MARKET ANALYSIS

Firms have been traditionally advised to adopt information and communication technologies (ICT) to support the achievement of existing business objectives. However, entry into business-to-business e-commerce may require the concurrent adoption of new business strategies. This paper argues, therefore, that ICT analysis needs to be considered at the same time and at the same strategic level, as internal, competitor and market analysis. This is because the source of the competitive advantage brought by ICT has changed, to be largely obtained through increase in customers' perceived value. The literature presents a confused picture of the likely consequences to a firm of its adoption of ecommerce. This paper concludes that any such adoption must be evaluated in the environment of the individual firm. A multidimensional analytical framework, taking a combined informational and marketing perspective, is presented to assist with such evaluations. D

According to a study at University of Nottingham, the recent financial and economic crisis has had a colossal impact on reducing the public trust to financial services that even after 7 years, great amount of remediation must be done to regain the consumer’s trust (Uppal, 2011). A survey conducted by the American Individual Investors indicates that financial services and specifically banks behaved in a “greedy manner” during the crisis (Springford, 2011). As stated by Mervyn King (2011), the former Governor of the Bank of England, the public trust is vital to a competitive and a healthy financial system, yet its fragility implies that once dented it takes time to restore.
Therefore, the financial services sector is required to develop sustainable marketing plans and ensure that the implementations are mainly based on creating customer value as well as maintaining a high profitability. With the highest market share of 16.7%, Lloyds Bank is the market leader amongst its competitors in the UK and has a major responsibility in re-establishing this customer trust and value through efficient marketing strategies (Lloyds, 2012).

The report primarily encompasses the situation analysis of the Lloyds Bank Plc. focusing on both macro and micro environments to determine the potential external factors as well establishing the company’s current position. Next, the company’s future direction in terms of its marketing objectives is investigated and filtered through the SMART framework. The marketing mix will be discussed to analyse the implementation of such objectives and finally the control and evaluation strategies will be identified to ensure the success of the marketing plan.

Agricultural systems continuously evolve and are forced to change as a result of a range of global and local driving forces. Agricultural technologies and agricultural, environmental and rural development policies are increasingly designed to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems and to enhance contributions of agricultural systems to sustainable development at large. The effectiveness and efficiency of such policies and technological developments in realizing desired contributions could be greatly enhanced if the quality of their ex-ante assessments were improved. Four key challenges and requirements to make research tools more useful for integrated assessment in the European Union were defined in interactions between scientists and the European Commission (EC), i.e., overcoming the gap between micro-macro level analysis, the bias in integrated assessments towards either economic or environmental issues, the poor re-use of models and hindrances in technical linkage of models. Tools for integrated assessment must have multi-scale capabilities and preferably be generic and flexible such that they can deal with a broad variety of policy questions. At the same time, to be useful for scientists, the framework must facilitate state-of-the-art science both on aspects of the agricultural systems and on integration. This paper presents the rationale, design and illustration of a component-based framework for agricultural systems (SEAMLESS Integrated Framework) to assess, ex-ante, agricultural and agri-environmental policies and technologies across a range of scales, from field-farm to region and European Union, as well as some global interactions. We have opted for a framework to link individual model and data components and a software infrastructure that allows a flexible (re-)use and linkage of components. The paper outlines the software infrastructure, indicators and model and data components. The illustrative example assesses effects of a trade liberalisation proposal on EU's agriculture and indicates how SEAMLESS addresses the four identified challenges for integrated assessment tools, i.e., linking micro and macro analysis, assessing economic, environmental, social and institutional indicators, (re-)using standalone model components for field, farm and market analysis and their conceptual and technical linkage.

In the field of technological advance, when everyone talks about "the Internet of things”, and so it is expected that there is something and everything in the relationship, money should not be left. The currency of the papers is a thing of the past, since the virtual currencies are beginning to take control and Bitcoin is ready to achieve this performance. Not only does it revolutionize the way it is paid, but it also potentially affects the USD as the USD, which is already a challenge for the challenges of the EURO or the Chinese Renminbi Yuan (CNY). The increase in crypto currencies will give a new dimension to this challenge for the Ringgit (MYR) in Malaysia. The purpose of this study is to understand the many factors that are gaining momentum in Bitcoin (BTC) in several areas of global finance and how confusing it can be, including the financial system of the major fiduciary currencies, which is mainly MYRs. The most important variables examined are Bitcoin, Bitcoin Technology, Bitcoin Economy and Bitcoin as currency. Furthermore, the study would propose a framework that would become the foundation for the furthering of upcoming explorations. Finally, this study would act as a stepping ground for making effective contributions towards understanding the best possible way to plan for the success of retail market in Malaysia.

