This document discusses how companies can successfully evolve with new internal customers in the Internet era. It provides examples of how companies like Procter & Gamble, Best Buy, and Intel have engaged employees as internal customers online to gain insights and boost innovation. The key is mutual trust, engagement at all levels, and a culture of sharing. Companies must understand how employee input online can impact their business and develop strategies to benefit from collective intelligence and learning within online communities. Empowering employees to use their skills professionally online provides benefits like new solutions and marketing ideas from customer feedback.
Revisiting Marketing Mix: Study of Evidences for Investigating Innovative Rol...scmsnoida5
With increasing complexities of intense
competitive market there is an evident emerging
need for change in mechanisms of marketing.
Out of all the most promising is the convergence
of company and the customer. This synergy
is innovatively utilized by companies in cocreating
and this has been possible mainly
because of the platform provided by Information
Technology. Thus this paper highlights the role
of Information Technology and how it can be
leveraged for enhancing customer value by laying
strong foundation for co-creation of product,
price, place and promotion through continuous
interaction between the communities of customers
and company. The paper discusses the market
evidences of several companies who have been
successful in re-creating 4P’s of marketing with
the innovative usage of Information Technology.
This paper also intends to propose an algorithm
to model interaction between technologically co-created 4P’s and its impact on company’s profit
using Agent Based Modeling.
Research in the mobile mindset: Exploring the unexplored in the mobile research space (by InSites Consulting). 2012 finally seems to be the year of mobile. Smartphone penetration booms, mobile marketing budgets grow exponentially, and in the US alone, the app economy has created about half a million jobs (Mashable, 2012) in only 5 years time. In the slipstream of this, the market research industry has a close eye on the ball. Both on the technology and the methodology side, we see that our research toolbox is mobile enabled.
Most of the current research efforts are based either on mobile surveying as a tool (see, among others, Luck, 2011) or on mobile ethnography (see, among others, Atkinson & Conry, 2011). We miss a couple of dimensions in the discussion.
In this paper you can read more about the benefits of mobile surveying beyond the tool, the use of mobile in Market Research Online Communities (MROCs) and how research can help you with your mobile marketing. At the ESOMAR 3D Conference in Amsterdam (NL), the presentation by Annelies Verhaeghe & Anouk Willems was awarded Best Presentation of the 3D Conference.
Relationship between Social bonds and Customer value in commercial Banks in K...inventionjournals
This study sought to empirically examine the influence of social bonds on customer value in commercial banks in Kenya. The social bonds examined in this study are communication with customers (CC), creation of friendship (CF) and social support (SS). The study sample consists of 384 respondents with a response rate of 78.1 per cent. Data was analyzed by employing correlation and multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed that social bonds are positively associated with customer value in commercial banks in Kenya. The generalization of the findings is limited as the study focused only on a single industry in Kenya. Based on the findings, companies employing social bonds strategies should focus on improving the usefulness of the social bonds to customers by creating opportunities to strengthen social relationships. This study successfully extends the relationship marketing strategies in the context of customer value by incorporating communication with customers, creation of friendship and social support constructs. This extended relationship marketing model is developed to achieve the greater understanding of customer acceptance of social bonding strategy in Kenya’s commercial banks. In conclusion, the model in this study presents a considerable improvement in explanatory power.
Revisiting Marketing Mix: Study of Evidences for Investigating Innovative Rol...scmsnoida5
With increasing complexities of intense
competitive market there is an evident emerging
need for change in mechanisms of marketing.
Out of all the most promising is the convergence
of company and the customer. This synergy
is innovatively utilized by companies in cocreating
and this has been possible mainly
because of the platform provided by Information
Technology. Thus this paper highlights the role
of Information Technology and how it can be
leveraged for enhancing customer value by laying
strong foundation for co-creation of product,
price, place and promotion through continuous
interaction between the communities of customers
and company. The paper discusses the market
evidences of several companies who have been
successful in re-creating 4P’s of marketing with
the innovative usage of Information Technology.
This paper also intends to propose an algorithm
to model interaction between technologically co-created 4P’s and its impact on company’s profit
using Agent Based Modeling.
Research in the mobile mindset: Exploring the unexplored in the mobile research space (by InSites Consulting). 2012 finally seems to be the year of mobile. Smartphone penetration booms, mobile marketing budgets grow exponentially, and in the US alone, the app economy has created about half a million jobs (Mashable, 2012) in only 5 years time. In the slipstream of this, the market research industry has a close eye on the ball. Both on the technology and the methodology side, we see that our research toolbox is mobile enabled.
Most of the current research efforts are based either on mobile surveying as a tool (see, among others, Luck, 2011) or on mobile ethnography (see, among others, Atkinson & Conry, 2011). We miss a couple of dimensions in the discussion.
In this paper you can read more about the benefits of mobile surveying beyond the tool, the use of mobile in Market Research Online Communities (MROCs) and how research can help you with your mobile marketing. At the ESOMAR 3D Conference in Amsterdam (NL), the presentation by Annelies Verhaeghe & Anouk Willems was awarded Best Presentation of the 3D Conference.
Relationship between Social bonds and Customer value in commercial Banks in K...inventionjournals
This study sought to empirically examine the influence of social bonds on customer value in commercial banks in Kenya. The social bonds examined in this study are communication with customers (CC), creation of friendship (CF) and social support (SS). The study sample consists of 384 respondents with a response rate of 78.1 per cent. Data was analyzed by employing correlation and multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed that social bonds are positively associated with customer value in commercial banks in Kenya. The generalization of the findings is limited as the study focused only on a single industry in Kenya. Based on the findings, companies employing social bonds strategies should focus on improving the usefulness of the social bonds to customers by creating opportunities to strengthen social relationships. This study successfully extends the relationship marketing strategies in the context of customer value by incorporating communication with customers, creation of friendship and social support constructs. This extended relationship marketing model is developed to achieve the greater understanding of customer acceptance of social bonding strategy in Kenya’s commercial banks. In conclusion, the model in this study presents a considerable improvement in explanatory power.
