Title: Customers' segmentation in pharmaceutical distribution industry based on the RFML model

Authors: Nastaran Nikaein; Ehsan Abedin

Addresses: Department of Information Technology Management, Faculty of Management, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Information Technology Management, Faculty of Management, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: The distribution industry is one of the main industries and infrastructures in every country's economy. Improving the efficiency of the distribution industry is important as an intermediary link between the manufacturer and the consumer, which has an important share of the cost. One of the factors that help this is the use of modern technologies to manage bulk sales data of customers and find important variables on their purchases' behaviours. In this study, first data mining methods are used to segment the pharmaceutical industry customers based on the RFML model and then these results are evaluated. In the following, in order to help decision-makers and marketing managers of this industry, practical suggestions are presented for each group of the customers. The results could help marketing and sales managers of this industry to have more effective planning for each customer segment and developing their future program for their visitors.

Keywords: distribution industry; customer segmentation; data mining; RFML.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2021.115071

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2021 Vol.37 No.1, pp.29 - 44

Received: 05 Feb 2018
Accepted: 18 Dec 2018
Published online: 18 May 2021 *

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