BUSINESS CAPSTONE REPORT

BUSINESS CAPSTONE REPORT

Most firms routinely struggle with Digital transition. Gavin Bain states that Meerkat consulting firm has the biggest challenge in transforming its strategies to deal with the rising pressure from competitors and clients. In the event, the company faces the constraints from the business capability to support the transformations. This article introduces a solution to the problem by exploring the issue and causes of the main challenges. It proceeds to the review of various alternatives that the marketing firm can take to resolve the problem, such as allowing for the digital strategies and the accompanying benefits and drawbacks. The findings were that the inbound strategy increases profitability but faces resistance from the technophobic.

The paper also analyses the decision criteria for picking the alternatives. Decision criteria involve profitability and market shares, which were high considered by the firm. The results showed that the mixture of inbound and outbound strategies is highly beneficial to the company. Finally, the article demonstrates how 3the inbound strategy can be implemented in the present system in line with the implications of the full implementations of the new technology. Implementation of new initiative often begins with a detailed analysis of the necessity of the change, setting the goals and KPI’s, training employees, and listening to the voice of the customer to identify the right approach.

ISSUE

One of the most significant issues that the company has to deal with is the rise of digital transformation. The firm will be on the verge of losing the market share if its communication does not entail the use of social media. The rise of the use of technology is giving the consulting company a hard time since they have to catch up with demand and competitive business environment as many industries embrace the new technology.

CAUSE

The primary causes of the issue encountered by the firm in the event of digital transformation were the digital contract and the physical business environment. Gavin Bain says that the company signed in for Facebook in less than two decades ago. The slow transition was attributed to the instability of the platform in supporting the company’s goals and objectives. The firm experienced a massive range of clients who had embraced digital thinking in their firms. Hence, the constraint was that if the consulting would not offer digitalization, then they would risk being quickly getting faced out of business.

Further, the competitors in the industry were embracing the new technology due to huge benefits such as the best customer experience and add value to the company through cost-cutting and saving time. Moreover, the firm capacity to implement the digital experience was still unaccounted for. Embedding new technology in the company involves many factors and risks. First, digitalization would mean the company needs to have proper user experience and skillset among its employees to help the transition to be cost-effective and efficient. The capacity of the business was questionable. The firm did not have a technical capability to support the experience.

ALTERNATIVES

Alternative: Implement inbound marketing

Inbound marketing refers to permission-based marketing, where the firm embraces the use of digital channels such as white papers, social media, blogs SEO, newsletters, eBooks, and podcasts. Inbound marketing has numerous benefits to the company

Benefits

The first advantage of digital marketing is that cuts cost and increase performance through simplification of the sales and marketing team jobs. The team creates highly creative and well-targeted content for suitable the market segment. Through inbound marketing, the firm can answer the questions of *-prospective customers directly hence efficiency. Secondly, inbound marketing has the customer base due to infinite numbers in social media. Social media increases brand recognition. As the customers seek content in the media, they are highly likely to find answers through marketing.

Limitations

The biggest challenge of digital or inbound marketing is that customer complaint is open for scrutiny and can lead to a decrease in sales due to exposure. Secondly, the use of social media comprises disclosure of personal information hence data security issues. The use of digital platforms is accompanied by cyber-crimes, which can be a threat to the organization.

Alternative: Retain outbound marketing

Outbound marketing can be described as the use of disruptive means to gain access to customers. Outbound marketing comprises the use of Television, newspapers, magazines, and radios. This kind of marketing is beneficial because the medium does not interrupt the passing of the message. Such advertisements get to the customer in real-time. The customers are accustomed to ads ad may look into the sections of the newspaper for the information on specific days; the significant drawbacks of inbound marketing are that they were more expensive and less effective than inbound marketing. The method of delivery used is that the product broadcasted to a wide range of customers who have no interest in the product.

Alternative: Both inbound/outbound mix

The third alternative for the company is to mix up the strategies in inbound and outbound to maximize their potential. The dynamic approach comprises of partial digitalization and use of the mass media when the need for the interruptive advertisement for those sections which are poorly adapted in the market. The mix will solve the problem of reaching the customer who is not conversant with digital technology.  Inbound and outbound give a wide range of platforms for the company to market the products. This improves reliability and cuts costs.

DECISION CRITERIA

RECOMMENDATIONS

Under the profitability criteria, the inbound marketing ranks as the best alternative, while the outbound marketing ranks the worst alternative. The use of digital platforms for marketing reaches out to the targeted customers interested in the products.  The customer seeks information from the platform, not forcing them to purchase the products. The outbound is rejected. Secondly, in terms of customer satisfaction, the digitalization is accompanied by the best customer experience. As stated earlier, digital marketing provides the customer with the best experience through the easy way of gaining the information without interruption of the other people. The use of social media can reach any person who has access, and currently, there are infinite numbers of customers online, which also provides market share. The outbound is also rejected under this criterion.

