Author: indiafreenotes

Job Security is an assurance that an individual will keep his or her job without the risk of becoming unemployed. S/he will have continuity in employment and it may be from the terms of a contract of employment, collective bargaining agreement, or labor legislation that prevents arbitrary termination.

Assurance (or lack of it) that an employee has about the continuity of gainful employment for his or her work life. Job security usually arises from the terms of the contract of employment, collective bargaining agreement, or labor legislation that prevents arbitrary termination, layoffs, and lockouts. It may also be affected by general economic conditions.

Employee job Security

Employers must not overlook the importance of offering employees long-term job security, as this allows employees to feel secure in their work and makes them more willing to contribute more time and effort to their companies.

With greater job security, employees would be more eager to think of novel ideas for enhancing the competitiveness of their companies in their field and in society.

Ultimately, this is beneficial to the companies and would greatly improve overall performance. Thus, offering long-term job security for employees could be viewed by companies as a means to motivate workers and increase productivity. It is in fact more important than salary alone.

Salaries can always be increased when contracts are negotiated and renewed at the end of every contracted period. Although some may argue that a high salary could motivate employees to work harder and put in extra hours, as well as compensating them for their efforts during office hours, pay alone is no guarantee of satisfaction or fulfillment. Even employees on a high salary might not truly contribute much to a business they don’t feel part of. Jobseekers are more concerned about the availability of, and being able to secure, long-term employment than just a satisfactory income.

Human Resource Investment Considerations

Several factors will be considered in the discussion of strategic human resource investment decisions. As noted earlier, these will include management’s values, views of risk, the economic rationale for investment in training, utility theory, and alternatives to human resou1rce investments. Investments in training are covered in this section because they are fundamental to the formation of human capital. Firms also invest in many other human resource practices with the expectation that there will be impacts on performance and financial returns.

Management Values

Fundamental values must be addressed in many human resource issues, particularly those involved in major strategic initiatives. When senior managers formulate and implement strategies, their values and philosophies are communicated to members of the organization through human resource policies and practices.

For example, senior managers who are committed to the preservation of the organization’s human resources can manage the stress associated with major strategic events, through such measures as dealing with rumors and providing accurate information, so that mis-information does not have such a debilitating impact on employees.

Risk and Return on Investment

Although there are a number of important benefits to investments in human resources, such investments contain an element of risk. Investing in human resources is inherently more risky than investing in physical capital because the employer does not own the resource. Employees are free to leave, although contractual arrangements may limit their mobility. In order for investments in human resources to be attractive, the returns must be great enough to overcome the risks. Further, for some investments, such as cash outlays to maintain no-layoff policies, the benefits are not easily quantified and there are meaningful costs. Decision makers have to be prepared to trade off current costs for long-term strategic benefits, such as a more flexible, committed workforce and related positive aspects of the organizational culture to which such policies contribute.

Investment in Management Development

The continued development of managerial personnel is a critical strategic issue in most organizations and a particularly difficult challenge given the massive shifts in strategy. Before considering management development, it is useful to quickly review some evolving and forecasted trends in the managerial environment. It is clear that organizations are becoming less hierarchical and that many middle-management positions have been eliminated. Further, larger numbers of workers are better educated and many are professionals. As a result, they expect to participate more in decision making. In the future, more work is expected to be performed in task force or project teams, power will be shared, managerial status will be deemphasized, and leadership responsibilities may be rotated. Because of the participative aspect of these empowerment trends, many professionals and highly educated employees may have more exposure to managerial responsibilities and may develop related skills as a natural part of their work.

Job Enrichment and Job Satisfaction

Job-enrichment practices, such as those building in increased responsibility or autonomy, knowledge of results, meaningful work, knowledge of how assigned tasks contribute to the greater activity of the larger organization, and skill variety, have been found to produce moderate reductions in turnover. Practices that enhance job latitude and job satisfaction also have a positive impact on employee retention. However, when high-performing employees feel undervalued, they tend to have higher turnover rates. Another company from Fortune top 100 companies provides a good example of the retention effects of job enrichment and job satisfaction:

“Being at a good company is like having a good wife,” says Floyd Williams, a senior production manager at sports gear maker K2 (No. 52), who gushes about the opportunity to work on as many as 25 projects at a time. “When you get used to a certain level of freedom and excitement, you don’t want to leave.” In fact, none of Williams’ three marriages has lasted as long as his 28-year career with the company. “One wife told me it was either K2 or me. And I said, ‘Well, I’m not leaving K2!’

