Business to Business Marketing and Supply Chain Management - Assignment Example

Business to Business Marketing and Supply Chain Management Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing Theory 4 Social Media Theory for B2B Marketers 4 Increasing brand and company awareness 4 Initiating direct commitment or engagement between fans, company, and prospects 5 Driving sales and demand 5 Retention and promotion 5 Supply chain management and B2B marketing 6 Overview of Cisco 7 Cisco – B2B Social Media 8 Execution of Cisco’s Human Network Vision in B2B Social Media 8 Cisco Enables Electronic Interactions with Manufacturing, Sales, and Service partners 9 Cisco’s Supply Chain Management 10 Cisco’s practice of Embedding Sustainability in the Supply Chain Processes 11 Conclusion 12 Reference List 13 Introduction Business-to-business marketing includes the sale of service or product of one company to a different company. It involves building important relationships to assure permanent customers, which is always the essential aim of any business. The market of business-to-business (B2B) is the biggest of all and it exceeds the customer market. Companies such as IBM and GE spend approx $60 million each day on the goods which support their business operations. Business-to-business marketing is mostly employed by those companies that create products of no or less practical use by consumers (Morlacchi, Wilkinson and Young, 2005). B2B marketers usually lay emphasis on four broad categories: Companies that make use of their products, for example the constructions firms who purchase steel sheets to make use of it in buildings; institutions such as schools and hospitals; government agencies, the largest consumer of the business-to-business marketing; and companies that resell goods to the consumers, such as wholesalers and brokers (Marketing-schools, 2012). The management of supply chain is referred to the strategic and systematic harmonization of traditional functions of business and the strategies across these functions within the exact organization and across industries within supply chain, especially for enhancing the long-standing performance of individual organizations (Bechtel and Jayaram, 1997). It includes entire activities, which should take place towards getting the correct product in the hands of right consumer in the correct amount as well as at the exact time. Management of supply chain lays emphasis on the planning and estimating, product assembly, distribution, purchasing, storage, moving, customer service, and sales (Berry, Whybark and Jacobs, 2005). The professionals of supply chain management are engaged in each facet of business methods because they struggle to attain a sustainable advantage by constructing and offering goods or products faster, better, and cheaper (Tamu, 2015). The report will focus on the business-to-business marketing theory and the application of supply chain management in the Cisco case. The issues which are to be addressed are how companies make use of the business-to-business marketing theory along with the application of supply chain management to augment their sales. Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing Theory Social Media Theory for B2B Marketers Social media turns out to be a company-to-customer instrument, with tactics and strategies celebrated across social channels and blog alike. The business-to-business purchase and marketing funnels are one of the high stake choices or decisions. Whether the consumer is selecting a newswire, technical services, or a staff benefit package, decision makers should weigh the cons and pros of every purchase within the perspective of how the company will be benefited and also assist the companies to attain their corporate objectives. This decision is not made quickly (Brennan and Croft, 2012). To help the companies in augmenting their sales the business-to-business marketers and professionals should create materials which provide more knowledge about the industry and product, through videos, photos, and press release. They should present more up-front value in order to support consideration of products and should also recognize that several touch points of customers are required for conversion (Wind, Mahajan and Foreword, 2001). The channels of social media are considered immense for moving the customers by means of funnel, however not for direct, immediate sales (Berthon et al, 2003). The business-to-business marketers must showcase specific illustrations of success of customers in order to minimize anxiety through press releases, blog posts, customer spotlights, and multimedia (Vargo and Lusch, 2011). It is crucial for B2B marketers to be aware of the four support systems of the business-to-business conversion method including: increasing brand and company awareness; initiating direct commitment or engagement between fans, company, and prospects; driving sales and demand; and retention and promotion (Ballantyne and Aitken, 2007). Increasing brand and company awareness This signifies increasing awareness of brands and therefore the company by engaging the community with the combination of multimedia and textual based content. The B2B marketers should demonstrate their thought about the product through creating events. They can also measure their reputation management by the help of social media platform which includes media placements, message engagements, number of search results, sharing of posts, profile views, conversations and engagement, increased conversations around center points, views of the video completion, and increased followers (Ballantyne and Aitken, 2007). Initiating direct commitment or engagement between fans, company, and prospects It includes creating materials of higher value to benefit the consumers and therefore to generate value for the organization. It helps to initiate direct commitment of prospects towards the company and instigate the engagement between fans, company, and prospects. It also includes detailed content about the company, compelling data, and investigation of the breaking news about the company (Hoyer and Brown, 1990). Driving sales and demand The B2B