Technological Advances and Socio-Cultural Forces - Assignment Example

Task: Marketing Assignment Technological advances and socio-cultural forces can have great impact on businesses. Identify one technological advance and one socio-cultural change that have influenced your major/discipline (IT, Engg. Tech, Human factors, Chemistry, Sport and Fitness, Psychology, etc.). Explain how it has influenced. Be specific and provide support or evidence to your arguments. The world today is facing a major transformation in technology, and businesses have no option but to adopt new technologies. Business operations transformed from being merely an accounting and bookkeeping exercise, which was an old economy model of conducting business, to an all-round economic activity involving advertisement, consumer relations, Corporate Social Responsibility, and conformation to other environmental factors such as PESTEL. One of the main technological advancements that completely transformed the business world is the invention of the Social Media Networks such as Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Technology enables people to network easily, chat and meet friends over the internet. In addition, businesses take advantage of this platform provided by social media networks to advertise their products and services, i.e. through e marketing and e-commerce. Social media networks have millions of people converging on their sites at the same time. Businesses are looking for these customers. Therefore, it is mandatory for every business to have a presence in social media in order to keep adrift with business trends and transformation (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). On the other hand, social media networks also brought about significant transformation in the social-cultural arena whereby it transformed how people interacted. Through social media networks, it is possible for people to meet and make friends with other from parts of the globe. Furthermore, social media sites also enable people to participate in online conversations, voice their opinions about certain issues, as well as contribute to both educational and motivational blogs. As such, social communication greatly advanced through social media networks. This greatly improved interpersonal skills and modes of communication across the globe. The world has become a more social place thanks to social media, and social media networks enabled people to marshal support and fight champion for a common course, e.g. social media sites was very fundamental in organizing the Arab Uprising in Egypt in 2011 (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). A recent study by a consumer health organization, Families USA, reported that pharmaceutical drug companies spend over $57 billion per year on promotion. Direct-to-physician activities accounted for the bulk of spending, on a practice called, “detailing”—visits to physicians by pharmaceutical sales representatives in order to promote their firm’s drugs. Free drug samples distributed during these visit represent another significant expense. It is estimated that in total pharmaceutical companies spend over $61,000 in “promotion per physician”. The other major piece of the marketing ‘pie’ is spent on consumer-direct marketing—ads that suggest consumers ‘ask the doctor” about drugs we may not even need for ailments we may not even have. The report also states that each of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies spend more than twice as much on marketing on research and development. The market for prescription drugs is unique in many ways. Prescription drug marketers must convince a third party-- a physician-- to prescribe their product to the ultimate consumer, the patient. The decider is the physician, and drug manufacturers' promotional efforts traditionally have been directed toward physicians. Furthermore, drug firms increasingly have to influence committees in hospitals and health management organizations who are determining which drugs their physicians can prescribe. (15) (About 250-300 words) If prescription drugs can only be ordered by a physician, what is the purpose of marketing directly to consumers? (Avoid providing a nonprofessional’s answer something like—“because it helps to inform consumers”. Rather use your knowledge about consumer behavior and provide a well informed and well thought answer based on logic and reasoning.) Only physicians can order prescription drugs for their patients to use, who in turn end up being the customers to these pharmaceutical companies. However, firms manufacturing drugs always spend a big portion of their advertising money on promoting their drugs directly to consumers, i.e. through consumer direct marketing whereby the advertisement intends to empower consumers to know more about drugs that can treat several ailments even if they do not have the said ailments. This mode of promotion has requires a significant amount of capital which then begs the question that if only physicians can order prescription drugs to their patients, why then should marketers from pharmaceutical firms spent a fortune in promoting their drugs to customers? The answer is simple. This is because patients are the final users of the drugs and not physicians. Therefore, an informed patient is a potential customer of the drug firms because he or she will help influence the physician’s choice of drug to use owing to the background knowledge they already have about the drug derived through promotional activities (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Take this for example. A customer is suffering from malaria. Several drugs can effectively treat and cure malaria as long as they contain AL component, Artemether