There can be two types of disabled employees

1. Disabled: While employed: i.e. the person was fit and sound during the start of employment relationship, however, during the tenure of his/her service he turned disable, which can be either:

• On-the-job: This is during the work hours while working at premises.
• Off-the-job: This is not at work premises, but surely after the start of employment relationship.

2. Disabled: Prior to employment: Here the employer is well aware of the disability yet employ the person for the job.

Disabled: While Employed

There can be short- and long-term disability (STD and LTD).While dealing with such a case the employer must follow the following procedure.

The Interactive Process, whereby through an informal open discussion with the disabled employee, the precise job related limitation imposed by the employee’s disability are being realized and how those limitations could be overcome with a reasonable accommodation. Even if the department’s ability to accommodate the employee’s disability seems doubtful, the department must still conduct a good-faith interactive process.

There are four levels of possible accommodation:

1. Job Accommodation: Modification of job duties, job environment and/or work schedule.
2. Modified Work: Lateral transfer into an existing position for which employee is qualified.
3. Transferable Skills: Transfer to “demoted” position or position of lesser terms/conditions (“last resort accommodation.”).
4. Alternate Work: However, consideration should be given to his present salary and the distance of the new work place from his residence.

Consider the preference of the individual to be accommodated and select and implement the accommodation that is most appropriate for both the employee and the employer. The employer should not accommodate the employee in case:

1. The disabled employee cannot perform the essential functions of the job; and that no reasonable accommodation exists.
2. The person would create an imminent and substantial danger to him/her self or to others by performing the job; and there is no way to remove or reduce the danger.

In such a scenario employer may use medical separation and also appoint a rehabilitation counselor for the disabled employee.

2. Disabled: Prior to Employment

There could be any form of disability namely

1. Mental health
2. Physical Disability
3. Learning Disability

which the employer is aware of prior to employment. But still considers their employment as a part of social responsibility, alongside trusting their capability to perform the task fit for them.

The trend of employing disabled as well as keeping provisions for employees disabled after employment is gaining momentum which can be due to:

• Realization of social responsibility by employers.
• Government intervention
• Trade benefit schemes, tax benefits etc.

Reasons for this change

Disability Confident employers will have access to a wider talent pool. Technological developments and increasing use of flexible working mean that organisations are able to create enabling environments where more disabled people can contribute to business success.

Engaging with Potential Employees (Disabled)

• Attracting talented disabled candidates can be problematic. Experience of leading employers suggests that multiple (project based) recruitment tends to attract more disabled candidates than single-post advertising.
• Employer needs to build a   brand which symbolize welcome and fair treatment.
• Consider offering work experience and internship opportunities to disabled people.
• Sector based initiatives can help to change people’s views of working in a particular industry.

Considering high staff turnover and an acute shortage of skilled workforce, qualified technical people who are disabled can be good alternative. Unfortunately when it comes to recruitment, employers tend to look the other way if the job candidate is a person with disability.

But still the percentage of disabled employees is very low. Most employers are reluctant to employ the disabled because of concerns regarding safety regulations, the need to modify premises such as installing ramps, disabled-friendly toilets and extra medical costs.

Even if they are employed, the system that is being followed in the organization does not work in their  favor   There is, however, concern that some management practices, even those imposed without prejudice on all employees, might have a disparate effect on the health and performance of some disabled employees.

With the advancement in technology, the potential of these employees can be enhanced to a higher level. For example, speech device can be used as a tool to support the person who is verbally impaired. Similarly, visually disabled can convey through special computers. Thus we need such things along with training for the disabled employees as well as the normal employees to help them adjust to the changes, and their differently-abled employees. Though, this may seem as an investment but the benefits are far reached and rewarding. Return on investment is far greater considering people with disabilities tend to be appreciative and loyal employees, because they have difficulties finding jobs. Their commitment to work has to do with their self-esteem. This notion of work, as a prideful activity, is something they definitely feel.

