Do Business Well

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of standards. And by “standards” we are not referring to moral or ethical standards. We mean languages, symbols, conventions, scales. These are the DNA of civilization. Without our ability to devise and then accept standards, we could never have developed such a complex society.

Standards enable us to communicate. Each language is simply a shared set of standards. If you don’t share someone’s grammatical standards, and if you cannot agree on what certain symbols mean, then you can’t speak that person’s language. All communication, no matter what its medium, demands shared standards—just ask a Windows user who has tried to download a document from his Mac-bound buddy. Continue Reading »

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• At the operational level, another challenge for marketers with regard to Web-based inter-organizational networks is that customer communications do not necessarily involve just one customer talking toone enterprise. Decisions need to be taken on where responsibility lies for particular tasks, to avoid duplication and customer confusion. To provide the kind of service that improves the chance of customer loyalty, companies need to co-ordinate their partners and vendors and customers through extranets that facilitate the sharing of information across company boundaries. Kalakota and Robinson (1999) suggest considering partners and vendors to be part of the firm’s extended enterprise, and this means sharing customer communication issues with everyone in contact with the customer through integrated applications such as customer service, field service, sales and marketing. This is the most critical issue currently

facing ‘clicks and mortar’ firms in developing a successful Internet strategy. Such open policies of information sharing mean that a whole host of issues have to be addressed concerning the ‘ownership’ of customer data, notwithstanding the technical difficulties inherent in integrating computer systems belonging to different organizations through an extranet. Continue Reading »

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`Place’ (Convenience in the 4- Cs) means the elements of the marketing mix that marketers use to enable customers to access the benefits of a product or service. Traditionally, this has meant ‘channels of distribution‘ through (e.g.) various wholesaler and retailer combinations. Viewing from the ‘convenience for the customer‘ (4-Cs) perspective gives a more customer-orientated focus. This is a vital decision area for the e-Business for three reasons. First, relatively small local companies can widen their market and even export (e.g. Botham (www.Botham.co.uk), to be described further in Chapter 9). Second, many e- Businesses aim to gain competitive advantage by using e-Systems to de-layer the distribution chain. For example, Dell (www.dell.co.uk) supplies customers directly, rather than through distributors, wholesalers or retailers. Third, distribution is an area where some e-Businesses have been severely criticized for failing to deliver customer service (see Chapter 9 for more details).

Place elements of the marketing mix have been changing rapidly over recent decades, and these changes impact in many ways on the marketing operations of the e-Business. First, the growth of retailer power has involved major retailers taking more control of their supply chains. The involvement of wholesalers has been reduced, tending to give way to contract logistics (under retailer control). At the same time, supply chains have become more efficient, with computer network links between suppliers and retailers — many still based on EDI. Predating the Internet, EDI is based on privately owned third-party computer networks. Stock levels have been reduced using techniques such as JIT and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Control of the physical distribution, ordering, invoicing and payment systems, particularly for major retailers, is often still carried out using EDI networks such as Tradanet (www.gegxs.com/gxs/ products/product/traser). Increasingly, though, retailers such as Tesco are allowing Internet access to their suppliers for real-time electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) data. Trusted supplier partners can thus respond more quickly to changes in customer demand. Continue Reading »

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