Tag: Strategic Marketing Management Mumbai University BMS Notes

The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.

The origins of the Internet date back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in the 1960s to enable time-sharing of computers. The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1970s. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated a sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, commercialization incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life.

Most traditional communication media, including telephony, radio, television, paper mail and newspapers are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email, Internet telephony, Internet television, online music, digital newspapers, and video streaming websites. Newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking services. Online shopping has grown exponentially for major retailers, small businesses, and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their “brick and mortar” presence to serve a larger market or even sell goods and services entirely online. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries.

The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own policies. The overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address (IP address) space and the Domain Name System (DNS), are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. In November 2006, the Internet was included on USA Today’s list of New Seven Wonders.

The word internetted was used as early as 1849, meaning interconnected or interwoven. The word Internet was used in 1974 as the shorthand form of Internetwork. Today, the term Internet most commonly refers to the global system of interconnected computer networks, though it may also refer to any group of smaller networks.

When it came into common use, most publications treated the word Internet as a capitalized proper noun; this has become less common. This reflects the tendency in English to capitalize new terms and move to lowercase as they become familiar. The word is sometimes still capitalized to distinguish the global internet from smaller networks, though many publications, including the AP Stylebook since 2016, recommend the lowercase form in every case. In 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary found that, based on a study of around 2.5 billion printed and online sources, “Internet” was capitalized in 54% of cases.

The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably; it is common to speak of “going on the Internet” when using a web browser to view web pages. However, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services, a collection of documents (web pages) and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.

Surfing the web

Alternatively known as web surfing, surfing with computers describes the act of browsing the Internet by going from one web page to another web page using hyperlinks in an Internet browser. The term “surfing” was first coined by Mark McCahill.

The term comes from “TV channel surfing,” but instead of clicking on the buttons of the remote, the user jumps from page to page by clicking on the links in the Web page.

Surfing is an activity that started with the advent of the World Wide Web. With hypertext links, users can go not only from one part of a document to another, but also from one document to another, including those located in remote sites. Surfing is a favorite pastime for millions of people around the world who have access to the Internet. Many users are hooked on it, spending countless hours doing casual searches or other online activities. Some do it to kill time.

Online aggregation services allow you to surf the Internet. Some of the most popular places include Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Pinterest. Also, you can use a search engine, such as Google, to search for anything that interests you.

HTTP

HTTP is the backbone of the World Wide Web (WWW). It defines the format of messages through which Web Browsers (like Firefox, Chrome) and Web Servers communicate, whilst also defining how a web browser should respond to a particular web browser request.

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, where hypertext documents include hyperlinks to other resources that the user can easily access, for example by a mouse click or by tapping the screen in a web browser.

Development of HTTP was initiated by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989 and summarized in a simple document describing the behavior of a client and a server using the first HTTP protocol version that was named 0.9.

That first version of HTTP protocol soon evolved into a more elaborated version that was the first draft toward a far future version 1.0.

Development of early HTTP Requests for Comments (RFCs) started a few years later and it was a coordinated effort by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with work later moving to the IETF.

HTTP/1 was finalized and fully documented (as version 1.0) in 1996. It evolved (as version 1.1) in 1997 and then its specifications were updated in 1999 and in 2014.

Its secure variant named HTTPS is used by more than 76% of websites.

HTTP/2 is a more efficient expression of HTTP’s semantics “on the wire”, and was published in 2015; it is used by more than 45% of websites; it is now supported by almost all web browsers (96% of users) and major web servers over Transport Layer Security (TLS) using an Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) extension where TLS 1.2 or newer is required.

HTTP/3 is the proposed successor to HTTP/2; it is used by more than 20% of websites; it is now supported by many web browsers (73% of users). HTTP/3 uses QUIC instead of TCP for the underlying transport protocol. Like HTTP/2, it does not obsolete previous major versions of the protocol. Support for HTTP/3 was added to Cloudflare and Google Chrome first, and is also enabled in Firefox.

HTTPS

HTTPS is for Web sites using additional security features such as certificates. HTTPS is used when Web transactions are required to be secure. HTTPS uses a certificate-based technology such as VeriSign.

