Standing Tech. Company is software Development Company known with its highly customizable Web-based applications in major fields of business. Web-based ERP software is first product in that designed for (right to left) language specially and supporting UTF-8 data natively.

Web-Based ERP Software is modern, simplified, fully customizable Enterprise Resource Planning software that can be implemented in small and medium organizations. Web-based ERP is cost effective model of ERP that not require any client software to work, this capability enables Web-based ERP to run on all browsers in all operations systems.

This product gives a competitive advantage over other providers that not providing customizable web applications and not providing help and support services in customers’ language, this opportunity will increase revenues via some lines that will increase the profit and STANDING TECH. population.

1.1 Goals and Objectives

1.1.1 Company Goals and Objectives

Standing Tech. Company opening new investment projects by providing (Left to right) software with specialized GUI interface in parallel to its international software products. For this reason, Web-based ERP can be positioned as the first software in the market that even personal inexperienced users can use it.

– Opening new investment projects to increase revenues by 30%.

– Increasing sales for Hosting and Domain that came with Web-Based applications.

– Maximizing its population in the market via some free online applications so that increasing in commercial licenses expected by 10%.

1.1.2 Marketing Goals and Objectives

· Offering Different Versions of Web-Based ERP: providing custom versions of ERP according to customers’ requirements so that the strategy will focus on dynamic price to cover more customers.

· Offering Wed design: because Web-based ERP increasing customers, new opportunities will be available for Web design and hosting services.

· Offering IT Technical services: Offering IT consultancy for those companies that require outsource IT support.

· Offering Free Support and training: Offering free support for Web-based ERP will attract customers to select this product, because most international software company doesn’t have office in this region, so that by considering this GAP in current market, this product can be selected as the first (free support in customer’s language) in the market.

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14 Jan

Click-only business in the highly competitive sector of the market

Click-only or pure-click business can be described as new company that conducting business digitally via Internet (online) by using e-commerce system without physical existence as firm (Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, 2008 p.434) while click-and-mortar or click-and-brick business can be described as company that added new channel for marketing by using e-commerce or nay other business software. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, n.d) and (Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, 2008 p.434) from these definitions, click-only business is a company that lunched a website for all business activity by using e-Marketing, e-Purchase, and e-commerce; or any combinations of e-business modules that fits to the business objectives.

Click-only business uses a website as first step, starting from domain registration (choosing simple and beautiful word for the domain and them .com prefix that often used), usually website name is the brand name that reflects also in the domain name. The second step is good hosting service that provides reliable futures for long-run to process e-business modules with good performance. The third step is security system that includes (SSL certificate: for encrypting data between client and server, and using secure e-business platform on secure server). The remaining part that plays a big a role in click-only business is the Website (that integrated with the e-business), starting from basic things: website language, design and layout, and contents that accomplish business goals and objectives, for example: Community and communication sections (discussion board, feedback, simple voting and reviewing system, etc). All those points as whole will provide easy navigation through the website that helps visitors to easily find, compare, and buy products.

Highly-competitive Environment

Current online market (market-space) is highly competitive by its nature because of existing more International companies that distribute their products online directly or by using third-part companies like (Amazon.com, Ebay.com, Yahoo.com, or directly through Company’s’ websites). Considering this challenge, another issues also facing online business, for example: competitor can easily take business secrets and methods so that brand identity is difficult to establish and maintain, and building trust and ensuring security and privacy have proven most challenging (Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa and Emerson H. Tiller, n.d., p.1).

For click-only business in highly competitive sectors of the market, it require a good strategy for building trust within visitors to became customers, in regard to other factors that mentioned above, visitors must trust the website before buying any product, because later, buying process require visitors to enter their information like (Name, age, address, and Credit-card details, etc) that require a trust for competing the purchase, there are several factors that attracts visitors to trust website: Valid contact information including (physical address, land-line, e-mail) also using secure system for processing online transactions like (SSL and trusted Gate-way for shopping cart) that provides safety behavior against theft, hacking and any online issues.