Lumefanthrine, which is responsible for eliminating malaria parasites from the blood system of a malaria patient. On the other hand, there are several drug companies providing a drug that cures malaria, e.g. Duo-Cotexin, Coartam, Artefan, maldor, e.t.c. As such, a physician can only suggest to the patient about the possible range of drugs that can cure him or her from the disease. However, the patient holds the ultimate decision over exactly which drug among the options provided he or she is going to select, say he chooses Duo-Cotexin because he once say an advertisement about during a television commercial. This is the main reason why it is important to market prescription drugs to customers as well because it makes the entire marketing campaign a successful trail (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Using the outline in the chapter on consumer behavior in your textbook, analyze the different types of influences that affect the sales efforts of a pharmaceutical manufacturer like Pfizer on physicians, patients, and hospital committees. Several factors influence the sales efforts done by manufacturers of pharmaceuticals on physicians, hospital committees and patients. These factors influence the buying behaviors of individuals. On the patients’ side, the main factor that influences their decision to choose one drug from the other is personal factors. These unique things apply solely to that patient alone. They may include features demographic features such as family roles, gender, family structure, age, race, e.t.c. For instance, a mother is the one who makes the decision on which drug to use on her baby despite her not being the patient or user of the drug. This is a personal factor as the mother holds full responsibility in determining how to treat her sick child (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Secondly, several psychological factors influence sales efforts by marketers from pharmaceuticals. Psychological factors have two divisions. These are motives and perceptions. A motive refers to an energizing force that acts internally but manifests externally by orienting the activities of a person to satisfy a given need. As such, physicians and patients have a motive of treating their sickness by use of the best drug available and affordable. Their motive greatly influences sales efforts from these drug firms because motive pushes them to make a decision of one drug from the other. On the other hand, perception refers to how concerned stakeholders perceive certain drugs or certain pharmaceutical firms. For example, there are drugs already branded as ineffective for the treatment of a given disease. This affects sales efforts of such a firm because it is extremely difficult to convince a patient, or a physician, or worse off a hospital committee that your drug has the best cure for a certain ailment when they already perceive it as ineffective or useless in combating the said ailment (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Write a convincing essay on services marketing answering why we need to market services differently from goods. Also, explain giving interesting examples the various distinguishing characteristics of services (18 points). Give two specific examples where you can apply this knowledge in your discipline (Major). A service refers to all benefits, activities and satisfactions offered to an individual or a corporate for sale or in connection to selling of goods. Nowadays, the service sector holds significant influence in the world economy because of the increase in growth of the service sector. Developing nations show revolution from agriculture to industrial and now to the service sectors. Services are now an integral part of goods interconnected through a goods-services continuum. Services are very different from goods as evidenced in their characteristics. Therefore, it is not possible for marketers of services to apply a similar strategy to marketers of goods. Examples of major services that the world economy cannot do without are transport services, e.g. airlines and subways, accommodation services offered by hotels and lodgings, and professional services such as accounting, auditing, and lawyers (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Services are intangible by nature and it is therefore impossible for one to smell, to touch, to taste or to hold a service. Service marketing therefore is the art of selling this intangible characteristic to prospective customers. Marketers have to focus on the benefits that the use of such services provides to their customers. For instance, an airline company can promote its services by offering a free return ticket for every couple that flies using their airline. As such, the customers benefit from the free return ticket. However, service marketers have to consider all other characteristics of services such as perishability, heterogeneity, and inseparability. Services are unique by nature and it is impossible to offer exactly the same service to another customer even by the same provider. This is unlike goods that are homogeneous and have conformity and consistency in masses, e.g. all coffee products from Tchibo Brand are almost identical. However, this is not true for all the coffee brewed at the same store (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Services characterize perishability in a sense that it is impossible to store, resale, return or save services. A customer completely consumes a service rendered to him or her by a given service provider making it impossible to deliver it to another consumer. For instance, a lady not satisfied by the services of a given saloonist cannot return the service rendered to her. The best she can do is to decide never to