Contemporary Marketing Issues - Corporate Transparency - Research Paper Example

Order 116853 Contemporary Marketing Issues and Strategic Marketing Corporate Transparency is ready availability of information to the stakeholders regarding maters that impact their benefit. Transparency has five drivers and the most important is globalization. This renders false disclosures a death knell for corporations, and responsibility, web, linkages among the stakeholders, which probe and attempt to alter the behavior of corporations. The other four drivers that form the basis of an open enterprise are integrity, answerability, consideration and transparency, and the manner in which corporations can adhere to these values and attain sustainable growth and control costs through alleviating and managing risk in a better manner. (Tapscott; Ticoll, 2003) However while commendable and also desirable, the quest for transparency has its pitfalls also. Within a competitive framework where asymmetry in information comes as an advantage, opening up everything can bring at par the corporate battlefield. Although transparency in financial revelation is not only wanted, it is compulsory, but transparency in marketing strategy can be devastating. Besides, in the ultimate analysis, although a company might bring about transparency, success cannot always be assured. There are chances that plans laid up in the best possible manner can still go haywire. (Tapscott; Ticoll, 2003) In the 21st century we are witnessing the development of strategic alliances and networks in which businesses work in unison towards shared goals and maintain partnership in their operations. Managing of such relationships in the most efficient manner is nearly the solution to success or failure. The preceding is at the core of marketing strategy that has to include the following factors (i) the opening and shutting of strategic windows (ii) the effect of market propellers. (iii) The type of competition within the market place. (iv) The stage of the market or the industry life cycle. (v) The assets and the abilities which the company possesses or is able to readily obtain. Understanding of the all these five factors is vital if efficient long-term marketing strategies are to be advanced that will result in a company establishing a strategic competitive advantage in industries or in product markets. (Proctor, 2000) The current era of informational transparency calls for building marketing strategies through customer relationships and integrating communications across multiple channels. This is driven by the fact that marketing is witnessing a rapid shift of power towards consumer and the management of communication processes was being raised to strategic levels to facilitate in building customer relations and drive business results. Marketers are trying to cope with increasingly tough competition while the cost of acquisition of new customers is rising. Privacy concerns and regulatory acts like 'Do Not Call' legislation gave higher focus on setting up true relationships instead of blindly luring customers with uncertain mass-communication strategies. (Developing Effective Multi-Channel Marketing Strategies) Channel proliferation spawned by new media like websites and e-mail also added channels through which new methods of marketing are surfacing that seek to more efficiently use customer data to filter across target lists, build personalization rules and build marketing campaigns across and within the complete spectrum of media channels available. Therefore the two main constituents of efficient multi-channel marketing are building pertinent offers through personalization and coordinating and management of multiple marketing channels. (Developing Effective Multi-Channel Marketing Strategies) In order to build a consistent and effective multi-channel marketing and Customer Relationship Management -- CRM strategy, the answer lies in integrated solutions. It is through integration that companies are able to restructure CRM and marketing, keeping up a consistent message, leading to more efficient campaigns and increased Return on Investment -- ROI. Use of email campaign and its growth that is completely integrated into their present campaigns and strategies is more useful in comparison to an individual campaign. Increased transparency fuelled by media proliferation necessitates CRM to be the most important elements of efficient marketing. Marketers should keep and maintain healthy relationships with their customers to get the maximum ROI from their CRM strategy. Integration helps marketers to establish seamless communication with the customers across all channels thereby bettering customer communications through sending the right message to the rightly targeted customer at the opportune time. (The Simplest Solution is the Integrated Solution) Globalization is pervasive. Currently it concerns every form of company functioning in mature markets, as sometimes their primary source of growth is outside the realm of their home market. Regional companies and brands encounter competition on a global level. Among the strategies available before them is to venture international shores themselves, and tackle the mass of new questions this framework builds. Will it be advantageous to adapt their product according to the local needs or export it Will it gainful for the organization in case they pursue a global marketing strategy and to what degree Is the time ripe to change the design so that it is able to compete in the overseas market in a better manner (Kapferer, 2004) The final objective of strategic management remains to