Engage, inspire, act: Three stepstones towards developing more impactful prod...InSites Consulting
Great companies understand the importance of consumer insights when it comes to outperforming the competition. Engagement in learning and keeping knowledge up-to-date through a constant search for new insights, engagement in getting close to consumers and in getting immersed in their daily lives to inspire and understand their reality and the drivers of consumer value, these have proven to be some of the most critical corporate competencies. Engagement requires different ways of strategic thinking. It requires ‘co-ownership’ of the consumer insights within the organization. This article describes a valuable framework of how to engage and inspire an (R&D) organization via consumer insights, let them act upon the insights and move forward towards developing more impactful products and marketing. The last paragraphs look at how effective different elements of the framework have been in achieving a successful outcome, in order to learn and improve our initial way of working and to fine-tune our overall strategy.
Potential of social media in the customer interface of innovation processJari Jussila
Potential of social media in the customer interface of innovation process presentation at EBRF 2010 conference. Authors: Jari Jussila, Hannu Kärkkäinen, Hanna Nordlund
It was 1876 and Alexander Graham Bell was pitching his start-up. He offered Western Union his telephone technology for a rumored $100,000. The company dismissed it as 'an electrical toy'. The quote, although recently challenged for its authenticity, is an accurate reflection of the factors that drive product adoption. What is recognizable speech if not product readiness, telephone devices in every city, a means of distribution and the question of why anyone would use it - that of shifting consumer habits? Fast forward 130 years and the questions are the same about video communications. Video communications are nothing new. The goal of making it easier to see the person you’re talking to is a consistent theme in telephony. And yet by far the fastest growing communication method in the last 50 years has been short, asynchronous text messaging, with WhatsApp alone generating 18.3 trillion messages annually and an aggregated SMS volume at 8.16 trillion. So why is video communication not mainstream yet and what can we do to accelerate its adoption?
John Lewis Case Study - How does a company's brand communication strategy per...Rupi Dosanjh
Case study takes an in-depth look at John Lewis, a British brand who recently celebrated their 150 year anniversary.
Subjects of brand strategy, digital, communications, social media and consumer journey experiences are discussed with two senior industry figures.
Think Big and Connect to the Max: How Pepsico (re)connected the Ruffles brand...InSites Consulting
PepsiCo wanted to (re)connect the Ruffles brand with the Turkish youth. For six weeks a ‘Market Research Online Community’ (or ‘Consumer Consulting Board’) was the central hub in which the dialogue between Gen Y, the Ruffles brand team and the advertising agencies of PepsiCo took place. In three sequential stages we moved from generating insights into Turkish youth’s everyday life and their aspirations over testing and fine-tuning activation platforms and campaigns to creating an understanding of the role of social media in brand activation today. To enhance decision making, we wanted to connect all stakeholders to a maximum extent with the target group. To realize that, we created several touch points between the consumer world (the research results) and the business world (the marketing team and their objectives) while sharing our research results: online and offline consumer immersion exercises with all stakeholders, intermediate debriefs and workshops, a creative brainstorming session and a live chat session with members of the community during that brainstorm. This paper gives insights into the power of using research communities to deeply understand a target group and in the value of ‘triangulation’ in qualitative research (tackling the same issue from different angles and with different eyes). It also illustrates how creating several touch points between the consumer world and the business world can deliver bigger impact on marketing thinking.
Running engaging Market Research Online Communities. Social media has gained considerable human relevance. User-created content, citizen journalism and online social interactions (e.g. conversation, collaboration, participation, sharing, connecting) are embedded into the daily lives of consumers. With the different semantic waves of the web, the entire market research process and industry has undergone clear changes. Market research has changed from asking questions to having conversations with consumers. Online Research Communities have proven to be a viable environment to engage with consumers as well as marketing executives in a connected and participatory way. What makes research communities unique is that they assemble consumers to interact in an asynchronous longitudinal setting by applying social media techniques. Companies outsource tasks to a crowd (e.g. product and service creation and testing) in an open call in order to bring consumers inside organizations all the way up to the boardroom. Research communities bring true consumer connect between marketers and their target groups as they use interactive tools to tap into social interactions between people, and allow a more equal relationship between researchers, brands and participants.
Exploring the world of water - The conversation revolution: brands & people d...InSites Consulting
Danone wanted to understand the use of water in daily life and highlight consumer expectations for water consumption in general, in order to determine the main consumer perceived benefits. It was important to focus on the scientific objectives (also afterwards in clinical testing) to prove and understand 4 certain effects of water. The final output Danone was looking for needed to confirm that water can bring real benefits for consumers and to show which benefits would be most impactful in the market when proven. In order to investigate water consumption from different angles, we implemented a ‘fusion research’ design. Fusion research is a research design where multiple (contemporary) research methodologies are combined in order to study a certain research question from different angles. By applying triangulation, a holistic view is achieved around the same solution or marketing problem. Each of the selected methods adds one piece to the final puzzle and serves as input for the subsequent phase.
As a designer I have witnessed first hand the incredible growth of the importance of design. Innovative designs have had a profound and positive impact on our lives, and the thinking process has been repurposed by organizations such as P&G, GE, and Apple as an effective instrument towards change. I have noted through numerous successful design assignments the powerful affect an iterative visual process has on companies, allowing their leadership the ability to envision with clarity a new perspective to a challenging problem.
For IKEA, the yearly Catalogue is the main communication channel with existing and potential customers globally. This case study shows how the 2013 edition of the Catalogue and possible covers for the 2014 edition were evaluated qualitatively around the world, through Market Research Online Communities (or Consumer Consulting Boards) in five different countries.
