s) and the goals for BEE are measured through specific goals which promotes narrow empowerment / the BBBEE Act on the other hand defines black people as the recipients of BEE and through the BEE Codes broad-based empowerment is promoted through seven core elements. This congruency has not served the promotion of preferential procurement, it has created a hindrance that frustrates economic growth for those it is intended. The other quandary that undermines the success of preferential procurement is willful practices engaged by both tenderers and public officials / skills deficiency in the adjudication of tenders and self-interest. The success of BEE through preferential procurement is dependent on a coherently legislated procurement environment fortified by perceptive public officials. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the impact of these challenges on the success of preferential procurement. The study will highlight the main practices that defeat the use of preferential procurement. This will include an analysis of the various legislation and the amendments thereto. In addition the enquiry will examine the proficiency of public officials in the adjudication of public tendering. Recommendations for a successful preferential public procurement environment will be made. The proposed thesis will utilise, inter alia, relevant legislation, case law, theses, journals, books and policy documents.</p>

Amidst mounting federal debt, slowing the growth of health care spending is one of the nation’s top domestic priorities. This dissertation evaluates three current policy ideas: (1) global payment within an accountable care contracting model, (2) physician fee cuts, and (3) expanding the role of competitive bidding in Medicare. Chapter one studies the effect of global payment and pay-for-performance on health care spending and quality in accountable care organizations. I evaluate the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Alternative Quality Contract (AQC), which was implemented in 2009 with seven provider organizations comprising 380,000 enrollees. Using claims and quality data in a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences design, I find that the AQC was associated with a 1.9 percent reduction in medical spending and modest improvements in quality of chronic care management and pediatric care in year one. Chapter two studies Medicare’s elimination of payments for consultations in the 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. This targeted fee cut (largely to specialists) was accompanied by a fee increase for office visits (billed more often by primary care physicians). Using claims data for 2.2 million Medicare beneficiaries, I test for discontinuities in spending, volume, and coding of outpatient physician encounters with an interrupted time series design. I find that spending on physician encounters increased 6 percent after the policy, largely due to a coding effect and higher office visit fees. Slightly more than half of the increase was accounted for by primary care physician visits, with the rest by specialist visits. Chapter three examines competitive bidding, which is at the center of several proposals to reform Medicare into a premium support program. In competitive bidding, private plans submit prices (bids) they are willing to accept to insure a Medicare beneficiary. In perfect competition, plans bid costs and thus bids are insensitive to the benchmark. Under imperfect competition, bids may move with the benchmark. I study the effect of benchmark changes on plan bids using Medicare Advantage data in a longitudinal market-level model. I find that a $1 increase in the benchmark leads to about a $0.50 increase in bids among Medicare managed care plans.

<p>Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has been a topic of discussion since the dawn of democracy in April 1994. Due to the entrenched inequalities of the past, economic empowerment is very important for the economic growth of the majority of South Africa&rsquo / s citizens. However, significant economic enrichment of black people has not been made, despite, economic success, legislation, state policies and programme interventions. This economic growth is to be realised through the use of preferential procurement as a policy tool for BEE. Whilst sufficient legislation has been enacted to regulate preferential procurement, to favour black people, much still seems to be lacking in the enforcement of the laws in public procurement. Central to the challenges of preferential procurement is the disharmony between the Framework legislation governing preferential procurement and BEE. This discord has seen two visions being followed for preferential procurement / the Procurement Act refers to the beneficiaries of BEE as historically disadvantaged individuals (HDI / s) and the goals for BEE are measured through specific goals which promotes narrow empowerment / the BBBEE Act on the other hand defines black people as the recipients of BEE and through the BEE Codes broad-based empowerment is promoted through seven core elements. This congruency has not served the promotion of preferential procurement, it has created a hindrance that frustrates economic growth for those it is intended. The other quandary that undermines the success of preferential procurement is willful practices engaged by both tenderers and public officials / skills deficiency in the adjudication of tenders and self-interest. The success of BEE through preferential procurement is dependent on a coherently legislated procurement environment fortified by perceptive public officials. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the impact of these challenges on the success of preferential procurement. The study will highlight the main practices that defeat the use of preferential procurement. This will include an analysis of the various legislation and the amendments thereto. In addition the enquiry will examine the proficiency of public officials in the adjudication of public tendering. Recommendations for a successful preferential public procurement environment will be made. The proposed thesis will utilise, inter alia, relevant legislation, case law, theses, journals, books and policy documents.</p>

