水平竞争条件下的供应链信息泄露策略

本文探讨非对称信息下,制造商针对议价能力不同的大型及小型零售商分别采用了收益共享、批发价合约时,大型零售商的市场信息被制造商泄露给竞争对手,从而对供应链产生的影响。通过对比有无信息泄露下各方成员的博弈过程,分析供应链信息泄露的原理;进而在制造商总是会泄露信息的前提下,构建基于信号传递的信息泄露下供应链成员决策模型,分别讨论分离均衡与混同均衡两种情形下,零售商的订货策略及其相应的收益。在此基础上进一步做出扩展,制造商有主动权以选择是否泄露信息的情况,对比分析零售商的策略选择问题。经过分析发现,出于自身利益的角度,制造商总是会泄露信息,从而导致供应链的整体利润下滑。对此,大型零售商的订货策略选择与市场需求的波动程度有关：波动较小则选择混同均衡;波动较大则选择分离均衡。特别地,当市场需求为低时,大型零售商的最优订货量会向下扭曲,即支付一定的“信息租金”作为应对信息泄露的代价。     

Quantity Competition When Most Favored Customers are Strategic

Legal studies usually treat a policy of a manufacturer or retailer as socially harmful if it reduces product output and increases the price. We consider a two‐period model where the first‐period price is fixed and resellers endogenously decide to use meet‐the‐competition clause with a most‐favored‐customer clause (MFC) to counteract strategic customer behavior. As a result of MFC, the second‐period (reduced) price increases and resellers’ inventories decrease. However, customer surplus may increase and aggregate welfare increases in the majority of market situations. MFC can mitigate the losses in welfare and resellers’ profits due to strategic customers. Moreover, under reseller competition, MFC may even lead to higher levels of these values than with myopic customers, that is, to gain from increased strategic behavior. With growing competition, benefits or losses from MFC can be higher than losses from strategic customer behavior.     

Channel Conflict and Coordination in the E‐Commerce Age

A number of factors, including developments in Internet‐based commerce and third‐party logistics, have led many companies to consider engaging in direct sales. Such a company may at once be both a supplier to and a direct competitor of any existing reseller partners (e.g., land‐based retailers), which can result in “channel conflict.” This can have momentous implications for distribution strategy. To generate managerial insights into this important issue, we develop a model that captures key attributes of such a setting, including various sources of inefficiency. We examine these in detail and identify a number of counterintuitive structural properties. For instance, the addition of a direct channel alongside a reseller channel is not necessarily detrimental to the reseller, given the associated adjustment in the manufacturer's pricing. In fact, both parties can benefit. Finally, we examine ways to adjust the manufacturer‐reseller relationship that have been observed in industry. These include changes in wholesale pricing, paying the reseller a commission for diverting customers toward the direct channel, or conceding the demand fulfillment function entirely to the reseller. The latter two schemes could be mutually beneficial in that they achieve a division of labor according to each channel's competitive advantage.     

Supplier Encroachment as an Enhancement or a Hindrance to Nonlinear Pricing

The objective of this study was to extend existing understanding of supplier encroachment to contexts in which there is information asymmetry and the supplier can use nonlinear pricing. Prior research has shown that supplier encroachment can mitigate double marginalization and thus benefit both the supplier and the reseller. However, under symmetric information, this benefit disappears if the supplier can use nonlinear pricing. In our model, the reseller observes the true market size while the supplier knows only the prior distribution, that is, a seemingly ideal setting for implementing mechanism design through nonlinear pricing. We first show that, because encroachment capability enables the supplier to make an ex post output decision, it fundamentally alters the structure of the optimal nonlinear pricing policy. In addition to the usual downward distortion effect, where the reseller may purchase less than the efficient quantity, we also have the possibility for upward distortion. Thus, under asymmetric information and nonlinear pricing, supplier encroachment has two opposing effects. On one hand, the ability to shift sales to the direct channel allows the supplier to reduce information rents with less sacrifice of efficiency; but on the other hand, by introducing the possibility of her own opportunistic behavior, it can result in upward distortion of the quantities sold through the reselling channel, which is a new source of inefficiency. Depending upon the relative efficiency of the reselling channel and the demand distribution, either of these two effects may dominate and the supplier's ability to encroach may either benefit or hurt both the supplier and the reseller.     