Certificate-based transactions offer mutual authentication between the client and the server. Mutual authentication ensures the server of the client identity and ensures the client of the server identity. HTTPS, in addition to using certificate-based authentication, encrypts all data packets sent during a session.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS) or, formerly, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). The protocol is therefore also referred to as HTTP over TLS, or HTTP over SSL.

The principal motivations for HTTPS are authentication of the accessed website, and protection of the privacy and integrity of the exchanged data while in transit. It protects against man-in-the-middle attacks, and the bidirectional encryption of communications between a client and server protects the communications against eavesdropping and tampering. The authentication aspect of HTTPS requires a trusted third party to sign server-side digital certificates. This was historically an expensive operation, which meant fully authenticated HTTPS connections were usually found only on secured payment transaction services and other secured corporate information systems on the World Wide Web. In 2016, a campaign by the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the support of web browser developers led to the protocol becoming more prevalent. HTTPS is now used more often by web users than the original non-secure HTTP, primarily to protect page authenticity on all types of websites; secure accounts; and to keep user communications, identity, and web browsing private.

FTP

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data connections between the client and the server. FTP users may authenticate themselves with a clear-text sign-in protocol, normally in the form of a username and password, but can connect anonymously if the server is configured to allow it. For secure transmission that protects the username and password, and encrypts the content, FTP is often secured with SSL/TLS (FTPS) or replaced with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

The first FTP client applications were command-line programs developed before operating systems had graphical user interfaces, and are still shipped with most Windows, Unix, and Linux operating systems. Many FTP clients and automation utilities have since been developed for desktops, servers, mobile devices, and hardware, and FTP has been incorporated into productivity applications, such as HTML editors.

In January 2021, support for the FTP protocol was disabled in Google Chrome 88, and disabled in Firefox 88.0. In July 2021, Firefox 90 dropped FTP entirely, and Google followed suit in October 2021, removing FTP entirely in Google Chrome 95.

Hotspot

Wifi Hotspots are sites that offer Internet access over a wireless local area network (WLAN) by way of a router that then connects to an Internet service provider. Hotspots utilize WiFi technology, which allows electronic devices to connect to the Internet or exchange data wirelessly through radio waves. Hotspots can be phone-based or free-standing, commercial or free to the public.

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is the radio signal sent from a wireless router to a nearby device, which translates the signal into data you can see and use. The device transmits a radio signal back to the router, which connects to the internet by wire or cable.

A WiFi network is simply an internet connection that’s shared with multiple devices in a home or business via a wireless router. The router is connected directly to your internet modem and acts as a hub to broadcast the internet signal to all your Wi-Fi enabled devices. This gives you flexibility to stay connected to the internet as long as you’re within your network coverage area.

Wi-Fi uses radio waves to transmit data from your wireless router to your Wi-Fi enabled devices like your TV, smartphone, tablet and computer. Because they communicate with each other over airwaves, your devices and personal information can become vulnerable to hackers, cyber-attacks and other threats. This is especially true when you connect to a public Wi-Fi network at places like a coffee shop or airport. When possible, it’s best to connect to a wireless network that is password-protected or a personal hotspot.

LAN Cable

Cable Internet connection is a form of broadband access. Through use of a cable modem, users can access the Internet over cable TV lines. Cable modems can provide extremely fast access to the Internet, making a cable connection a viable option for many.

Broadband

This high-speed Internet connection is provided through either cable or telephone companies. One of the fastest options available, broadband Internet uses multiple data channels to send large quantities of information. The term broadband is shorthand for broad bandwidth. Broadband Internet connections such as DSL and cable are considered high-bandwidth connections. Although many DSL connections can be considered broadband, not all broadband connections are DSL.

USB Tethering

When the mobile internet connection is shared with a connected computer or laptop using physical USB data cable then it is called USB Tethering. It gives a high-speed connection while sharing the internet between mobile devices and connected computer systems, it is because Wired connection is quite stronger than Wireless LAN connection.

Advantages of USB Tethering.

• It does not lower the battery life of mobile, as the mobile gets charged while sharing the internet.
• The computer does not need to have Wi-Fi (Wireless LAN) functionality for USB Tethering.
• The internet speed obtained in the connected computer is quite faster because of the strong connection build by USB data cable.
• Also, If mobile does not have Hotspot functionality, still USB Tethering can work for it.

