The Business World of the 21st Century - Assignment Example

?The business world of the 21st century has become a very competitive environment in which only companies that are able to adapt to market changes and innovation succeed. In the past the marketing department of organizations would limit their efforts to reach the customer using the traditional media mediums which are television, radio, and the press. The introduction of the internet in the 1990’s and its subsequent proliferation has changed the marketing landscape forever. Web marketing has become an integral tool all marketers must utilize. Web marketing or internet marketing can be defined as strategies that are used to market a product or service online which includes strategies such as search engine optimization, search engine submissions, website design strategies, online promotions, reciprocal thinking, and email marketing among others (Ward, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to analyze web marketing and how the human resource business partner (HRBP) position can add value to the marketing department. Internet marketing is a new brand of marketing that was born in the 1990’s. During that decade the business world was taken by storm as new dot com companies began to appear by the hundreds each day. At the end of the decade the infamous internet bubble burst as too many companies penetrated the marketplace at once with less than innovative ideas. The business world has changed and web marketing has become a critical success factor in the 21st century. The amount of e-commerce volume has increased a lot. The US e-commerce marketplace reached $153 billion in sales in 2010 (Plunkett Research, 2011). Due to the size of the market companies have to look for ways to improve their web marketing function in order to increase their overall volumes of sales. There are advantages and cons associated with the use of web marketing. One of the greatest features of web marketing is the ability to increase the customer base of a company. Through the power of the internet web marketing in theory has the capability of reaching 100% of the global population once the world becomes fully online. Another advantage of the implementation of web marketing is cost. Web marketing campaigns are much cheaper than the use of traditional media. It can cost thousands or even millions of dollars to run a 30 second advertisement on television. In 2010 CBS charged between $2.5 million to $2.8 million for a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl (Cbsnews, 2010). A third advantage of the use of web marketing is that a campaign can be implemented very fast. Also web marketing can be beneficial because the advertiser can customized the ads based on the target audience. Despite all the benefits associated with web marketing there are also cons. The use of marketing advertising techniques such as email advertising or pop up ads can be perceived by the general population as spam. Spam can be defined as unsolicited email often of a commercial nature that are sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups (Answers, 2011). Another con of the use of web marketing campaigns is that at times it can be difficult to measure the results of a web marketing initiative. A third disadvantage of web marketing is that people can become skeptical about the trustworthiness of the deals offered in the internet due to the large amount of internet scams that have occurred in the past (Tun, 2009). The HRBP position can add a lot of value to the marketing department. Most marketing departments are limited by the internal capabilities and resources within a company. A firm could accomplish more if it joined forces with other marketing teams. The HRBP can help a company by negotiating strategic alliances with other firms. A strategic alliance can be defined as an arrangement between two or more companies that decided to share resources for a particular project (Answers, 2011). The use of strategic alliances is a market entry strategy that can enable firms to penetrate foreign locations. The marketing department and the firm benefit from international expansion because it increases the customer base of a company. There are other ways in which the HRBP can add value to the marketing department. The HRBP can train the marketing team to function better in team work settings. Teamwork has become a critical success factor in the 21st century. The skills and capabilities of the staff would improve with the training sessions provided by the HRBP. Another way the HRBP can positive influence the marketing department is by creating a diversity recruitment plan that will enable the department to have a more diverse composition of employees. Diversity has many benefits such as improving creativity and innovation. Work teams can generate better ideas during brainstorming sessions if the group is composed of diverse people that have gone through different experiences. The HRBP can also help the marketing staff create a web-marketing implementation plan. The plan should seek to create a website using the latest techniques in search engine optimization in order to maximize the amount of traffic the website receives. The first rule of internet marketing is that in order increase your e-commerce sales you must increase the amount of traffic your website receives. Web marketing has become a very important strategy that companies must utilize in order to increase their sales. Approximately 29% of the planet’s population of 6.9 billion is online (Plunkett Research, 2011). The use of internet marketing can help companies increase their sales without the need of spending exuberant amounts of money on advertising and marketing campaigns. Hiring a HRBP can greatly improve the efficiency and productivity of the marketing department. The HRBP can help the company by negotiating strategic alliances including marketing alliances with other firms. A traffic exchange agreement with a large internet firm such as Yahoo would be very beneficial for a company. During the next decade the amount of internet users is going to increase drastically. Formulating a sound web marketing strategy is the best way to penetrate the multi-billion dollar e-commerce industry. References Answers.com (2011). Strategic Alliances. Available from [Accessed 23 March 2011] Answers.com (2011). Spam. Available from [Accessed 18 March 2011] Cbsnews.com (2010). Super Bowl Ad Prices Dip, But Stay Pricey. CBS. Available from < http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/11/sportsline/main6082591.shtml> [Accessed 18 March 2011] Plunkett Research (2011). E-commerce and Internet Business Overview. Available from [Accessed 18 March 2011] Tun, R. (2009). Pros and Cons of Web Marketing. Available from [Accessed 18 March 2011] Ward, S. (2011). Internet Marketing. Available from [Accessed 18 March 2011] Read More