Cost to Keep Disabled Employee (Employed)

Employers experience multiple direct and indirect benefits such as retaining qualified employees, considering

1. The cost of training the new employee
2. Productivity of retained employee is higher
3. Cost of accommodation is lower than inducting new employee
4. Employers want to retain valued and qualified employees.

There are lot many industries which have a scope of employing disabled employee. its just the initiative which is required, considering Titan, Tata group which is one of the world’s largest timepiece manufacturers started introducing disabled employees to it’s facility since 80’s . “Titan was clear that these people are an intrinsic part of our society and need understanding, support and opportunities, not charity or misplaced compassion,” says Mamatha Bhat. Thus, the capable candidates of 18 -24 yrs were adopted and proper measures were taken to get them into main stream, like

1. Ergonomically designed workspaces
2. Training to enhance technical competence
3. Non-discriminating policies, effective grievance handling, counseling etc.

With time, Titan has realized that the disabled members of its family are more loyal and far more focused on the job. Despite the physical shortcomings of these employees, productivity and quality had never been an issue. Titan’s children of a lesser god  are no longer classified as disabled, merely ‘differently-abled’.

Thus, such an investment is worth not only for it’s return in terms of loyalty earned. But, employers should consider their responsibility towards the society and help in making these people self dependent and getting them into the main stream.

The Benefits of Strategic HR Planning

Human resource planning refers to the process of formulating HR strategies and designing programs and schemes to carry out their implementation. If done the right way, strategic HR planning results in several direct and indirect advantages for the organization.

Proactive Instead of Reactive Behavior

Proactive behavior refers to looking forward and having a clear vision and aims regarding the future of the company and how Human resources can be used to achieve the goals set. On the other hand, being reactive means dealing with issues as they simultaneously arise. In general, a reactive company could risk losing sight of the long-term course that should be set for the organization. In the past three years, the number of bankruptcies has greatly increased which is why any firm needs to make sure they keep a strong grip on their vital talent and try to introduce special incentives that would give a boost to any key performer going through a rough patch. While it may seem strange to be spending on employees when the company is going through hard times economically, it is necessary if the company wishes to keep its star employees on board. Strategic human resource planning allows an organization to formulate a clear set of objectives that capitalizes on its key talents and knowledge.

Managers tend to rely on their perspectives, experiences, and viewpoints to handle problems and make business choices. The assumptions on which their decisions are based are followed by success only if it has ecological validity in terms of the environment where the business operates. Conversely, this can lead to serious issues when the assumptions made are no longer of relevance. Strategic HR planning encourages critical thinking along with the creation of fresh initiatives only in the case of there being continued progress instead of a stiff process with a distinct start and a specific end date for completion. This is why many firms have designed an executive committee that is comprised of the CEO and an HR profession who discuss strategic problems regularly and alter the organization’s whole HR strategic and program structure every so often. Strategic human resource planning allows a company to understand where they stand presently and visualize where they aim to be in the future.

When the business strategy of the overall organization is combined with strategic human resource planning, organizations can identify any possible issues that may arise and any opportunities with consideration to the individuals responsible for the implementation of the strategy.

Companies, in general, hold a strong idea of who they tend to perform better than those who do not, especially when it comes to long-term performance. Strategic HR planning allows an organization to strengthen, modify and even readdress the present values of the company and maintain a culture that values aspects such as growth, innovation, teamwork and customer focus.

HR Strategies for Improving Company Performance

There is no textbook definition of what constitutes a good or bad HR strategy. Instead, the effect of an HR strategy always relies on how well it aligns with the rest of the factors involved. This statement leads to a basic yet important expectation from HR strategies that are broadly supported by research. When a company matches its HR strategies with other factors concerning the issue, it eventually results in better performance and if this alignment does not take place then there is inevitable incompetence and lack of consistency in the company’s performance.

The four factors that the company must keep in mind when deciding what HR strategies, they need to implement for there to be a positive impact on the organization’s performance: the firm’s strategies, characteristics, capabilities as well as its environment.

