IIM Indore seeks to be a contextually-relevant business school with world-class academic standards that develops socially-conscious managers, leaders and entrepreneurs. IIM Indore is committed to: Excellence in management education, research, and training, Use of contemporary participant-centric pedagogies and teaching methods, A presence in emerging segments of management education.

IIM Indore

A new method of pricing, known as pay-what-you-want (PWYW) has been successfully used in many contexts in the recent past. Success stories are in restaurants, museums, music albums, software, etc. The method where the buyer selects the price, possibly a zero price, and the seller accepts it, is a bit counter intuitive. Quite surprisingly, the PWYW pricing method has been used successfully, and some businesses have adopted it for selling their goods. We study the economic rationale behind the success of the PWYW pricing method, and analyse different situations using a simple model. Results show that the PWYW pricing method can be successful when there is a large proportion of fair-minded consumers, and a lesser proportion of free-loaders. Also, though a low marginal cost is beneficial for a PWYW method, it is not necessary. Sellers can choose to use PWYW pricing with reference prices that induce, but not bind, consumers to pay an appropriate price. Also, setting a minimum threshold price alleviates the problem of free-loaders, and the PWYW pricing method can be used profitably in the long run.

Operation Management and Quantitative Techniques

International Journal of Services and Operations Management

A pay-what-you-want pricing model for restaurants

Purpose Empowerment of women by social enterprises in emerging economies has received attention from researchers. This paper aims to study three social enterprises in India that aim to empower subsistence women entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approach A comparative case analysis of three social enterprises is done to develop understanding of systems and processes adopted by them. Sources such as published journal and news articles, case studies, success stories and official websites are used for data collection.Findings The study found that all three organisations strive to increase the asset base of members by organizing disempowered subsistence producers lacking market power; extending services throughout the value chain, i.e. from raw material supply to marketing of products; ploughing back regular incomes and bonuses through mechanisms acceptable to all members; and empowering subsistence producers to gain market power and ability to choose. The interventions give market exposure and voice to the concerns of women producers. These organisations successfully leverage the strength of their relations with civil society and markets in sustaining the business. Women empowerment was found to be achieved through regular income, collective voice, ability to take decisions and creation of social value.Research limitations/implications This paper does not take into consideration enterprises promoted by government.Practical implications A conceptual framework is suggested in this paper along with insights for organisations interested in collectivising subsistence women for empowering them.Originality/value The conceptual framework provided in this paper enriches the understanding of social enterprises working with the objective of women empowerment.

Marketing

Strategic Management

Fulltext

Society and Business Review

Empowering subsistence women entrepreneurs in India: Insights from Lijjat, Mulukanoor and MPWPCL

Revenue management systems (RMS) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems are widely used in today's data enriched environments to improve a firm's profitability. Though these systems are used to improve business profitability, their approach and evolution are different, as a result of which these systems are being used separately. In case of RMS, the focus is on short term tactical revenue optimisation, whereas in case of CRM the focus is on developing long term customer relationships. This paper discusses some ways of enhancing performance of revenue management systems by using CRM data. Synergies and conflicts that may arise with the simultaneous use of these systems are discussed, and numerous applications that help in enhancing RMS performance are suggested.

International Journal of Business Information Systems

Enhancing revenue management systems performance with CRM systems data

Revenue management (RM) systems help firms in enhancing their revenues by allocating capacity to those customers who value it the most. The revenue enhancement is largely affected by demand, competition, seasonality and other external factors. It is necessary to isolate the effect of such external factors while measuring the performance of RM systems. This paper discusses different ways of measuring performance of RM systems by reviewing the relevant literature, and it discusses the merits and demerits of the currently used performance metrics. It provides a framework for developing performance measurement metrics, and describes how these measures can be used to create a dashboard for monitoring performance of RM systems. The proposed framework considers the perspective of the RM decision makers and customers, and evaluates performance of the RM systems for the forecasting, inventory control and overbooking stages of revenue management.

International Journal of Business Excellence

Performance measurement of revenue management systems

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse interventions of various forms of organisations operating with the objective of connecting subsistence entrepreneurs (SEs) with the formal economy. This work also attempts to understand and analyse the transformational role played by these organisations. Finally, the paper aims to arrive at a conceptual framework for organisations interested in playing a transformational role.Design/methodology/approachThe paper deals with subsistence entrepreneurship and business models for subsistence economies. It draws from case studies of six organisations operating with the objective to connect subsistence entrepreneurs with formal economy. Each case chosen is unique with respect to the organisational form it takes to achieve the objective. However, a lot of similarity can be seen in the components of the business model adopted by these organisations.FindingsOrganisations which emerge keeping the context of rural producers in mind survive and support SEs in the long run. SEs need not always get converted into transformational entrepreneurs. However, with the help of organisations which collectivise SEs, they can interact with formal economy. Such organisations help large numbers of SEs to sustain and possibly move out of subsistence status over a period of time. These organisations have to fill the voids left by government or market institutions so as to create enabling conditions for SEs to thrive. Despite the efforts of the organisations, it is not possible for all SEs to move out of their subsistence status and existence in informal markets. However, it is possible in case of some SEs at least, as the institutional support gives them more certainty in incomes.Research limitations/ implicationsThe paper does not take a business model adopted by government institution for the purpose of analysis.Practical implicationsThe paper offers practical suggestions for organisations interested in collectivising SEs with the aim to improve their returns from market transactions.Originality/valueThe paper offers a conceptual framework to enrich the understanding of role played by organisations working towards collectivising SEs. It adds to the debate of subsistence entrepreneurship and transformational entrepreneurship. It elaborates the elements of social capital created by these organisations at the meso level. Finally, it re-emphasises the strengths of informal economy to support the customer value proposition for formal markets.

Business models sustaining subsistence economies: Evidence from India

This paper considers the problem of a decision maker (DM), who needs to hire an agent to assess the probability of occurrence of an event that is of interest to her. To decide the agent’s reward, the DM proposes a mechanism that will give reward based on the agent’s reported subjective probability and the actual outcome of the event. The reward mechanism needs to incentivize the expert to honestly reveal his subjective probability, and the reward has to be non-negative in all cases in order to ensure agent’s participation. In such a situation, it is possible that there are some agents who lack the expertise to assess the situation, but still participate to get sure non-negative payoff. The DM wants to screen out such uninformed agents from the informed ones. This work considers two mechanisms, and analyzes the behavior of both types of agents for the two mechanisms. It shows that screening is possible along with belief elicitation in some cases.