Customer relationship marketing & enterprise performance

The seeming eternal pursuit of profit by financial institutions and other enterprises have proved to be short-sighted judging from recent studies. Emphases have shifted to securing the goose that lays the golden-egg (the customer) rather than the egg itself. This study focused on the imperative of deploying evolving customer centric platforms such as CRM to manage customer needs satisfactorily to guarantee continued patronage and profit (performance). CRM is revealed as a competitive strategy hotly becoming popular among Nigerian banks - extant literatures on its dynamics were clinically x-rayed. Models of relationship management such as relational benefit, network and relational quality models were discussed in relation to service offerings. Survey research was used in a cross-sectional study to test the nature of association between CRM predictor variables of interactive marketing, service quality and bonding among leading banks in the South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria. These variables were tested to ascertain whether they would become significant predictors of performance among the leading banks sampled. Outcome reveals a positive association and a strongly significant influence at 0.05%. This necessitated the rejection of all two hypotheses tested.

Not-for-Profit Performance Reporting: A Reflection on Methods, Results and Implications for Practice and Regulation

This paper presents a critical analysis of present approaches to studying not-for-profit performance reporting, and implications of research in this area. Focusing on three approaches: content analysis of publicly available performance reporting; quantitative analysis of financial data; and (rarer) mixed/other methods, we consider the impact of these on our knowledge of not-for-profit performance reporting, highlighting gaps and suggesting further research questions and methods. Our analysis demonstrates the important role of regulation in determining the research data available, and the impact of this on research methods. We inter-connect the methods, results and prevailing view of performance reporting in different jurisdictions and argue that this reporting has the potential to influence both charity practices and regulators’ actions. We call for further research in this interesting area. Contribution is made to the methodological literature on not-for-profits, and ongoing international conversations on regulating not-for-profit reporting.

Critical factors in capacity building of NGOs in the intellectual disability sector in India: PLS SEM modelling

PurposeMost of the services being delivered to persons with disabilities (PwDs) in India are through non-government organizations (NGOs). The quality and effectiveness for the delivery of services to PwDs largely depends on the capacity of the NGOs involved. This study attempts to understand the linkage between various capabilities of non-profits organizations working in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities and their value creation.Design/methodology/approachUsing a mixed methodology, the study has conducted various interviews with the involved stakeholders and interviews to obtain a complete understanding and overcome the limitations of quantitative or qualitative approach alone.FindingsThe findings of this study exhibit that there is a significant and positive influence of financial capability, human resource capability, stakeholder capability, dynamic capability and collaboration capability on non-profit performance. However, knowledge capability has no effect on non-profit performance.Originality/valueThis study will help in making policies for policymakers in capacity building of NGOs. This research study is the first attempt in exploring the critical factors in capacity building of NGOs in the intellectual disability sector, particularly in India.

Product Abundance, Product Delivery and Price of Product as Determinants of Online Business Profit Performance

With the increasing number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia, most young entrepreneurs have started to use the internet as their business platform. However, the issue faced by these SMEs is maintaining their profit performance and long-term business sustainability. In maintaining their profit performance, entrepreneurs need to ensure they have product abundance, provide the best service delivery and offer the best price in the market. Hence, the objective of this research was to examine the relationship between an online business performance with the three main pillars of online business - product abundance, product delivery and product price. 210 registered SMEs located in the Klang Valley were chosen as the survey respondents. The result indicates that, product abundance and product price have a significant relationship with the performance, while product delivery had no significant relationship. This study proved that price of products offered by online business is crucial in maintaining customers’ satisfaction that is closely related to sales and performance. The findings of the study assists the entrepreneurs in developing their business while contributing to the nation’s economy when more potential SMEs’ businesses with an online capability are able to penetrate into the international market and compete globally. Keywords: online business, product abundance, product delivery, price of product, profit performance

R & D Attention and Profit Performance—An Empirical Study on Listed Companies in China’s Electric Power and Electrical Industries