companies can drive demand for the products through leveraging new content, adopting influencer or partnership programs in order to decrease real or perceived obstacles to purchase of products. It will help to boost sales of product (Saravanakumar and Sugantha, 2012). Retention and promotion The business-to-business marketers should try to activate existing brand fans and clients to buy more services and products and they should make some efforts to refer their company and sales teams to fresh audiences. Though, the content which is best created also includes a narrow visibility. Only 15% - 25% of the shared content of B2B business reaches its target customers (Bodnar and Cohen, 2011). There are some tactics which need to be followed when considering raising awareness of the content as well as company. These tactics are to make use of a newswire in order to distribute the marketing content and the press releases. This is regarded as the least costly methods to attain the broad range of online and traditional outlets simultaneously (Reynolds, Barnhart and Martin, 1999). The B2B Company need to know what publications their customers read in order to decide whether they require to supplement their program with advertising programs or influencer outreach (Conlin and Emerson, 2006). The business-to-business marketers should utilize their social network appropriately i.e. should consider using analytics in order to decide what type of content matches with the platform’s audience, and also to decide which time and day will drive the highest number of interactions. They should set a sincere baseline for the success and should not make an attempt to vie with brands on dishonest grounds (Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides, 2011). The business-to-business company can pull prevailing assets as well as work with the heads of business units and divisions to decide what materials they already encompass and should create a program of content sharing (Harrington-Lueker, 1998). They should ask their fans to share their content and should also give their own content in order to supplement their own text, video, images, and more. The business-to-business company should consider further fee-based services of distribution enhancement in order to boost visibility within pertinent online platforms. They can also consider other fee-based affiliations with the media outlets such as Buzzfeed, Huffington post, or Forbes who can generate tailored engagement programs for achieving specific goals of the company as well as to get the audience (Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides, 2011). The above mentioned strategies can be used by the B2B companies in order to build their brand reputation as well as can instigate word of mouth discussions that can really influence the bottom line of the companies. Supply chain management and B2B marketing Supply chain is generally described as the relationships between the operational activities of a business which are aimed at developing the strategic performance of the company and also meeting the market demands (Chen and Paulraj, 2004). In the basic model of supply chain, the primary activities have been highlighted as procurement, production, logistics, marketing and service processes (Kuhn, 2002). These activities are suitable in case of both business-to-customer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) business aspects. The supply chain management process of the business thus not only helps in aligning the functional activities of a business but also ensures that the organisational process is capable to fulfil the market demands with suitable quality (Christopher, 2012). The supply chain functions in case of B2B business however have a marginal difference from the supply chain management processes of the business-to-customer firms. The business processes of a business-to-customer company have a distinct set of routes that creates value for the customers. The process involved in transporting the products to the end consumers is longer in business-to-customer marketing (Cooper, Lambert and Pagh, 1997; Nagurney and Toyasaki, 2003). However, in case of business-to-business marketing processes the business processes are directly linked with the customer base. As business-to-business companies involves bulk orders and production from the suppliers, the scope of customisation in the products are also more in comparison to that of B2C (Hoejmose, Brammer and Millington, 2012). Investigating further into the concept and mode of supply chain, it is stated that the activities related in the supply chain process of a business-to-business organisation are designed based on the time taken for completion of the activities (Lambert, Cooper and Pagh, 1998). The primary factors considered for the supply chain management process of a business-to-business firm is to enhance the production capability, keep scope for customisation of the products in accordance with customer demand and to develop a flexible operating system (Croom, 2005; (Simchi-Levi, 2005). For instance, Toyota Motor Corporation supplies automotive parts for other big firms such as Lotus. In order to ensure that the production process of Toyota can accumulate the need of their customers, Toyota implements the concept of JIDOKA from their value chain. This allows the company to gain manual control over their operational activities and redesign the entire production system whenever necessary (Handfield and Nichols, 1999). It can be evaluated from the above given example of Toyota that unlike business-to-customer methods of operations, the supply chain functions of business-to-business firms are not dependent on their marketing processes. In order to understand the capability of the firm for meeting the demand, the business-to-business marketing process always considers their capability of performance and productivity (Handfield and Nichols, 1999). The supply chain process of business-to-business is more conservative in nature in comparison to business-to-customer processes. This is mainly because of the huge volume of production involved in business-to-business supply chain process