An HR strategy contributes to the positive growth of an organization. This is achieved when the company has a good fit between the human resource strategies and the general strategic direction of the company. The HR strategies applied in a company need to be in harmony with the environment in which the organization operates and be closely adjusted to the particular organization’s features. The strategies should allow capitalization of the key capabilities of the firm and be equally consistent and coordinate accordingly.

A corporation can have several businesses that are somewhat related or are entirely different. When it comes to corporate strategy, it refers to the unique combination of businesses every corporation chooses to take hold of and how resources are managed and inter-flow through these businesses. The key strategic business-related decisions that occur when a firm is at a corporate level involve factors such as growth, acquisition, diversification, and divestment. Business strategies in an organization refer to the development and application of strategies by fairly independent organizations, even if they belong to a bigger corporation.

Corporate Strategies

Corporate strategies with matching HR strategies are broadly divided into two main types. Companies that take on evolutionary business strategies tend to take part in the vigorous acquisition of new and upcoming businesses even if these businesses have no general relation to one another. Managing change in evolutionary firms is the key to survival. Entrepreneurship is reinforced and gaining control does not have a lot of importance considering each sector is generally autonomous. Fast responses, entrepreneurship, sharing risks and flexibility are all that proper HR strategy foster in businesses. Evolutionary corporations are not dedicated to a singular industry or business and may appoint employees from the outside market based on requirement and let go of them to minimize costs if necessary, with no promises of being rehired. Such HR strategies are suitable since they accept the reality that change, and development are constant in an organization. On the other hand, some corporations tend to be somewhat picky about their method of growth. They refrain from the acquisition of firms that are unrelated to their current industry and even companies in that particular industry that is not the same as them.

Developing and implementing an effective HR strategy:

Align to business needs

A business strategy dictates how a business will achieve its goals and grow in both the near- and long-term. An HR strategy complements this by creating the internal infrastructure that can effectively activate its people and processes to reach those goals.

It goes without saying that building an HR strategy cannot be done in a vacuum. In fact, it must cascade down from an organization’s broader business strategy and, more importantly, position an organization’s employees as the glue that connects HR strategy to business strategy.

Identify what success looks like

As with setting any goal or objective, simply putting a strategy together is only half of the battle. It’s never a ‘one and done’ process by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, everything else you do once the ink has dried on your HR strategy is all about what needs to happen in order to drive incremental success until you reach or even surpass your stated goals.

So as you develop your HR strategy, you should repeatedly ask yourself, “What does success look like?” After all, it’s easier to build a strategy around a desired end state versus coming up with a strategic framework and then leaving the rest to chance. To help keep this goal-setting process a bit more organized, consider building your HR strategy around four key internal levers:

• Culture: How will this strategy fix, change, amplify, or even transform certain aspects of the day-to-day leadership and employee experience within your organization?
• Organization: How will this strategy optimize the hierarchical structure of your organization, refine reporting lines, and identify new job role needs?
• People: How will this strategy support the ongoing development, growth, success, and happiness of the people within your organization?
• HR Systems: How will this strategy streamline the processes used across the talent management spectrum, from recruiting to training to compensation (and beyond)?

Focus on collaboration

Even though you’ve taken the necessary steps to align your HR strategy to broader business goals and objectives, you still need support and buy-in from key stakeholders and other business partners across the organization. After all, HR is a lever of support for every department in an organization. How you end up achieving your strategic goals will depend heavily on every department being active participants in that effort.

In other words, you must work with stakeholders to collaborate on priorities, identify what is most important or achievable in the coming year, and then chart a clear path towards achieving those goals as well as the KPIs you’ll use to measure progress against those goals.

Drive engagement through communication

In a similar vein as the above, not only do you need key stakeholders across the organization to bless your HR strategy, but you also need them to be its most active supporters. Otherwise, even the best strategies to ever see the light of day will fall flat from day one.

Not everyone in an organization needs to hear HR’s strategic elevator pitch directly. But there always are people in every department who can carry the torch on your behalf. These are the people you need to reach out to first and eventually convert into ambassadors and advocates of your strategy, vision, and properties. These are the people who can then cascade that information across their leadership ranks and down the line to their teams, ensuring that everyone is on the same page in terms of what HR will expect from them throughout the year.