The increased growth of the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s means that current browsers with small market shares have more total users than the entire market early on. For example, 90% market share in 1997 would be roughly 60 million users, but by the start of 2007 9% market share would equate to over 90 million users.

Apple and Google also encourage you to use Safari and Chrome on their respective platforms, although like Windows there are plenty of other options available to download.

There’s no limit on how many you can install at any one time, although it’s probably important to set one as your default browser. This will be the browser that links from messaging apps and emails will open.

Internet Explorer/Edge

Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, (from August 16, 1995 to March 30, 2021) commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a discontinued series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included in the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year. Later versions were available as free downloads, or in-service packs, and included in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows. New feature development for the browser was discontinued in 2016 in favor of new browser Microsoft Edge. Since Internet Explorer is a Windows component and is included in long-term lifecycle versions of Windows such as Windows Server 2019, it will continue to receive security updates until at least 2029. Microsoft 365 ended support for Internet Explorer on August 17, 2021, and Microsoft Teams ended support for IE on November 30, 2020. Internet Explorer will be discontinued on June 15, 2022, after which the alternative will be Microsoft Edge with IE mode for legacy sites.

Internet Explorer was once the most widely used web browser, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share by 2003. This came after Microsoft used bundling to win the first browser war against Netscape, which was the dominant browser in the 1990s. Its usage share has since declined with the launch of Firefox (2004) and Google Chrome (2008), and with the growing popularity of mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS that do not support Internet Explorer.

Estimates for Internet Explorer’s market share in 2021 are about 0.45% across all platforms, or by StatCounter’s numbers ranked 9th. On traditional PCs, the only platform on which it has ever had significant share, it is ranked 6th at 1.15%, after Opera. Microsoft Edge, IE’s successor, first overtook Internet Explorer in terms of market share in November 2019.

Microsoft spent over US$100 million per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1,000 people involved in the project by 1999.

Versions of Internet Explorer for other operating systems have also been produced, including an Xbox 360 version called Internet Explorer for Xbox and for platforms Microsoft no longer supports: Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX), and an embedded OEM version called Pocket Internet Explorer, later rebranded Internet Explorer Mobile made for Windows CE, Windows Phone, and, previously, based on Internet Explorer 7, for Windows Phone 7.

On March 17, 2015, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Edge would replace Internet Explorer as the default browser on “for certain versions of Windows 10”. This makes Internet Explorer 11 the last release. Internet Explorer, however, remains on Windows 10 LTSC and Windows Server 2019 primarily for enterprise purposes. Since January 12, 2016, only Internet Explorer 11 has official support for consumers; extended support for Internet Explorer 10 ended on January 31, 2020. Support varies based on the operating system’s technical capabilities and its support life cycle. On May 20, 2021, it was announced that full support for Internet Explorer would be discontinued on June 15, 2022, after which, the alternative will be Microsoft Edge with IE mode for legacy sites. Microsoft is committed to support Internet Explorer that way to 2029 at least, with a one-year notice before it is discontinued. The IE mode “uses the Trident MSHTML engine”, i.e. the rendering code of Internet Explorer.

The browser has been scrutinized throughout its development for use of third-party technology (such as the source code of Spyglass Mosaic, used without royalty in early versions) and security and privacy vulnerabilities, and the United States and the European Union have alleged that integration of Internet Explorer with Windows has been to the detriment of fair browser competition.

Features

Internet Explorer has been designed to view a broad range of web pages and provide certain features within the operating system, including Microsoft Update. During the heyday of the browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded Netscape only when it caught up technologically to support the progressive features of the time.

Chrome

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. It was later ported to Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of Chrome OS, where it serves as the platform for web applications.

Most of Chrome’s source code comes from Google’s free and open-source software project Chromium, but Chrome is licensed as proprietary freeware. WebKit was the original rendering engine, but Google eventually forked it to create the Blink engine; all Chrome variants except iOS now use Blink.