In conclusion, click-only business is not just putting materials on website, products that offered online must exist also in offline inventory, and the company also requires building brand equity offline for building trust within customers. Finally, click and mortar is the effective than click-only, because integrating traditional business with e-commerce provides more benefit like: “potential cost savings, gains due to enhanced differentiation, improved trust, and potential extensions into new markets” (Charles Steinfield, 2002).

References:

Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa and Emerson H. Tiller (n.d.) PROTECTING INTERNET BUSINESS METHODS: AMAZON.COM AND THE 1-CLICK CHECKOUT [Online]. Available From: http://btl.mccombs.utexas.edu/IBM%20Course%20modules/bizmethpatents1.pdf (Accessed: 17 December 2011)
Charles Steinfield (2002) Understanding Click and Mortar E-Commerce Approaches: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda [Online]. Available From: http://jiad.org/article19 (Accessed: 17 December 2011)
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2002) Bricks and clicks [Online]. Available From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricks_and_clicks (Accessed: 17 December 2011)
Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller (2008) ‘Marketing Management’, 13th Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN-10: 0136009980

14 Jan

Narrowcasting, Nontraditional advertising, and Innovative media technologies

Narrowcasting

“Narrowcasting refers to broadcasting to a very narrow range of audience” (Franck Legendre et al., 2008, p.1) from this definition, it’s a communication for limited audience that interested to receive information from a specific source, it includes all media that can be restricted for limited subscribers, by other words, narrowcasting media not broadcasting to public, a special subscription or registration method must be completed before accessing to the source media. Simple example can be a website, when broadcasting some contents to all visitors while restricting some contents only for registered users that interested to view that content. Other popular examples are Cable TV, Channel Decoders, Mailing List, or any other media that only some audience can access them.

Subscribed audience of Narrowcasting media can also be identified as target market for advertisement, it can be considered also as effective way because audiences that subscribed to that media are interested to receive information from that source; the media might also be created for a specific people that became as an audiences for that source, thus, if the audiences found as target customers for a specific product/service, narrowcasting source will be effective for disseminating advertisement messages.

Nontraditional advertising

Any advertisement that not used by traditional methods like (TV, Radio, Website, Newspapers, Brochure, Trade shows, etc) can be categorized as nontraditional advertising, simple examples are some arts that attract viewers on the street; behind that attractive point, a company puts name, logo, or any things that shows the brand of that company, in my country, the first non-traditional advertising showed via some known actors that presented an attractive scenario on the street; suddenly, without any expectation of people around them. Another example is complex paint art, created by some professional that the content only identified 20 meters away, and also a message typed: “Check your eyes in ABC Company”.

Some examples that provided by “www.gogorillamedia.com” are: “Stickering, Placemat Advertising, Mural Advertising, Peephole Advertising, Coffee Cup Advertising, Chinese Restaurant Advertising, Youth Marketing, Outside the Box Advertising” that each category consists of more than one scenario for targeting specific target.

Advertisements via non-traditional ways can be designed very attractive so that viewers might not willing to ignore it, and also, it gives a freedom that viewer can ignore it not like some TV ads that takes 10 minutes between each 30 minutes, it’s also cheaper that all other methods relatively.

Innovative media technologies are mostly used as light-banners, posters, or any other technologies that not common, generally, innovative methods are using visual affects to attract viewers, one example that used in Japan, uses very attractive water display.

Innovative media technologies can also be used as non-traditional advertisement also as some examples provided by advense.com by creating special project by using innovative technologies.

References:

Franck Legendre, Vincent Lenders, Martin May, and Gunnar Karlsson (2008) Narrowcasting: An Empirical Performance Evaluation Study [Online]. Available From: http://www.lenders.ch/publications/conferences/chants08.pdf (Accessed: 10 December 2011)
GoGorilla (n.d.) Guerilla Marketing [Online]. Available From: http://www.gogorillamedia.com (Accessed: 10 December 2011)
ADVENSE (n.d.) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. [Online]. Available From: http://www.advense.com/newmedia/el-lighting-clothes-accessories.html (Accessed: 10 December 2011)

14 Jan

Affect on Internet on price considerations for: Airlines, Hotel Reservation, Book Sales

Internet changed more aspects in our life; communication, education, shopping, reading, and many other personal hobbies that came with internet, marketing is also changed, the marketplace changed to market-space (Tapscott Don, 2000), the space that holds infinite different things that everybody can surf it at any time, limitations were also changed; for buying an item we must go to the market-place, while, market-space just requires internet access and computing device, distances where became equal, and physical payment-receipt also changed to digital transactions.

