e-business marketing - Marketing-led business

The value of the Internet lies in its ability to provide immediate access to information and as the infrastructure to store, retrieve, sort, filter and distribute information. These capabilities greatly enhance the value of the information itself by making it practically useful in business

The Internet is on the one hand the infrastructure providing a delivery mechanism or packaging for many products and services (as a bottle is to wine), and it is also powerful in reducing costs or increasing the value of the product or service.

eBusiness in the marketing-led business
Marketing managers and strategists have for years used the ‘Four P’s’ model to define their business strategy for product specification, delivery and promotion.

These four most important ‘P’s are generally accepted to be: Price, Product (specification and branding), Promotion and Place (or Placement, the mode of delivery, or Distribution). These headings are still useful in considering e-business, but there are a number of specific additions that are important to consider.

The Marketspace Model (de Meyer et al 20021, Amoni et al 20002) is a useful generic model that identifies three key features of e-business that are enabled through technology, as an extension of the traditional ‘4 P’s’ marketing model. ‘Customer relationships’ is rightly placed at the centre, because in many forms of e-business, the customer is uniquely identified and this gives the possibility of automatically offering a personalised service.

(source: Amoni et al 2000, p.2)

Due to the real-time on-line nature of the Internet, relationships between organisations and customers are becoming more interactive. Interactivity has to do with two-way exchange of information and ideas with the customer through an on-line interface, which enhances the richness of customer relationships and gives rise to new paradigms of product design and customer service, such as Internet forums. Because the Internet is open and global, it is fostering a new global ‘Marketspace’. 

References:
1 De Meyer, A., Dutta S., Srivastava, S (2002): The Bright Stuff, Financial Times/Prentice Hall
2Amoni A, Biren B, Dutta S (2001): Business Transformation on the Internet 2000, INSEAD, available from http://knowledge.insead.fr/docs/2001-22.pdf accessed 5th June 2003

Author: Steve Whiteley, January 2007