Agricultural systems continuously evolve and are forced to change as a result of a range of global and local driving forces. Agricultural technologies and agricultural, environmental and rural development policies are increasingly designed to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems and to enhance contributions of agricultural systems to sustainable development at large. The effectiveness and efficiency of such policies and technological developments in realizing desired contributions could be greatly enhanced if the quality of their ex-ante assessments were improved. Four key challenges and requirements to make research tools more useful for integrated assessment in the European Union were defined in interactions between scientists and the European Commission (EC), i.e., overcoming the gap between micro-macro level analysis, the bias in integrated assessments towards either economic or environmental issues, the poor re-use of models and hindrances in technical linkage of models. Tools for integrated assessment must have multi-scale capabilities and preferably be generic and flexible such that they can deal with a broad variety of policy questions. At the same time, to be useful for scientists, the framework must facilitate state-of-the-art science both on aspects of the agricultural systems and on integration. This paper presents the rationale, design and illustration of a component-based framework for agricultural systems (SEAMLESS Integrated Framework) to assess, ex-ante, agricultural and agri-environmental policies and technologies across a range of scales, from field-farm to region and European Union, as well as some global interactions. We have opted for a framework to link individual model and data components and a software infrastructure that allows a flexible (re-)use and linkage of components. The paper outlines the software infrastructure, indicators and model and data components. The illustrative example assesses effects of a trade liberalisation proposal on EU's agriculture and indicates how SEAMLESS addresses the four identified challenges for integrated assessment tools, i.e., linking micro and macro analysis, assessing economic, environmental, social and institutional indicators, (re-)using standalone model components for field, farm and market analysis and their conceptual and technical linkage.

Mobile phones play a very important role in our life. Mobile phone sales have been soaring over the last decade due to the growing acceptance of technological innovations, especially by Generations Y and Z. Understanding the change in customers' requirement is the key to success in the smartphone business. New, strong mobile phone models will emerge if the voice of the customer can be heard. Although it has been widely known that country of origin has serious impact on the attitudes and purchase decisions of mobile phone consumers, there lack substantial studies that investigate the mobile phone preference of young adults aged 18-25, members of late Generation Y and early Generation Z. In order to investigate the role of country of origin in mobile phone choice of Generations Y and Z, an online survey with 228 respondents was conducted in Hungary in 2016. Besides the descriptive statistical methods, crosstabs, ANOVA and Pearson correlation are used to analyze the collected data and find out significant relationships. Factor analysis (Principal Component Analysis) is used for data reduction to create new factor components. The findings of this exploratory study support the idea that country of origin plays a significant role in many respects related to young adults' mobile phone choice. Mobile phone owners with different countries of origin attribute crucial importance to the various product features including technical parameters, price, design, brand name, operating system, and memory size. Country of origin has a moderating effect on the price sensitivity of consumers with varied net income levels. It is also found that frequent buyers of mobile phones, especially US brand products, spend the most significant amount of money for their consumption in this aspect.

The cosmetics industry is a very dynamic industry that is at the forefront of innovation, highly profitable, and technological developments. The aim of this study is to conduct a detailed analytical research of the cosmetics industry in the global market by focusing on the business and marketing strategies of AVON Products Inc. This study purposes to give an idea about the cosmetics industry with the help of SWOT, PEST and market analysis findings of AVON Products Inc. This study provides analysis on the company and marketing mix. The study analyzes the external forces which strongly affect the company, its competitors and the cosmetics sector and the marketing strategy of AVON Products Inc.. In this way, realistic predictions about the future of cosmetic industry could be presented and vital facts about industry dynamics could be reached.

The current status of small-scale desalination (produced water capa-
city 100 m3/day or less) is reviewed to provide an overview of the market segment. The use of energy-recovery devices in this market segment is also reviewed. We find that the Middle East accounts for the largest market share worldwide at present, and reverse osmosis is overwhelmingly dominant among the desalination technologies adopted. Implementation of energy-recovery devices at small scale is rare, which leads to relatively high energy consumption for small-scale seawater reverse osmosis desalination systems.