find a competitive advantage of the business in question. Thus is appears normal to delve into the idea if competitive advantage as well as the concept of sustainable advantage. Latest development in the thoughts connected to these ideas has been part of what formed competence based strategy that is understood currently. Therefore, the discussion of competitive advantage functions as a 'rule out' to a discussion of the theoretical realms which formed competence based strategies. (Drejer, 2002) The importance of strategy and planning cannot be underestimated in the immensely speedily approaching, dynamic business scenario of the present era. Normal strategies are directives which the organizations accept in devising plans for the future, polices, tactics, and actions. In contrast to the obsolete, long-range planning, strategic planning deals with environmental factors. These factors comprise elements that are beyond the control such as competition, economy, technology, society, consumers and legal and ethical proportions. Several of these undergo changes faster compared to others. For instance, the technological transformations of the present era are in the vanguard impacting every feature of business. (Rao, 2001) Thus in order to lower threats of business failure, marketers require to be more meticulous while developing their strategic plans and ensuring that their plans are functional. The marketing-aligned organization senses the needs of the buyers and desires. It is able to efficiently unite and propel the competencies and resources of the whole organization to give increased degree of satisfaction to its customers. The blueprint of competing that connects R & D, technology, modernization, production, finance that is unified through the process of marketing's impulsion to be in command of a market remains the approach that all competitors will progress to succeed. (Rao, 2001) The development of multinationals on an international degree built a new competitive setting while concurrently, conventional trade restrictions started to break down. These developments authorized the globalization of corporate strategies. In the new age of global competition, some authors debated that the efficiently governed present company must stress internationally standardized products that are advanced, operational, dependable, of better standards, and have a low cost instead of products that are tailored as per market needs meant for every national market. The demonstration of this extensively held stance compels the matter of international sourcing to the vanguard. (Vriens 2003) Presently, the widespread geographical diversification of multinational companies has resulted in more and more understanding of the competitive benefits received from synchronizing and integrating the functioning across the national boundaries. As a result the development of international marketing in keeping with cross-national sourcing strategies is an important apprehension. Sourcing strategies are, nevertheless, multi-dimensional and under it are covered such factors like production locations, segments of production, internal vis--vis external components sourcing, and internal vis--vis external assembly. (Vriens 2003) At the time when business unpredictability rises and market situations come to be increasingly insistent and stakeholders increasingly demanding, it is imperative that organizations must optimize their resources in an efficient manner to combat the changing objectives and profit or maintain competitive edge. In order to accomplish this, appropriate information regarding the business processes and the environment is essential. To cite an example, in case a product manager of a mobile telephone company is embarking on launching a new range of mobile telephone to take a market leadership position, a huge amount of information is necessary. In order to arrive at the correct decision, a lot of forward-looking intelligence is necessary. Forward-looking intelligence is the capability to be able to make dependable forecasts regarding the direction in which the business is headed and what is propelling the business. Forward-looking intelligence comprises possessing an in-depth into business propellers, a management procedure and proficient people to be capable of collaborating and sharing knowledge with the systems and the organization to back this. (Kotler; Achrol, 1999) Being in the threshold of the twenty-first century, marketing is on the brink of revolutionary transformation in its organizational perspective as also in its relationship with the customers. Propelled by a vibrant environment abound with knowledge, the hierarchical organization of the 21st century are congregating into several types of network inclusive of internal networks, vertical network, inter-market network and opportunity networks. The part that marketing is playing is changing in several manners. It is certain that more and more marketing will be responsible for building and managing new marketing knowledge, education, real-time market information systems, intra-firm integration, solving of conflicts, technology forecasting, It will discover new barriers of multilateral marketing, reorient markets by convergence of technology and electronic commerce and cluster consumer information through and demand into saleable business assets. (Kotler; Achrol, 1999) Of late there has been heightened interest in the marketing transforming role inside the organization, but scanty empirical research is available which gauges the influence of marketing or associates role of marketing to situational factors. Taking a cue from