Just keep in mind that everyone’s communication styles are a little different. Some people digest information like this better in a one-to-one setting (even if that just so happens to take place over a Teams video call), while others just need a detailed email to get the wheels in motion. The likely case is that you’ll end up using multiple communications channels, including workshops and even text-based chats, to create a ‘domino effect’ that eventually gets the HR strategy firmly ingrained in the minds of everyone within an organization.

Measure results in real-time

This part might sound obvious especially after what we outlined in point number two above but the key takeaway here is simple: Measure, measure, measure!

You’ve established KPIs in order to have a consistent way to track progress against your goals. Now you just need to make sure that regular reporting, either monthly or quarterly (or both!), on key data and analytics is part of your broader and ongoing strategic plan.

But don’t let this simply become a regular data dump that gets buried in the depths of your team’s email inboxes. Take the time to study what the data is telling you, pull together some actionable insights from it, and make a point to present your learnings regularly. Doing so will only make your HR strategy stronger and reinforce its importance among all key stakeholders.

Secondary data refers to data that is collected by someone other than the primary user.  Common sources of secondary data for social science include censuses, information collected by government departments, organizational records and data that was originally collected for other research purposes. Primary data, by contrast, are collected by the investigator conducting the research.

Secondary data analysis can save time that would otherwise be spent collecting data and, particularly in the case of quantitative data, can provide larger and higher-quality databases that would be unfeasible for any individual researcher to collect on their own. In addition, analysts of social and economic change consider secondary data essential, since it is impossible to conduct a new survey that can adequately capture past change and/or developments. However, secondary data analysis can be less useful in marketing research, as data may be outdated or inaccurate.

Sources of secondary data

Secondary data can be obtained from many sources:

• Censuses and government departments like housing, social security, electoral statistics, tax records
• internet searches and libraries
• gps and remote sensing
• km progress reports
• journals, newspapers and magazines

Administrative data and census

Government departments and agencies routinely collect information when registering people or carrying out transactions, or for record keeping usually when delivering a service. This information is called administrative data.

It can include:

• Personal information such as names, dates of birth, addresses
• information about schools and educational achievements
• information about health
• information about criminal convictions or prison sentences
• tax records, such as income

Nature of Secondary Data

1) Data reliability

The secondary data that is to be used should be reliable. The data connection analysis should be done and questions like who collected the data, what were the sources of the collected data, when was the data collected and what were the methods used to collect it, what’s the desired level of accuracy achieved and if there any bias by the compiler.

These are the primary questions that need to be answered before using any data. Answering these questions will help to establish reliability on the secondary data.

2) Suitability of the data

The data should be suitable for the research that is to be conducted because the data that is suitable for one research may not be necessary is suitable for other research. This is why the data that is found should be scrutinized properly and should not be used by the researcher directly.

The researcher should carefully see the terms and units of collection and the time at which the data is collected from the primary source. Careful analysis will reveal the scope and the object along with the nature of the original query for which the research was conducted.

3) Data sufficiency

If the present problem of the researcher is not answered by the data then it should be considered as inadequate and should be refrained from using by the researcher. The data will not be considered sufficient if the scope of the researcher is narrower or wider than the secondary data that is collected.

It would be very risky to use the data if it simply matches some part of the query posed by the researcher because of chances of error in the present research increasing drastically.

Advantages of Secondary data

• It is economical. It saves efforts and expenses.
• It is time saving.
• It helps to make primary data collection more specific since with the help of secondary data, we are able to make out what are the gaps and deficiencies and what additional information needs to be collected.
• It helps to improve the understanding of the problem.
• It provides a basis for comparison for the data that is collected by the researcher.

Market research is viable process of determining the value or demand of the product in the marketplace in addition to the position of the enterprise in the industry. Theorists described Market research as the systematic and objective process of collecting, generating, evaluating and interpreting information and communicating the judgments in order to take marketing decisions. Market research work on DECIDE model which means define the market problems, enumerate the controllable and uncontrollable decision factors, collect relevant information, develop and implement a marketing plan and evaluate the decision and decision process. John Graham in American Salesman (2004) note down that marketer has vital role in launching of a product and the long-term triumph of organization in competitive business environment. It provides all the pertinent information about the active products in the market and assists the company to recognize and solve issues associated with launching of new products. It also assists companies to assess the marketing opportunities and use them for the success of firms.