In view of recent studies of the historical development and current status of industrial symbiosis (IS), life cycle assessment (LCA) is proposed as a general framework for quantifying the environmental performance of by-product exchange. Recent guidelines for LCA (International Reference Life Cycle Data System [ILCD] guidelines) are applied to answer the main research questions in the IS literature reviewed. A typology of five main research questions is proposed: (1) analysis, (2) improvement, and (3) expansion of existing systems; (4) design of new eco-industrial parks, and restructuring of circular economies. The LCA guidelines were found useful in framing the question and choosing an appropriate reference case for comparison. The selection of a correct reference case reduces the risk of overestimating the benefits of by-product exchange. In the analysis of existing systems, environmentally extended input-output analysis (EEIOA) can be used to streamline the analysis and provide an industry average baseline for comparison. However, when large-scale changes are applied to the system, more sophisticated tools are necessary for assessment of the consequences, from market analysis to general equilibrium modeling and future scenario work. Such a rigorous application of systems analysis was not found in the current IS literature, but would benefit the field substantially, especially when the environmental impact of large-scale economic changes is analyzed.

One of the limitations is the limited amount of time that was received to complete a thorough research on this particular subject matter. Students were only given 3 months to complete the research paper and it might not be as detailed and thorough.

Since the increased importance is placed on customer equity in today's business environment, many firms are focusing on the notion of customer loyalty and profitability to increasing market share. Building successful customer relationship management (CRM), a firm starts from identifying customers' true value and loyalty since customer value can provide basic information to deploy more targeted and personalized marketing. In this paper, customer lifetime value (CLV) is used to customer segmentation of a health and beauty company. Two approaches are used: in the first approach, RFM (Recency, Frequency, and Monetary) marketing analysis method is used in order to segmentation of customers and in the second approach, the proposed extended RFM analysis method with one additional parameter -called Count Item -is used. Comparing results of these approaches, shows that adding count Item as a new parameter to RFM method makes no difference to clustering result, so CLV is calculated based on weighted RFM method for each segment. The results of calculated CLV for different segments can be used to explain marketing and sales strategies by the company.

Corporate credit rating analysis has attracted lots of research interests in the literature. Recent studies have shown that Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods achieved better performance than traditional statistical methods. This article introduces a relatively new machine learning technique, support vector machines (SVM), to the problem in attempt to provide a model with better explanatory power. We used backpropagation neural network (BNN) as a benchmark and obtained prediction accuracy around 80% for both BNN and SVM methods for the United States and Taiwan markets. However, only slight improvement of SVM was observed. Another direction of the research is to improve the interpretability of the AI-based models. We applied recent research results in neural network model interpretation and obtained relative importance of the input financial variables from the neural network models. Based on these results, we conducted a market comparative analysis on the differences of determining factors in the United States and Taiwan markets.

Tanzania contains some of the world's greatest natural wonders. Following major reforms in its foreign tourism policies in the mid-1980s, tourism has increased to become the nation's second leading foreign exchange earner. Tanzania is a less developed nation than its East African neighbours, and seeks to o!er a low-density, high-quality, and high-priced tourism experience. Numerous de"ciencies, however, are present in its tourism product. A lack of infrastructure, trained sta!, and legal and regulatory framework o!er severe challenges for the delivery of world-class service quality. In addition to a lack of marketing and promotion, the tourism industry has failed to diversify into areas beyond wildlife, such as culture and beach tourism. Consequently, most visitors treat Tanzania as an add-on to their Kenyan safari. Tanzania however, is moving towards developing the infrastructure necessary to occupy its market niche. With careful planning and management, Tanzania has the tremendous potential to develop a diverse and sustainable tourism industry.

The rapid increase in data volumes in companies has meant that momentous and comprehensive information gathering is barely possible by manual means. Business intelligence solutions can help here. They provide tools with appropriate technologies to assist with the collection, integration, storage, editing, and analysis of existing data. While almost only large companies were interested in this topic a few years ago, it has meanwhile also become necessary for start-up companies, and so the market for business intelligence has been growing for years. This article focuses on the general potentials of using BI in start-ups. First, will be examined which providers of BI solutions that are suitable for start-ups and what opportunities exist for implementing BI systems in start-ups. Then it will be shown to what extent BI has prevailed in start-ups, in which areas the techniques of BI are used in start-ups and what purpose BI has in start-ups. Finally, the success factors for BI projects in start-ups are considered.

