Impact of Technological Advance on Information Technology - Assignment Example

? Marketing final exam Table of Contents Part one 3 Impact of technological advance on information technology 3 Impact of Socio-cultural change on information technology 5 Part two 6 Marketing of drugs directly to consumers 6 Influence of sales effort of pharma manufacturer- Pfizer 7 Part three 9 Services marketing 9 Importance of marketing of services 10 Characteristics of services 10 Part four 12 Letter to friend 12 References 15 Part one Impact of technological advance on information technology Impact of technological advancement on information technology The personal life is dependent highly on technology which has been developed by the people. The technological advancement has changed the way of purchasing products, the way of living, travelling, communicating, learning and many other changes has been brought by these technological advancements. As there is a change in the lifestyle and demand of people, the demand for advancement in technology is high. A very good example of technological advancement is mobile phone. The type of mobile phone which we had in earlier times no longer exists now. There is a change in the demand of mobile phone users. This has resulted in the advancement of mobile phone technologies. The users of mobile phones demand functionality and simplicity. This has forced the manufacturers of mobile phone to develop smart phones which are computer minded, easily usable, having more functionality as compared to the mobile phones of past. Further, technological advancements have helped organizations and businesses to save cost of production and time which is an advantage to small business and have managed to use these advancements for gaining competitive advantage. A very good example is 3G/ 4G broadband. The advantage of this super fast internet has been taken by small business to reach the target market with lower cost of operation. However, there has been both positive and negative effect of technological advancement. In the positive side, technological advancement saves time, provides simpler mode of doing things, simplifies communication, increases production, and improves educational environment and health care. In the negative side, technological advancement has made the humans lazier. Excessive dependence of the technological users on the advance technological tools has resulted in lesser innovation. Further, it has also increased the health risks as the technological users do less exercise. In the perspective of education, students are more dependent on computers and calculators for solving simple equations. They cannot train their brains for solving a simple task for which they become lame in class. A few technological advancements have changed the human lives in the following manner: Technological advancement has contributed a lot in health care and medicine. This has helped to save the lives of many innocent people. Further, it has improved health sciences and human medicine. The medical students and doctors use medical technological tools for carrying out extensive research on the challenges and problems related to human health. This extensive research has led to the development of treatments and new drugs which help to cure the challenging human diseases and saving the lives of many people and prolonging the lifespan of human being. For example: a smart phone ultrasound which was provided by Microsoft can be used for integrating a USB based ultrasound probe with a Smart phone. This can be used to create a ultrasound device which is simple hand sized for enabling the doctors to image the bladder, liver, veins, eyes, arteries and kidney of a patient in remote areas which can detect any infection easily. This device can be used in many developing countries for saving the life of people. This mobile ultra sound can be used by the doctors without boundaries for helping the patients in remote areas. Certain other technologies in health care include use of nano-composite contact lenses for treating diabetes patients. Neuro-prosthetic chips are used for controlling artificial limbs and to prevent seizures. So, technological advancements has helped to provide good and advanced technology to the society. Impact of Socio-cultural change on information technology Social change is the transformation of social organisation and culture over time. The society is not static in the modern world. The political, cultural, economic and social changes constantly occur. The social change happens everywhere but the rate of change varies from place to place. Sometimes, social change is intentional but it is often unplanned. Certain social changes matter more than others and controversy is often generated by this change. There are certain socio-cultural changes which have a major impact on human factor. The major sources of such change are: Physical environment at times brings certain compulsory changes. Technology is a core basis of modern social system which definitely has an impact on society. The factor of demography or population also causes socio- cultural change. The changes in culture also attribute towards socio- cultural change. Another factor attributable is social movements and collective behaviour. It has a profound impact for changes in society. Further, westernization and modernization also has a significant impact on social changes. So, the socio cultural changes has led the field of information technology to provide more advanced technology to the consumers. Part two Marketing of drugs directly to consumers Direct marketing is a form of advertising which allows the non profit organizations and business to make a straight communication with the customers. It includes the techniques of advertising like email, online display ads, text messaging by cell phone, catalogue distribution, fliers, outdoor advertising, promotional letters and interactive consumer websites. The message of direct marketing focuses on data, customer and accountability. There are certain characteristics which distinguishes direct marketing. The marketing messages are directly addressed towards the customers. The members of a target market can be addressed by means of direct marketing. This addressability can take variety of forms like mobile phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses, postal addresses and web browser cookies. Direct marketing targets to drive a particular call to action. An advertisement can provide a facility to visit a website and click on a link or to make a call on a free phone number. The process of direct marketing emphasizes on the measurable and trackable feedback from customers irrespective of medium. However, direct marketing can provide benefit to both consumers and marketers. Targeted