The Art of Research: Using the power of images to increase the value of the D...InSites Consulting
DIESEL recognizes the need for social currency among today's increasingly digitalized Generation Y and is focusing its efforts on Pinterest as the ideal location to inspire and connect with females within their desired target demographic. DIESEL is known for tapping into subcultures with self-aware marketing, which is also the case on Pinterest. The platform allows DIESEL to build a unique look and feel by making it easy for them to bring the personality and DNA of the brand in an accessible magazine-like online display.
As a fashion company, DIESEL can use Pinterest as a brand-building exercise where they can tell the brand story, showcase DIESEL’s many facets, display individual collections and campaigns and where anyone can learn what the brand stands for. DIESEL launched its Pinterest page in the early days of the platform. Over the last year, they maintained their boards merely as a mirror of their Facebook content. The strategy was to showcase their collection as a lifestyle brand.
Early 2013, the growing popularity of the platform brought Pinterest into strategic focus in its own right. Additionally, considering DIESEL’s strategic decision to augment its focus on communicating with women and the fact that Pinterest is more used by women, DIESEL wanted to focus its efforts on Pinterest to use it as a valuable communication channel to connect with this female target group online. In order to optimize the platform for brand activation, instead of a repository of Facebook content, there was a strong need for insights on the best digital strategy for the DIESEL Pinterest page.
"Its Just So 2.0 Out There" The 4Ps are DeadPaul Greenberg
This is a peek at the new world of marketing that customers are demanding. No longer a matter of corporate hype, smart marketers are the leaders of customer engagement and conversations with their customers. Social media are the tools
Synergizing natural and research communities: Caring about the research ecosy...InSites Consulting
Research panels are under a lot of pressure: for far too long we have treated panels as ordinary databases. As a result, response rates to traditional surveys are in decline and it becomes harder to motivate people to participate in research projects. As researchers, we have to look into alternatives that still allow us to learn about the attitudes and behavior of consumers.
Thanks to the rise of social media, a whole new stream of consumer information has become available and our industry is embracing it as the new Walhalla. By using methods such as ‘social media netnography’ in which online conversations and stories are observed, researchers learn from online sources of textual and visual information that are freely available (Verhaeghe, Van den Berge, Schillewaert, 2009). Instead of asking new input from research participants, existing information is recycled. Because consumers are free to talk about whatever they like, social media netnography does not only provide answers on research questions one already had, but it also gives answers to questions they did not ask and answers without asking questions.
User-generated content is a welcome new source of information for researchers. But unlike our research panels, we should treat this new ecosystem with caution and preserve it while we still can. We need to learn from the past when we experiment with new ways of doing research.
Engage, inspire, act: Three stepstones towards developing more impactful prod...InSites Consulting
Great companies understand the importance of consumer insights when it comes to outperforming the competition. Engagement in learning and keeping knowledge up-to-date through a constant search for new insights, engagement in getting close to consumers and in getting immersed in their daily lives to inspire and understand their reality and the drivers of consumer value, these have proven to be some of the most critical corporate competencies. Engagement requires different ways of strategic thinking. It requires ‘co-ownership’ of the consumer insights within the organization. This article describes a valuable framework of how to engage and inspire an (R&D) organization via consumer insights, let them act upon the insights and move forward towards developing more impactful products and marketing. The last paragraphs look at how effective different elements of the framework have been in achieving a successful outcome, in order to learn and improve our initial way of working and to fine-tune our overall strategy.
Potential of social media in the customer interface of innovation processJari Jussila
Potential of social media in the customer interface of innovation process presentation at EBRF 2010 conference. Authors: Jari Jussila, Hannu Kärkkäinen, Hanna Nordlund
It was 1876 and Alexander Graham Bell was pitching his start-up. He offered Western Union his telephone technology for a rumored $100,000. The company dismissed it as 'an electrical toy'. The quote, although recently challenged for its authenticity, is an accurate reflection of the factors that drive product adoption. What is recognizable speech if not product readiness, telephone devices in every city, a means of distribution and the question of why anyone would use it - that of shifting consumer habits? Fast forward 130 years and the questions are the same about video communications. Video communications are nothing new. The goal of making it easier to see the person you’re talking to is a consistent theme in telephony. And yet by far the fastest growing communication method in the last 50 years has been short, asynchronous text messaging, with WhatsApp alone generating 18.3 trillion messages annually and an aggregated SMS volume at 8.16 trillion. So why is video communication not mainstream yet and what can we do to accelerate its adoption?
John Lewis Case Study - How does a company's brand communication strategy per...Rupi Dosanjh
Case study takes an in-depth look at John Lewis, a British brand who recently celebrated their 150 year anniversary.
Subjects of brand strategy, digital, communications, social media and consumer journey experiences are discussed with two senior industry figures.
Think Big and Connect to the Max: How Pepsico (re)connected the Ruffles brand...InSites Consulting
PepsiCo wanted to (re)connect the Ruffles brand with the Turkish youth. For six weeks a ‘Market Research Online Community’ (or ‘Consumer Consulting Board’) was the central hub in which the dialogue between Gen Y, the Ruffles brand team and the advertising agencies of PepsiCo took place. In three sequential stages we moved from generating insights into Turkish youth’s everyday life and their aspirations over testing and fine-tuning activation platforms and campaigns to creating an understanding of the role of social media in brand activation today. To enhance decision making, we wanted to connect all stakeholders to a maximum extent with the target group. To realize that, we created several touch points between the consumer world (the research results) and the business world (the marketing team and their objectives) while sharing our research results: online and offline consumer immersion exercises with all stakeholders, intermediate debriefs and workshops, a creative brainstorming session and a live chat session with members of the community during that brainstorm. This paper gives insights into the power of using research communities to deeply understand a target group and in the value of ‘triangulation’ in qualitative research (tackling the same issue from different angles and with different eyes). It also illustrates how creating several touch points between the consumer world and the business world can deliver bigger impact on marketing thinking.