考虑电商平台服务投资的平台渠道引入策略

针对由单个制造商和单个电商平台组成的在线销售系统,构建了电商平台无服务投资下是否引入平台渠道、电商平台服务投资下是否引入平台渠道的四个决策模型,运用博弈论方法,探讨了电商平台服务投资决策对平台渠道引入决策的影响。发现：电商平台服务投资可促进平台渠道的引入,且促进效应随着消费者对服务敏感程度的增加而增加;只有当平台渠道的佣金费率处于中等范围且平台渠道的销售成本较小时,在线销售系统中才有可能引入平台渠道;电商平台服务投资是一种占优策略,且可实现帕累托改进。最后,研究表明制造商使用两部定价策略可以促使电商平台提供使系统收益最大化的服务水平,进一步实现双赢。     

Impact of information exchange on supplier forecasting performance

Forecasts of demand are crucial to drive supply chains and enterprise resource planning systems. Usually, well-known univariate methods that work automatically such as exponential smoothing are employed to accomplish such forecasts. The traditional Supply Chain relies on a decentralized system where each member feeds its own Forecasting Support System (FSS) with incoming orders from direct customers. Nevertheless, other collaboration schemes are also possible, for instance, the Information Exchange framework allows demand information to be shared between the supplier and the retailer. Current theoretical models have shown the limited circumstances where retailer information is valuable to the supplier. However, there has been very little empirical work carried out. Considering a serially linked two-level supply chain, this work assesses the role of sharing market sales information obtained by the retailer on the supplier forecasting accuracy. Weekly data from a manufacturer and a major UK grocery retailer have been analyzed to show the circumstances where information sharing leads to improved forecasting accuracy. Without resorting to unrealistic assumptions, we find significant evidence of benefits through information sharing with substantial improvements in forecast accuracy.     

Collaborate or Compete: Examining Manufacturers' Replacement Strategies for a Substance of Concern

The recent proliferation of media reports on substances of concern has increased consumer fears, sparked scientific debate, and highlighted the need for stronger chemical regulations. When a substance of concern is identified (e.g., bisphenol‐A (BPA) in reusable water bottles), manufacturers face difficult trade‐offs in deciding whether to proactively replace the substance in their products or to defer replacement and wait to see if regulation occurs. In this study, we examine when opportunities exist for manufacturers to avoid competitively replacing (i.e., making their replacement decisions on their own), and instead, collaborate to replace a substance of concern. We model a vertically differentiated market consisting of a high‐end manufacturer and a low‐end manufacturer, both of whom sell a product that contains a substance of concern. Our analysis investigates how market dynamics (competition and consumer preferences) and external factors (replacement costs and regulatory uncertainty) influence manufacturers' collaboration, replacement, and pricing decisions. We find that when the manufacturers do not collaborate, the high‐end manufacturer can use the presence of a substance of concern to dominate the market by capturing more demand and often charging a higher price for his product than the low‐end manufacturer. Collaboration is possible when there is either a shared fixed cost savings for both manufacturers or an opportunity for the low‐end manufacturer to benefit his competitive position by motivating the high‐end manufacturer to collaborate. From a consumer perspective, although collaboration reduces consumer exposure to the substance of concern, it can decrease consumer surplus when the replacement substance is very expensive.     

Optimal Dynamic Order Scheduling under Capacity Constraints Given Demand‐Forecast Evolution

We consider a manufacturer without any frozen periods in production schedules so that it can dynamically update the schedules as the demand forecast evolves over time until the realization of actual demand. The manufacturer has a fixed production capacity in each production period, which impacts the time to start production as well as the production schedules. We develop a dynamic optimization model to analyze the optimal production schedules under capacity constraint and demand‐forecast updating. To model the evolution of demand forecasts, we use both additive and multiplicative versions of the martingale model of forecast evolution. We first derive expressions for the optimal base stock levels for a single‐product model. We find that manufacturers located near their market bases can realize most of their potential profits (i.e., profit made when the capacity is unlimited) by building a very limited amount of capacity. For moderate demand uncertainty, we also show that it is almost impossible for manufacturers to compensate for the increase in supply–demand mismatches resulting from long delivery lead times by increasing capacity, making lead‐time reduction a better alternative than capacity expansion. We then extend the model to a multi‐product case and derive expressions for the optimal production quantities for each product given a shared capacity constraint. Using a two‐product model, we show that the manufacturer should utilize its capacity more in earlier periods when the demand for both products is more positively correlated.     

