E-retailing of restaurant services: pricing strategies in a competing online environment

Establishing online channels and providing online discounts by building business partner relationships with third-party websites have emerged as important and effective marketing strategies in the restaurant industry. This study examines the optimal pricing strategy of restaurants in a competing environment when they participate in this relationship with a third-party website. Results suggest that neither participation nor online price discount should be encouraged for all restaurants. In particular, for a restaurant with a fixed service capacity, participation and online price discount are recommended when the number of offline loyal customers is relatively small. With the increase in the number of loyal offline customers, the optimal online discount rate decreases, whereas the unit commission fee for the third-party website remains constant. When the optimal discount rate reaches zero, the optimal decision for the restaurant is to decrease the unit commission fee. Based on these findings, this study analytically provides the optimal pricing strategies for restaurants and the corresponding boundaries for the strategy set.     

研发外包中考虑服务商道德风险与资金限制的支付契约

针对研发外包中服务商道德风险防范与激励问题,在考虑服务商自有资金限制下,设计了研发外包支付契约,分析了契约的特性。研究表明,服务商自有资金的多少会影响支付契约的激励效果。当服务商自有资金很少时,支付契约对道德风险的防范与激励效果较差。当服务商自有资金达到一定量时,随着自有资金的增多,支付契约的激励效果越来越强,特别的当服务商自有资金超过很大一个量时,支付契约能激励服务商实现系统最优的工作努力程度。     

An auction model arising from an Internet search service provider

Most search service providers such as Lycos and Google either produce irrelevant search results or unstructured company listings to the consumers. To overcome these two shortcomings, search service providers such as GoTo.com have developed mechanisms for firms to advertise their services and for consumers to search for the right services. To provide relevant search results, each firm who wishes to advertise at the GoTo site must specify a set of keywords. To develop structured company listings, each firm bids for priority listing in the search results that appear on the GoTo site. Since the search results appear in descending order of bid price, each firm has some control over the order in which the firm appears on the list resulting from the search. In this paper, we present a one-stage game for two firms that captures the advertising mechanism of a search service provider (such as GoTo). This model enables us to examine the firm’s optimal bidding strategy and evaluate the impact of various parameters on the firm’s strategy. Moreover, we analyze the conditions under which all firms would increase their bids at the equilibrium. These conditions could be helpful to the service provider when developing mechanisms to entice firms to submit higher bids.     

Make-or-buy service capacity decision in a supply chain providing after-sales service

We consider a supply chain comprising a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer supplies a product to the retailer, while the retailer sells the product bundled with after-sales service to consumers in a fully competitive market. The sales volume is affected by the retailer’s service-level commitment. The retailer can build service capacity in-house at a deterministic price before service demand is realized, or buy the service from an outsourcing market at an uncertain price after service demand realization. We find that the outsourcing market encourages the retailer to make a higher level of service commitment, while prompting the manufacturer to reduce the wholesale price, resulting in more demand realization. We analyze how the expected cost of the service in the outsourcing market and the retailer’s risk attitude affect the decisions of both parties. We derive the conditions under which the retailer is willing to build service capacity in-house and under which it will buy the service from the outsourcing market. Moreover, we find that the manufacturer’s sharing with the retailer the cost to build service capacity improves the profits of both parties.     

On optimal service capacity allocation policy in an advance selling environment in continuous time

Based on some general reasonable assumptions, this paper employs the techniques of calculus of variations and optimal control theory to derive 10 main propositions associated with a service provider who aims at maximizing the present value of revenues/profits over a planning horizon in continuous time. Employing an aggregate pricing-response function that is dependent on excess capacity and a convex service cost formulation, the results show that (i) for a zero discount rate and unanticipated competitive entry, units of service capacity are allocated evenly over time, (ii) for a zero discount rate and anticipated competitive entry, units of allocated service capacity are increasing over time, (iii) for a positive discount rate and unanticipated competitive entry, units of allocated service capacity are decreasing over time, and (iv) for a positive discount rate and anticipated competitive entry, units of allocated service capacity are increasing over time, or are decreasing at first then increasing later. In addition, the questions of how deep a service firm should advance sell, whether advance selling is optimal in continuous time, and whether excess capacity could be an optimal strategy have been addressed. Furthermore, related sensitivity analyses are performed and endpoint constraints together with alternative shapes of the service-cost function are discussed. The managerial implications of the study’s results have been demonstrated.     