The electric power and electric industries are basic and strategic emerging industries in China’s national economy. Based on the data of listed companies in China’s electric power and electric industries from 2015 to 2019, this paper empirically studies the impact of research and development (R & D) attention on corporate profitability. The results show that attention to R & D by listed companies in electric power and electric industries will significantly improve enterprise’s profit performance, and this kind of effect has yearly heterogeneity. From 2015 to 2017, R & D attention gradually improved the profit performance of enterprises, but the profit spillover effect of R & D investment in recent years needs to be further strengthened. Further study found that R & D attention has a significant effect on corporate profitability in the private enterprise group, the R & D attention of state-owned enterprises and R & D structure adjustment should be paid more attention; R & D investment can significantly improve the profitability of the electrical industry, but the promotion effect was relatively slow in recent years, and R & D investment has a significant effect on the profitability of listed companies in the electric power industry. Although the promotion effect is not obvious, it shows a steady improvement trend. After variable and model replacement, the empirical regression conclusion of this paper is still robust. The results of this paper help to deepen the understanding of the stage characteristics of the impact of R & D attention on profit performance, and it is of great significance to optimize the efficiency of R & D investment and pay attention to the adjustment of R & D structure in the electric power and electrical industries.

EXAMINING THE KEY SUCCESS FACTORS IN AFRICA BASED ON 3 ASPECTS: ADAPTATION, EFFICIENCY AND STRATEGIC POSITIONING FROM A SURVEY ON ENTREPRENEURS IN BURKINA FASO

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the different types of factors in the African business context and in particular in the context of Burkina Faso, that can help companies to be successful. It is about the identification of the key successful factor among some main factors such as adaptation, efficiency and strategic positioning The data is from a survey on entrepreneurs in Burkina Faso, who attended the Africallia business meeting in 2018. The results show that the adaptation to the context is one of the main factors for business success. Thus, the suggestion is that companies should adapt to the African context in order to improve their profit, performance and thus gain a tremendous success. Keywords: Success Factors, Business, Companies, Adaptation, Efficiency, Strategic Positioning, Africa.

Impact of Social Interactions on Duopoly Competition with Quality Considerations

We study the impacts of social interactions on competing firms’ quality differentiation, pricing decisions, and profit performance. Two forms of social interactions are identified and analyzed: (1) market-expansion effect (MEE)—the total market expands as a result of both firms’ sales—and (2) value-enhancement effect (VEE)—a consumer gains additional utility of purchasing from one firm based on this firm’s previous and/or current sales volume. We consider a two-stage duopoly competition framework, in which both firms select quality levels in the first stage simultaneously and engage in a two-period price competition in the second stage. In the main model, we assume that each firm sets a single price and commits to it across two selling periods. We find that both forms of social interactions tend to lower prices and intensify price competition for given quality levels. However, MEE weakens the product-quality differentiation and is benign to both high-quality and low-quality firms. It also benefits consumers and improves social welfare. By contrast, VEE enlarges the quality differentiation and only benefits the high-quality firm, but is particularly malignant to the low-quality firm. It further reduces the consumers’ monetary surplus. Such impact is consistent, regardless of whether the VEE interactions involve previous or current consumers. We further discuss several model extensions, including dynamic pricing, combined social effects, and various cost structures, and verify that the aforementioned impacts of MEE and VEE are qualitatively robust to those extensions. Our results provide important managerial insights for firms in competitive markets and suggest that they need to not only be aware of the consumers’ social interactions, but also, more importantly, distinguish the predominant form of the interactions so as to apply proper marketing strategies. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.

Analysis of Effect of Microfinance on the Performance of MSEs in Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia

This article examines the effect of microcredit on the performance of the micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia. A total of 340 MSEs were randomly selected, and a survey method was used. Average Sales volume was used to measure performances of MSEs. The findings suggested that the majority of MSEs in Ethiopia were engaged in manufacturing and urban agriculture sectors with a share of 48.53% and 26.76% of the total, respectively. Paired t-test analysis of the study confirmed that there was a significant difference between the sales, total asset, employment and net profit performance of MSEs after microcredit loan. The study concluded that loan size, savings and entrepreneurship training had a significant positive effect on the performance of MSEs. It is suggested that microfinancial institutions should strengthen their existing policies and strategies to increase credit to MSEs, enhancing the modalities of entrepreneurship training and mobilizing savings to achieve the envisioned targets of reducing unemployment and promoting the growth of MSEs in Ethiopia.