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1 – 2 of 2Leandro A. Guissoni, Paul W. Farris, Ailawadi Kusum and Murillo Boccia
Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil’s second-largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from…
Abstract
Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil’s second-largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from a direct-sales company to a multichannel company. In 2014, Natura added online catalogs, physical stores, and drugstores to its well-established direct-selling model, but the results were disappointing. Between 2014 and 2016, three different Natura CEOs attempted to lead the company in the strategic transition to focus less on the direct sales consultants and more on reaching the end consumers directly with multiple channels and touchpoints. In October 2016, the company’s board appointed its former commercial vice president, João Paulo Ferreira, as the most recent CEO. Ferreira’s challenge was to find the right balance between the direct-selling and other channel formats to market Natura, thus enabling it to thrive in the face of intense competition in the beauty and personal care market in Brazil.
Seyed Mahdi Shavarani and Bela Vizvari
The purpose of this paper is to deal with the transportation of a high number of injured people after a disaster in a highly populated large area. Each patient should be delivered…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to deal with the transportation of a high number of injured people after a disaster in a highly populated large area. Each patient should be delivered to the hospital before the specific deadline to survive. The objective of the study is to maximize the survival rate of patients by proper assignment of existing emergency vehicles to hospitals and efficient generation of vehicle routes.
Design/methodology/approach
The concepts of non-fixed multiple depot pickup and delivery vehicle routing problem (MDPDVRP) is utilized to capture an image of the problem encountered in real life. Due to NP-hardness of the problem, a hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed as the solution method. The performance of the developed algorithm is investigated through a case study.
Findings
The proposed hybrid model outperforms the traditional GA and also is significantly superior compared to the nearest neighbor assignment. The required time for running the algorithm on a large-scale problem fits well into emergency distribution and the promptness required for humanitarian relief systems.
Originality/value
This paper investigates the efficient assignment of emergency vehicles to patients and their routing in a way that is most appropriate for the problem at hand.
Details