Market research has been recognized as major activity of marketing. Market research can be used as a means to achieve agreements of consumers on the market structure and involve sincerely in supporting the business. Market research assists the organisations to acquire the data of customers and competitors to develop their products, devise marketing strategies, and resourcefully segment the market. In order to understand customer demands and test the conditions of market, well-designed surveys are conducted and companies can obtain real information of their marketing opportunities, tendencies, and intimidations. Therefore, questions in surveys must be developed cautiously to gain useful data that benefit product positioning and marketing to fulfil the needs of customers in the market. Market research that makes the most powerful contribution to decision making in the firm can influence the environment and entire thoughts of a company. It can be illustrious that market research is very important to help companies to make strong position in the market, regulate marketing strategies, plan product pricing, and watch customer purchasing behaviours.

A market research project may usually have 3 different types of objectives.

• Administrative: Help a company or business development, through proper planning, organization, and both human and material resources control, and thus satisfy all specific needs within the market, at the right time.
• Social: Satisfy customer’s specific needs through a required product or service. The product or service should comply with the requirements and preferences of a customer when it’s consumed.
• Economical: Determine the economical degree of success or failure a company can have while being new to the market, or otherwise introducing new products or services, and thus providing certainty to all actions to be implemented.

Importance:

• Valuable information: It provides information and opportunities about the value of existing and new products, thus, helping businesses plan and strategizes accordingly.
• Customer-centric: It helps to determine what the customers need and want. Marketing is customer-centric and understanding the customers and their needs will help businesses design products or services that best suit them. Remember that tracing your customer journey is a great way to gain valuable insights into your customers’ sentiments toward your brand.
• Forecasts: By understanding the needs of customers, businesses can also forecast their production and sales. Market research also helps in determining optimum inventory stock.
• Competitive advantage: To stay ahead of competitor’s market research is a vital tool to carry out comparative studies. Businesses can devise business strategies that can help them stay ahead of their competitors.

Methods of Market Research

• Exploratory research
• Descriptive research
• Causal research

Exploratory Research: Exploratory research facilitates businesses to find out new ideas and find prospective market opportunities. It is used to discover a situation or search for a problem. This research process is unstructured. Product managers need not go through all the stages of the market research process from the “defining stage” to the “analysis stage”. The results from exploratory research are typically based on secondary data, open ended questions, similar case studies, a pilot study, or even results from previous research. It is found that the results obtain from exploratory research may not be appropriate for Product Managers to decide to enter a new market. The result is sometimes generalised information about probable markets and the related products or services. It is conducted with anticipation that there is need for more complete research.

Descriptive Research: This type of market research deals with queries such as who, what, when, where and how type questions. It is structured research in which Product managers use all steps in research process. Descriptive research discovers more detail about a market.

Causal Research: This type of research assists Product Managers to know the cause and effect of a relationship such as Causality can be derived by the use of “if x, then y”. Causal research is considered formal research and facilitates product managers to recognize problems and the causes of the problem.

Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.

This involves specifying the data required to address these issues, then designing the method for collecting information, managing and implementing the data collection process. After analyzing the data collected, these results and findings, including their implications, are forwarded to those empowered to act on them.

Market research, marketing research, and marketing are a sequence of business activities; sometimes these are handled informally.

The field of marketing research is much older than that of market research. Although both involve consumers, Marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes, such as advertising effectiveness and salesforce effectiveness, while market research is concerned specifically with markets and distribution. Two explanations given for confusing Market research with Marketing research are the similarity of the terms and also that Market Research is a subset of Marketing Research. Further confusion exists because of major companies with expertise and practices in both areas.

Characteristics

First, marketing research is systematic. Thus systematic planning is required at all the stages of the marketing research process. The procedures followed at each stage are methodologically sound, well documented, and, as much as possible, planned in advance. Marketing research uses the scientific method in that data are collected and analyzed to test prior notions or hypotheses. Experts in marketing research have shown that studies featuring multiple and often competing hypotheses yield more meaningful results than those featuring only one dominant hypothesis.