Direct marketers focus their resources on the best prospects for the specific products and services. If the drugs can be directly marketed to consumers, it will be possible to address the specific needs and concerns of consumers. Cost savings While enormous spending is made by the awareness marketers to reach to everyone in a marketplace but in case of direct marketing, the direct marketers only spend that much amount which is required to reach a particular target group. So, through direct marketing, the drug manufacturer doesn’t have to waste their money in influencing people who does have any interest in its drugs. This process generates higher response rates at lower cost. Immediate results Immediate results are not found by the awareness marketers. They hope to have a positive impression on their audience. However, if the drug manufacturer can go for direct marketing, he will be able to get immediate result. If he offers special discount on his drugs he will be able to get the response of customer within few days. Predictable results By showing simple demonstrations, the drug manufacturer through direct marketing can make an estimate of the percentage of probable customers to make response to the products. This predictability can help in appropriate planning. Benefit to consumers or patients The greatest advantage of direct marketing of drugs to the consumers can be the availability of specific offers on the drugs. This offer will be available to them if they can buy regularly. Influence of sales effort of pharma manufacturer- Pfizer The sales effort of pharma manufacturer like Pfizer has an impact on physicians, patients and hospital committees. Through good selling techniques, it can be possible to attract a positive outlook of patients, physicians and hospital committees. The physicians are entitled with prescribing the drugs to the patients. In such a case, good sales effort by pharma manufacturer can influence the physicians. If the pharma manufacturer can provide a good knowledge of their drugs, all the features associated with it and the positive effect of taking such drug on health, it can influence the physician to prescribe such drug to its patients. However, some samples of such drugs should be given to the physicians and proper demonstrations should be shown. The entire composition of such drug and its role in curing a particular disease should be clearly stated before the physician. However, proper advertising of the particular drug can also help to influence the physicians to prescribe such drugs to its patients. Again, proper sales effort by the pharma manufacturer can also help to influence the patient. If proper knowledge about the drug can be provided to the patients, the patients can be influenced to use such drugs. For this, different books and pamphlets encompassing the role of such drug in curing a disease or its role in keeping someone healthy should be provided to the patients and different videos on the drugs can also be shown to the patients. The feedback of patients who have used such drugs should be shown to the new patients. The drugs should be properly advertised before the patients so as to influence them to use it. Further, the sales effort by a pharma manufacturer can help to persuade the hospital committees to make the availability of such drug in its medicine counter. For this, the pharma manufacturer is required to show proper demonstrations of the drug and he need to ensure the hospital committee for its importance in curing a particular ailment. Proper information about the drug should be provided to the hospital committees. Although all drugs are equally important in disease curing but a specific or unique feature of the drug should be highlighted before the hospital committees to influence them for prescribing such drug in its medicine department. Part three Services marketing Today, the world economy is characterized increasingly as a service economy. This is because of the increasing importance of service sector and its share in the economies of developing and developed countries. The growth of service sector is an indicator of the economic progress of country. Many developing nations have made a shift from agriculture to industry to service sector as the main stay of economy. This shift has changed the definition of goods and services. The services form an integral part of product. There is a revolutionary change in the service sector which affects dramatically the way of our working and living. Many new services have been launched which provides satisfaction to our existing needs and to meet the unidentified needs. Many transformations are also occurring in the markets of business to business. The service organizations widely vary in size. It ranges from the industries of banking, airlines, insurance, hotels and telecommunications to locally owned small businesses like laundries, beauty parlours etc. Services marketing can be defined as the marketing of services against tangible products. Services are intangible inherently which are simultaneously consumed during the time of their production. It cannot be saved, resold or stored after it has been used. The offerings of service are unique which cannot be repeated by the same provider of service. It is a sub field of marketing which can be categorised into two main areas of services marketing and goods marketing. The services marketing include the services of both business to business and business to consumer. However, the term services can be defined as the economic activities which are offered by one party to another. Importance of marketing of services Focussing on the intangibility characteristic of services, its marketing becomes an extremely important and challenging task. Because of the growing homogeneity in the offerings of product, a key differentiator which comes in the consumers mind is the services of attendant. The marketers can make leverage on the offerings of service to make a differentiation from the competition and to attract consumers. In case of marketing of services, the relationships are a key factor. Due to the intangibility of product, a large part of the buying decision of customers is dependent on the degree of trust on seller. So, the requirement of listening to the needs of customer and fulfilling them by means of proper service offering requires repetitive sales. Further, the retention of customers is the need of hour than attracting new customers. The services involve customers in the process of service delivery by considering his feedback and requirements. So, it offers wider scope of customization as per the requirements of customer. In this way, it offers more satisfaction which leads to higher retention of customer. Characteristics of services The characteristics