Real-Time Tactical and Strategic Sales Management for Intelligent Agents Guided by Economic Regimes.

Author List: Ketter, Wolfgang; Collins, John; Gini, Maria; Gupta, Alok; Schrater, Paul;
Information Systems Research, 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4, Page 1263-1283.
Many enterprises that participate in dynamic markets need to make product pricing and inventory resource utilization decisions in real time. We describe a family of statistical models that addresses these needs by combining characterization of the economic environment with the ability to predict future economic conditions to make tactical (short-term) decisions, such as product pricing, and strategic (long-term) decisions, such as level of finished goods inventories. Our models characterize economic conditions, called economic regimes, in the form of recurrent statistical patterns that have clear qualitative interpretations. We show how these models can be used to predict prices, price trends, and the probability of receiving a customer order at a given price. These "regime" models are developed using statistical analysis of historical data and are used in real time to characterize observed market conditions and predict the evolution of market conditions over multiple time scales. We evaluate our models using a testbed derived from the Trading Agent Competition for Supply Chain Management, a supply chain environment characterized by competitive procurement, sales markets, and dynamic pricing. We show how regime models can be used to inform both short-term pricing decisions and long-term resource allocation decisions. Results show that our method outperforms more traditional short- and long-term predictive modeling approaches.
Keywords: agent-mediated electronic commerce; dynamic markets; dynamic pricing; economic regimes; enabling technologies; price forecasting; supply chain; trading agent competition
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List of Topics

#128 0.121 dynamic time dynamics model change study data process different changes using longitudinal understanding decisions develop temporal reveal associated state identifies
#195 0.121 pricing services levels level on-demand different demand capacity discrimination mechanism schemes conditions traffic paper resource expected based constraints solution latency
#226 0.108 models linear heterogeneity path nonlinear forecasting unobserved alternative modeling methods different dependence paths efficient distribution probabilities demonstrate observed heterogeneous probability
#246 0.106 strategic benefits economic benefit potential systems technology long-term applications competitive company suggest additional companies industry operating costs difficult substantial total
#52 0.083 supply chain information suppliers supplier partners relationships integration use chains technology interorganizational sharing systems procurement buyer interfirm coordination enterprises flexibility
#71 0.082 distributed agents agent intelligent environments environment smart computational environmental scheduling human rule using does embodied provide trends computer-aided heterogeneous inventory
#215 0.071 data classification statistical regression mining models neural methods using analysis techniques performance predictive networks accuracy method variables prediction problem measure
#118 0.067 online consumers consumer product purchase shopping e-commerce products commerce website electronic results study behavior experience b2c impact internet purchases websites
#30 0.066 market trading markets exchange traders trade transaction financial orders securities significant established number exchanges regulatory structures order traditional stock provides