Online resources provides more information that can’t be get in real-world, users can find target information through search-engines services, a chain of information that relatively unlimited, in few minutes, we can find and collect different prices for same products or service, any business realizing that fact, knows that customers definitely buying cheaper products with same quality, and also, distributions costs and expenses were also decreased by using online systems like e-commerce that approximately leads the prices to be decreased.

Airlines

Airlines services are approximately same, with regard to some special services and strategy, but overall service is providing flights for travelling passengers and/or goods to another place, basing on that point, customers are always price sensitive to airlines’ prices because at worst case, the seat place is suitable for few hours and designed for human beings. From this perspective, Internet will influence on airlines price consideration because “Internet facilitates competition, thereby creating downward pressure on prices” (Eugene Orlov, 2011, p.35) so that airline companies are in high competition.

Hotel Reservation

Classical methods of Hotel reservations are by contacting hotel-customers services or via special agents or other companies that provides tourism services, while by using online applications such as Hotel Management Software, it provides better management abilities that analysis all requests on demand and gives accurate results without conflict, then, customers can review hotel services by reviewing their service lists and comparing various prices with another hotels. Internet also influences on hotel prices because customers can find most hotels with similar services by using internet search, then, they can decide on lower price.

Book Sales

Generally, online books store database provides all information that helps customer to find and select their needs, without going to physical places, books can be reviewed and purchased online, in other hand, e-books can be delivered on demand after payment completed.

Price consideration for books sales limited to some restrictions that set by main publisher, the price might be fixed as exist in my country, books must be sold with fixed price in all cities and places, however, internationally, books versions and prices are vary according to general costs that requires by international retailers, and the transportation companies.

In conclusion, dynamic price strategy is most suitable for online marketing because customers can easily find same products with different prices, then, most companies are in competition because of the internet, then, price should be justified because customers will buy same product with lower price.

References:

Eugene Orlov 2011, ‘HOW DOES THE INTERNET INFLUENCE PRICE DISPERSION? EVIDENCE FROM THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY’, Journal Of Industrial Economics, 59, 1, pp. 21-37, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 December 2011.
Tapscott, D 2000, ‘Internet’s reach even extends to 4 P’s of marketing’, Computerworld, 34, 29, p. 30, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 December 2011.

14 Jan

Value of branding for both the buyer and the seller

Marketing,Marketing Concepts,Marketing Strategy
Tags: Branding, Buyer, loyalty, Marketing, Marketing Concepts, Marketing Strategy, Seller
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“Brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association, 2011) the same definition is also valid for describing trade-mark as stated by same author: trade-mark is legal term of brand. Usually, every company must register and provide a unique trade-mark, after registration, all trade-mark components became protected and no-one can use them for any purposes, then, the company uses its trade-mark elements for marketing purposes, printing trade-mark elements on tangible products, however, products still require another definition for telling customers what the value of that product is, thus, branding is creating brand for products/service, for example: iPod is the name of a product, its set during branding process of that product, fir lower case ‘I’ letter and second upper case ‘P’ is differentiation and custom design, there is also a definitions of that product that customers depends on it when deciding to buy that product, for favorable brands by customers, brands providing value to the firm (Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller, p.238, 2008)

Developing a brand for the product and/or service

Before creating effective brand, creating good quality of product/service is very important because “product quality plays a significant role in influencing consumers to be brand loyal customers” WONG FOONG YEE AND YAHYAH SIDEK (2008, P.234) so that the goals for that brand must increase customers’ loyalty and sales performance.