or features of services can be discussed as under: Perishability As compared to the physical products, services are highly perishable. This is because unlike the physical products, storing of many services is not possible. The services of an airline are more perishable than fresh food and vegetables. If an airline company is unable to sell all seats on a particular flight, it will not be possible to generate sales revenue from sale of such seats. Intangibility It is easier to see, touch and feel a physical product before taking a decision to purchase the product. However, comparing it with a service, for example, insurance policy, it is not possible to see, smell or touch the product. Although it is possible to make an assessment of the product on the basis of its past experience, location, words or the decor of the office of insurance. Inseparability In the marketing of services, a distinguishable feature is the inseparability of service provider and provision from consumer and service consumption. A hotel room cannot be taken for consumption. However, this service will be consumed at the point of provision. This has implication for scale of operation and distribution channels. Heterogeneity There are variations in the quality of service. With an increase in labour intensiveness, heterogeneity also increases. It is easier to standardize the manufactured goods. Inconsistency in quality can result out of human behaviour. In the consistency of service, there can be wide variations. There is greater homogeneity on the services which are equipment based. The inconsistency is reduced by automation. Client based relationships Proper interactions lead to customer satisfaction that will use the service repeatedly. It is important for service providers to maintain the clients or customers over long term and build trust, provide satisfaction to customers and demonstrate the commitment of customers. In building of client based relationship, word of mouth communication has a key role. Customer contact In order to deliver the service, proper level of interaction is required between the service provider and customer. In high contact industries, an important role is played by the look of facilities. Further, it is essential to have satisfied and well trained employees. Focusing on the selected discipline which is information technology, the marketing of services has a major impact on it. The IT infrastructure services provide services like enterprise computing which provide advice in strategic technology for the assessment and design of data centre. Again, the service of end user computing can make the transition of organization to scalable, flexible and cost effective computing environment. Part four Letter to friend College of Engineering University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign Dear..... Hope you are fine. How your studies are going on? I have to inform you something. I have decided to undertake a course in marketing which can contribute a lot in my discipline of information technology. I want to share with you that how the course in marketing can help me in my domain. Starting with marketing, in this area, the marketing tactics are used to target the audience for the specific objectives. The marketing course will contribute in the field of information technology to build a good customer relationship management. Communication plays a vital role and proves very impactful when packaged within a story. It highly depends on the way how a message has been communicated. An effective presentation will last long within the audience and they could easily recall and subconsciously relate them with their own lives thereby appear very responsive when asked regarding the subject. The marketing helps the information technology specialist to focus on creating value instead of capturing them. Like for e.g., most successful brands don’t ask instead create value for their customers. Like Starbucks creates value by letting their customer to come up with innovative ideas for their brand. The sole objective of any business is to grow hence if marketed towards that goal, business will be surely successful. Innovation differentiates from the mass. So, the efficient marketing strategy will be looking around for new ideas, study all kinds of topics and success stories even if not related to the desired content. Creative input leads to creative output. Creativity follows the fear of rejection so instead of giving a negative feedback adopt a gentle approach by directing an idea to be more interesting and channelize the thoughts generate something very productive. By knowing the tactics of marketing, the IT specialist will be able to provide satisfaction to clients by analyzing the requirements and providing better service to them. It will lead to the promotion of product thereby promotion of company as a whole. The values of marketing will create an empathetic attitude of IT specialist which will separate him from the rest as everyone is not fully equipped and they (consumers, users, clients etc.) could use some of his help. However, the traditional concept of marketing, involves 4 Ps which are – Product – Quality should be the utmost priority Price – Reasonable in line with the nature of consumers Promotion – Strategies to reach out to the target audience Placement – Adoption of proper channel of distribution However, it has evolved over the years and now it’s no longer an isolated, static process but it is a complex, continuous and interrelated process which requires planning, implementation and control. The ultimate objective of marketing is to search for consumer requirements and develop methods to fulfil their needs. It varies with the nature of the industry hence it is imperative to understand the field where the business is operating to apply the most beneficial marketing strategy. So, marketing management is a business discipline which focuses upon influencing the level, timing and composition of customer demand. To create a cost efficient marketing strategy firms must possess sound understanding of the business, should have foresightedness and ability to analyze the benefits and threats arising out of it. I hope you have understood the concept of marketing and will support me in my decision to pursue the course. Hope to meet you soon. Take care. Yours lovingly ..................... References Malhotra, N. K. and Dash, S., 2009. Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation, 5/e. 5th edition. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd. Wrenn, B., et al., 2002. Marketing Research: Text and Cases. New York: Best Business Books. Kolb, B., 2008. Marketing research: A Practical Approach. UK: SAGE. Burrow, J., 2008. Marketing. 3rd edition. USA: South-Western Cengage Learning. Read More