A)
The 4Ps
As Mullin et al. (2007) stated, every marketer is faced with the challenge of presenting the products or services to the customer with the best strategy to maximize sales and brand loyalty. As stated by Parkhouse (2001), in the traditional model, the marketer is more concerned with presenting the product in the right way, at the right or best place, at the best price, and taking care of what product to present what market. Therefore, the marketer is greatly concerned about the mode of combining products with positioning, pricing, promotion, and place to achieve his objective (otherwise referred to as 4Ps). By coming up with an effective marketing strategy, the marketing manager can carefully bring together all the 4Ps into a selection of activities that budge a range of customers up the ladder (Parkhouse, 2001).
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Product
The marketer, regarding the product, must be aware that be it a service or a product that he is endeavoring to sell, he must present the commodity in a way that attracts the targeted customers. As stated by Parkhouse (2001), the marketer must also be aware of the different customer needs. This is because two customers may be consuming the same product, while in the real sense, they are consuming different products based on the benefits they derive from the consumption (Shank 2001). The marketing manager must understand the life cycle of his product. This is to make sure that strategies like coming up with new products that are meant to respond to the market needs are accomplished satisfactorily. When thinking about the product, the marketer must present a product with distinct features to fit a particular class of products. Knowing how the consumers use the product can help the marketing manager capitalize on the product features that can make the product stand out and attract customer loyalty (Parkhouse, 2001). The sales manager will also count it as an achievement if the sales staff members are thoroughly knowledgeable regarding the product they are presenting.
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Place
Another item in the mix is the place. It can also be described as the strategy that ensures the distribution of the products to the marketplace. Regarding this strategy, the marketing manager or sales manager must identify the best channels of distribution that can be used to get the product to the prospect market or target customers. According to Mullin et al. (2007), the marketing manager must wisely choose the channel members, and he must not forget to look at areas like market coverage, logistics, and service levels. Wrong decisions in this marketing mix item might cause delays, among other inconveniences, that may work well against the marketer’s objective. For instance, if the channel of distribution is too long while the market is not as vast, this might also cause additional costs in addition to delaying delivery to the final consumer.
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Pricing
Pricing remains a challenging task in the market. The marketing manager must ensure that while making the pricing decisions, he takes into account the profit margin of business and the pricing response other competitors are likely. Parkhouse (2001) asserts that price plays a critical role in the marketer’s marketing mix in that prices can be readily altered. The price is extremely visible, and any changes effected on it can be communicated with ease, impacting consumer perceptions. Where an elastic demand characterizes the market, the marketing manager may use price as a very effective tool. Nevertheless, the marketing manager must be aware that price is ever close to the consumer’s mind, and therefore any tinkering with it may be very harmful (Shank 2001).
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Promotion
Promotion is one area that the modern marketer has to consider and is essential in providing a chance to dwell on the salient features of the product. In this area, decisions made include those concerning communicating and selling to prospective consumers. Given that these costs can be high compared to the product price, the marketing manager must carry out a break-even analysis whenever he is faced with making promotion decisions. Mullin et al. (2007) state that an important thing for the marketer about the promotion decisions is that it is helpful for him to establish the value of a customer to facilitate determination of whether more customers are worth the cost of obtaining them. Promotion, as stated by Parkhouse (2001), must be made part of the marketing strategy by first establishing the wants and needs of the customers so that when carrying out promotional events like advertising, media types, special events and public relations the main aim is purposing to satisfy an already identified want or need of the consumer (Shank, 2001).
B)
i) Steps Bloomberg has Taken to Develop New Revenue Streams
The company expects its revenue to grow by 3% in the current year. Various strategies have been employed by the company to help achieve the expected growth. According to Secunda Thomas, the overseer of Bloomberg’s financial products, the company has been presently looking for new revenue streams for trading and domestic management of risk programs for Wall Street firms.
The company to increase its revenues opts to increase its customer base. Bloomberg will hunt for new clients using web-based products targeting law firms. The company executives are also eying the sports arena, having interests in team owners and leagues to analyze sports statistics for them. The web-based product will also attract other potential customers and allow for easy referral when a customer is satisfied.
Bloomberg also plans to invest more money in the news to generate extra revenue. The news industry is currently struggling heavily to stay afloat and has not been concerned with growing financially in the recent past. Further investment will ensure the company stays afloat and boot its financial status to generate more profits.
ii) The Implications that Surveillance has on Digital Taylorism
Taylorism involves systematic control and evaluation of workers and detailed timing and monitoring of their operations. As stated by Lynn (1994), Taylorism permits a relaxing of centralized, bureaucratic management supervision and monitoring. Through surveillance, workers become aware that individual performances are more closely observed, and this itself may have a disciplinary effect, thus creating direct control superfluous (Brown et al., 2010).
As stated by Brown et al., (2010), the digital Taylorism, leads to the status of being prudent in making claims for a revolution in management or the information down the organization or worker empowerment. The de-skilling of jobs as in surveillance results in few high paying jobs. In turn, this leads to a reduction in the number of opportunities available to a company and thus joblessness. In some cases, surveillance may lead to biased and unstable working conditions in cases where the employee fears the supervisor. This can also occur when the supervisor has formed opinions about a particular employee or a given task.
On the contrary, as Brown et al. (2010) stated, the close monitoring of the employees ensures maximum performance by the workforce and hence improved products and services. The company will only retain the high performing employees and jobs relevant to the growth of the organization. Since only the high performing employees will be retained, all the employees strive to have a position in the company leading to high performance and competency.
References;
- Brown, P., Lauder, H., and Ashton, D., 2010. The Global Auction. Oxford: OUP
- Shank, M., D. (2001). “ Marketing: A Strategic Perspective,” 2nd Edition, Prentice-Hall.
- Tellis, G.J. (2004) Effective Advertising: Understanding When, How, and Why Advertising Works. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Mullin, B., J., Hardy, S., Sutton, W., A., Stern D., J. (2007). “Sports marketing” 3rd Edition: Human Kinetics Publishing. – pp 17, 26, 45-7, 88-97, 104.
- Parkhouse, B., L. (2001). “The management of sport: its foundation and application” 3rd Edition McGraw-Hill,
- Wilson, R.M.S. & Gilligan, C. (2005) Strategic marketing management: Planning, implementation, and control. 3rd Edition. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.