Optimal Design of a Pharmaceutical Price–Volume Agreement Under Asymmetric Information About Expected Market Size

Price–volume agreements are commonly negotiated between drug manufacturers and third‐party payers for drugs. In one form a drug manufacturer pays a rebate to the payer on a portion of sales in excess of a specified threshold. We examine the optimal design of such an agreement under complete and asymmetric information about demand. We consider two types of uncertainty: information asymmetry, defined as the payer's uncertainty about mean demand; and market uncertainty, defined as both parties' uncertainty about true demand. We investigate the optimal contract design in the presence of asymmetric information. We find that an incentive compatible contract always exists; that the optimal price is decreasing in expected market size, while the rebate may be increasing or decreasing in expected market size; that the optimal contract for a manufacturer with the highest possible demand would include no rebate; and, in a special case, if the average reservation profit is non‐decreasing in expected market size, then the optimal contract includes no rebates for all manufacturers. Our analysis suggests that price–volume agreements with a rebate rate of 100% are not likely to be optimal if payers have the ability to negotiate prices as part of the agreement.     

Product Introduction Strategies under Sequential Innovation for Durable Goods with Network Effects

When network effects are important and technology is rapidly improved, this study explores the relative optimality of five product introduction strategies of a durable goods manufacturer: (1) replacement, (2) skipping, (3) a delayed line, (4) shelving, and (5) line‐extension. Using a two‐period analytical model, we show how the type of compatibility—either full or backward compatibility—and the magnitude of the network effect influence the manufacturer's preference for the above strategies. Our analysis reveals that only the strategies (1)–(3) above can be optimal; and the optimal strategy varies with network strength. Further, the type of compatibility can dramatically change the profitability under each optimal strategy; for instance, while backward compatibility can increase the profitability of replacement under certain conditions, it always reduces the profitability of a delayed line. We also illustrate that if compatibility were a choice, although backward compatibility may be observed widely in practice, the parametric region for its optimality is relatively more restricted than that of full compatibility.     

Delegation vs. Control in Supply Chain Procurement under Competition

This paper studies the optimal component procurement strategies of two competing OEMs selling substitutable products. The OEMs outsource their production to a common contract manufacturer, who in turn needs an input from a component supplier. Each OEM may either directly procure the input from the component supplier, or delegate the procurement task to the contract manufacturer. We first analyze the OEMs' procurement game under a non‐strategic supplier whose component price is exogenously given. It is found that symmetric equilibria arise for most situations, that is, both OEMs either control or delegate their component procurement in equilibrium. Interestingly, despite the commonly‐held belief that the contract manufacturer would be worse off as OEMs gain component procurement control, we show that the contract manufacturer may enjoy a higher profit. Then we study the OEMs' procurement game under a strategic supplier who can set its component price. We find that the supplier's strategic pricing behavior plays a critical role in the equilibrium procurement structure. In particular, in the equilibrium under strategic supplier, the larger OEM always uses delegation while the smaller OEM may use either delegation or control. By identifying the driving forces behind the OEMs' procurement choices, this research helps explain observed industry practices and offer useful guidelines for firms' component sourcing decisions.     

Gray Markets and Supply Chain Incentives

“Gray markets” are unauthorized channels that distribute a branded product without the manufacturer's permission. Since gray markets are not officially sanctioned by the manufacturer, their existence is assumed to hurt the manufacturer. Yet manufacturers sometimes tolerate or even encourage gray market activities. We investigate the incentives of a manufacturer and its authorized retailer to engage in (or tolerate) gray markets. The firms need to consider the trade‐off between the positive effects of a gray market (price discrimination and cost savings) and the negative effects (cannibalization of sales and a loss in consumer valuation). Generally, gray markets can be categorized into two types: (i) a “local gray market,” where a retailer diverts products to unauthorized sellers operating in the same region as the retailer; and, (ii) “bootlegging,” where the retailer diverts products to unauthorized sellers in another market where the manufacturer sells through a direct channel. We characterize the equilibrium in each type of gray market and identify conditions under which the retailer will divert products to the gray market. Incentive problems are more complicated when the retailer bootlegs and, in this case, we show that conflicting incentives may lead to the emergence of a gray market where both the manufacturer's and retailer's profits decrease.     

