考虑产品竞争下资金约束制造商的运营策略与付款选择研究

Operational decision and preferred payment for the capital-constrained manufacturer under product competition

本文为寻求产品竞争下资金约束制造商的最优付款选择,考虑由两个制造商与单一零售商组成的供应链结构,其中一个制造商存在资金约束导致生产产量不足,并且交易过程中存在不同付款方式可供制造商们选择,从而构建不同付款方式组合下的供应链动态博弈模型,提出有无产品竞争下的供应链最优运营策略与最优利润,重点提出资金约束制造商的最优付款选择条件以及各参数的影响。研究表明:随着批发价的不断上升,无产品竞争下资金约束制造商选择延期付款转变到选择提前付款;而产品竞争下,制造商间的均衡付款很可能从延期付款组合,到混合付款组合,最后到提前付款组合的纯策略均衡,以及付款组合的混合策略均衡揭示产品竞争使得制造商可能需从银行借贷与提前付款两方面解决其资金约束。研究结论为资金约束制造商在产品竞争下选择最优付款方式来解决生产资金不足提供理论支撑与实践指导。

A routine transaction occurs in a supply chain is that products usually flow from a manufacturer to a retailer,while cash flows from the retailer to the manufacturer.In addition,before making operational decisions such as producing,procuring and pricing,firms would confirm the payment terms that have a significant influence on their cash flow level.Especially,the manufacturer,endowed with capital constraint that leads to the risk of production interruption,would focus more on the payment terms.In practice,two payment terms are usually used:early payment,delayed payment.Generally,the retailer pays before receiving products under early payment to get a discount of wholesale price,which reduces the risk of manufacturer’s cash flow.Delay payment means the purchased product is paid by the retailer in a fix allowed period after receiving,which is usually linked with an interest rate of procurement cost.In addition,it is not uncommon that the manufacturers produce substitutable products to sell one retailer,then both manufacturers may face fierce product competition.These observations motivate the research of this paper is to address the following question:how does the capital-constrained manufacturer choose payment term and operational decision under product competition?To answer the above question,we develop a basic vertical supply chain with two upstream manufacturers and one downstream retailer where the manufacturers produce substitutable products and sell via an exogenous wholesale price to the incumbent retailer who faces the linear demand of the products,furthermore one of the manufacturers suffers capital constraint.Without loss of generality,the manufacturer’s initial capital was zero.In addition,the manufacturers possess more channel power that they move simultaneously to choose one of two payment terms firstly,e.g.,early payment with a discount of wholesale price,delay payment with an interest rate of procurement cost.Then,the retailer decides the retail price and place an order.We divide the analysis in this study into two parts.In the first part,the capital-constrained manufacturer would not face product competition.As a benchmark,we explore the manufacturer and the retailer’s payoffs under each payment,and then derive the optimal choice of payment term for the manufacturer.In the second part,the capital-constrained manufacturer would face product competition,we also derive the outcomes for channel members under each payment portfolio and investigate the preferred payment term.We examine the impact of product competition on the payment term for the capital-constrained manufacturer through comparisons and gain several novel management insights.In the first part,the capital-constrained manufacturer faces no product competition,in other words,the retailer only procures the product from this manufacturer.The event sequence is that the manufacturer announces the exact payment term,the retailer takes it or leave it,then the manufacturer decides the discount of wholesale price for early payment or interest rate of procurement cost for delayed payment if the retailer accept the payment term,and then the retailer determines the retail price,finally the manufacturer produces through bank credit under delayed payment or early payment from retailer.Using Stackelberg model and backward approach,we respectively derive the retailer’s optimal price and manufacturer’s optimal discount rate or interest rate,and show that it is much significant that the manufacturer with capital constraint would prefer early payment when wholesale price is larger than a threshold,while prefer delayed payment.Furthermore,the range of early payment become wider if the price sensitivity to the demand becomes larger,otherwise the range of delayed payment becomes wider.In the second part,the capital-constrained manufacturer face competition on substitutable products,that is,the retailer can procure products from the two manufacturers.Through comparing no product competition,the main difference of event sequence under this scenario is that the manufacturers simultaneously announce each payment term to retailer,thus,there are four payment portfolios.After deriving the optimal operational decisions and optimal profits for channel members with the relationship of the manufacturers’production cost under each payment portfolios,we analyze the conditions of optimal payment for the capital-constrained manufacturer.Finally,we present the pure equilibrium of payment portfolio between the manufacturers that both the manufacturers would prefer delayed payment portfolio when the wholesale price is low,and one prefers delayed payment,another prefers early payment when the wholesale price is medium,finally both prefer early payment when the wholesale price is high.Furthermore,following the equilibrium strategies of Game theory,there also exits mixed equilibrium of payment portfolio,it implies that the manufacturer would relieve the capital constraint through bank credit and early payment.Therefore,it provides the guidance for capital-constrained manufacturer to scheme and choose the payment term under product competition to solve the problem of insufficient cash flow for production.In summary,our results under product competition are the significant compliment with prior research.Moreover,it is more interesting that there also exits mixed equilibrium of payment portfolio,this result is more consistent with the practice of the capital constrained firms simultaneously adopting bank credit and trade credit.But this paper only considers one period and symmetrical information.Asymmetrical information about capital,multi-period operation will be direction for future research.