Running engaging Market Research Online Communities. Social media has gained considerable human relevance. User-created content, citizen journalism and online social interactions (e.g. conversation, collaboration, participation, sharing, connecting) are embedded into the daily lives of consumers. With the different semantic waves of the web, the entire market research process and industry has undergone clear changes. Market research has changed from asking questions to having conversations with consumers. Online Research Communities have proven to be a viable environment to engage with consumers as well as marketing executives in a connected and participatory way. What makes research communities unique is that they assemble consumers to interact in an asynchronous longitudinal setting by applying social media techniques. Companies outsource tasks to a crowd (e.g. product and service creation and testing) in an open call in order to bring consumers inside organizations all the way up to the boardroom. Research communities bring true consumer connect between marketers and their target groups as they use interactive tools to tap into social interactions between people, and allow a more equal relationship between researchers, brands and participants.
Exploring the world of water - The conversation revolution: brands & people d...InSites Consulting
Danone wanted to understand the use of water in daily life and highlight consumer expectations for water consumption in general, in order to determine the main consumer perceived benefits. It was important to focus on the scientific objectives (also afterwards in clinical testing) to prove and understand 4 certain effects of water. The final output Danone was looking for needed to confirm that water can bring real benefits for consumers and to show which benefits would be most impactful in the market when proven. In order to investigate water consumption from different angles, we implemented a ‘fusion research’ design. Fusion research is a research design where multiple (contemporary) research methodologies are combined in order to study a certain research question from different angles. By applying triangulation, a holistic view is achieved around the same solution or marketing problem. Each of the selected methods adds one piece to the final puzzle and serves as input for the subsequent phase.
As a designer I have witnessed first hand the incredible growth of the importance of design. Innovative designs have had a profound and positive impact on our lives, and the thinking process has been repurposed by organizations such as P&G, GE, and Apple as an effective instrument towards change. I have noted through numerous successful design assignments the powerful affect an iterative visual process has on companies, allowing their leadership the ability to envision with clarity a new perspective to a challenging problem.
For IKEA, the yearly Catalogue is the main communication channel with existing and potential customers globally. This case study shows how the 2013 edition of the Catalogue and possible covers for the 2014 edition were evaluated qualitatively around the world, through Market Research Online Communities (or Consumer Consulting Boards) in five different countries.
The Art of Research: Using the power of images to increase the value of the D...InSites Consulting
DIESEL recognizes the need for social currency among today's increasingly digitalized Generation Y and is focusing its efforts on Pinterest as the ideal location to inspire and connect with females within their desired target demographic. DIESEL is known for tapping into subcultures with self-aware marketing, which is also the case on Pinterest. The platform allows DIESEL to build a unique look and feel by making it easy for them to bring the personality and DNA of the brand in an accessible magazine-like online display.
As a fashion company, DIESEL can use Pinterest as a brand-building exercise where they can tell the brand story, showcase DIESEL’s many facets, display individual collections and campaigns and where anyone can learn what the brand stands for. DIESEL launched its Pinterest page in the early days of the platform. Over the last year, they maintained their boards merely as a mirror of their Facebook content. The strategy was to showcase their collection as a lifestyle brand.
Early 2013, the growing popularity of the platform brought Pinterest into strategic focus in its own right. Additionally, considering DIESEL’s strategic decision to augment its focus on communicating with women and the fact that Pinterest is more used by women, DIESEL wanted to focus its efforts on Pinterest to use it as a valuable communication channel to connect with this female target group online. In order to optimize the platform for brand activation, instead of a repository of Facebook content, there was a strong need for insights on the best digital strategy for the DIESEL Pinterest page.
"Its Just So 2.0 Out There" The 4Ps are DeadPaul Greenberg
This is a peek at the new world of marketing that customers are demanding. No longer a matter of corporate hype, smart marketers are the leaders of customer engagement and conversations with their customers. Social media are the tools
Synergizing natural and research communities: Caring about the research ecosy...InSites Consulting
Research panels are under a lot of pressure: for far too long we have treated panels as ordinary databases. As a result, response rates to traditional surveys are in decline and it becomes harder to motivate people to participate in research projects. As researchers, we have to look into alternatives that still allow us to learn about the attitudes and behavior of consumers.
Thanks to the rise of social media, a whole new stream of consumer information has become available and our industry is embracing it as the new Walhalla. By using methods such as ‘social media netnography’ in which online conversations and stories are observed, researchers learn from online sources of textual and visual information that are freely available (Verhaeghe, Van den Berge, Schillewaert, 2009). Instead of asking new input from research participants, existing information is recycled. Because consumers are free to talk about whatever they like, social media netnography does not only provide answers on research questions one already had, but it also gives answers to questions they did not ask and answers without asking questions.
User-generated content is a welcome new source of information for researchers. But unlike our research panels, we should treat this new ecosystem with caution and preserve it while we still can. We need to learn from the past when we experiment with new ways of doing research.
Instructions for the Business Research Project OptionIf the stu.docxnormanibarber20063
Instructions for the Business Research Project Option:
If the student picks the Business Research Project option, the guidelines below outline the project's expectations:
The purpose of this project is to pick a current issue or force affecting businesses, important to many businesses, and to research it. Examples would include globalization, increased focus on diversity of the workforce, greater competition, etc.
The research performed should focus on history and background of the issue and how it is affecting businesses today.
The remainder of the paper will address the possible trends of the issue [such as increasing globalization or increasing competition] and alternatives business managers have to address the issue.