Channel Strategies for Durable Goods: Coexistence of Selling and Leasing to Individual and Corporate Consumers

In durable goods markets, such as those for automobiles or computers, the coexistence of selling and leasing is common as is the existence of both corporate and individual consumers. Leases to corporate consumers affect the price of used goods on the second‐hand market which in turn affect the buying and leasing behavior of individual consumers. The setting of prices (or volumes) for sale and lease to individual and corporate consumers is a complicated problem for manufacturers. We consider a manufacturer who concurrently sells and leases a finitely durable good to both individual and corporate consumers. The interaction between the manufacturer and consumers is modeled as a dynamic sequential game, where each player seeks to maximize its own payoff over an infinite horizon. We study how the corporate channel substitutability of new goods and used goods and transaction costs in the second‐hand market affect the manufacturer's pricing decisions, consumer behavior, and social welfare in the retail market. Making a number of simplifying assumptions, including two‐period lifetime for the finitely durable goods, we consider Markov Perfect Equilibrium as the solution concept. We show that the manufacturer can maximize her profit by segmenting consumers according to their willingness to pay. Selling and leasing are the mechanisms used for price discrimination in the retail market. We show that as she leases a larger share of her production to the corporate consumer, (1) the manufacturer does not necessarily have to adjust the optimal selling price of new goods to individual consumers, and the volume of sales of new goods to individual consumers can stay the same; (2) the manufacturer does increase the retail lease price, and the number of individual leases decreases; (3) the net supply of used goods on the market increases, leading to a lower market price for used goods; and (4) more individual consumers are able to participate in the market, and their collective welfare or net utility improves. We also show that as production costs increase the manufacturer increases prices, reducing volumes across all channels. When transaction costs increase, the manufacturer reduces leasing in both corporate and retail channels.     

Strategic Supply Chain Structure Design for a Proprietary Component Manufacturer

This paper examines the choice of supply chain structure for a proprietary component manufacturer (PCM). The PCM, who is the sole supply source of a critical component used to assemble an end product, can either provide its component to an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the end‐product market (component supplier structure), develop the end product exclusively under its own brand (monopoly structure), or provide the component to the OEM as well as develop the end product under its own brand (dual distributor structure). Typically, the end products of the PCM and the OEM will be differentiated, and the OEM tends to have a capability advantage (compared with the PCM) in producing the end product. Our paper studies the impact of this degree of differentiation and capability advantage on the optimal choice of distribution structure. We then investigate how investing in component branding, enhancing the value of the end product, using alternative supply contracts, and product valuation uncertainty influence the PCM's optimal choice of distribution structure.     

Design of Extended Warranties in Supply Chains under Additive Demand

We study the design of extended warranties in a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and an independent retailer. The manufacturer produces a single product and sells it exclusively through the retailer. The extended warranty can be offered either by the manufacturer or by the retailer. The party offering the extended warranty decides on the terms of the policy in its best interest and incurs the repair costs of product failures. We use game theoretic models to answer the following questions. Which scenario leads to a higher supply‐chain profit, the retailer offering the extended warranty or the manufacturer? How do the optimum price and extended warranty length vary under different scenarios? We find that, depending on the parameters, either party may provide better extended warranty policies and generate more system profit. We also compare these two decentralized models with a centralized system where a single party manufactures the product, sells it to the consumer, and offers the extended warranty. We also consider an extension of our basic model where either the manufacturer or the retailer resells the extended warranty policies of a third party (e.g., an independent insurance company), instead of offering its own policy.     

