Operations/marketing interfaces

The range of issues that arise in conjunction with the marketing-operations interface is so broad that a comprehensive analysis of research opportunities is not feasible. Moreover, we do not wish to repeat the excellent surveys cited above. Instead, we will focus specifically on impacts of the Internet on the marketing-operations interface. To organize these we consider the customer contact chain, shown in Figure 8.1, which breaks the process of providing goods and services to customers into ... 

Section 5 we look at post-sales service. In Section 6 we conclude with general observations about research opportunities related to the marketing-operations interface in the world of e-commerce. 

Conjoint analysis and related techniques are directly relevant to the marketing-operations interface because (1) they address the trade-off between customer satisfaction, which determines an upper-bound on product price, and the pro-duction/distribution cost of the product, and (2) they facilitate acquisition of empirical evidence to evaluate operational strategies. For instance, Lindsley et al., 1991 used conjoint analysis to quantify the tradeoffs that retailers are willing to make among price discoimt, speed of delivery, delivery reliability, number of titles carried in inventory, offered by book distributors. The customer satisfaction equation, estimated by the authors, suggests that a decrease in the discount rate of 0.38% offsets a one-day reduction in delivery time and an increase of 1% title filling rate saves 0.16% discount rate. The equation... 

By itself, research into pricing does not necessarily address the marketing-operations interface. However, because prices cannot be set in a vacuum, there are ample opportunities to study the relationship of prices to other dimensions affected by operations management practices, primarily leadtime and quality. 

Most directly relevant to the marketing-operations interface is research directly into methods for setting due dates and quoting leadtimes (e.g.. Baker, 1984, Baker and Bertrand, 1981, Bertrand, 1983a, Bertrand, 1983b, Duenyas,... 

The marketing-operations interface has long been a challenge in practice and thus a source of research opportunities. In recent years, intense global competition in most industries has elevated customer expectations. Understanding these expectations and developing the capabilities to meet them will... 

After reviewing the broad range of research that addresses the marketing-operations interface in the context of e-commerce, we feel that the studies can be roughly categorized into the following three stages ... 

The Marketing-Operations Interface Sergio Chayet Wallace J. Hopp and Xiaowei Xu 1. Product Development... 

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