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Switching Costs
Switching costs or switching barriers are terms used in microeconomics, strategic management, and marketing. They may be defined as the disadvantages or expenses consumers feel they experience, along with the economic and psychological costs of switching from one alternative to another. For example, when telephone service providers also offer Internet access as a package deal they are adding value to their service. A barrier to switching is then formed as swapping internet services providers is a time consuming effort. There are a range of different switching costs that fall under three main categories: procedural switching barriers, financial switching barriers, and relational switching barriers. Procedural switching barriers refer to the time and resources associated with changing to a new provider; financial switching barriers refer to the loss of financially measurable resources; and relational switching barriers look at the emotional inconvenience from the breaking of bonds and l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microeconomics
Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics focuses on the study of individual markets, sectors, or industries as opposed to the national economy as whole, which is studied in macroeconomics. One goal of microeconomics is to analyze the market mechanisms that establish relative prices among goods and services and allocate limited resources among alternative uses. Microeconomics shows conditions under which free markets lead to desirable allocations. It also analyzes market failure, where markets fail to produce efficient results. While microeconomics focuses on firms and individuals, macroeconomics focuses on the sum total of economic activity, dealing with the issues of growth, inflation, and unemployment and with national policies relating to these issues. Microeconomics also deal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strategic Management
In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of Resource management, resources and an assessment of the internal and external Market environment, environments in which the organization operates.qn, date=June 2018 Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's goal, objectives, developing policy, policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static in nature; the models can include a feedback, feedback loop to monitor execution and to inform the next round of planning. Michael Porter identif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emphasize in advertising; operation of advertising campaigns; attendance at trade shows and public events; design of products and packaging attractive to buyers; defining the terms of sale, such as price, discounts, warranty, and return policy; product placement in media or with people believed to influence the buying habits of others; agreements with retailers, wholesale distributors, or resellers; and attempts to create awareness of, loyalty to, and positive feelings about a brand. Marketing is typically done by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer. Sometimes tasks are contracted to a dedicated marketing firm or advertising agency. More rarely, a trade association or government agency (such as the Agricultural Marketing Servic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sunk Cost
In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost (also known as retrospective cost) is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are contrasted with '' prospective costs'', which are future costs that may be avoided if action is taken. In other words, a sunk cost is a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to decisions about the future. Even though economists argue that sunk costs are no longer relevant to future rational decision-making, people in everyday life often take previous expenditures in situations, such as repairing a car or house, into their future decisions regarding those properties. Bygones principle According to classical economics and standard microeconomic theory, only prospective (future) costs are relevant to a rational decision. At any moment in time, the best thing to do depends only on ''current'' alternatives. The only things that matter are the ''future'' consequences. Past mistakes are irrelevant. Any cos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barriers To Entry
In theories of competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a market that incumbents do not have or have not had to incur. Because barriers to entry protect incumbent firms and restrict competition in a market, they can contribute to distortionary prices and are therefore most important when discussing antitrust policy. Barriers to entry often cause or aid the existence of monopolies and oligopolies, or give companies market power. Barriers of entry also have an importance in industries. First of all it is important to identify that some exist naturally, such as brand loyalty. Governments can also create barriers to entry to meet consumer protection laws, protecting the public. In other cases it can also be due to inherent scarcity of public resources needed to enter a market. Definitions Various conflicting definitions of "barrier to entr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barriers To Exit
In economics, barriers to exit are obstacles in the path of a firm that wants to leave a given market or industrial sector. These obstacles often have associated costs, prohibiting the firm from leaving the market. If the barriers of exit are significant, a firm may be forced to continue competing in a market. This forced stay in the market occurs when the costs of leaving a market are higher than costs incurred by continuing in the market. Sometimes, when firms operate at low profit or at loss, they still choose to compete with others. Major factors of this decision making is high barriers to exit. Definitions There are various definitions of "barrier to exit", this means the absence of one common approach to define barriers to exit. In 1976, Porter defines "exit barriers" as "adverse structural, strategic and managerial factors that keep firms in business even when they earn low or negative returns.” In 1989, Gilbert used the definition “costs or forgone profits that a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed Platform
A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and/or media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This is in contrast to an open platform, wherein consumers generally have unrestricted access to applications and content. Overview For example, in telecommunications, the services and applications accessible on a cell phone on any given wireless device were formerly tightly controlled by the mobile operators. The operators limited the applications and developers that were available on users' home portals and home pages. Thus, a service provider might restrict user access to users whose account exhausted the pre-paid money on their account. This has long been a central issue constraining the telecommunications sector, as developers face huge hurdles in making their applications available to end-users. In a more extreme example, the regulated 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Job Lock
The term job lock is used to describe the inability of an employee to freely leave a job because doing so will result in the loss of employee benefits (usually health or retirement related). In a broader sense, job lock may describe the situation where an employee is being paid higher than scale or has accumulated significant benefits, so that changing jobs is not a realistic option as it would result in significantly lower pay, less vacation time, etc. Overview Because the greatest source of insurance for most Americans is Employer Provided Health Insurance (EPHI) and an employee cannot take their EPHI with them when they leave their job, benefits-related job lock is a concern in the United States. The nonportability of EPHI is what causes workers to get locked into their present jobs, hence the term job lock. Bridget Madrian argued in 1994 that the link between EPHI and labor market mobility was an important factor in evaluating several proposals to reform the US health ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porter 5 Forces Analysis
Porter's Five Forces Framework is a method of analysing the operating environment of a competition of a business. It draws from industrial organization (IO) economics to derive five forces that determine the competitive intensity and, therefore, the attractiveness (or lack thereof) of an industry in terms of its profitability. An "unattractive" industry is one in which the effect of these five forces reduces overall profitability. The most unattractive industry would be one approaching "pure competition", in which available profits for all firms are driven to normal profit levels. The five-forces perspective is associated with its originator, Michael E. Porter of Harvard University. This framework was first published in ''Harvard Business Review'' in 1979. Porter refers to these forces as the microenvironment, to contrast it with the more general term macroenvironment. They consist of those forces close to a company that affects its ability to serve its customers and make a pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transaction Cost
In economics and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a cost in making any economic trade when participating in a market. Oliver E. Williamson defines transaction costs as the costs of running an economic system of companies, and unlike production costs, decision-makers determine strategies of companies by measuring transaction costs and production costs. Transaction costs are the total costs of making a transaction, including the cost of planning, deciding, changing plans, resolving disputes, and after-sales. Therefore, the transaction cost is one of the most significant factors in business operation and management. Oliver E. Williamson's ''Transaction Cost Economics'' popularized the concept of transaction costs. Douglass C. North argues that institutions, understood as the set of rules in a society, are key in the determination of transaction costs. In this sense, institutions that facilitate low transaction costs, boost economic growth.North, Douglass C. 1992. “Transa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vendor Lock-in
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. The use of open standards and alternative options makes systems tolerant of change, so that decisions can be postponed until more information is available or unforeseen events are addressed. Vendor lock-in does the opposite: it makes it difficult to move from one solution to another. Lock-in costs that create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly. Lock-in types ; Monopolistic : Whether a single vendor controls the market for the method or technology being locked in to. Distinguishes between being locked to the mere technology, or specifically the vendor of it. This class of lock-in is potentially technologically hard to overcome if the monopoly is held up by barriers to market that are nontrivial to circumvent, such as patents, secrecy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strategic Management
In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of Resource management, resources and an assessment of the internal and external Market environment, environments in which the organization operates.qn, date=June 2018 Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's goal, objectives, developing policy, policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static in nature; the models can include a feedback, feedback loop to monitor execution and to inform the next round of planning. Michael Porter identif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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