Marketing is the process by which goods are sold and purchased. The aim ofmarketing is to acquire, retain, and satisfy customers.
Modern marketing hasevolved into a complex and diverse field. This field includes a wide variety ofspecial functions such as advertising, mail-order business, public relations,retailing and merchandising, sales, market research, and pricing of goods. Businesses, and particularly the marketing aspect of businesses, rely agreat deal on the use of computers. Computers play a significant role ininventory control, processing and handling orders, communication betweensatelite companies in an organization, design and production of goods,manufacturing, product and market analysis, advertising, producing the companynewsletter, and in some cases, complete control of company operations. In today’s extremely competitive business environment businesses aresearching for ways to improve profitability and to maintain their position inthe marketplace.
As competition becomes more intense the formula for successbecomes more difficult. Two particular things have greatly aided companies intheir quests to accomplish these goals. They are the innovative softwareproducts of CAD/CAM and, last but not least, the World Wide Web. An important program has aided companies all over the world. Computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) is the integration oftwo technologies.
It has often been called the new industrial revolution. InCAD, engineers and designers use specialized computer software to create modelsthat represent characteristics of objects. These models are analyzed by computerand redesigned as necessary. This allows companies needed flexibility instudying different and daring designs without the high costs of building andtesting actual models, saving millions of dollars.
In CAM, designers andengineers use computers for planning manufacturing processes, testing finishedparts, controlling manufacturing operations, and managing entire plants. CAM islinked to CAD through a database that is shared by design and manufacturingengineers. The major applications of CAD/CAM are mechanical design and electronicdesign. Computer-aided mechanical design is usually done with automated draftingprograms that use interactive computer graphics.
Information is entered intothe computer to create basic elements such as circles, lines, and points. Elements can be rotated, mirrored, moved, and scaled, and users can zoom in ondetails. Computerized drafting is quicker and more accurate than manualdrafting. It makes modifications much easier. Desktop manufacturing enables a designer to construct a model directly fromdata which is stored in computer memory. These software programs help designersto consider both function and manufacturing consequences at early stages, whendesigns are easily modified.
More and more manufacturing businesses are integrating CAD/CAM with otheraspects of production, including inventory tracking, scheduling, and marketing. This idea, known as computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM), speeds processingof orders, adds to effective materials management, and creates considerable costsavings. In addition to designing and manufacturing a product, a company must beeffectively able to advertise, market, and sell its product. Much of whatpasses for business is nothing more than making connections with other people. What if you could passout your business card to thousands, maybe millions ofpotential clients and partners? You can, twenty four hours a day, inexpensivelyand simply on the World Wide Web.
Firms communicate with their customersthrough various types of media. This media usually follows passive one-to-manycommunication where a firm reaches many current and potential customers throughmarketing efforts that allow limited forms of feedback on the part of thecustomer. For several years a revolution has been developing that isdramatically changing the traditional form of advertising and communicationmedia. This revolution is the Internet, a massive global network ofinterconnected computer networks which has the potential to drastically changethe way firms do business with their customers.
The World Wide Web is a hypertext based information service. It providesaccess to multimedia, complex documents, and databases. The Web is one of themost effective vehicles to provide information because of its visual impact andadvanced features. It can be used as a complete presentation media for acompany’s corporate information or information on all of its products andservices.
The recent growth of the world wide web (WWW) has opened up new markets andshattered boundaries to selling to a worldwide audience. For marketers theworld wide web can be used to creat a client base, for product and marketanalysis, rapid information access, wide scale information dissemination, rapidcommunication, cost-effective document transfers, expert advise and help,recruiting new employees, peer communi-cations, and new business opportunities. The usefullness of the Internet or WWW depends directly on the products orservices of each business. There are different benefits depending upon the typeof business and whether you are a supplier, retailer, or distributor. Letsexamine these in more detail.