考虑交叉网络外部性的网约车平台市场定价研究

随着移动互联网的发展,具有双边市场特征的以网约车平台为载体的多种新型出行方式相继出现,但同时也带来了新的交通管理问题。基于双边市场理论,考虑了交叉网络外部性,从用户、司机均为单归属以及用户多归属、司机单归属两个方面研究了网约车平台的市场定价问题。同时,引入了时间敏感系数和司机提成比例表征网约车行业特征。最终得到了网约车平台对用户和司机的定价结构公式、用户和司机规模及平台收益。研究显示平台定价及收益与交叉网络外部性及时间敏感系数的关系与用户归属结构相关;平台定价及收益与差异化程度正相关,且在用户多归属情况下提高差异化程度会导致多归属方用户规模降低;在双边均为单归属情况下,提高司机提成比例会降低平台对出行用户的定价且增加对司机方的定价,最终导致平台均衡收益降低;但多归属下平台对司机的定价与司机提成比例的关系还与双边交叉网络外部性的相对大小有关。     

考虑质量偏好的两阶段服务供应链质量控制策略

研究了一个集成商和一个提供商所组成的服务供应链的质量控制问题。考虑集成商的质量缺陷承诺和提供商的质量偏好,并将提供商的质量活动区分为质量改进和质量保持两个阶段,分别建立了服务供应链成员的效用函数,同时考虑服务供应链成员的竞争与合作,运用博弈理论,优化得到单阶段与两阶段时,集成商的最优服务价格和质量缺陷承诺,以及提供商的最优服务质量改进程度。最后,通过对比分析及数值仿真发现,考虑两阶段质量控制较单阶段情形,更有利于服务供应链较长期限内获得更多效用。其次,服务提供商质量偏好对服务供应链单阶段与两阶段下的最优效用和质量控制策略均产生一定影响。     

Signalling effect of daily deal promotion for a start-up service provider

In this paper, we consider a start-up service provider that decides whether to advertise its service product by offering temporary daily deal promotion. Based on the repeat purchase mechanism, we show that both the commission rate (ie, the revenue-sharing ratio) charged by the daily deal site and the discount level offered by the service provider play important roles in signalling the initially unobservable quality level of the service provider. A high commission rate can facilitate the signalling of the daily deal promotion, and in equilibrium only the high-quality service provider would do daily deal promotion. We find that if the daily deal site adopts a two-part tariff charging scheme, the high-quality service provider can always signal its quality by offering daily deals. And the two-part tariff leads to a lower signalling cost but a higher repeat purchase rate than those under the revenue-sharing if the variable cost of the low-quality service provider is not too large.     

Stochastic optimization on social networks with application to service pricing

In this paper we develop a combined simulation and optimization approach for solving difficult decision problems on complex dynamic networks. For a specific reference problem we consider a telecommunication service provider who offers a telecommunication service to a market with network effects. More particularly, the service consumption of an individual user depends on both idiosyncratic characteristics and the popularity of this service among the customer’s immediate neighborhood. Both the social network and the individual user preferences are largely heterogeneous and changing over time. In addition the service provider’s decisions are made in absence of perfect knowledge about user preferences. The service provider pursues the strategy of stimulating the demand by offering differentiated prices to the customers. For finding the optimal pricing we apply a stochastic quasi-gradient algorithm that is integrated with a simulation model that drives the evolution of the network and user preferences over time. We show that exploiting the social network structure and implementing differentiated pricing can substantially increase the revenues of a service provider operating on a social network. More generally, we show that stochastic gradient methods represent a powerful methodology for the optimization of decisions in social networks.     