which can result in huge losses due to unnecessary risks (Eng, 2004; (Lambert, Emmelhainz and Gardner, 1996). Overview of Cisco Cisco is the global leader in Information Technology (IT) which assists the organizations to grab the opportunities or prospects of tomorrow. At Cisco, the customers are considered first and an essential of their DNA is forming enduring customer associations and working with customers help the company to recognize their requirements and offer solutions which support or maintain their success. The conception of solutions was driven to deal with exact customer challenges and this concept has been with the company since its commencement. Cisco has given shape to the prospect of internet through creating unprecedented opportunity and value for the customers, ecosystem partners, investors, and employees and therefore become the global leader in networking. It transform the way how people communicate, connect, and collaborate (Cisco, 2015a). Cisco – B2B Social Media Sine conducting experiment with a blog in the year 2005, the smart use of the social media in Cisco, plays an important part in the global presence of the company. The Cisco employees regularly update content as well as engage with the audiences. It is considered as the culture of the company and their pleasure in being the ‘person network’. The vision of Cisco to update its strategy of social media is considered simple. They believe the use of social media in business practice is something which the networking technology naturally does. They bring the human being together. To accomplish this, the company integrates its strategy of social media and its vision into each aspect of their business from sales and product development to marketing and development of human resources (Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides, 2011). Cisco relies heavily on the social media in order to interact with potential employees, press, analysts, customers, other businesses and investors. In order to carry on their B2B practices, Cisco realized that they can have more engagement and richer conversations by means of social media. The company focuses on the requirements of its customers and provides them what they desire. Social media assist in their B2B operations by helping them to listen and react/respond (Hoeffler and Keller, 2002). Execution of Cisco’s Human Network Vision in B2B Social Media Some of the approaches of Cisco to execute and communicate its vision of human network into business-to-business social media are discussed below: Corporate blog: The business newsroom is one type of blog which focuses on the latest news of Cisco. It includes the additional blogs in order to grant customers easy access to their company (Saravanakumar and Sugantha, 2012). Twitter: The twitter feed of Cisco is @ciscosystems, which tweets information and news of the company and also provides a link in the direction of company’s support page (Saravanakumar and Sugantha, 2012). Facebook: The Facebook page of Cisco emerges to be about entertainment and interaction, and also ties together photographic media and video. Apart from providing news and information, it also posts few contests for example the latest contest of ‘super fan’ (Saravanakumar and Sugantha, 2012). You tube: The You Tube channel emerges to get considerable investment with more than 800 videos. It includes everything from learning and leadership to fun series (Saravanakumar and Sugantha, 2012). Flickr: The Flickr photostream of Cisco has over fifty pages of photos and images related to the events of the company (Saravanakumar and Sugantha, 2012). Cisco also runs two different social teams. The communication team of social media manages the entire strategies and content across corporate channels of Cisco. Another is the marketing team of social media which oversees incorporated social media promotions, lead generation, listening and monitoring, and online brand tactics (Saravanakumar and Sugantha, 2012). Cisco Enables Electronic Interactions with Manufacturing, Sales, and Service partners Cisco’s business-to-business practice enables to drive growth, productivity, as well as enhances customer experience. The growth of Cisco leads to additional orders of sales to process, spare components to track, product elements to produce and deliver, invoices to create, and service calls to transmit the product (Ünal, 2000). Handling this level of information and facts would be challenging if the company has just used the manual processes like receiving orders which are entered or faxed separately on the Web portal. The B2B operations team of Cisco determined how processes and interactions between the company and their partners could be programmed throughout the whole sales cycle. The operations team began to generate automated processes and data links between the Enterprise Resource Planning system of Cisco and the equivalent systems of logistic providers, partners, contract manufacturing providers, as well as third-party companies (Cisco, 2007). As of now, B2B automated processes and integration exist among Cisco and most of its associates for transactions or dealings related to shipping and manufacturing logistics, sales orders, finance, service dispatch, and spare components tracking. Each incorporations is unique as well as is accomplished by means of the joint efforts of Cisco IT, Cisco B2B team, technical staff, and the particular partner’s business (Cisco, 2007). In the middle of 2007, approximately more than fifty Cisco partners utilize some type of B2B incorporation, and around 96,000 orders of sales per quarter have taken place by means of business-to-business integration or incorporation. Cisco and its associates have achieved the benefits of saving of time from less manual processes, minimized transaction costs, improved staff productivity, quick delivery of services and products, stronger relationship with partners, and augmented data integrity (Cisco, 2007). As its next step, the company plans to improve the flexibility of its business incorporation environment, execute a Web services and service leaning architecture to support the new capabilities of