As of October 2021, StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 68% worldwide browser market share (after peaking at 72.38% in November 2018) on personal computers (PC), is most used on tablets (having surpassed Safari), and is also dominant on smartphones, and at 65% across all platforms combined. Because of this success, Google has expanded the “Chrome” brand name to other products: Chrome OS, Chromecast, Chromebook, Chromebit, Chromebox, and Chromebase.

Stability

A multi-process architecture is implemented in Chrome where, by default, a separate process is allocated to each site instance and plugin. This procedure is termed process isolation, and raises security and stability by preventing tasks from interfering with each other. An attacker successfully gaining access to one application gains access to no others, and failure in one instance results in a Sad Tab screen of death, similar to the well-known Sad Mac, but only one tab crashes instead of the whole application. This strategy exacts a fixed per-process cost up front, but results in less memory bloat over time as fragmentation is confined to each instance and no longer needs further memory allocations. This architecture was later adopted in Safari and Firefox.

Chrome includes a process management utility called Task Manager which lets users see what sites and plugins are using the most memory, downloading the most bytes and overusing the CPU and provides the ability to terminate them. Chrome Version 23 ensures its users an improved battery life for the systems supporting Chrome’s GPU accelerated video decoding.

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox or simply Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. In 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name Quantum to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface. Firefox is available for Windows 7 and later versions, macOS, and Linux. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, illumos, and Solaris Unix. Firefox is also available for Android and iOS. However, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements, as with all other iOS web browsers. An optimized version of Firefox is also available on the Amazon Fire TV, as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon’s Silk Browser.

Firefox was created in 2002 under the code name “Phoenix” by the Mozilla community members who desired a standalone browser, rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. During its beta phase, Firefox proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security, and add-ons compared to Microsoft’s then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. Firefox was released on November 9, 2004, and challenged Internet Explorer’s dominance with 60 million downloads within nine months. Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL.

Firefox usage share grew to a peak of 32.21% in November 2009, with Firefox 3.5 overtaking Internet Explorer 7, although not all versions of Internet Explorer as a whole; its usage then declined in competition with Google Chrome. As of December 2021, according to StatCounter, Firefox has 8.34% usage share as a desktop web browser, making it the fourth-most popular desktop web browser after Google Chrome (66.35%), Safari (9.82%), and Microsoft Edge (9.53%), while its usage share across all platforms is lower at 3.91% in fourth place, after Google Chrome (64.06%), Safari (19.22%), and Edge (4.19%).

An internet search, otherwise known as a search query, is an entry into a search engine that yields both paid and organic results. The paid results are the ads that appear at the top and the bottom of the page, and they are marked accordingly. The organic results are the unmarked results that appear in between the ads.

At the core of an internet search is a keyword. In turn, keywords are at the hearts of search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO).

Search engine marketing, also known as paid search, is the practice of advertising on search engine results pages (SERPs). All the major search engines offer ad space, and the most prominent platform is Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords). Google Ads is a pay-per-click platform: an advertiser pays every time someone clicks on its advertisement.

There are many different search engines you can use, but some of the most popular include Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. To perform a search, you’ll need to navigate to a search engine in your web browser, type one or more keywords also known as search terms then press Enter on your keyboard. In this example, we’ll search for recipes.

After you run a search, you’ll see a list of relevant websites that match your search terms. These are commonly known as search results. If you see a site that looks interesting, you can click a link to open it. If the site doesn’t have what you need, you can simply return to the results page to look for more options.

Most browsers also allow you to perform a web search directly from your address bar, although some have a separate search bar next to the address bar. Simply type your search terms and press Enter to run the search.

The web address contains information about the location of the webpage. It is also known as the URL (uniform resource locator).

URL is the short form for Uniform Resource Locator, a website URL is the location of a specific website, page, or file on the Internet. Every URL is made up of multiple parts, and the way yours are built will have a variety of effects on your site’s security and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

For example, if you enter https://indiafreenotes.com/value-innovation-co-creation-of-value/ in your web browser, your web browser will take you to this post. But if you just enter https://indiafreenotes.com/, you get taken to the indiafreenotes homepage.

Basic elements of a website URL:

• The protocol; HTTP or HTTPS.
• The domain name (including the TLD) that identifies a site.
• The path leading to a specific web page.

SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the standard protocol for sending emails across the Internet.

By default, the SMTP protocol works on three ports:

Port 25: This is the default SMTP non-encrypted port;

Port 2525: This port is opened on all servers in case port 25 is filtered (by your ISP for example) and you want to send non-encrypted emails with SMTP;

Port 465: This is the port used if you want to send messages using SMTP securely.

IMAP

The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is a mail protocol used for accessing email on a remote web server from a local client. IMAP and POP3 are the two most commonly used Internet mail protocols for retrieving emails. Both protocols are supported by all modern email clients and web servers.

While the POP3 protocol assumes that your email is being accessed only from one application, IMAP allows simultaneous access by multiple clients. This is why IMAP is more suitable for you if you’re going to access your email from different locations or if your messages are managed by multiple users.

By default, the IMAP protocol works on two ports:

Port 143: This is the default IMAP non-encrypted port;

Port 993: This is the port you need to use if you want to connect using IMAP securely.

POP3

Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) is a standard mail protocol used to receive emails from a remote server to a local email client. POP3 allows you to download email messages on your local computer and read them even when you are offline. Note, that when you use POP3 to connect to your email account, messages are downloaded locally and removed from the email server. This means that if you access your account from multiple locations, that may not be the best option for you. On the other hand, if you use POP3, your messages are stored on your local computer, which reduces the space your email account uses on your web server.

By default, the POP3 protocol works on two ports:

Port 110: This is the default POP3 non-encrypted port;

Port 995: This is the port you need to use if you want to connect using POP3 securely.

Value delivery is the manner in which you design your products such that it gives maximum value to the customer using it. The value delivered to customers can be in the form of products, benefits, attributes etc. Anything which creates value for your customer should be involved in your value delivery process.

If you were to ask your parents in India whether they had air conditioners 3 decades back in their childhood, the answer will probably be no. India had just become independent and it was still a developing albeit struggling nation.

Strategies:

1) Choosing which value is most important to customers

Today in the value delivery process, the customer is at the center of attention and the products and services are designed keeping the customer in mind. Thus, the value delivery process is correct from the start wherein the product itself is chosen based on its value to the customer. The products which are not valuable are phased out from the start.

2) Delivering the value

Forming a strong marketing strategy, placing the marketing mix, finding the target markets and other such tactics are ways by which delivering the value to the customer has become easier. Marketing as a career itself has evolved whereby many companies are closely watching the strategies being implemented by their marketing department. Thus, delivering the value has become easier.

3) Communicating the value

Once the value delivery process is designed, it is important that you communicate the value to the customer. Today there is a lot of noise and customers do not pay attention to a message unless it is repeated over and over. Thus forming a promotion mix and ensuring that the customer does not overlook the value being delivered is important.

Thus over a period of time, customers have evolved to form the base of the value delivery process. With the advancement of technology, we can be sure that the value of products will only increase instead of decreasing, the product development function will evolve even faster and give unthinkable innovations and developments from current age products. Thus, you need to look at your business and decide is your value delivery upto mark.

Upstream marketing

Upstream marketing refers to the strategic process of identifying and fulfilling customer needs. Upstream marketing takes place at a much earlier stage by developing a clear market segmentation map and then identifying and precisely defining which customer segments to focus on. It analyzes how the end-users uses the product or service and what competitive advantage will be required to win the customer and at what price point. It is done very early in the product or service development cycle, and is one of the missing links for generating revenue growth at many companies.

Strategies:

Analyze trends

Analyze trends provides great insight into the future needs of customers. Some trends to analyze include considering what products or services sell, looking at your competitors and identifying the growing popularity of certain items. Trends are statistical and factual which makes them reliable. Implement this information in your decision-making and refer to it later in the future to see how it impacted your business.

Focus on growth

Upstream marketing assumes the long-term success of your company. Focusing on growth considers what products or services could contribute to expansion. Upstream marketing thinks ahead and predicts future needs. Focusing on growth includes growing your customer base, your company and the number of products and services you offer. For example, you might want your company to offer an upgraded version of your product overseas, therefore reaching more customers.