Tanzania contains some of the world's greatest natural wonders. Following major reforms in its foreign tourism policies in the mid-1980s, tourism has increased to become the nation's second leading foreign exchange earner. Tanzania is a less developed nation than its East African neighbours, and seeks to o!er a low-density, high-quality, and high-priced tourism experience. Numerous de"ciencies, however, are present in its tourism product. A lack of infrastructure, trained sta!, and legal and regulatory framework o!er severe challenges for the delivery of world-class service quality. In addition to a lack of marketing and promotion, the tourism industry has failed to diversify into areas beyond wildlife, such as culture and beach tourism. Consequently, most visitors treat Tanzania as an add-on to their Kenyan safari. Tanzania however, is moving towards developing the infrastructure necessary to occupy its market niche. With careful planning and management, Tanzania has the tremendous potential to develop a diverse and sustainable tourism industry.

This paper identifies the challenges facing police depart- ments that seek to implement computerized crime mapping systems. The first part of the paper highlights the importance of police depart- ments identifying primary "end-users" and then designing systems that accomplish the tasks specific to the needs of their end-users. Data transfer, geocoding, data integration, system customization, and confi- dentiality issues are discussed. The second part of the paper illustrates the practicalities of implementing geographic mapping systems drawing from our experiences with the Drug Market Analysis Program. We pro- file the Jersey City, NJ crime mapping system to highlight some of the

Today, breastfeeding, human breast milk, and its substitute, infant formula, are commodities. "Mothers' milk" is marketed both literally and figuratively, as a good for sale, a normative behavior, and a cure for much of what ails twenty-first century America. Like previous exploitations of women's bodies, including their eggs and uteruses, the idea that human milk is a valuable good that

Recent interest in relationship marketing and customer retention has re-focused the attention of marketing academics and managers towards Key Account Management (KAM) systems as a means of operationalising long-term buyer/seller relationships. This paper examines the nature of KAM in industrial markets. It is structured around several strategic issues elicited from two main sources: first, empirical research in the area of industrial sales management and selling to major accounts; and second, observations from running a series of management development programmes for account managers. While different companies and industries are in different stages of KAM systems development, it is clear that many managers have found the shift from the relatively narrow focus of key account selling to the broader requirements of key account management problematic. Three interrelated conclusions have emerged from our work. First, most of the literature and debate on KAM has taken the seller's perspective. Second, there appears to be inadequate matching of the seller's total offering with the buyer's increasingly strategic and dynamic context. This is particularly evident in the short-term focus pervading some seller companies and in their failure to keep abreast of the kind of supply chain issues currently facing industrial buyers. Third, key account managers are often illprepared for the wider and more demanding roles which take them into areas of business development, industry/market analysis, benchmarking, relationship management and so on. KAM processes appear to be under-researched and, therefore, only partially understood. An agenda for empirical research is therefore proposed as a necessary precursor to any attempt to define KAM competencies, management development and best-practice. osa.

The objective of this research is to investigate whether agricultural cooperatives can facilitate smallholder farmer access to input and product markets. Farmers in two case study communal areas of KwaZulu-Natal face high transaction costs as reflected primarily in their low levels of education and literacy, lack of market information, insecure property rights, poor road and communication infrastructure, and long distances to markets. Analysis of the reasons why cooperatives were originally established in various parts of the world suggests that most of the causes (such as poverty, market failure and high transaction costs) also apply to the study farmers, as do the seven international principles of cooperation. Smallholder farmers in both case study regions have the potential to grow high-value crops such as vegetables, fruit and cut flowers. In the supply chain from farm to market, the optimum boundary for each organization involved in the chain (e.g. cooperative and investor-oriented firm) depends on the minimum operational and transaction costs for each business.