Marketing research is objective. It attempts to provide accurate information that reflects a true state of affairs. It should be conducted impartially. While research is always influenced by the researcher’s research philosophy, it should be free from the personal or political biases of the researcher or the management. Research which is motivated by personal or political gain involves a breach of professional standards. Such research is deliberately biased so as to result in predetermined findings. The objective nature of marketing research underscores the importance of ethical considerations. Also, researchers should always be objective with regard to the selection of information to be featured in reference texts because such literature should offer a comprehensive view on marketing. Research has shown, however, that many marketing textbooks do not feature important principles in marketing research.

Marketing is art of developing, advertising and distributing goods and services to consumer as well as business. However, marketing is not just limited to goods and services it is extended to everything from places to ideas and in between. This brings forth many challenges within which marketing people have to take strategy decisions. And answer to these challenges depends on the market the company is catering to, for consumer market decision are with respect to product, packaging and distribution channel.

For business market, knowledge and awareness of product is very essential for marketing people as businesses are on the lookout to maintain or establish a credential in their respective market.

For global market, marketing people have to consider not only culture diversity but also be careful with respect to international trade laws, trade agreement, and regulatory requirements of individual market. For non for profit organization with limited budgets, importance is related to pricing of products, so companies have to design and sell products accordingly.

Marketing philosophy employed by any given company has to be mix of organization interest, consumer interest and societal interest. In production philosophy, companies focus is on numbers, high production count, which reduces cost per unit and along with mass distribution. This kind of concept is usually making sense in a developing market where there is the need of product in large numbers.

The product philosophy talks about consumers who are willing to pay an extra premium for high quality and reliable performance, so companies focus on producing well made products.

The selling concept believes in pushing consumers into buying of products, which under normal circumstance, they would be resistant. The marketing concept believes consumer satisfaction, thereby developing and selling products keeping focus solely on customer needs and wants.

The customer philosophy believes in the creation of customized products, where in products is design looking at historical transaction of consumers.

The last philosophy is the societal concept which believes in developing products, which not only generate consumer satisfaction but also take into account well being of society or environment.

Digital revolution and 21st century have made companies fine tune the way they conduct their business. One major trend observed is the need of stream lining processes and systems with the focus on cost reduction through outsourcing.

Another trend observed in companies is, encouragement to entrepreneur style of work environment with glocal (global-local) approach. At the same time, marketers of companies are looking forward to building long term relationship with consumers. This relationship establishes platform understanding consumer needs and preference.

Marketers are looking at distribution channels as partners in business and not as the customer. Companies and marketers are making decisions using various computers simulated models.

Rise of Digital Marketing

Marketing in the 21st century combines both traditional and digital channels to promote products and services. Before the 21st century, organizations had no advertising options other than conventional channels such as newspapers, television, flyers and radio to reach their target customers. They focused on mass marketing campaigns to create awareness in the target market and influence potential customers to make purchasing decisions.

The arrival of the internet transformed the concept of promotion into inbound marketing from outbound marketing. Inbound marketing facilitates two-way interactive communication between organizations and customers through search engines and social media platforms, emails and content strategies.

Social Media Marketing

Organizations use social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram extensively to engage target audiences in interaction and influence their behavior. Social media has become a platform for people to share opinions and purchase experiences. With appropriate marketing efforts to channel these opinions and purchase experiences, organizations spread positive word-of-mouth through social media platforms and increase conversion rates. The benefits of social media marketing for organizations are low cost and high response rate.

Personalized Email Marketing

Marketing in the 21st century focuses on adding value to customers by educating and entertaining them through digital platforms. Email marketing is a widely used tool for sending personalized messages to customers and persuading them to make purchases. Organizations in the 21st century have created opt-in email lists to execute an email marketing campaign. An opt-in email list comprises email addresses of individuals who have shown an interest in services or products offered by an organization.

As reported by the Data and Marketing Association in 2019, organizations earn an average of $42 on every $1 they spend on email marketing. The Content Marketing Institute in 2019 reported that nearly 87 percent of organizations use emails to disseminate a personalized promotional message to clients.