Create a timeline

Creating a timeline helps you plan the timing of achieving certain goals. Timelines include specific dates that correlate with company goals and help create an attainable action plan. Timelines are an easy way to simplify steps while still maintaining daily structure. They map out the future in a visual manner that is easy to understand for everyone involved. A timeline is also motivating because the result is noted.

Survey your customers

Upstream marketing considers the future needs of the customer. The best way to know what these needs are is by speaking directly to the source. Surveying your customers gives you a better idea of what they need and allows them a chance to share their thoughts. Some ways to survey your customers include social media polling and in-person interviewing.

Think of innovative ideas

A primary characteristic of upstream marketing is innovation. Innovative thinking is brainstorming in a new and refreshing way. Consider products or services not yet made and customer needs not yet met. Innovative thinking creates effective solutions through a new perspective.

For example, a company produces a phone app that tends to a customer desire not yet addressed by other products. This could be a brand new app on the market or an updated version of an existing app. The characteristics of upstream marketing lie in the concept of creating this new idea as a long-term goal and the intention to help customers in the future.

Evaluate the market

Evaluating the market, what products it has and where it is going is crucial for upward marketing planning. To strategically design future products, services and solutions, you first study the market. Some aspects to consider include the urgency of products and what pricing looks like. Much of market evaluation assesses potential. For example, the potential of a product to succeed or the potential for a product to continue selling after a long period of time.

Value Innovation

Value innovation is a process in which a company introduces new technologies or upgrades that are designed to achieve both product differentiation and low costs.

The changes implemented through value innovation create new or improved elements for the product or service, but also result in cost savings by eliminating or reducing unnecessary aspects during the product lifecycle.

Value innovation does not necessarily create a completely new product or technology. This type of innovation can improve on existing services and lowers the costs of that service for both the company and their customers.

Blue oceans refer to all the unexplored or unknown markets. Red oceans, the existing markets, are filled with fierce competition that eliminates profit whereas the blue ones are untouched by competition and thus full of opportunity for profitable growth. So, the Blue Ocean Strategy simply refers to creating new demand by developing uncontested market space instead of competing in the crowded red ocean colored by the blood of everyone that swims in it.

Benefits:

Make the competition irrelevant

As mentioned, in a traditional setting, growth and performance are achieved when you manage to beat competition. When you focus on beating the competition you work on small improvements which are good, but not enough to give you a leading position for too long.

Even more, this approach means that you limit the time and resources you allocate to identifying new innovation opportunities. When you pursue value innovation you focus on adding higher value at lower costs, so you make the competition irrelevant.

Make the competition irrelevant

As mentioned, in a traditional setting, growth and performance are achieved when you manage to beat competition. When you focus on beating the competition you work on small improvements which are good, but not enough to give you a leading position for too long.

Even more, this approach means that you limit the time and resources you allocate to identifying new innovation opportunities. When you pursue value innovation you focus on adding higher value at lower costs, so you make the competition irrelevant.

Create an exponential mindset

Another noteworthy benefit of value innovation is the unconventional thinking that it comes with.

Successful companies focus on exponential value, not just on incremental improvements. While both have their role in the growth of a business, there is a big difference between the two.

Incremental thinking is about making something 10% better while the exponential thinking is about how to be 10x better by making something different. The 10% is a plane taking you from A to B, while the 10x is a rocket launching into space.

When companies compete for the same market share, their strategy is mostly built around incremental improvements that give a competitive advantage, until they are surpassed or outperformed again, and the process starts all over.

Co-creation of value

Co-creation of value is a business strategy, one that promotes and encourages active involvement from the customer to create on-demand and made-to-order products. With co-creation, consumers get exactly what they want and have a hand in making it happen. Like the NikeID platform, co-creation makes the design process fun through a user-friendly site with great product visuals. Co-creation, then, becomes as much about the process of the product as purchasing the product itself.

Co-creation, in the context of a business, refers to a product or service design process in which input from consumers plays a central role from beginning to end. Less specifically, the term is also used for any way in which a business allows consumers to submit ideas, designs or content. This way, the firm will not run out of ideas regarding the design to be created and at the same time, it will further strengthen the business relationship between the firm and its customers. Another meaning is the creation of value by ordinary people, whether for a company or not.

