Articles and News
May 2013
Sequence effects in service bundles:
Implications for service design and scheduling
This article, written by Dr. Rohit Verma and Michael Dixon, explores the impact of naturally occurring (non-experimentally altered) sequences of discrete service interactions on future customer choice behaviour using a prospective view
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June 2012
ICSC European Marketing Conference, Budapest
Karl Kalcher has been invited to facilitate and moderate the conference
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October 2011
Combining Leisure with retail is increasingly
the future for the industry
MindFolio contributes to Shopping Centre’s 25 year
anniversary edition
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September 2011
Speech at the Annual Retail Property Conference (BCSC)
International Showcase
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August 2011
Want to revive the British High Street? Overcome victimhood, nostalgia and myopia!
A topical article written prior to the Government-sponsored Portas review
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November 2010
Speech at BCSC Shopping Centre Management Conference and Exhibition
The shape of things to come.
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March, 2010
Asset myopia? ... Me?
Few real estate investors would cite the football leagues around the world, owners of extremely expensive and volatile assets (ie. players), as great examples of sound financial management, but there is at least one aspect that could hold an intriguing lesson for the rest of us: No other class of asset-owners is so convinced that results-oriented asset management is optimized in the hands of temporary managers. The influential Investment and Pension Real Estate Magazine selected the attached article for publication in March 2010.
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February 1, 2010
Visionary plan for global first moves forward
Creation of 'The Capital of Children' takes next step
MindFolio, the strategic 'ideas' and analytics consultancy, is to undertake a six month feasibility study into the realisation of the world's foremost centre of knowledge for children.
A 60-hectare site in Denmark's Syddanmark region has been earmarked to add further impetus to the city of Billund's established child-focus as destination of the LEGOLAND family park, the Lalandia all- year waterpark and the LEGO Company's global head office, while bringing a range of new facilities to transform the city's status into a leading global destination.
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June 11, 2009
Winners of 2009 Industry Relevance Award
Cornell Center's Relevance Award Winners Focus on Hotel Marketing
Two research reports from Cornell's Center for Hospitality Research are winners of the 2009 Industry Relevance Award. The two reports were selected by the center's website registrants and members of the center's Advisory Board. Both are targeted at improving hotels' marketing efforts. The winners are "Setting Room Rates on Priceline: How to Optimize Expected Hotel Revenue," by Chris K. Anderson, and "Unlocking the Secrets of Customers' Choices," by Rohit Verma In his report, Verma presents an explanation of discrete-choice analysis, which allows marketers to analyze customers' preferences for products and services. Instead of simply asking customers what they would like, discrete-choice analysis compares customers' ratings of packages of product attributes. By varying the attributes in each test, marketers can determine which products and services are actually customer favorites.
"Unlocking the Secrets of Customers' Choices"
by Prof. R. Verma
March 2009
Speech at BCSC Shopping Centre Management Conference and Exhibition
Challenging some habits of decision-making
Speech synopsis: Crunch is all around us, so we need to look even harder to support our performance objectives and decision-making. What can help us to make more informed decisions? How can customer choices improve our decision-making and lead to more innovation and efficiency? Karl will share insights and observations about numbers and intuition, science and nous.
Karl Kalcher | Managing Director | MindFolio, Ltd.
January 2009
Industry Perspectives: A white paper series from Cornell University
North America's New Town Centers: Time to Take Some Angst Out and Put More Soul In
by Karl Kalcher
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February 2008
IBM Systems Journal
Predicting Customer Choice in Services using Discrete Choice Analysis
This paper presents an overview of the science and art of discrete choice modeling for service sector applications. With the ongoing momentum of service science, management, and engineering, the discrete choice modeling approach provides a sophisticated tool kit for assessing the needs and preferences of service customers. We provide directions for designing and executing discrete choice studies for services and discuss several examples for a number of industries including health care, financial services, retail, hospitality, and online services. We conclude with a discussion of the many managerial implications of the discrete choice approach.
by Rohit Verma | Gerhard Plaschka | Brian Hanlon | Ashley Livingston | Karl Kalcher
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July 2007
Speaker at Cornell
Guest Speakers
Hospitality Facilities and Operations
Karl Kalcher | Business Consultant | MindFolio | HA 603 (Verma) Quality and Process Improvement Methods
January 2006
Hotel Business Review
Guest Satisfaction Scores: Managerially Effective Measurements
by Brian Hanlon | Karl Kalcher | Gerhard Plaschka | Rohit Verma
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January 2006
Managing Service Quality
Service innovation and customer choices in the hospitality industry
by Liana Victorino | Rohit Verma | Gerhard Plaschka | Chekitan Dev
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November-December 2005
Niagara University - The Rooms Chronicle
Validate customer satisfaction before you tally your score
by Brian Hanlon | Gerhard Plaschka | Rohit Verma
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November 21, 2005
ehotelier.com
Thinking Outside the Box
Countless results of surveys and questionnaires land on managers' desks, who, faced with apparent contradictions or inconclusive statements, add them to the previous volumes in the filing cabinet. A clever new approach stops people ticking umpteen little boxes and aims to give hotel operators what they really need - quantifiable insights linked to financial metrics.