Kotler and Kevin Keller (p.246, 2008) provided six criteria for choosing brand elements: memorable, meaningful, likable, transferable, adaptable, and protectable.

Promoting brand loyalty

Brand loyalty is customer’s behavior that returns to same brand to purchase same or other products/services so that, with more brand loyal customers, a company spending less effort in marketing because customers return according to their trust for that brand. Usually, loyalty created within customers after they satisfied with delivered products/services, but this behavior is not easy to be created because of more similar products in major types in current industry. WONG FOONG YEE AND YAHYAH SIDEK (2008, p.233-234) stated that: brand name, product quality, price, store environment, promotion and service quality are positively related to brand loyalty so that they can affect customers to be brand loyal.

Usually, before customers became loyal, the firm must motivate customers to chose its products, this process require a good advertisement program to create theoretical brand image within customers, after this, if the product satisfied customer in terms of quality, the customer might became loyal for that brand, as mentioned above about significant role of quality, the quality of advertisement and used media are also important, for instance, Website is one of the most common used media for advertisement, as stated by LOWRY et al. (2008, p.221) ‘Web site quality has an important effect on brand image” from this perspective, good quality of media and advertisement are important for promoting brand loyalty.

No-brand-name PC

There are some facts behind no-brand-name PC:

Cheap price
Customizable according to customer’s preferences
Quick Support including (Upgrading and repair) from retailer

But brand-named PCs like (HP, DELL, etc) are expensive comparing with no-brand-name, also, these PC some times, can’t be customized according to customer’s demand.

Experienced users knew that brand-named PC’s are created with higher quality that all parts of the PC are compatible so that the PC will run longer and better, from my experience, I found that using popular brand-name PCs are much better than no-brand-name PC for long-term use, because they require less repair and maintenance.

In conclusion, every product and service require branding before entering to the market, because without brand the value of product/service can’t be created within customers, and later, when the product/service became available, brand brings more long term benefit to the firm like customer loyalty, and then, “The knowledge of consumer segments that favor a particular brand supports the selection of appropriate target markets” Ulrich R. Orth et al. (2004, p.9) that helps the firm to extend and widen their marketing strategy.

References:

Ulrich R. Orth, Mina McDaniel, Tom Shellhammer, Kannapon Lopetcharat, (2004) “Promoting brand benefits: the role of consumer psychographics and lifestyle”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 21 Iss: 2, pp.97 – 108, Emerald [Online]. DOI: 10.1108/07363760410525669 (Accessed: 10 November 2011).
WONG FOONG YEE AND YAHYAH SIDEK (2008) ‘Influence of Brand Loyalty on Consumer Sportswear’, Journal of Economics and Management Vol. 2, Iss: 2, pp. 221 – 236 [Online] Available From: http://www.econ.upm.edu.my/ijem/vol2no2/bab02.pdf (Accessed: 10 November 2011).
LOWRY, P, VANCE, A, MOODY, G, BECKMAN, B, & READ, A (2008), ‘Explaining and Predicting the Impact of Branding Alliances and Web Site Quality on Initial Consumer Trust of E-Commerce Web Sites’, Journal Of Management Information Systems, 24, 4, pp. 199-224, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 24 November 2011.
Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller (2008) ‘Marketing Management’, 13th Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN-10: 0136009980
American Marketing Association (2011) Dictionary [Online]. Available From: http://www.marketingpower.com/_layouts/Dictionary.aspx?dLetter=B (Accessed: 26 November 2011)

14 Jan

Marketing Strategy: Segmentation

Segmentation is the way that large markets can be divided to smaller segments Kotler & Armstrong (2008, p. 185) so that each segments became a target market for offering a customized product that can be identified by customers according to their needs and wants, for example: dividing the market according to ages of customers require offering different products for different ages that satisfies customers, another example is gender segmentation, male and female clothes are difference so that different clothes must be offered.

Segmentation for some category will be easy like gender, age, size, profession, etc. However, affective segmentation must be measurable, accessible, substantial, differentiable and actionable Armstrong (2008, p. 194), so that the product can be identified by those that segmented for, incorporating those future in segmentation strategy require more effort for finding the target market, and efforts usually require resources, and resources are monetary terms. Thus, targeting more segmented market require more effort than single segment market.