When considering the design of a PV/ thermal system, determination of the ratio of the values of the electrical and thermal output from the system allows a rational approach to design optimisation via the minimization of 'equivalent electrical levelised energy cost'. This paper focuses on methods that can be employed to develop a ratio between electrical and thermal output from a domestic style PV/ thermal system. Methods discussed include thermodynamic analysis using exergy; market analysis for both an open market and a renewable energy market; and environmental analysis using avoided greenhouse gas emissions. Ratios are developed for each method based on real data. It is concluded that a renewable energy market approach seems most logical for such a system, and an indicative value of 4.24 is obtained. An example is given comparing a PV/ thermal system that uses amorphous silicon cells with one that uses crystalline silicon cells. Levelised energy cost is plotted against the energy value ratio to show that there is a critical electrical-to-thermal energy value ratio below which a collector with a-Si cells is more cost effective than one with c-Si cells.

Drawing on an in-depth case study of the Volvo automobile company's strategy in the early 1990s, before the Ford takeover in 1999, this paper demonstrates how policies designed to reduce inventory costs and slim the distribution pipeline can affect a business' network of suppliers and distributors in unexpected ways. It also shows how the implementation of cost reducing reengineering projects naturally lead to sub-optimization and a need to consider higher-level processes. In the Volvo illustration a manufacturer's reengineering of its distribution chain evolved into a complete recasting of its order fulfillment process, and an adoption of a process management structure. The paper traces the effects on the network of distributors and dealers, and shows how Volvo's new structure curtails the distribution role of the foreign sales companies and shifts their tasks towards market analysis, demand forecasting and customer service in foreign markets. It also shows how a process management perspective impacts a firm=s value chain, marketing function and organizational structure. In the end, AThe New Volvo Story@ demonstrates how a division can cut costs and still become more customer-oriented --and in the process become a more valuable asset for a diversified corporation.

The tuna fishery is an important sector in Ghana. In 2009, total landing of tuna in Ghana represented about 24% of total catches in the East Atlantic. Canned tuna is Ghana’s most important non-traditional export commodity in terms of foreign exchange earnings. The main focus of this thesis is to analyze the performance of Ghanaian canned tuna export to the EU -27 market. Performance is measured in terms of Ghana’s competitiveness relative to the performance of other exporting countries; namely, Cote d’ Ivoire, Ecuador, Madagascar and Thailand. The competing countries are all leading exporters of canned tuna and were chosen to reflect regional balance and different trading and tariff systems in the EU market. The performance indicators employed for the study are two measures of specialization; the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and the Revealed Symmetry Comparative Advantage (RSCA) and a measure of competitiveness, the Market Share (MS) Index using yearly data from 1999 -2009. To infer competitiveness from the changes in export value over time, a first- level Constant Market Share (CMS) analysis was used to decompose the changes in export value into a structural effect, competitive effect and second-order effect. To augment this technique, an empirical analysis on the determinants of the Ghana’s canned tuna export was conducted using the Armington trade model by OLS regression on monthly data from January 1999 – December 2009, with quantity market share as the dependent variable. The results of the indices of specialization, shows that, Ghana has comparative advantage in the export of canned tuna to the EU -27 throughout the study period. In terms of competitiveness, Ghana’s market share value has declined over the study period. Judging by the operational definition of competitiveness, Ghana has been less competitive. The CMS decomposition of changes in export values indicates that the changes in export value of Ghana can be attributed to structural effect (growth of the market) mainly. The results of the regression analysis indicate that, price ratio, the level of specialization and trade policy effect have statistically significant effect on the quantity market share of Ghana.

:N ew kinds of markets demand,ne wk inds of market design. In the past twenty years several ne wk inds of market have been devised and put into operation, sometimes after several false starts. Designing markets is a ne wa ctivity for economists, who haven’ tr eadily thought of themselves as engineers. Emergence of the market engineer has been hastened by the interest of computer scientists in designing on-line markets, and there has been a three-way marriage of game theory ,e xperimental results, and computer science in the use of computer simulation models to analyse, and to design, ne wm,arkets. This paper argues for several things. Fo rs imulation as an alternative to closed-form analysis in market analysis and design. Fo ra gent-based computational economic models as specific simulation models. Fo re xplicit validation of such models, using several heuristics. The paper discusses recent research into market design and simulation. 1. Email: [email protected],.A ne arlier version o...

