关键词: 竞争性企业联盟, 需求预测, 信息共享, 物联网

Abstract: Forming alliance is an important strategic choice for firms to tackle demand uncertainty and avoid excessive competition. However, due to the differences between firms, it is a problem worthy of attention in making such decisions when choosing the appropriate alliance partners, based on the market competition environment and the demand forecasting accuracy of potential partners. In a single layer supply chain composed of three price competition firms facing price-sensitive but uncertain demand, the firms can utilize forecasting techniques to obtain demand information for price decision. In order to cope with demand uncertainty and reduce market competition intensity, an alliance could emerge among the firms to share demand information with each other. The expected profits of each entity were calculated in different alliance structures with and without forecasting techniques. The numerical analysis demonstrates the impacts of competition intensity and forecasting accuracy on the expected profits of the three firms in different alliance structures, and distinguishes the influences of cooperation and information sharing on expected profits. The observations and conclusions obtained in this paper can provide decision support for related enterprises.

Key words: competitive firm alliance, demand forecasting, information sharing, Internet of things (IoT)