contingency and institutional theories of intra-organizational power issues that are tackled are (i) in what situations the marketing sub-unit does possesses higher level of influence. Outcomes of a survey among US companies show that (i) the marketing subunit continue to possess sizeable impact (ii) the impact of marketing is linked systematically to the determinants other than individual manager's character. (Homburg; Workman; Krohmer, 1999) In the general chain of events, the development of strategic plan is seen as a process involving three steps. To start with the company undertakes an internal assessment of its strengths and weakness. Subsequently, an external survey of the market and the rivals of the company are undertaken. In the end, the owners formulate a plan of attack, inclusive of a company-wide blueprint as also individual business development plans for every development. This particular plan of action may necessitate broad organizational restructuring apart from advertisement, public relations and business development modules. (Scott, 2005) Market Transparency can be described as the availability and accessibility of information, categorized into three categories of information which might impact the economic behavior of market participants i.e. price, product and supplier information. Different categories of information might provoke varied economic behavior from the customers. In the perspective of Internet-based selling, there is a requirement to identify the type of information which is supplied to the consumers in order to assess hi/her response to such type of information. It is vital that businesses which utilize the Internet as a distribution channel must formulate a transparency strategy. The Internet has augmented the potential of companies to inform consumers. This elevated potential is the higher limit of the market transparency space or the set of available options in case of firms to select a transparency strategy. (Granados; Gupta; Kauffman, 2004) With the advent of Internet, remarkable transformations were brought about in the availability of market information to consumers. It lowered information search costs, the choice of multiple purchasing channels and product choices. For instance, air travelers presently are capable of surfing the Internet to get several travel offers to their destination, as compared to few offers from a chosen travel agent or airline company before the Internet started. The Internet has raised the level of market transparency, the potential of buyers and sellers, and intermediaries to see the market information. Basically two types of market transparency have been especially impacted, i.e. product and price transparency. Product transparency is connected to the available information regarding available product, their variants along with their features. (Granados; Gupta; Kauffman, 2005) Needless to say price transparency is connected to market price information. IT-enabled market transparency constitutes a strategic absurdity in case of organization. Having a properly informed consumer, an advantage of the Internet and ensuring that information is available in order to help product marketing and distribution even renders it hard to earn profits. Thus, companies are faced with the threat of weighing the trade-off between the benefits of luring consumers with market information, and on the other hand suffering the risk of losing information advantages. But there is scanty available research on the impact of market transparency on the economic behaviour of consumers. (Granados; Gupta; Kauffman, 2005) References Baer Joshua. "The Simplest Solution is the Integrated Solution" Retrieved from http://www.crm2day.com/library/50162.php Accessed 20 March, 2006 "Developing Effective Multi-Channel Marketing Strategies" (February, 2004) Retrieved from http://www.the-dma.org/whitepapers/MultiChannelMarketingFeb04.pdf Accessed 20 March, 2006 Drejer, Anders. (2002) "Strategic Management and Core Competencies: Theory and Application" Quorum Books. Granados, Nelson; Gupta, Alok; Kauffman, Robert J. (5 April, 2004) "Transparency Strategy in Internet-based Selling". Retrieved from http://misrc.umn.edu/workingpapers/fullpapers/2004/0405_040504.pdf Accessed 17 March, 2006 Granados, Nelson; Gupta, Alok; Kauffman, Robert J. (6 December, 2005) "Empirical Analysis of Internet-Enabled Market Transparency" Retrieved from http://clients.pixelloom.info/WISE2005/papers/113.pdf Accessed 18 March, 2006 Homburg, Christian; Workman, John P; Krohmer, Harley. (April, 1999) "Marketing Influence within the Firm" Journal of Marketing. Vol. 63: No. 2; pp. 1-17 Kapferer, Jean-Noc l. (2004) "The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term" Kogan Page. Kotler, Phillip; Achrol, Ravi S. (April, 1999) "Marketing in the Network Economy." Journal of Marketing. Vol: 63; No: 2; pp. 146-163. Proctor, Tony. (2000) "Strategic Marketing: An Introduction" Routledge (UK). Rao, C. P. (2001) "Globalization and Its Managerial Implications" Quorum Books. Reddy, Allan C. (1997) "The Emerging High Tech Consumer: A Market Profile and Marketing Strategy Implications". Quorum Books. Scott, Hunter. (2005) "Building a Firm Foundation for a Strategic Plan". Credit and Financial Management Review. Vol: 17; No: 1; pp: 47-50 Tapscott, Don; Ticoll, David. (December, 2003) "The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business." Retrieved from http://www.camagazine.com/index.cfm/ci_id/18680/la_id/1.htm Accessed 17 March, 2006 Vriens Dirk. (2003) "Information and Communication Technology for Competitive Intelligence". Idea Group Inc (IGI). Read More