visit that hair salon again. Inseparability of services refers to its characteristic of undergoing consumption and production at the same time. It is impossible to take-away services from the service provider and consumes it later, or in a different location. For instance, the lady above consumes simultaneously the hairdressing service offered to her by the saloonist. Generation and consumption of services takes place during the same period (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Services have two major divisions, i.e. core and supplementary. Core services refer to those services that are the primary purpose of a given transaction, e.g. teaching, while supplementary services refers to services offered alongside the sale of tangible products, e.g. free DSTV installation. It is possible to apply the knowledge about service marketing in my discipline, information technology, in introducing new software in the market, or selling a new operating system. Some of the interesting examples of service marketing include lawyers advertising their services publicly, and insurance companies advertising their insurance packages. In the United States, law practitioners have legal permission to advertise their services publicly through print and broadcast media such as televisions and billboards. Lawyers provide services to their clients. Therefore, this is an appropriate example of service marketing. Consequently, insurance firms engage in similar tactics in order to get clients to purchase their insurance packages (Hair, Lamb and McDaniel 14). Write a letter to a friend who is in the College of Engineering at University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign explaining how a course in marketing will help (or will not help) you in your career. Take a position and provide convincing arguments. Dear Josh, Hello. How is the going at the university? I am doing well from this end. I hope your engineering course is taking you fine. On my end, I am doing well with my marketing course. I decided to take a business degree and specialize in marketing because of the numerous benefits arising from possession of a marketing degree. I like marketing and I think taking a course in marketing will help me in advancing my career in marketing in the future. This is because of many reasons that include the following. Nowadays, marketing has become the driving course of every notable business in the market. Business cannot afford to neglect their marketing requirements owing to the great importance marketing does to any business. For instance, marketing enables a company to know its competitive advantages, discover its strengths and weaknesses, and determine how to position and reorganize itself in the market in order to take advantage of emerging business opportunities. As a professional in marketing, I stand to be in a good position to assist businesses and industries to reorganize themselves and strategize their objectives in order to stay competitive in the market. A degree in marketing is also a business degree. Having a business degree opens numerous career doors for marketing studies in fields such as advertising, product management, and sales. In addition, a marketing degree sharpens a student’s ability to communicate properly and relate well with other people. This is what business corporate requires from marketers. They want people who can handle the image of the business as well as people who can communicate their agendas and objectives to the public. Marketers help businesses handle their communications department such as customer-care call centers and receptionists. Furthermore, a marketing degree broadens a student’s knowledge about the business field. Marketing involves an all round study of the business field including functional areas such as human resource, accounting and finance, business administration and management. Marketing studies further enables students to anchor themselves in the business field by imploring them with knowledge from the rest of the business departments or areas of specialization. A marketing professional is an all-rounded business executive with knowledge and capabilities to drive a business through turbulent times and maintain prosperity as compared to any other business professional such as an accountant, an auditor or a finance director. This is because these entire professions focus or specialize on a single line of business only. However, a marketer gets more skills compared to any of them. In addition to the above-mentioned skills, a marketing student also learns how to analyze information and make proper decisions from the information. The study of marketing involves studying how to conduct market research and how to analyze the data collected to derive meaningful information that management can use to make decisions. A marketer assists the organization to identify problems facing the business and to come up with possible solutions to solve the problems, or to take advantage of the said problem, i.e. turning problems into opportunities. Marketing focuses entirely on wooing consumers to buy products from a company or to use services offered by a company. As such, studying marketing empowers a student to understand the psychology of consumers such as their behaviors and their tastes and preferences. I truly like studying marketing and hope I will graduate with honors. Considering all these benefits accruing from taking marketing degree, I hope to come out as a powerful marketer once I graduate. Hope to see you during the summer vacations. Yours sincerely, Michael Work Cited Hair, Joseph, Lamb Charles and McDaniel Carl. Essentials of Marketing. Stamford, Connecticut: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print. Read More