考虑不同经营模式的零售商纵向整合策略选择:前向,后向还是不整合？

随着互联网的发展,"新零售"表现形式之一的纵向整合成为零售商转型升级的重要策略。考虑了产品之间竞争性,分别研究了分销模式、平台模式和混合模式下,零售商采取不进行纵向整合、前向整合和后向整合的利润,通过对比给出零售商最优的纵向整合策略选择条件。最后,分析了不同经营模式对零售商纵向整合策略选择的影响。研究发现：第一,随着潜在需求的增加,在三种经营模式下零售商的最优策略都从不进行纵向整合变为后向整合、前向整合;第二,随着产品之间竞争程度增加,在分销模式和平台模式下,零售商的最优策略从后向整合变为不进行纵向整合、前向整合,在混合模式下,零售商的最优策略从后向整合或不进行纵向整合变为前向整合;第三,随着佣金费率增加,在平台模式下,零售商的最优策略从前向整合变为后向整合、不进行纵向整合,在混合模式下,零售商的最优策略从前向整合或后向整合制造商2变为不进行纵向整合、后向整合制造商1。     

The Effect of Competition on Recovery Strategies

Manufacturers often face a choice of whether to recover the value in their end‐of‐life products through remanufacturing. In many cases, firms choose not to remanufacture, as they are (rightly) concerned that the remanufactured product will cannibalize sales of the higher‐margin new product. However, such a strategy may backfire for manufacturers operating in industries where their end‐of‐life products (cell phones, tires, computers, automotive parts, etc.) are attractive to third‐party remanufacturers, who may seriously cannibalize sales of the original manufacturer. In this paper, we develop models to support a manufacturer's recovery strategy in the face of a competitive threat on the remanufactured product market. We first analyze the competition between new and remanufactured products produced by a monopolist manufacturer and identify conditions under which the firm would choose not to remanufacture its products. We then characterize the potential profit loss due to external remanufacturing competition and analyze two entry‐deterrent strategies: remanufacturing and preemptive collection. We find that a firm may choose to remanufacture or preemptively collect its used products to deter entry, even when the firm would not have chosen to do so under a pure monopoly environment. Finally, we discuss conditions under which each strategy is more beneficial.     

制造商RFID策略与零售商窜货策略的动态博弈分析

考虑由单一制造商、单一零售商及两个独立市场(高端市场和低端市场)组成的供应链系统，针对零售商可能窜货的问题，建立了制造商RFID采纳和零售商窜货的动态博弈模型，分析了零售商窜货策略和制造商RFID采纳策略，研究了RFID双重效应(成本效应和惩罚效应)对灰色市场、企业收益及社会福利的影响。研究表明：1)RFID可以有效抑制零售商的窜货行为。当不存在RFID时，若市场差异较大，零售商窜货，若市场差异较小，零售商不窜货。而当存在RFID时，即使市场差异足够大，若RFID惩罚效应较强，零售商不窜货；2)RFID可能使得零售商窜货反而会增加制造商的收益。当不存在RFID时，零售商窜货总是降低制造商的收益。而当存在RFID时，若市场差异较小且RFID成本效应较强，零售商窜货增加了制造商的收益；3)制造商并非总是采纳RFID，其策略取决于市场差异的大小和RFID双重效应的强弱。     

Advertising in Asymmetric Competing Supply Chains

Advertising is a crucial tool for demand creation and market expansion. When a manufacturer uses a retailer as a channel for reaching end customers, the advertising strategy takes on an additional dimension: which party will perform the advertising to end customers. Cost sharing (“co‐operative advertising”) arrangements proliferate the option by decoupling the execution of the advertising from its funding. We examine the efficacy of cost sharing in a model of two competing manufacturer–retailer supply chains who sell partially substitutable products that may differ in market size. Some counterintuitive findings suggest that the firms performing the advertising would rather bear the costs entirely if this protects their unit profit margin. We also evaluate the implications of advertising strategy for overall supply chain efficiency and consumer welfare.     

制造商成本削减策略对风险规避型零售商信息共享策略的影响

考虑一个风险中性制造商和一个风险规避零售商构成的供应链，需求随机且受销售价格的影响。在销售季节之前，零售商对需求进行预测，获取需求信号；制造商对生产进行投资降低生产成本。基于零售商的不同信息共享策略及制造商的投资策略，考虑四种不同策略模型，分别得到最优零售价、批发价（及投资水平），并分析需求预测精确度对供应链成员决策和效用的影响。通过四种模型效用的对比分析，探讨制造商的投资策略以及零售商的风险规避态度对零售商信息共享策略的影响。研究发现，零售商共享需求信息对于制造商总是有益的，且制造商总是愿意采取成本削减策略；只有当制造商采取成本削减策略，且其投资成本系数较低时，共享需求信息对零售商才有益。最后，得到了制造商和零售商的均衡策略。