Required Major parts for paper:
I. Introduction [What is the topic, why it is important….to whom]
II. Review of existing literature [history, background, current company experiences]
III. Impact on business [in the past, now, going forward]
IV. Going forward [projected trends, pending legislation, likely regulation, political pressures]
V. Management options to address likely trends going forward; these could include actions to mitigate risks of the trends or actions to take advantage of the trends
VI. Conclusion
Topic
The issue chosen for research is the role of new media on marketing in 2017 and beyond. The research project will explore available figures to find out if businesses are still spending big on traditional media advertising, including radio, television, and print media. The data will be compared to spending on online advertising over the past half decade. If indeed businesses are changing their advertising strategies, it will be important to show the effectiveness of new media. According to Forbes, people are watching more videos online and thus businesses may have to take note and create not only interesting but also informative content for their consumers. Social media has already been embraced by most corporations as a form of communication to customers. However, the paper will try and see the importance of having an actual social media strategy and the importance of well trained persons to handle these accounts.
BUSINESS RESEARCH OUTLINE 2
Business Research Outline
I. Introduction
The topic of this research is new media marketing. This is a form of marketing that is anchored on promotion of brands and the sale of products through emerging online channels. New media marketing leverages on the elements of both established and emerging online channels to engage potential and current customers. This channels include display advertising, content marketing and social networking platforms (Calder, Malthouse, & Maslowska, 2016). New media marketing aims at getting the consumer to interact with the brand and engaging them in a way that increases awareness and ultimately product sales. New media marketing has become significantly vital in the digital era and huge a.
Editorial: User Innovation and the Role of Creative ConsumersIan McCarthy
In recent years, the phenomenon of creative consumers has attracted much research interest. In 2012 for instance, approximately 70 articles in business publications referred specifically to the concept of creative consumers. This and earlier work on creative consumers has helped us to understand who they are, what they are, what they do, and why their activities and outputs are increasingly important to companies. For no longer do business leaders obsess that ideas and innovation must originate from their own firm’s R&D resources. To be competitive, firms now recognise there is significant value in sourcing ideas and innovations from the market place (Kuusisto and Kuusisto, 2013). Like other business activities, including marketing, manufacturing and logistics (see McCarthy and Anagnostou, 2004), innovation is becoming more open, and more outsourced to users, and this is changing the boundaries of the origins, development, and ownership of ideas and intellectual property.
Dette notat samler op på en række analyser og anbefalinger omkring begrebet Social Business. Formålet er at give et hurtigt overblik over, hvordan anerkendte konsulenthuse m.fl. ser på betydning og brug af Social
Business.
Notatet er primært en sammenstykning af diverse uddrag og figurer uden en egentlig sammenbindende tekst.
Success in the "Pull Economy" means understanding that a number of significant business principles have changed. In a hyper connected world information flows much faster and more freely. Organisations as a result are subjected to a growing level of collective intelligence and value creation from outside the company's walls brought on by the increased collaboration of customer/consumers, consumers, employees and suppliers in what is now a much larger ecosystem of data, conversation, innovation and participation. There needs to be a knowledge framework to help companies manage this transformational change and maximise as much value from it in a way that benefits the business and the customer/consumer.
Optimising Digital Collaboration From the Inside OutMSL
Companies have come a long way using social media, collaborative tools and social networks to connect people, information and company assets in more effective ways. With many seeing significant improvements in operations, people satisfaction and bottom line results. Among the lessons learned is that it’s not just about technology. Determining digital collaboration’s role, how it will be used and how to incorporate it into company culture are what really matters.
Comparative Analysis of Brand Performance and Financial Gains a Case Study of...inventionjournals
Digital marketing is a term for interactive marketing using digital techniques. The main objective is to create brand awareness and to raise sales. This paper finds the effects of mobile marketing of sportswear companies (Nike, Adidas and Puma) by the comparison of their fans/followers on internet and financial gains. In this study, it is found that mobile marketing helps to create awareness and to raise sales of company. Nike spends more on mobile marketing as compared to its both rivals and is also getting more profit and brand value than Adidas and Puma. Nike leads in digital market; the company has more fans and followers on internet(Facebook, Twitter and Youtube). Adidas also made strategies for mobile marketing that helped them to raise brand value and profit in recent years. Statistics shows that Puma is relatively far behind in this race. The company should develop strategies better than its rivals to raise its enterprise value and to compete in the world market
Reducing information asymmetry with Enterprise 2.0 Jeroen Derynck
Enterprise 2.0 enables organizations to become more social and collaborative.... Deploying the right tools is the small step - creating a culture of openess is the real challenge
Overly ambitious 90 minute deck for a corporate workshop fertilizing discussions aiming to create a shared language and common understanding of the changes taking place in the 21st century.
The Effectiveness of Internet Marketing in Increasing the Reach and Awareness...Dr. Amarjeet Singh
The present research seeks to expound the effective
of Internet marketing in increasing the read and awareness of
consumers. Impatient the research conducted a good review
about the privies literature related to the study. It leads a brief
idea of the study before articulating the statement of the
problem. From the statement of the problem deducting the
researcher found that the social media , mobile apps and
internet marketing have Promina impact with the
effectiveness and in cornering the awareness of the consumer
.hence the research subdivided the research problem into four
different objective such translates the formation of the study
states that these is no significant relationship between level of
effectiveness and level of utilization of internet marketing on
consumer in kingdom of Bahrain . Further the research
employs multiple methodologies to a new conclusion on the
particular issue, the study used convening sampling method
combined with the spss software for data analyse.
The study aims to assess the Effectiveness of Internet
in Business to increase reach and awareness among consumers
in Bahrain. Data and correspondence innovation has changed
quickly in the previous 20 years with a key advancement being
the development of online networking. Business, which does
not utilize internet-based life, tends to lose on key client
base. The rise of social media means it’s unusual to find an
organization that does not reach its customers and prospects
through one social media platform or another. Companies see
the importance of using social media to connect with
customers and build revenue.