The market in social media is quite large, but not all people are exposed, for instance, the individual above 50 years who are technophobic. Such individuals may not be willing to explore what new technology has to offer in terms of marketing. They are over-reliant on the outbound marketing in newspapers and magazines or radio. The firm needs to consider balancing the two approaches to gain more market share. Reject inbound strategies. The best approach, in this case, will be the mixture of inbound and outbound marketing

The business world is evolving. Most businesses are shifting towards digital marketing. In business to business, the clients go for consulting firms that offer digital marketing. The competitive advantage through differentiation is provided in this scenario. Digital marketing is most efficient, followed by the inbound/outbound mix strategies. Social media is easy to access customers and can be cost-effective compared to the counterpart. Mass media charge a lot for the interruptive advertisements. The inbound/outbound strategies are reliable in this case.

More ever, in terms of ethical considerations, the inbound ranks the worst. An interruptive advertisement may reach the wrong targeted audience. For instance, unhealthy products may be advertised to children through mass media. There have been many cases of teenagers abusing drugs as a result of unethical ads. The firms need to balance the strategies since the digital is quite considerate of the age through restrictions of the customer target. Accept the inbound/outbound strategy.

IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPLICATIONS

Implementation of inbound and outbound mix

Need for change

The initial step of implementing any change in management is to assess and understand the current status of the company in terms of organizational functioning. The factors which call for attention before implementation include the organization’s history, current needs, and the factor leading to the change. The employee quality of work-life should also be a key factor of consideration.

The current reality is the key to determining whether the change will be effective or the likelihood to cripple the organization. Inbound marketing will be easy to implement if the history dictates that the organization is highly responsive to a change in its environment. If the history shows that the organization is responsive but has no capability of improving due to factors such as lack of skills on the part of untrained employees, then it calls for a management development program.

Assessing the health of the organization is a foundation for noting challenges such as an unstable finance base where digital marketing will not prevail. The implementation of new strategies is always accompanied by certain levels of stress on the people working in the organization. They are brought by building blocks of organizational change. These include departures from tradition, individual prime movers, and action vehicles. Crises tend to mobilize people to act demand by the customers for quality service. This motivates the organization to find a solution, thus the implementation of digital marketing. Prime mover may come in and institute the change in management, which would be changed in vision and initiative of dealing with customers.

The vision

Successful implementation of a new initiative should be purpose-driven. The management should outline clear vision, goals, and mission of the entire organization. The actual purpose of the change should be stated in line with its benefits to the organization. This captivates collective responsibility.

Voice of the customer

Long term goals of digital marketing are customer-based. The decision is highly dependent on the customers’ expectations. The Voice of the customer defines the needs and wants of both internal and external customers. The needs to be analyzed and documented to serve as a guide to the whole process.

Define success

Upper-level management should develop goals that are achievable and measurable. Voice of the customer is one of the measures and determiners of the success of the inbound strategies. Proper research should be conducted to assess the performance of the product in the market, then set performance-based goals.

Train and empower employees

Employees should be actively involved during the implementation of the new strategy. The structure laid down should allow the staff to be trained on the skills required to handle the new system. Their views and opinions should be heard because the implementation of new technology could cripple the organization if it acts as a discouraging factor to the staff. The staff should be aware of the changes and implications for their performance

Get your websites inbound ready

A good and prospective website comprises of a blog and graphical buttons which attractive and ready to give content on demand. The call to action buttons should be ready to outline the basic overview of the form to fill out in case the customer wants a copy. The creation of the websites should be accompanied by thank you notes for the emails sent. Search engine research will provide appropriate keywords for the target customers who are looking for the solutions that provide a potential brand base

Set up social media accounts and profiles

Marketing will not be complete if the content does not reach the customers. Inbound marketing will be complete if the company utilizes Facebook and Twitter accounts to spread the word. Digitalization provides an opportunity for an infinite number of customers who can be reached through social media.

IMPLICATIONS

Inbound and outbound marketing strategies will boost profitability by offering a large customer base and efficiency in generating revenues through increased clients who need marketing for their products. Inbound marketing is more reliable and gives the company a form of competitive advantage on top of the consulting firms, which offer only traditional marketing and outbound marketing. Finally, the company can meet ethical considerations in marketing face few challenges of the threat of lawsuits from the children’s rights when advertising unhealthy products.

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