Optimal Contract Design of Supplier-Led Outsourcing Based on Pontryagin Maximum Principle

This paper provides a supplier-led outsourcing model to maximize the supplier’s profits based on a principal-agent framework with both asymmetric cost information and uncertain market demand information described by continuous random variables. The salvage value of the unsold product is processing-cost dependent. By converting the proposed model, which is a dynamic optimization problem, to an optimal control problem, we obtain the analytical form of the optimal supplier outsourcing contract composed of the wholesale price and the transfer payment by applying Pontryagin’s maximum principle. It is shown that the optimal contract is directly related to the supplier’s beliefs about the manufacturer’s unit cost and the salvage value function. The Pontryagin’s maximum principle-based solution method serves as a powerful tool to support the decision making for the best sourcing strategy, and it provides analytical insights for outsourcing management. Finally, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the validness of the theoretical results.     

信息安全服务外包决策分析模型研究

随着信息化的发展,信息安全得到前所未有的重视,国家主管机构的监管越来越严厉,企业在面临强制压力的合规性问题时可以选择自行部署,也可以选择服务外包.通过建立数学模型模拟了这个过程.分析结果表明:在强制压力情况下,如果用户选择外包方式,那么用户信息系统的期望值随着强制压力的提高而降低,信息安全服务供应商的利润则随着强制压力的提高而提高.     

The risk and information sharing of application services supply chain

We study an application services supply chain consisting of one application service provider (ASP) and one application infrastructure provider (AIP). The AIP supplies the computer capacity to the ASP that in turn sells the value-added application services to the market. The market is characterized by a price-sensitive random demand. The ASP’s objective is to determine the optimal price of its service to the market and the optimal capacity to purchase from the AIP. The AIP’s goal on the other hand is to maximize its profit from selling the capacity to the ASP.     

A spatiotemporal Data Envelopment Analysis (S-T DEA) approach: the need to assess evolving units

We consider a two-stage supply chain with one supplier and one manufacturer. The manufacturer faces a Poisson demand process where the arrival rate depends on the selling price, the announced delivery time, and the delivery reliability defined as the probability of satisfying the announced delivery time. Such a demand model generalizes the works in the literature by simultaneously considering the above three demand sensitivity factors. The main purpose of this paper is to study the equilibrium decisions in the supply chain with an all-unit quantity discount contract. We consider four scenarios regarding whether the leadtime standard, the delivery reliability standard, and the manufacturer’s capacity are endogenous, and whether the manufacturer’s production cost is its private information. We find that an all-unit quantity discount scheme can coordinate the supply chain for most cases. Managerial insights are observed regarding the impact of the three demand sensitivity factors. For example, the breakpoint in an optimal quantity discount contract always increases with the delivery reliability sensitivity under an exogenous delivery reliability, but may decrease under an endogenous delivery reliability; with asymmetric information, a higher variance of the manufacturer’s unit production costs leads to a lower unit wholesale price for the low-cost manufacturer.     

基于网络顾客行为意向的物流服务供应链定价策略

就一个运营网络购物的供应链,分析物流服务需求方和服务提供方的定价和服务水平决策等问题。在成本共担优化模型中考虑基于顾客购买行为意向的产品需求函数,进而分别给出非合作、准合作和完全合作模式下供应链企业决策间的关系,以及网购顾客重购概率对最优定价策略的影响。结论有:证明三种合作模式下双方最优策略的存在性及存在条件;给出最优产品定价策略和服务定价策略间的数量关系,并证明其与网购顾客行为意向有关。数值分析表明,最优定价策略随服务水平和网购顾客重购概率的变化趋势受成本共担系数的影响;较小的成本分摊系数使最优产品定价随着服务水平和网购顾客重购概率的变化幅度增大。     

Operations of online advertising services and publisher's option

We analyse the use of options for online advertisement publishers. By providing a discount or rewards to advertisers, publishers can utilise their uncertain service capacity, page-views, more efficiently. We use Generalised Nash Bargaining to study the feasibility of the option contract and solve for an optimal value for the option price. We compare the revenues and benefits from advertisements under the option contract, with those without the options using numerical studies. We also study the impact of pricing and other components in the game on the optimal option price, the publisher's revenues, and the advertiser's benefits from the advertisements.     