Businesses have realized they can use social media to generate
insights, stimulate demand, and create targeted product
offerings. This is important in traditional brick-and-motor
businesses, and, obviously, in the world of e-commerce.
In this research, to adequately address the research questions
a variety of data collection methods and instruments were
used such as questionnaire survey and t-test.
From the study, the researcher concluded that there is no
significant relationship between the Level of utilization &
Effectiveness of Internet marketing among consumers in
Bahrain. Therefore, the researchers accept the null
hypothesis.
The problems faced by the respondents on the Level
of utilization & Effectiveness of Internet marketing among
consumers in Bahrain is privacy, censorship and online
security. The Internet, social media, online advertising, mobile
apps etc. as a whole, can be seen as technology that has greatly
enhanced our lives but should be done responsibly.
Falcon stands out as a top-tier P2P Invoice Discounting platform in India, bridging esteemed blue-chip companies and eager investors. Our goal is to transform the investment landscape in India by establishing a comprehensive destination for borrowers and investors with diverse profiles and needs, all while minimizing risk. What sets Falcon apart is the elimination of intermediaries such as commercial banks and depository institutions, allowing investors to enjoy higher yields.
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1. INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
BUSN32 Business Economics: Internet Marketing, Branding and Consumers
29.02.2012
“Who is companies` new customer in the Internet era?”
Judyta Pokrywka,
Lund University
Numer of words: 2960
1
2. Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................... 3
RESEARCH QUESTION .......................................................................................................................... 4
EMPIRICAL EXAMPLES, THEORIES AND MAIN CONCEPTS ................................................................... 5
DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................................... 7
CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 9
REFERENCE LIST ................................................................................................................................. 11
2
3. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW
Paradigm shift is currently transpiring due to growing importance of social media and
the ubiquitous Internet. The shift genuinely influences the way business activities are
conducted and alters ways of social interaction (Karakas, 2009; Van Zyl, 2008), therefore its
importance is ample. Even for customer-focused organizations, this phenomenon stands for
one of the biggest challenges facing businesses nowadays (Baird & Parasnis, 2011).
Internet became the global arena, where users access company`s information, learn
about product prices, share recommendations and feedback (Pires et al., 2006). One of the
terms used to describe the online reality is World 2.0 - “an interactive, hyper-connected,
digital ecosystem where users create knowledge, innovate, collaborate, entertain,
communicate using mobile devices, write blogs, share photos, develop projects and express
themselves to the world” (Karakas, 2009, p.23). Interactions in World 2.0 are flexible, easy to
maintain and cost effective (Van Zyl, 2008). According to HsiuJu (2011) more and more
consumers develop trust in information found in online thematic groups, compared to
consumption-related information shared offline. Such peer-to-peer networks changed the
model of communication from one-to-many to many-to-many (Stalnaker, 2008 cited in
Karakas, 2009) and into multimodal conversations (Muniz & Schau, 2011). Online consumers
tend to participate and communicate more than ever before, they are also more active and
social (Kozinets, 1999 cited in Cova & Pace, 2006). Interaction takes place within groups
built around a shared association or brand-relationship. Such community groups are “a
mixture of proxy marketing and participants’ personal marketing” (Cova & Pace, 2006,
p.1101). The social software, or so called Web 2.0 tools (O’Reilly, 2005), not only have
encouraged a 24/7 collaborative world, but also popularized culture of sharing. Tools
adoption is quick, since they are intuitive and easy to acquaint with. They organize space
where seekers of knowledge and its keepers can interact (Boateng et al., 2010).
Contemporary customers want to be influential rather than be passively influenced
(Firat & Shultz, 1997 cited in Cova & Pace, 2006) and are adopting increasingly active roles
in marketing content co-creation. This eventually leads to consumer empowerment defined by
Wathieu (2002 cited in Cova & Pace, 2006) as giving customers control over tasks usually
conducted by marketers. As a result, consumers have more control over the relationship they
have with their favorite brands (Fournier, 1998; Deighton, 2002; Holt, 2004 in Cova & Pace,
2006) and co-create everything, even promotional messages (Berthon, Pitt, McCarthy, &
Kates, 2007 cited in Hanna et al., 2011). Ultimately, companies no longer administer
3
4. communication. They rather provide a communication arena for those empowered consumers
(McWilliam, 2000 cited in Cova & Pace, 2006), nonetheless this must not mean laissez-faire
approach (Cova & Pace, 2006).
World 2.0 brought about a new term – Enterprise 2.0 (McAfee, 2006 cited in
Schneckenberg, 2009), which stands for Internet technologies and business practices enabling
employees to collaborate and interact in order to produce and exchange knowledge in
information affluent business contexts. There the Web 2.0 tools serve as building blocks
facilitating collaboration within or between companies. Aligning with this concept,
implications for businesses and employees input will be addressed.
Provided a short literature review and few empirical examples, this paper`s purpose is
to investigate internal customers` role in the Internet era. Contribution to the field of research
concerning methods of internal customer relationship management, interactivity in knowledge
management and online communities potential is intended.
RESEARCH QUESTION
Having introduced the shifting paradigm and virtual communities concept, the
customer`s characteristics shall be further investigated. Researchers examine the phenomenon
of consumers acting as “partial employees of online communities” (HsiuJu et al., 2011, p.90),
yet for the purposes of this paper I would like to take it a step further. I would like to extend
the already existing concept of employees as internal customers. According to Mohr-Jackson
(1991) internal customers create products, services and generate customer satisfaction, which
are critical facets in any business. Each employee simultaneously is company`s customer and
due to social media revolution this approach became stronger than ever. The meaning of
internal customer is re-newed and re-defined by adding new online aspect to it. Thus the
research question is: as a marketer, how to successfully evolve with new internal customers in
the Internet era? I will analyze real life examples in order to come up with a relevant answer.