A Medical Science Liaison (MSL) Metrics Consensus initiative aims to identify fi eld-medical activities throughout the pharmaceutical product lifecycle, and metrics associated with those activities. Since MSL programme deployment strategies may vary from company to company, pharmaceutical executives often use retrospective benchmarking studies to assist their fi eld-medical teams in establishing programme metrics. This Medical Science Liaison Metrics Consensus initiative is the fi rst of its kind to identify activities that are unique to fi eld-based MSL team capabilities. Upon identifi cation of unique contribution of MSL teams across the product lifecycle, metrics were identifi ed and associated with MSL activities across the product lifecycle, with an emphasis on outcomes and compliance. Organisations may use the results of this Medical Science Liaison Metrics Consensus to proactively assess and design their MSL programmes ' current valuation standards.

Ce rapport apporte une introduction juridique, au regard du droit de la concurrence, à l'état du marché européen des semences tel que nouvellement éclairé par de récents rapports économiques . Ce marché des semences est d'une importance certaine, tant du point de vue de sa taille que son positionnement à la racine de la chaîne alimentaire. Premièrement, ce rapport estime que la structure du marché est indéniablement très concentrée et prend la forme d'un oligopole dans lequel le jeu de la concurrence dysfonctionne. Deuxièmement, la consolidation des multinationales semencières s'est opéré par des processus d'acquisition, de cross-licensing, et d'accord de coopération, notamment dans le secteur de la recherche biotechnologique, potentiellement apte à générer des liens étroits aux effets anticoncurrentiels. Troisièmement, la répartition géographique de ces multinationales est problématique, au point que sa distribution peut paraître organisée et peu conforme avec les caractéristiques du marché intérieur de l'Union, et avec celle du marché des semences qui est globalisé. Finalement, ces éléments mettent en lumière la possibilité d'un cartel sur lequel les autorités nationales et surtout européennes de la concurrence devraient sérieusement se pencher, et que des études plus longues devraient étoffer.

Feasibility studies of industrial projects consist of multiple analyses carried out sequentially. This is time consuming and each analysis screens out alternatives based solely on the merits of that analysis. In cross-country petroleum pipeline project selection, market analysis determines throughput requirement and supply and demand points. Technical analysis identifies technological options and alternatives for pipeline routes. Economic and financial analysis derive the least-cost option. The impact assessment addresses environmental issues. The impact assessment often suggests alternative sites, routes, technologies, and/or implementation methodology, necessitating revision of technical and financial analysis. This report suggests an integrated approach to feasibility analysis presented as a case application of a cross-country petroleum pipeline project in India.

The research is aimed at verifying the reliability of real forecasts periodically published by international financial intermediaries. During the last years we have recorded a sensible increase of analysis and research papers to support investment decision centres, both for real and financial economics. Firstly, our research will show an analysis of the database provided by 13 banks and economic forecasting centres; then, we find out some of the methodologies committed to the performance measurements. The following sections are dedicated to the application of the error methodology to a group of countries. The main purpose is to explain the errors, defining and estimating the factors which should affect the forecasting performance. The paper suggests the application of a volatility adjusted error measure (VAEM) proposed in this study, as the ratio between the Theil index and the volatility of min and max forecasts, useful to compare the accuracy of real and financial forecasts usually generated by analysts working in banking firms.

The European study entitled: "Market Potential Analysis for Introduction of Hydrogen Energy Technology in Stand-Alone Power Systems (H-SAPS)" aimed to establish a broad understanding of the market potential for H-SAPS and provide a basis for promoting in wide scale new technological applications.

Tanzania contains some of the world's greatest natural wonders. Following major reforms in its foreign tourism policies in the mid-1980s, tourism has increased to become the nation's second leading foreign exchange earner. Tanzania is a less developed nation than its East African neighbours, and seeks to o!er a low-density, high-quality, and high-priced tourism experience. Numerous de"ciencies, however, are present in its tourism product. A lack of infrastructure, trained sta!, and legal and regulatory framework o!er severe challenges for the delivery of world-class service quality. In addition to a lack of marketing and promotion, the tourism industry has failed to diversify into areas beyond wildlife, such as culture and beach tourism. Consequently, most visitors treat Tanzania as an add-on to their Kenyan safari. Tanzania however, is moving towards developing the infrastructure necessary to occupy its market niche. With careful planning and management, Tanzania has the tremendous potential to develop a diverse and sustainable tourism industry.