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November 2005
Crain's Chicago Business
New Owner aims to wake up Water Tower
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October 2005
MIT Sloan Management Review
The Art & Science of Predicting Customer Choices with ConfidenceVanishing mass markets, the proliferation of products and services, and new technologies are requiring many companies to redefine their beloved core business doctrine: Give customers what they want. At the same time every customer, irrespective if they make purchase decisions in B2B or B2C markets, has to make increasingly complex choices thanks to the abundance of product and service alternatives available. The underlying problem in predicting customer choices resides largely in the fact that many people make purchasing decisions based on many different criteria simultaneously, including brand, quality, performance, price, service, features, channel, and so on. Given resource constraints, it is virtually impossible for any firm to excel in all product or service aspects at once: that is, provide the highest quality, fastest delivery, most variety at the lowest price. Therefore, firms must make tradeoffs on the basis of what they do best, what their competitors are offering, and what criteria they think matter most to their customers.
by Rohit Verma | Gerhard Plaschka
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September 19, 2005
Hotel Business Review
Understanding How Travelers Choose Hotels: A Choice Modeling Approach
by Brian Hanlon
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June 6, 2005
Crain's Chicago Business
Giant expansion for Old OrchardGerhard Plaschka comments on shopping mall redevelopment project.
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Winter 2005
MIT Sloan Management Review
Managing Corrosive CustomersThis paper discusses strategies for mitigating the negative effects of nasty on-the-job encounters in the service industry. Service failures, inappropriate customer behaviour, and customer demands and expectations are examined.
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June 2004
California Management Review
Understanding Customer Choices in e-Financial ServicesIn today's highly innovative service marketplace, choosing the right balance between traditional and electronic services is critical for financial service operations with limited funds to invest. the authors sought to find the optimal combination of traditional and e-services by using a customer choice modelling approach to position for a large Global 100 company the best service offerings in the highly competitive online financial services industry.
by Rohit Verma | Zafar Iqbal | Gerhard Plaschka
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April 4, 2005
Retail Week
World ShakersThe retailer that will be remembered in the future for changing the way we think about the sector is Tesco. It is the best global example of combining bricks with clicks, and way ahead of Wal-Mart and Asda George.
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February 11, 2005
Retail Week
30 Stores that Changed the WorldKarl Kalcher writes that Whole Foods is the influential force behind fundamental changes in Food Retailing.
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Summer 2004
MIT Sloan Management Review
How to Make an Online Business Click
This article highlights ongoing research by Rohit Verma and Gerhard Plaschka regarding why executives must focus on what customers choose and opposed to endlessly exploring and relying on the plethora of customer satisfaction data available when attempting to grow a business unit.
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December 2004
People Focus: Movers And Shakers
Karl Kalcher shares his no-nonsense approach to marketing.
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November 8, 2004
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Malls: Several major makeovers on tapGeneral Growth Properties hired gurus to slip into the minds of consumers to determine what they liked and disliked about metro Atlanta shopping environments. Karl Kalcher and Gerhard Plaschka discuss shopping malls with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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October-December 2003
Cornell Hotel And Restaurant Administrative
Art and Science of Customer Choice Modeling: Reflections, Advances, and Managerial ImplicationsUnderstanding the interrelated problems of ambiguity, risk, and conformity (known collectively as ARC) is the ultimate goal for managers when investing a firm's limited funds into new product or service areas. This article describes the immediate, tangible benefits of Customer Choice Modeling in solving such problems and catalogues the numerous other benefits in using a robust approach when assessing customer value elements, market share opportunities and charting customer inertia maps.
by Rohit Verma | Gerhard Plaschka
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Winter 2003
MIT Sloan Management Review
Using Choice Modeling in Service Management
Because of the costs and operational barriers when launching new hospitality strategies for hotels are difficult to assess upfront, restaurants and similar businesses are often unsure about how best to evaluate potential improvements to their services. As Verma and Plaschka illustrate through an example in the hospitality industry, Customer Choice Modeling (CCM) can assess the impact of new service offerings, and changes to existing offerings, in a risk-free environment prior to implementation.
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Fall 2002
HSMAI Marketing Review
Value Drivers for Business and Leisure Hotel Customersthe Hospitality and Sales Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Foundation sponsored a study conducted by MindFolio partners Rohit Verma, Gerhard Plaschka and their colleagues. this brief takes a look at the current value drivers for hotel selection among businesses and leisure travellers.
by Rohit Verma | Gerhard Plaschka | Checki Dev | Amita Verma
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December 2002
Cornell Hotel And Restaurant Administrative Quarterly
Understanding Customer Choices: A Key to Successful Management of Hosptiality ServicesThis article highlights customer choice analysis as a powerful, effective tool for evaluating services and products in the hospitality industry. Recognising the reality that customers of restaurants, hotels, and other hospitality services simultaneously evaluate their options on several different criteria, such as wait times, price, etc., the authors describe how an operator can make more informed, effective decisions regarding the most important service value elements to drive growth.
by Rohit Verma | Gerhard Plaschka | Jordan Louviere
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2000
Journal Of Operations Management
Service design and Operations Strategy Formulation in Multicultural Markets
This article analyses the problems that can plague a business when it tries to cater to customers from vastly different cultures in a single location. As a case study, the authors chose to evaluate a food court in the international terminal of a major American airport. the researchers applied Customer Choice Modeling to determine the optimum offering bundle for the food court in order to maximise profit. Upon implementing the changes suggested by the study, profits increased by 50during the same period the following year.
by Madelein E. Pullman | Rohit Verma | John C. Goodale
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