Differentiated segmentation strategy is the strategy that first divides the target market to several segments and then offers a specific product to each segment (Kotler & Armstrong, 2008, p. 196) so that the company’s revenue will be increased theoretically. This strategy is limited according to company’s resources, for example:

Limited budget: company A is a small company that consist of 100 employees, when company A applying differentiated segmentation strategy for some products, it needs more money to spend on developing each products, but because its budget is limited, its might require to take loans from Bank and its products became expensive because of additional costs that came from interest rate. Or it might fail in designing some products because of its limited employee ‘designer’. For this case, company A will fail.

In conclusion, it’s better for limited company to focus on few segments its market for providing highe performance products, and for new firms, should first target the most attractive segment that matches its capabilities and later it can expand its market by pursuing a market specialization strategy and offering new products to its existing market NetMBA.com(2010) because expensive price of products losses a competitive advantage then it leads the business to fail in that segment.

References:

Philip Kotler & Gary Armstrong (2008) ‘Principles of Marketing’, 12th Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0-13-712827-4
com(2010) Target Market Selection [Online]. Available From: http://www.netmba.com/marketing/market/target/ (Accessed: 19 November 2011)

14 Jan

Marketing Strategy : Customer Orientation Vs Competitor Orientation

Competition is the usual behavior that occurs between two or more parties, in business, competition is the way that such company provides better value to its products so that it became more popular than other companies. Customers usually choosing best products in the market, in regard to customer satisfaction, “the business unit should set up a marketing intelligence system to track trends and important developments and any related opportunities and threats” Philip Kotler and Keller (2008, p.50) so that each business require a proper marketing concept to consider all factors that affects the profitability, thus, marketing orientation is the way for aligning different approaches according to external environment (Richard A. Heiens, 2000, p.1).

Correct marketing concept is one of concepts that considering both customers and competitors, “it holds that the key to achieving organizational goals is being more effective than competitors” Kotler and Keller (2008, p.19) so that competitor orientation can be seen as one key points in parallel with customer orientation that leads the company to success in its business and high performance, thus, from that perspective, providing a good product that satisfying customer is not the whole win factor, because another provider might apply competitive advantage strategy to win the business.

Requirements for both orientations

Maintaining balance between customer and competitor orientations is the way that the company considers both orientations according to their affects on the company’s status in terms of performance for earning more profit for both short and long terms, the term balance might not mean equally applying both orientations, it will be more focus on one and less focus on other, for example: competitor orientation is more effective in developed market, and when the industry is good and resources are available; customer orientation is more affective (Kevin Zheng Zhou et al, 2007, p.316) the same case also stated by Richard A. Heiens (2000, p. 3) as described that customer focus is better for growing markets while competitor focus is better for stable markets.

In conclusion, managers should consider both orientations because each of them affects the company’s performance so that the firm can get advantages from both orientations (Homburg, C and et al, 2007, p. 14) so that maintaining balance between both orientations is challenge that manager can develop effective marketing plan in different cases by incorporating affects of both concepts into marketing plan and business strategy.

References:

Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller (2008) ‘Marketing Management’, 13th Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN-10: 0136009980
Homburg, C, Grozdanovic, M, & Klarmann, M 2007, ‘Responsiveness to Customers and Competitors:The Role of Affective and Cognitive Organizational Systems’, Journal Of Marketing, 71, 3, pp. 18-38, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 November 2011.
Zhou, K, Brown, J, Dev, C, & Agarwal, S 2007, ‘The Effects of Customer and Competitor Orientations on Performance in Global Markets: A Contingency Analysis’, Journal Of International Business Studies, 38, 2, pp. 303-319, JSTOR Arts & Sciences IV, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 November 2011.
Richard A. Heiens (2000) Market Orientation: Toward an Integrated Framework [Online]. Available From:http://www.amsreview.org/articles/heiens01-2000.pdf (Accessed:19 November 2011)