Wednesday 30 December 2015

Marketing and Walking the Talk on Value-Added ICT Products and Services


The year 2015 was rich in conferences, seminars and workshops  of ICT4D stakeholders across the African Continent hugely aimed at unmasking value added products  and services  and related  marketing mix issues.  Of course this talk is not very new.

So how can organizations really step into the marketing realm of providing real value for customers across the Continent?  

To start with value-addition is very much a marketing concept and understanding this is the only path to realizing offerings that offer real customer value.

What marketing is not

Marketing has for a longtime been thought of as selling and for some it has come across as using fancy words to spend organizational resources on activities that cannot quite be justified financially. From the time of the industrial revolution, however, marketing has evolved from merely being  about producing as cheaply for consumers or convincing people to buy. Marketing is now more than just about segmenting customers to suit whatever the brand offers. And the practice is certainly more than just customer service.

We all carry out marketing

In today’ world marketing  is important in the private as well as public sector organization, the Not-For-Profit and startup all practice some form of internal and external marketing communications. In Essence marketing is about value exchanges between the organization and their customer. Really marketing is  every individual and organizational activity that  builds satisfying exchange relationships in a dynamic environment through the creation, distribution, promotion and pricing of goods, services and ideas as the great marketing book by Dibb et al puts it.

And why talk about value-addition?

Marketing is based on adding value for customers and considering customer needs is the starting point. It is no wonder every  marketer in 2015 talked about  providing value-added services!  In reality value addition means that organizations package their entire offering or value preposition  to meet a need in the customer’s life; making life easier and more convenient at a price that the customer is willing to pay for and return when they have a new  need is what marketing is all about.

The place of marketing

For different organizations marketing yields differently depending how it is viewed  and on the roles and the level of importance that an organization attaches to it.   In some organizations marketing is seen as an exchange process where the firms sees marketing as being more about  making both the customer and the firm  better off after an exchange of value.

Marketing can also be taken as a function of management whereby an organization develops marketing plans that  serve as leverage for attaining corporate goals such as  growth.  This normally entails that  marketing is not as important as other departments and is at the mercy of for  example finance department who could decide to fund or not fund all the marketing tactics.

Then there are those organizations that view marketing as a dynamic operation that requires swift analysis, planning and action to align the organization with trends in the market be it competitor action or changing customer needs.

Still other organizations are marketing-oriented and the customer takes the centre stage. All organizational resources  are allocated to meet the customer’s needs. This means that all the people across the different departments work together  and make decisions that are focused on satisfying the customer. And these are the organizations that provide really valuable offerings to customers.

Finally, organizations can view marketing as a catalyst for change whereby the marketer is the voice of the customer in the firm. Here the marketer  helps to improve the firms offering by advising the firm on how best it could align its offering to meet the actual needs of the customer.

 In the real world however, organizations can take more than one view of marketing.  A truly marketing oriented organization,  premised on strategic marketing,  also views marketing  as a catalyst for change and perhaps as a  dynamic operation. This enables the organization to be dynamic and provide real value for the customer in an ever-changing market place.

Reinvent and adapt or go home
It is paramount for organizations, be it the Not-For-Profit (NFP) or corporate, to be responsive to changes in the market place in order to stay competitive. Organizations that refuse or fail to reinvent and adapt to the changing customer expectations of  the market are only shooting themselves in the foot, and like Kodak, will probably not survive long.

In the tech world for example, it is not so much a “dog-eat-dog”  price-war situation that yields  customer value. It is all about knowing your customer, satisfying and even delighting them, it all comes down to the customer experience.  Apple is one brand that knows just how to delight their customers and keep them loyal with an unmatched  product and service experience.

Is your organization marketing oriented?

So whenever you talk about value-added services, ask yourself, do you know your customers and do you know what they need? Next as a professional marketer you can employ the marketing audit coupled with the popular Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT)  analysis to see just how  positioned  your organization is to meet customer needs.

In my next article, we will start the year 2016 by diving into e-health, looking at how the market place in Africa stands for ICT4D or the ICT- oriented NFP organizations.  Get to know how the NFP, National Research and Education Network (NREN) or even the startup can find their place in this market and present a meaningful value preposition to their customers.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

 

 

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