business-to-business integration, as well as automate additional methods in the regions of technical service supervision, interactions of sales channel, virtual manufacturing, and global logistics (Cisco, 2007). Cisco’s Supply Chain Management As a top supplier of the technology platforms globally, Cisco comes out as a leader of supply-chain supervision/management. The company manages its strategy of supply chain enthusiastically as well as considers it as a crucial element of its business vision (Cisco, 2015b). The company spends more than billions every year with over 600 suppliers who manage their logistic and manufacturing and provide more than 80,000 components to make their core products’ portfolio (Cisco, 2015b). The supply chain processes of Cisco include five stages which are development, order or plan, manufacture, delivery or distribution, and retract of products. Development or designing of product: The employees of Cisco are engaged in designing as well as developing the products ordered by customers. In practice, their quality team/group work with the suppliers in order to know the availability of other materials with comparatively lesser environmental impacts. Once a novel material is tested for their consistency, the team convinces designers to utilize these parts into their products (Cisco, 2012). Order: The Company works with various suppliers in order to plan or make arrangements for the manufacturing of products. Rather than the shipping accessories, for example power and cables supplies with their products, they compose these items as orderable options which means that the customers can order only if required (Cisco, 2012). Manufacture: Cisco evaluates the components before taking them from the suppliers. Then the manufacturing partners take the components from the suppliers in approved dealer list of Cisco and ultimately create finished products. Their engagement with the suppliers through their audit processes and scorecard enables them to build competence in supply chain through convincing suppliers to develop healthy management systems (Cisco, 2012). Delivery or distribution: After the creation of the product, the logistic service suppliers or providers transport the finished goods to the customers. The company engages with the logistic suppliers to minimize the consequence of their flotillas by optimizing the shipping routes, improving the efficiency of fuel, and shifting the mode of transport from air to sea, where possible (Cisco, 2012). Retract of products: Cisco connects with the customers with the retract suppliers, which fetch used products or goods back to the company for possible reformation, reuse, or resale. Old or damaged products are sent straightforwardly to the recycling associates for disassembly as well as recycling of materials. Above 99% of electronics which are sent to their e-scrap recyclers are recycled (Cisco, 2012). Cisco’s practice of Embedding Sustainability in the Supply Chain Processes The aim of Cisco is to entrench sustainability and therefore enhance performance at each stage of supply chain. Development or designing: The principles of ‘Design for the Environment’ are integrated in their product requirement manuscript template. These embrace enhancing the energy effectiveness of Cisco’s products, designing products, and reducing packaging for simplicity of recycling (Cisco, 2012). Order: The product recycle team of Cisco is also a part of their planning groups, which intends to fill the orders with second-hand tools where possible (Cisco, 2012). Manufacture: Sustainability is the main part of Cisco’s criteria for the purpose of evaluating the performance of their component as well manufacturing suppliers. The company also confirms compliance with the Company’s Controlled Substances Specification and with the Supplier or Dealer Code of Conduct. They also work with the suppliers in order to enhance their performance. Sustainability is incorporated in business scorecard used by them to evaluate the performance of suppliers (Cisco, 2012). Delivery or distribution: In addition towards reviewing logistics suppliers against their scorecard and Code of Conduct, the company also works with them in order to minimize the environmental impacts (Cisco, 2012). Retract of products: Cisco promotes the refurbishment, return, recycling, reuse, and remarketing of their products by means of their retract/tack-back and trade-in programs. The company is also searching for new models of business with their partners and customers to raise exploitation of their products and also to extend their life (Cisco, 2012). Conclusion A business-to-business marketer efficiently put their service and product in the correct hands by understanding the requirements of customer, as well as proposing the correct solutions for the same. It is essential for the marketers of B2B to recognize their client’s requirements before executing any advertising or marketing tactics. The social media theory for the business-to-business marketers has been analyzed. In order to assist the organizations in augmenting their sales, the business-to-business marketers create materials which provide more knowledge about the industry and product. The B2B marketers should be aware of the four support systems of the business-to-business conversion method. The B2B marketers should demonstrate their thought about the product through creating events. The business-to-business marketers should utilize their social network appropriately. Cisco tries to formulate the world like a smaller place by the use of video as well as collaborative technology. Cisco relies heavily on the social media in order to interact with potential employees, press, analysts, customers, other businesses and investors. In order to carry on their B2B practices, they realized that they can have more engagement and richer conversations by means of social media. The company effectively manages its supply chain management process. The business-to-business practice of Cisco helps to drive growth and enhances customer experience. Reference List Ballantyne, D. and Aitken, R., 2007. 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