4
5. EMPIRICAL EXAMPLES, THEORIES AND MAIN CONCEPTS
Companies have to face and appreciate social forces that influence their customers.
They must show strategic agility (Doz & Kosonen, 2008) and make use of collective
intelligence of people both inside and outside the organization (Nambisan and Sawhney, 2007
cited in Karakas, 2009). Therefore companies establish relationships with internal customers
to build “vibrant new business ecosystems” (Tapscott and Williams, 2006 cited in Karakas,
2009, p.24), instead of relying solely on R&D resources. This enables them to benefit from
the vast pool of talent and ideas, stimulates creativity and enhances innovation.
Many companies` R&D return of investment has declined, sometimes followed by
introduction of products that are not fulfilling users` expectations due to poor customer
insights. To overcome that, some firms started using open-source strategies and crowd
sourcing, reaching internal and external users. Procter & Gamble leveraged its R&D expenses
via network of customers, employees and experts aiming at finding ways to increase
productivity and spread innovation (Bughin, 2012). A common objective united various
groups, making internal customers one of the parts of solution and benefiting from online
enovronment. Another example is Best Buy, which engaged 2,500 employees to connect with
customers via Twitter (Bernoff, 2011). This strategy would not have been feasible without
personally engaged employees who had been given access to and enticed to use social media
within their workplace, which is not a common practice. Intel also realized the potential of
internal customers and came up with a creative campaign Sponsors of Tomorrow (Intel, 2010)
inspired by its employees` insights. Each movie commercial shows employees during
everyday tasks, yet with a fun twist. USB inventor is revered like a rock star, engineers during
a party do not behave like ordinary guests or employees` jokes completely differ from a
random person`s jokes. This campaign was a success since it rapidly went viral online,
integrated internal customers and managed to stimulate online discussions between Intel users
and Intel employees. It also appreciated employees and encouraged them to speak up with
feedback and new concepts. Personally, I believe that featuring real employees in the clips
fructified with their eagerness to brag about it online, thus strengthened Intel`s brand
recognition and its perception as technology innovators and fun individuals.
Following Grant`s (2011) argument, employees tend to contribute more once they are
put in customer`s shoes. This was the case of my previous employer – Hilton Worldwide –
where each staff member who successfully completed three month probation period could
spend a complimentary night in the hotel and benefit from all onsite services. This helps
5
6. employees see things from customer`s perspective and as a consequence gives them personal
guidance of what is valued and expected from them. Having experienced service personally,
employees develop a propensity to stand out in their efforts and better understand customers`
concerns. This policy benefits all – customers are satisfied, employees focus on providing
high-quality service, and Hilton capitalizes on customers` spending. Taking employees
positive input out of the equation, the whole system falls short, negatively influencing all
areas crucial for hospitality business. Keeping in mind that guests often rate hotels in online
portals, this is a smart move to make in order to ensure satisfactory results and receive
positive feedback by utilizing already existing resources. Hilton does not forget that
employees as well share their work experiences online, which is why in 2011 the company
launched Hilton 360` platform, uniting employees from all over the world and encouraging
them to share their ideas, acquaint with job-related stories or organize charity events. Thanks
to this strategy company`s presence online is holistically designed and executed. Hilton
creates a concise brand image, which is confirmed by both internal and external customers.
This results in trust and customer loyalty to the brand, but also builds Hilton`s strong image as
a reliable and respected employer.
Having analyzed those examples, it can be stated that the key components in ensuring
employees` positive input are mutual trust, engagement on all corporate levels and culture of
sharing (Graham and Hall, 2004; Smith and Kollock, 1999 cited in Van Zyl, 2008). Since
company-employee relationship is volatile, loyalty and appreciation play a vital role in setting
the ground for successful cooperation for both sites of the agreement. One of the adequate
strategies proposed is targeting HEROes - highly empowered and resourceful operatives.
They are play a vital role in conducting business activities in the age of individuals directly
participating in online company`s presence (Bernoff, 2011). HEROes are critical for
spreading the e-word of mouth since they operate in the digital world where they interact with
company`s external customers. Their performance affects others perception about given
company. Company cases I have used as examples seem to have identified their internal
HEROes and successfully built on their personal input.
6
7. DISCUSSION
The marketing dynamics shifted and company-employee interaction vastly differs
from how it worked even few years ago. Today, internal consumers are brand e-ambassadors,
directly influencing company`s messages and their meaning. As a result, employee`s input
online became the new aspect in contemporary organizational communication (Miles et al.,
2011). Technological breakthroughs provided employees with new channels to express their
views about the employment or working conditions that were not previously accessible. The
rise of digital world has altered the environment from passive Web 1.0 to interactive Web 2.0,
where users are simultaneously information initiators and recipients (Hanna et al., 2011).
Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or Twitter connect employees with
geographically unlimited audiences where they can share messages not necessarily desired by
the organization (Miles et al., 2011) or on the other hand can come up with creative ideas and
significantly boost company`s reputation. Online communication is as a double-edged sword,
since employees might publish anything – starting from ambitious and noble initiatives to
negative and risky opinions.
Examples provided in the previous part of this paper focused on one perspective,
which covers positive aspects of customer empowerment, which shall be addressed in the
conclusion part of the paper. The second perspective on the other hand represents the new
generation of employees (and therefore customers) differing in job mindset compared to
previous generations. The job is “no longer sacrosanct, and it is no longer for keeps” (Mishra,
2011, p.110). Young managers will continue working in a given position only until the their
job fulfills their professional ambitions. The so called Facebook generation shares their
experiences online without clear distinction to personal or professional sphere, redefining
privacy and ways of information flow (Mishra, 2011). This entitles companies to act
beforehand or react when needed, since no reaction is the worst possible strategy in the era of
transparency and swift information flow. Nevertheless it has to be stressed that raising
concern online is the highest level of escalation being an end result, not an immediate reaction
to malfunction (Mishra, 2011). That kind of behavior never is employee`s preferred choice
due to risk of public exposure, however there are tools to successfully overcome this barrier.