Submitted by Alison Vanceto (alison-vanceto@hotmail.com) on 2017-05-16T14:07:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJCPCJ.pdf: 1537965 bytes, checksum: 94c705cfa2293cc8d9bf5a91f9212f80 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-05-16T14:14:40Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJCPCJ.pdf: 1537965 bytes, checksum: 94c705cfa2293cc8d9bf5a91f9212f80 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ronildo Prado (ronisp@ufscar.br) on 2017-05-16T14:14:46Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJCPCJ.pdf: 1537965 bytes, checksum: 94c705cfa2293cc8d9bf5a91f9212f80 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-16T14:19:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJCPCJ.pdf: 1537965 bytes, checksum: 94c705cfa2293cc8d9bf5a91f9212f80 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-26 / Não recebi financiamento / One of the public administration principles is the efficient management of public expenditure. This research points out that for public spending efficiency, an efficient management of public bidding, through which the application of much of public resources occurs, is also necessary. For better understanding of the subject, the study searches in organizational theory, concepts on the issue of efficiency in public and private organizations. Supported on the axes of celerity, economic viability, and objectivity in the object description, the work aims to assess the environment of public bidding to verify in its normative framework, elements that account for more efficient results. It is a bibliographical and documentary research analyzed by a variety of combined methods and procedures, (Prodanov and Freitas, 2013), according to the comparative method. This way, we attempt to provide clarity on the issue and assist in the formulation of proposals with the help of the inductive method. The research is of basic nature, although it can be applied, as it seeks to offer the public administrative manager, solutions to the bidding process. / Um dos princípios da administração pública é a gestão eficiente dos gastos públicos. O trabalho entende que para a eficiência dos gastos públicos é necessário também a gestão eficiente das licitações públicas, por meio das quais ocorre a aplicação de grande parte dos recursos públicos. Para melhor entendimento sobre o tema, o trabalho busca na teoria organizacional conceitos acerca da questão da eficiência nas organizações públicas e privadas. Neste sentido, apoiado nos eixos da celeridade, economicidade e objetividade na descrição do objeto, o trabalho visa a avaliar o ambiente das licitações públicas com o fim de verificar no seu arcabouço normativo elementos que respondam por resultados mais eficientes. A pesquisa desenvolve-se a partir de fontes bibliográfica e documental, analisadas por uma diversidade de métodos e procedimentos combinados, forma admitida por Prodanov e Freitas (2013), metodologia na qual prevalece o método comparativo. Desta forma, procura-se proporcionar clareza quanto ao problema levantado e auxiliar na formulação das proposições ao tema por meio da abordagem e raciocínio pelo método indutivo. A pesquisa possui natureza predominantemente básica, mas também aplicada, pois procura oferecer ao gestor público soluções administrativas para o processo licitatório.

Magister Legum - LLM / Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has been a topic of discussion since the dawn of democracy in April 1994. Due to the entrenched inequalities of the past, economic empowerment is very important for the economic growth of the majority of South Africa’s citizens. However, significant economic enrichment of black people has not been made, despite, economic success, legislation, state policies and programme interventions. This economic growth is to be realised through the use of preferential procurement as a policy tool for BEE. Whilst sufficient legislation has been enacted to regulate preferential procurement, to favour black people, much still seems to be lacking in the enforcement of the laws in public procurement. Central to the challenges of preferential procurement is the disharmony between the Framework legislation governing preferential procurement and BEE. This discord has seen two visions being followed for preferential procurement; the Procurement Act refers to the beneficiaries of BEE as historically disadvantaged individuals (HDI; s) and the goals for BEE are measured through specific goals which promotes narrow empowerment; the BBBEE Act on the other hand defines black people as the recipients of BEE and through the BEE Codes broad-based empowerment is promoted through seven core elements. This congruency has not served the promotion of preferential procurement, it has created a hindrance that frustrates economic growth for those it is intended. The other quandary that undermines the success of preferential procurement is willful practices engaged by both tenderers and public officials; skills deficiency in the adjudication of tenders and self-interest. The success of BEE through preferential procurement is dependent on a coherently legislated procurement environment fortified by perceptive public officials. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the impact of these challenges on the success of preferential procurement. The study will highlight the main practices that defeat the use of preferential procurement. This will include an analysis of the various legislation and the amendments thereto. In addition the enquiry will examine the proficiency of public officials in the adjudication of public tendering. Recommendations for a successful preferential public procurement environment will be made. The proposed thesis will utilise, inter alia, relevant legislation, case law, theses, journals, books and policy documents. / South Africa