Retailers are using co-creation primarily in an e-commerce setting where it is easier to engage customers in a more interactive experience, but the model can also be seen in some brick-and-mortar stores, like Build-A-Bear Workshop. For businesses, there are reduced manufacturing and production inefficiencies and failures because products are built based on consumer demand, enhancing customer satisfaction.

Co-creation, in many ways, is a collaborative creation between a brand and its fans. It has evolved the sales and marketing of products from a one-to-many formula to a one-to-one formula, a more personalized approach. For marketing professionals, it has turned the communication from active brand/passive consumer to one where both sides are active and engaged.

Disadvantages

Though the potential for co-creating value through interaction is huge, the possibility of interactional value co-destruction should not be overlooked. Managers and academics alike must recognize that value co-creation is not the only possible outcome of interaction between service systems. Adverse consequences can occur for a variety of reasons. It is therefore essential, before implementing a strategy based on S-D logic, to consider where, how, and to what extent co-destruction might occur.

Exploitation of customers under the norms of ‘value co-creation’ takes place on two related but different planes. First, consumers are not generally paid for the know-how, enthusiasm, and social cooperation that they contribute to the manufacturing process of marketable commodities. Second, customers typically pay what the marketing profession calls a ‘price premium’ for the fruits of their own labor. They call it the use value provided by co-created commodities is said to be higher than that which can be accomplished through rationalized systems of standardized production. In other words, the work undertaken by customers to customize their own commodities, ends up increasing the price one has to pay for one’s creation.

Consumers have to also learn that co-creation is a two-way street. The risks cannot be one sided. They must take some responsibility for the risks they consciously accept. The tobacco company has the obligation to educate consumers on the risks of smoking and develop cessation programs. But if a consumer persists in smoking, he must take responsibility for his own actions. In cases where the consumer is unlikely to have the expertise to make that choice, they must accept the choice made for them by a neutral party such as the Federal Drug Administration.

Markets, industries, companies, systems, and people do not change so often: it may take quite some time before the whole world is co-creating. The concept challenges many of the habits of managers. To change the mind-sets of people within the company into the way that an external customer think is not an easy task.

Value in marketing, also known as customer-perceived value, is the difference between a prospective customer’s evaluation of the benefits and costs of one product when compared with others.

Value may also be expressed as a straightforward relationship between perceived benefits and perceived costs:

Value = Benefits – Cost

The basic underlying concept of value in marketing is human needs. The basic human needs may include food, shelter, belonging, love, and self-expression. Both culture and individual personality shape human needs in what is known as wants. When wants are backed by buying power, they become demands.

With a consumers’ wants and resources (financial ability), they demand products and services with benefits that add up to the most value and satisfaction.

The four types of value include: functional value, monetary value, social value, and psychological value. The sources of value are not equally important to all consumers. How important a value is, depends on the consumer and the purchase. Values should always be defined through the “eyes” of the consumer.

Functional Value: This type of value is what an offer does, it’s the solution an offer provides to the customer.

Monetary Value: This is where the function of the price paid is relative to an offering perceived worth. This value invites a trade-off between other values and monetary costs.

Social Value: The extent to which owning a product or engaging in a service allows the consumer to connect with others.

Psychological Value: The extent to which a product allows consumers to express themselves or feel better.

For a firm to deliver value to its customers, they must consider what is known as the “total market offering.” This includes the reputation of the organization, staff representation, product benefits, and technological characteristics as compared to competitors’ market offerings and prices. Value can thus be defined as the relationship of a firm’s market offerings to those of its competitors.

Value in marketing can be defined by both qualitative and quantitative measures. On the qualitative side, value is the perceived gain composed of individual’s emotional, mental and physical condition plus various social, economic, cultural and environmental factors. On the quantitative side, value is the actual gain measured in terms of financial numbers, percentages, and dollars.

For an organization to deliver value, it has to improve its value: Cost ratio. When an organization delivers high value at high price, the perceived value may be low. When it delivers high value at low price, the perceived value may be high. The key to deliver high perceived value is attaching value to each of the individuals or organizations making them believe that what you are offering is beyond expectation helping them to solve a problem, offering a solution, giving results, and making them happy.