Content Marketing Strategy

Content is king when it comes to marketing in the 21st century. Small and medium-scale organizations extensively use search engine marketing techniques to reach target customers online. High-quality, unique and value-added content is essential for websites to achieve high ranks on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. The Google search engine, in particular, emphasizes quality content when ranking websites. The content marketing strategy in the 21st century is to help organizations achieve objectives such as engaging customers, persuading them to make purchase decisions, and developing brand identity.

Traditional Marketing in the 21st Century

Though organizations have shifted to digital marketing in the 21st century, traditional marketing is not dead. Large-scale organizations are still highly dependent on television and print advertising to attract customers. The marketers of large-scale organizations integrate traditional and digital marketing strategies to create a suitable brand image for their products. Meanwhile, small-scale organizations with a lower marketing budget leverage digital marketing tools to bring more clients on board.

Marketing in the 21st century is a mix of both traditional and digital marketing. Depending on the type of products, marketing budget, size of the target market, and spending habits of potential customers, organizations alter their marketing strategies accordingly.

Value of information (VOI or VoI) is the amount a decision maker would be willing to pay for information prior to making a decision.

Decisions of this type are made every day in a business. Companies will often pay market research firms to establish the likelihood that a new product will be well received. If the stakes are high, and the cost of product development is counted in the millions of dollars, then a firm may be willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the information they need to reduce their uncertainty. Businesses place a value on information every time they buy competitive intelligence, hire a consultant, invest in information systems, and hire a knowledge worker and so on. Most business managers will not talk in terms of information value, but this is essentially the value judgement they are making.

Now in the example given above we assumed that our information source could be trusted 100%. In real life we don’t know for certain that a source of information can be wholly trusted, and so we have to modify our estimations of information value based on this uncertainty it reduces the value of the information.

The art and science of the cost and value of information is to make sure that the costs are less than the value. Some attempt is made to do this when we are talking of investments in information systems, but no such exercise is undertaken when someone undertakes a search for information on a casual basis. Common sense does come into play we wouldn’t sanction a three month project to establish exactly how much stationery a department was using, and how it was being used, if the potential cost savings were $100, and the three month project cost $10,000. However, many activities are not as clear cut, and for sure, the proliferation of information systems (and particularly social technologies) mean people are spending much more time dealing with information, and typically no one is counting the cost or even the value. This will change as firms struggle to become more competitive and efficient, but information productivity is still a missing science in most businesses.

Characteristics

There are four extremely important characteristics of VoI that always hold for any decision situation:

• The value of information can never be less than zero since the decision-maker can always ignore the additional information and makes decision as if such information is not available.
• No other information gathering/sharing activities can be more valuable than that quantified by value of clairvoyance.
• Observing multiple new evidences yields the same gain in maximum expected utility regardless of the order of observation.
• The VOI of observing two new evidence variables is not additive. Instead it is equivalent to observing one, incorporating it into our current evidence, and then observing the other.

Indirect Human Costs

Indirect human cost is more significant than direct cost and it is very illusive in nature.

Following is the taxonomy of indirect human costs:

• Management Time
• Management effort and dedication
• Employee Training
• Management Resources
• Personnel Issues
• Cost of ownership
• Employee Time
• Employee Motivation

Indirect Organizational Costs

• Losses in productivity
• Organizational Productivity
• Strains on Organizational Resources
• Opportunity Cost and Risk
• Business Process Reengineering
• Covert Resistance

Identification of Benefits

The following are the potential benefits of an IT system. In an implementation, some of the benefits may get realized and some may not get realized.

• Reduced Head Count
• Reduced manufacturing cost
• Reduced inventory cost
• Reduced down time
• Better quality control
• Additional new customers
• Increased sales from existing customers
• Better image of the Organization
• Higher employee morale
• Reduced attrition rate
• The ability to recruit better employees

Market Share

Similar to earning growth one can also evaluate value of IS in terms of increased market share.

Customer Awareness and Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is one of the most valued intangible benefits of an information system. For instance, an information system may help customer track status of their orders. Customer may check the stock status before he places an order. The information may be available online or through an operation who has access to information system of the company. There are many companies that conduct survey on behalf of their client company’s to determine the satisfaction level of their customers.