Finding new clients and new client bases is not always an easy task. Thisprocess involves a careful market analysis, product marketing and consumer basetesting. The Internet is a ready base of several million people from all walksof life. One can easily find new customers and clients from this massive group,provided that your presence on the internet is known. If you could keep yourcustomer informed of every reason why they should do business with you, yourbusiness would definitely increase. Making business information available isone of the most inportant ways to serve your customers.
Before people decide tobecome customers, they want to know about your company, what you do and what youcan do for them. This can be accomplished easily and inexpensively on the WorldWide Web. Many users also do product analyses and comparisons and report theirfindings via the World Wide Web. Quite frequently one can find others who maybe familiar with a product that you are currently testing.
A company can getfirst hand reports on the functionality of such products before spending a greatdeal of money. Also, the large base of Internet users is a principle area forthe distribution of surveys for an analysis of the market for a new product ofservice ideas. These surveys can reach millions of people and potential clientswith very little effort on the part of the surveyors. Once a product is alreadymarketed, you can examine the level of satisfaction that users have receivedfrom the product. Getting customer feedback can lead to new and improvedproducts.
Feedback will let you know what customers think of your product faster,easier and much less expensively than any other market you may reach. For thecost of a page or two of Web programming, you can have a crystal ball into whereto position your product or service in the marketplace. Accessing information over the Internet is much faster on most occasionsthan transmissions and transfers via fax or postal courier services. You canaccess information and data from countries around the world and make interactiveconnections to remote computer systems just about anywhere in the world. Electronic mail has also proved to be an effective solution to the problem oftelephone tag. Contacting others through email has provided a unique method ofcommunication which has the speed of telephone conversations, yet still providesthe advantages of postal mail.
Email can be sent from just about anywhere thatthere is an Internet service or access so that businessmen or travelers can keepin touch with up to the minute details of the office. Another benefit of the World Wide Web is wide scale information circulation. You can place documents on the Internet and instantly make them accessible tomillions of users around the world. Hypertext documents provide an effectivetechnique by which to present information to subscribers, clients or the generalpublic. Creating World Wide Web documents and registering your site with largerWeb sites improves the availability of the documents to a client base larger,and cheaper, than the circulation of many major newspapers and/or televisionmedias.
You may not be able to use the mail, phone system and regulationsystems in all of your potential international markets. With the World Wide Web,however, you can open up a dialogue with international markets as easily as withthe company accross the street. The Web is also more cost-effective than conventional advertising. Transferring on-line documents via the Internet takes a minimal amount of time,saving a great deal of money over postal or courier services which can alsosuffer late deliveries, losses or damage. If a document transfer fails on theInternet, you can always try again since the cost of the transfer is exactly thesame. Current or potential clients are not lost due to late or absent documents.
Beyond product and market analysis, there are a great number of experts onthe Internet who make their presence widely known and easily accessable. Quiteoften you can get free advice and help with problems you might have from thesame people you may otherwise pay highly for their consulting services to largeorganizations, magazines, and other periodicals. Researchers and businessexecutives alike have attested to the fact that much of their communicationsover the Internet are with others in their line of research or field of work. Communicating with peers allows the sharing of ideas, problems and solutionsamong themselves. Often people find that others in their field have alreadycreated solutions for problems similar to their own.
They are able to obtainadvice on their own situations and create a solution based upon this sharedknowledge. Many businessmen and conpanies are continuously on the look-out for new andinnovative ideas as viable business ventures. Internet users are continuouslycoming up with such new ideas because of the available research the Internetoffers and also because of the cooperative atmosphere that surrounds theinternet. In addition, the Internet has many job lists and resumes online forprospective employers. New resumes are constantly posted to the Web to informcompanies of the availability of new skills. As competition intensifies in the business world, consumers are faced withmore and more products and services to choose from.
The future of business isbeing decided right now in the minds and wallets of customers. The successfulbusiness and marketing approach utilizes everything possible to insure that thechoice the customer makes is to choose their product or service. Computertechnology is by far the most important and impressive means by which to insurea company’s success. Computers play a significant role in every aspect of acompany’s survival, from product design and manufacturing, creating clientdatabases, inventory control , market analysis, advertising and sales, and eventotal company operations. Category: Technology