Value changes based on time, place and people in relation to changing environmental factors. It is a creative energy exchange between people and organizations in our marketplace.

Very often managers conduct customer value analysis to reveal the company’s strengths and weaknesses compared to other competitors. The steps include:

• Identifying the major attributes and benefits that customers value for choosing a product and vendor.
• Assessment of the quantitative importance of the different attributes and benefits.
• Assessment of the company’s and competitors’ performance on each attribute and benefits.
• Examining how customer in the particular segment rated company against major competitor on each attribute.
• Monitoring customer perceived value over time.

Value Creation and Delivery

Value-creation and value-delivery is the main task of marketing. Marketing in its entirety is a value “Creating and value-delivering process. The whole bunch of tasks involved in marketing, serve the purpose of value delivery. They actually form a sequence leading to value delivery.

Marketing planning, buyer analysis, market segmentation and targeting are concerned with value selection. Product development, manufacturing, service planning, pricing, distribution and servicing, are concerned with value creation & value delivery. Personal selling, advertising, publicity and sales promotion are concerned with value communication. Activities like market research and market control assess the effectiveness of the value delivery process, the level of satisfaction the customer has actually received and how it compares with the firms intention as well as with other competing offers for the purpose of enhancing value.

In any marketing situation, one can discern four distinct steps in the value providing process:

• Value selection.
• Value creation/value delivery
• Value communication (making a value proposition and communicating it.)
• Value enhancement.

Value Selection

It is obvious that selecting the value to be offered is the first step in the value delivering process. Everything else follows. Only after selecting the value to be offered, can the firm proceed with production, sales and promotion. What needs to be specifically understood here is that the firm finds out what constitutes value in the estimation of the customer and accepts it as the value to be offered. Value selection is thus not only the first step in the sequence but also the most crucial one.

Value Creation / Value Delivery

This constitutes the bulk of the marketing job. What the firm has promised to provide the customer has to be actually provided. The product offering must actually carry the benefits the firm has promised and it must be reached to the customer in the most satisfying manner. Value creation/value delivery signifies the successful execution of the firms promise. Most firms fumble here because they promise to provide all sorts of things, but they fail deliver; their products fail to carry the value they were supposed to carry. The entire firm with all the functions and activities is involved in this step. In creating and delivering the product with all the associated benefits, which the firm has decided to offer, there is a role for technology, design and engineering finance management and the organizational set-up

On Marketing Concept, in this article we outlined up on the idea of integrated management action. What is required in value creation and delivery is integrated management action with marketing taking center stage.

Value Communication

After selecting the value to be offered and deciding how the value has to be created /delivered, the firm tries to communicate the value to the customer. In this step, there are actually two components. The firm works out a value proposition and then communicates it to the customer.

Making a Value Proposition

In a marketing endeavour, what the firm offers to the customer is not a mere physical product; it offers a value proposition. The product offer consisting of the best possible benefits/value is put forward as a value proposition, explaining how the offer matches the customers requirement s and how it works out to be the best among all the competing offers.

Communicating the Value Proposition

The firm then, communicates the value proposition to the customer. It explains the uniqueness of its offer through a well-formulated marketing communication mix. The customers exercise of assessing the value of the offer actually starts from this stage.

Value Enhancement

The firm also continuously and proactively enhances the value. It collects feedback from the consumer about his level of satisfaction with the product and upgrades the value. It actually is a non-stop job for the firm to search for the customers satisfaction level and augment the offer. Competing products, including substitute products, keep attacking the value proposition of the firm.

Expectations of customers to keep changing. The firm has to search for the new expectations of the customers, locate product gaps/ benefits gaps and keep making new and better offers to the customer to stay ahead of the competition in value rankings.

Sales promotion gimmicks do not normally serve the purpose of sustained value addition. Sales promotion measures like consumer deals and trade deals result in just a temporary shift in the value-cost equation in favor of the consumer. When the deals are withdrawn, consumers turn away from the product.

What is needed is a sustained and ongoing effort, not short-lived big bangs. The effort must be lasting value addition, which normally accrues only though factors like enhancement of the functional utility/ convenience of the product.