A Stackelberg Network Game with a Large Number of Followers

We consider a hierarchical network game with multiple links, a single service provider, and a large number of users with multiple classes, where different classes of users enter the network and exit it at different nodes. Each user is charged by the service provider a fixed price per unit of bandwidth used on each link in its route, and chooses the level of its flow by maximizing an objective function that shows a tradeoff between the disutility of the payment to the service provider and congestion cost on the link the user uses, and the utility of its flow. The service provider, on the other hand, wishes to maximize the total revenue it collects. We formulate this problem as a leader-follower (Stackelberg) game, with a single leader (the service provider, who sets the price) and a large number of Nash followers (the users, who decide on their flow rates). We show that the game admits a unique equilibrium, and obtain the solution in analytic form. A detailed study of the limiting case where the number of followers is large reveals a number of interesting and intuitive properties of the equilibrium, and answers the question of whether and when the service provider has the incentive to add additional capacity to the network in response to an increase in the number of users on a particular link.     

双模式交通网络中的ATIS信息定价研究

先进的出行者信息系统(ATIS)是一种服务商品,已有的研究多从提高市场占有率的角度对单模式交通网络中的ATIS进行信息定价。多模式交通网络中影响ATIS市场占有率的因素众多,而且ATIS的提供成本往往与信息质量和使用规模同时相关。因此,信息定价问题应从ATIS服务提供商利润最大化的角度进行研究。本文把ATIS信息的单次使用费用和ATIS的信息质量同时作为决策变量,将双模式路网中ATIS的定价问题描述为一个双层规划模型。其中,混合用户均衡模型为下层模型,收益模型为上层模型。然后,基于上海市虹口区的路网数据,对下层模型进行了数值分析,并讨论了相关经济效益问题。此外,本文提出了求解下层模型的MSAF算法,并进一步嵌套了粒子群(PSO)算法,最终得到ATIS服务提供商的最优ATIS信息定价和信息质量提供方案。     

考虑云安全风险的个人云存储服务最优定价策略

针对现有个人云存储服务纷纷关闭的现象,如何根据不同市场时期和云用户特征,制定合理的定价策略已成为个人云存储服务商面临的挑战性问题。本文在考虑云安全风险,云用户感知价值及弹性成本对个人云存储服务定价的影响,建立了基于云安全风险的两阶段定价模型,给出了免费试用时长确定下的最优决策及免费试用时长不确定下的最优免费试用时长及最优价格。借助数值分析,进一步研究了云安全风险系数,云用户感知价值,云安全运营成本系数对最优免费时长,最优利润的影响,结果表明,当云安全风险系数适中时,个人云存储供应商(PCSP)采取两阶段定价策略。另外,最优利润随着云安全风险系数,免费试用时长,单位安全运营成本的增加先增加后减少。     

Entry and exit of service providers under cost uncertainty: a real options approach

From a real options perspective, this paper examines a service provider's entry and exit decisions toward two types of service outsourcing contracts under service transaction cost uncertainties. Specifically, for a service contract with a flexible duration, the service provider has an option to terminate the contract at any time point by paying a pre-determined exit penalty. For a contract with a fixed-duration, the service provider is obligated to deliver services for a pre-determined period of time. Under this framework, this study seeks to derive the transaction cost conditions that trigger the service provider’s exercise of entry and exit options. Furthermore, via analytical and numerical examinations, this study also uncovers how service transaction cost uncertainty and other business factors (eg, exit penalty and contract duration) influence the service provider’s entry and exit decisions as well as the choice of contract type (ie, fixed-duration versus flexible-duration).     

基于电子商务平台的服务模式选择研究

随着电子商务的迅猛发展,提供优质的服务已成为电商企业获取竞争优势的主要手段。本文重点探究了电商平台与零售商之间服务模式的策略性选择问题。本文通过建立理论模型,量化比较四个服务模式即A模式(零售商承担服务)、B 模式(零售商将服务外包给第三方)、C模式(平台承担服务)和D模式(平台将服务外包给第三方)的特点得出最优决策。研究得到如下结论:在成本结构相同的情况下,C模式具有最高的服务水平和市场利润,而A模式和B模式能为顾客提供最低的市场价格。平台和供应商更倾向于自己来提供服务,分散的服务模式会降低服务水平,但当商家自身服务成本较高时,他们更愿意让另一方或较低服务成本的第三方作为服务提供方。另外,本文还发现在A模式和B模式下,平台收取的佣金比例随着需求对服务的敏感程度的增加而降低,而C模式和D模式则相反。