Effective and Efficient Application of Information Technologies and Communications Systems - Research Paper Example

Competitive advantage (Porter 1985) is considered the foundation of management strategy. He later redefined strategy to be a combination of differently performed activities (Porter 1996). While the activities remain the same, the approach taken to perform or enact them is the strategic decision that is required to sustain competitiveness. But all these strategies have mostly been market-oriented and as such marketing became the focal point around which other strategies and policies were designed.

However, in the current recession marketing has a limited role as the share of the market is either receding or not growing enough to fight for. A new dimension that has been added is the conscious reduction of travel by the business class who now prefer to use the internet, video conferencing and the like to cut back on travel. The traditional marketing concepts relying on the 7Ps of Boom and Bitner (1981), 4Cs of Kotler (1999) and 30Rs of Gummesson (1996), are no longer producing the results that were expected of them.

In fact, Gummesson (1994) has the audacity to say that these models were manipulative and exploitative in nature. That is not to say that employees, suppliers and the society at large were ignored before, but their position was either isolated or as a support measure to marketing efforts. Technology has come in a big way to help the integration of all efforts and indeed to offer deeper insights into the possible computations and combinations that help to formulate new strategies.