For instance blogs or discussion fora offer an anonymous channel for expression, which
cannot be controlled by companies, reaching current and possible future customers. Bad
publicity quickly spreads over the Internet and there are no best-practice guidelines on how to
7
8. overcome that. When a negative, first-hand information goes online, it is almost impossible to
erase and its consequences from the web.
According to Quinton & Harridge-March (2010) marketers and companies need to
realize why and how employees` online engagement may impact their business. Forrester
Research (2007, cited Quinton & Harridge-March, 2010) shows the importance of collective
individualism and online communities` role in creating a changing dynamics business
environment. Due to increasing online involvement and its impact on who the customers trust
or whom they ask for feedback, relationships developed via social media can be powerful
(Quinton & Harridge-March, 2010) and must not be undervalued. World 2.0 shows also a
threat to any organization which underestimates the power of online internal customers.
Due to more participative customer`s role and new technological capabilities,
companies need to introduce new practices. Boateng et al. (2010) suggest three steps which
make the new framework functional for a company. Firstly, understand the Web 2.0 with its
functions and outcomes. Secondly, understand the learning process which is a natural part of
online interaction and discover how it can be accessed. Identify which tools support the
learning process and internally seek for individuals or groups of people, who can give the
company an additional performance boost. Lastly, each company needs to develop
understanding of factors applicable for itself and its context. These steps are crucial for
developing a way to learn and benefit from the already existing base of loyal internal
customers` knowledge.
All in all, traditional focus on linear and broadcast mass-media communication is
replaced by non-linear and feedback-allowing approach (Rowley, 2004). Emergence of the
Internet and social networks gave a power boost to open innovation and knowledge exchange
online (Bughin, 2012). Marketers became technologists, since they have to be familiar with
latest online advancements. Empowering them to embrace their skills in professional
environment gives companies great benefits, like for instance solution development by
utilizing customer opinions (Bernoff, 2011) or ideas that could be easily transformed into
marketing campaigns. Realizing what role employees play in this setting is a crucial stage for
developing strategic decisions concerning for instance social media strategies.
8
9. CONCLUSIONS
Social media became a natural part of our lives and made people communicate online
on a daily basis. The hierarchy of communication has been reversed from top-down to
bottom-up due to the rise of the Internet era and transparency it entitled. The balance of power
in meaning-making shifted from marketers to consumers (Deighton & Kornfeld, 2008). This
can be seen as a source of valuable insights, however this may also pose a threat to companies
not prepared for instant reactions, when as a result even minor issues may have major
outcomes (Mishra, 2010).
Having this said, it is apparent that the marketing landscape has been changed and that
online platforms created spheres of influence that made marketers change their practices
(Singh, 2005; Walmsley, 2010 cited in Hanna et al., 2011). World 2.0 has profoundly
accelerated globalization and might also significantly improve organizational efficiency.
Globally spread socio-technological innovations lead to personalized, yet collective learning,
of which companies should take advantage of. Once realized that the radical change in
conducting business is inevitable and eventually new behavior will become norm, the
potential threat can be transformed into a win-win situation. Accessing these opportunities
from a organizational learning perspective, appreciation of the fact that employees views are
critical for growth and development, enhances company`s chances on the competitive market.
Online transparent communication should be taken into account when setting future
strategies, for it certainly impacts the company`s image and performance. Albeit managers are
aware of the importance of online customers, employees seem to be an overlooked group in
the context of sharing and creating online. Following Bernoff`s (2011) reasoning, companies
must react to communities growing power and one of the best methods is to engage
employees in the process. Acknowledging that company`s staff are the innovators is a
milestone for setting new corporate mindset.
Online communities and open communication stimulate collaboration (Tapscott and
Williams, 2006, cited in Van Zyl, 2008), create a culture of sharing, increase personal
satisfaction and develop productivity (IBM, 2007 cited in Van Zyl, 2008). Such approach
prevents defensive actions and enables employees to extend their ideas in cooperation with
other users. Given that companies learn and create through dynamic interactions between staff
(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995 cited in Boateng et al., 2010), this might be enhanced by
cooperating in the environment which is preferred by Internet users. However the main facet
is enhancing technology innovation and preventing chaos. Once employees get familiar with
9
10. the collaborative work culture, they will feel more secure and efficient in using Web 2.0 tools
at work. In case of absence of that culture, lack of trust or willingness to share – employees
will not partake or in the worse scenario will start publicly fighting and depreciating
company`s image (Schneckenberg, 2009). Smartly used Web 2.0 tools can leverage
organizational learning and knowledge exchange, but it is dependent of company`s openness,
freedom of initiative and employees` empowerment.
Summing up, World 2.0 has the potential to resolve differing interests of company`s
functioning with individual`s views, by using the assets that the company already possesses
and overlooks - employees. It also provides valuable ways of sharing ideas and administering
pools of knowledge. Web 2.0 tools harness collective intelligence, which can be used for
solving common organizational goals. This might be the real panacea for current challenges
marketers face, yet it will not work, unless marketers and companies acknowledge the
paradigm shift with all its outcomes and come up with structures and schemes that address the
new World 2.0. Web 2.0 tools proved to be powerful in their simplicity, however if
employees are not given access to them or are not educated in how to use them in professional
setting – their business potential will never be realized and employees enthusiasm will not be
utilised. The research question of how to successfully evolve with new internal customers in
the Internet era? can be indirectly answered by asking another question: why struggle to
communicate, when we can cooperate? Bilateral communication, mutual trust, sharing and
empowerment seem to be the cornerstones of success.
10
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12