Market Intermediaries

Most research on interactions among participants of an enterprise system has been in the context of decentralized versus shared information. When the information is decentralized, studies are primarily on constructing different mechanisms to enable coordination in a two-stage setting and to eliminate inefficiencies stemming from factors such as double marginalization (e.g. Cachon and Zipkin [19] and Jin and Wu [41]). Detailed discussion of these topics may be found in Chapters 2, 4 and 17. 

Some researchers have studied the problem of matching multiple buyers with multiple suppliers from a resource allocation perspective. Ledyard et. al. [50] test allocation mechanisms in decentralized markets with uncertain resources and indivisible demand. The results indicate that high efficiency could be obtained if coordination is enabled among buyers. A similar problem 

A third case occurs when a third party intermediary model allows the participants to achieve benefits from both economies of scale and scope due to reduced fixed production and transportation costs. The total set of trades among the buyers and suppliers is a matching. Note that the connectivity requirements (and hence, related transaction or search costs) between buyers and suppliers decrease as the collaboration level increases. 

They also observed that internal collaboration performs very well provided that potential benefits from economies of scope are high. On the other hand. 

We should mention that auctions are another popular approach for matching buyers and sellers. This is discussed in detail in Chapters 5 and 7. 

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Milgrom and Weber (1982) describes a variant of the English Auction where the price is posted electronically. All bidders are active at price zero. The price is raised continuously, and a bidder who wishes to remain active at the current price must depress a button. When she releases the button, she is dropped out of the auction. No bidders who has dropped out can become active again. After any bidder withdraws, all remaining bidders know the price at which she drops out. When there is only one bidder left in the room, the auction ends. McAfee (1992) proposes an oral double auction work in a similar fashion, but with multiple buyers and sellers. In the following, we use the oral double auction model to characterize the basic functions of exchange coordination carried out by a market intermediary (see Figure 3.4). 

Griffin, R, Keskinocak, P. and S. Savaaneril, The Role of Market Intermediaries for Buyer Collaboration in Supply Chains , working paper, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002. 

It is usual in business today to refer to customers as the next process in a supply chain. This includes all types of marketing intermediaries or channel members who buy for resale to their customers (Webster, 2000). 

Intermediaries were used as far as marketing and mentor and mentee recruitment were concerned. These intermediaries included the Business Links community. Change Management alumni from Sheffield Hallam University, other private contacts, and newspaper advertisements. However, as it turned out, most mentors and mentees were eventually obtained via the Business Links community. Furthermore, some mentors used their own networks to win other mentors for the scheme. 

The main question is whether synthesis of PHA in plants can succeed in bringing the cost of the polymer down to the range of 0.5 -1 US /kg. Bacterial production of PHA typically relies on a carbon source, such as sucrose or glucose, which is produced from photosynthesis and extracted from plants. Synthesis of PHA directly in plants would, therefore, represent a saving in terms of the number of intermediary steps linking C02 fixation to PHA production. Furthermore, starch is one of the cheapest plant commodity product on the market, at about 0.25 US /kg [86]. It is, thus, likely that the production cost of PHA in plants will be substantially cheaper than bacterial fermentation. The final cost of producing PHA in plants will depend on a number of factors. 

The company has changed its strategy and its underlying assumptions fundamentally in the course of the project. For example, it has learned that it needs to price the product based on long-term positioning rather than current cost, that it needs to build a plant in a low-cost environment, that value chain intermediaries will need an incentive to adopt its product, and that it is sometimes necessary to work with smaller attackers as initial commercialization partners to demonstrate proof of principle, create market pull, and get the big fish to adopt a new product. The increased focus, clear product positioning, and partnering has already resulted in a number of major market introductions over the past year. 

Clariant International, Ltd. is a leading developer, producer and marketer of specialty chemicals, with over 100 group companies on five continents. The firm s businesses are organized into 10 divisions additives detergents and intermediaries emulsions industrial and consumer... 

Create efficient markets. Despite the fact that many chemicals are considered to be commodities, much of the market is still bilateral, meaning most relationships are directly between the supplier and customer, with no intermediaries. This has often been in the chemicals companies interests, as the lack of transparency allows them to maintain shghtly more favorable margins. However, chemical companies have to accept that, in a world of e-commerce, more transparent pricing is inevitable, and some products - especially commodity products - will lend themselves to market trading. 

However, the effect of a drug on the general population is only part of the story. The acceptability of a drug for market, particularly an OTC drug without a clinician intermediary, is often determined by its effect on special populations, including those patients who are particularly sensitive to its effects. Care should be taken to examine atypical patients in a study population, as well as individual adverse reaction reports. Precautions may be required in the labeling for populations at particular risk. 

In the United States, as in the United Kingdom, a contractual right of action generally exists only between parties to the contract. This is known as the rule of privity. Courts in the United States have recognised that, in a mass-consumption society, there is little real privity between manufacturers and consumers Manufacturers are remote to the ultimate consumer, sales are accomplished through intermediaries and products are marketed through... 

In certain circumstances, the principles used in securitization and factoring may be combined to obtain even lower cost funding than through either conventional securitization or old line factoring. For example, hospitals as well as small and medium size companies may be able to benefit from structures, such as the "divisible interest" structure, that provide capital market funding without the extra cost of creating an intermediary SPV. 

The second phase was characterized by the enrolment of local conventional actors within the organic network, such as unions and extension services. Once local pioneers had demonstrated the technical and economic competitiveness of organic production, the local agricultural advisors entered the debate and provided support for conversion. As a result of the pioneer phase, and with growing market demand, by 1995 the perceived technical and economic risks of conversion had been reduced considerably. What remained was the social risk and this was ameliorated through new intermediaries, i.e. the mechanization cooperative and a processing and marketing cooperative. 

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