Government and industry are exploring approaches, such as technology (e.g. SESAR/NextGen) and market-based methods, to address the pervasive delays in the air transportation system. Resistance to some of the proposed market-based strategies are based on uncertainties of the societal and economic outcomes; specifically, there is a concern that fewer markets might be served, that service within existing markets might be decreased, that airfares might rise significantly and that airline profitability will suffer. This paper describes a comparison of the behavior of the air transportation system (e.g. markets served, airfares, delays, load factors, aircraft size) during the recent run-up in fuel prices at capacity-limited New York airports and non-slot controlled San Francisco and Philadelphia airports.

Smallholder farmers operate in vertical supply chains. Therefore, an understanding of key opportunities and constraints up through the value chain becomes necessary for sustaining smallholder growth. Yet market analysis is of little value unless key private and public sector stakeholders agree to implement necessary reforms. This paper advocates an approach which marries together value chain analysis with a stakeholder taskforce

Recognises that whilst an abundance of research has been conducted into solicitors’ marketing, other players in the legal industry have been ignored or overlooked. Suggests that what is clearly lacking is a holistic analysis of legal‐market dynamics. Attempts to provide a clearer and more accurate understanding of the relationships within the legal industry. Investigates the role of relationships in facilitating exchange, elucidates how these relationships are developed, and identifies key relationship characteristics. Overviews the legal industry and discusses the rationale for utilising a relational perspective. Presents and analyses evidence generated from interviews with barristers, solicitors, barristers’ clerks and clients. Culminates with a discussion of findings, implications and directions for future research.

This pilot study is an effort to get an overall picture of the software and information services firms in various areas such as general information, business understanding, expenditure statistics, profitability, understandings about their competitor countries, human resource information and so on. Bangladesh. It is based on randomly selected 100 software and information services firms in and around Dhaka city out of total 1081 software and information services firms in Bangladesh. Further the study employs descriptive study methods and categorizes the firms into two Cobb-Douglas models, one is firms who are selling their products only in local market and the another is firms who are selling their products both at home and abroad, applies the Cobb-Douglas Production function to measure the input-output relationship and the returns to scale which reveals that for both the two model, operational cost has a more impact on the revenue earning than capital investment.  Again, the finding out the productivity of operational cost and capital investment reveal the same fact. The study urges that necessary initiatives should be taken from the three perspectives- one is from the firms itself, another is from the Bangladesh Association of Software & Information Services, and thirdly, from the Government of Bangladesh, in order to change the total scenario of this sector and thereby helping this sector to make contribution towards more export earnings, more employment generation, realizing the country’s dream of promoting from the least-developed to middle income one by 2021.

In this study, using market-level data on quantities, prices' and automobile characteristics from 1995 to 2001, we conduct a market analysis of the Chinese automobile industry under imperfect competition. On the demand side, we apply a nested multinomial logit model to the national market share data in order to ascertain the demand features of China's automobile market. On the supply side, we assume Bertrand behavior to uncover the markups set by automobile manufacturers. Our empirical results suggest that some large automobile manufacturers set high markups, indicating their strong market power in China's automobile market. However, their declining markups in the late 1990's imply a reduction in market control by the major producers.

The dynamics of food perception is critical in sensory science. However, although much research deals with time-intensity measurement as a tool for analytical sensory evaluation, it is striking that almost no published research investigates the dynamics of hedonic responses. Here we studied how consumers scored mint flavored sugar-free gums when the test duration varied. Six coated drag ee-like gums from the French market were tested by each consumer according to three test conditions: 1 min of chewing, 5 min and half-an-hour. One and five minute tests took place in the sensory lab evaluation booths whereas consumers were free to move about for the 30 min modality. All consumers thus participated to a total of 18 sessions. Our main finding is that the average liking varies with the test duration but that this variation differs for the six products in a way that one of the initially least liked products becomes the most liked when it is chewed during 30 min. Also, the individual liking patterns and the resulting consumer segmentation varied widely across the three test conditions. Additionally, a Flash profile was performed with experienced subjects in an attempt to relate the observed differences in liking to the gum sensory characteristics. Trigeminal-related sensations seem to play an important role in these changes. Clearly such aspects are to be taken into account for new product development and market analysis. This kind of concerns may be even more challenging for hedonic evaluation of many non-food products.