Customer Loyalty and Supply Chain Management Business-to-Business Customer Loyalty Analysis Routledge Studies in Business Organizations and Networks Series

Many business-to-business (B2B) managers think that customers act rationally and base decisions mostly on price, customer loyalty isn?t considered. Companies outsource various activities, which enable them to improve efficiency, reduce costs, focus more on core competencies and improve their innovation capabilities. Supply Chain Management synchronizes the efforts of all parties?particularly suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, dealers, customers?involved in achieving customer?s needs. Despite much research, the relationship between customer loyalty and the supply chain strategy remains insufficiently explored and understood by practitioners and academics, while the theme has been extensively developed within marketing literature.

Customer Loyalty and Supply Chain Management is the result of years of work by the authors on different projects concerning the overlapping areas of supply chains, logistics and marketing, drawing a connection between the literature to provide a holistic picture of the customer loyalty framework. Emphasis is given to the B2B context, where recent research has provided some clues to support the fact that investment in operations, new technologies and organizational strategy have had a significant role in understanding B2B loyalty, particularly in the context of global supply chains. Moreover, the book provides a modernized and predictive model of B2B loyalty, showing a different methodological approach that aims at capturing the complexity of the phenomenon.

This book will be a useful resource for professionals and scholars from across the supply chain who are interested in exploring the dimension of customer loyalty in the challenging supplier and customer context.

Index

List of figures

List of tables

List of boxes

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: OVERLAPPING AREAS OF SUPPLY CHAIN AND MARKETING/ACHIEVING INTEGRATION BETWEEN SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING

Research in Business-to-Business Marketing

Supply Chain Management: A Pillar for Business-to-Business Marketing

Chapter 2: CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN THE BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS CONTEXT

Customer loyalty background

The Role of Switching Costs on Customer Loyalty

Linking Customer Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty

Customer Value and Its Impact on Customer Loyalty

Logistics Service Quality and Its Impact on Customer Loyalty.

Trust, Commitment and Customer Loyalty

The Role of Managing Returns on Customer Loyalty

Customer Loyalty and Word of Mouth

Chapter 3: THE ERA OF OMNICHANNEL

From Offline to Online: The Impact of Digitalisation

From Multichannel to Omni-Channel—The Company Perspective

B2B Digital Transformation and requirements

Commitment to Digital at a Strategic Level

Content

Experience

Data Mining and Big Data Analytics

Measuring Digital Impact Through Key Performance Indicators

Chapter 4: MANAGING THE SUPPLY CHAIN IN THE DIGITAL CONTEXT

New issues for supply chain operations

Inventory System

Picking Processes

Assortment

Delivery Velocity

Product Returns Management

Organisation

Information Technology Systems

Chapter 5: THEORY, METHODS AND PRACTICE FOR MEASURING CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Introduction

Applying Complexity Theory to Customer Loyalty in a Business-to-Business Context

Study A. Measuring Value Perception and Loyalty in the Business-to-Business Context

Data Collection, Survey Development and Sampling

Measurement of Variables

Method 1. Multiple Regression Analysis

Analysis and Results

Method 2. Qualitative Comparative Analysis Using Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis Software

Implementation of Contrarian Analysis

Procedure for Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Findings from the Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Study B. Measuring the Impact of Logistics Service Quality on Customer Loyalty

Data Collection and Survey Development

Sample Characteristics

Method 1. Multiple Regression Analysis

Method 2. Qualitative Comparative Analysis Using Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis Software

Procedure for Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Findings from the Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Chapter 6: CONCLUSION THOUGHTS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Index

Ivan Russo, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at University of Verona. His research coalesces under the broad umbrella of supply chain management & marketing. He has published in the Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, International Journal Of Quality And Service Sciences, International Journal Of Entrepreneurship And Small Business.

Ilenia Confente, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at University of Verona. Her research interests range from B2B to digital marketing. She has published in Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, International Journal of Tourism Research, International Journal Of Quality And Service Sciences, International Journal Of Entrepreneurship And Small Business.