Participation in Marketing@UH

marketing@UH is an innovative programme at the Business School designed to help business organisations develop their marketing activity. Teams of students work with businesses to formulate marketing and communication plans and the derived outcomes are displayed at an exhibition held in May. This exhibition, which is open to all businesses, is free of charge and features interactive workshops on current marketing issues facing organisations. Delegates can also listen to keynote sessions from leading academics and industry speakers.

This year the exhibition was held on Thursday 10th May 2007 at the University's de Havilland campus and with over 300 attendee's the event was very successful.

I've built a brand plan idea for a Ipod Extreme. This device allows Xsport practitioners to listen to the music wherever they go, wherever they do...surfing, skating, diving, snowboarding and so on... Ipod X is waterproof, anti shock and wireless. Although, this is just an idea and a product concept.

The event was nice...good opportunities to built business links and to talk with some professors and friends.

I keep walking...

From Branding Vision to Brand Evaluation
Leslie de Chernatony
De Vere Venues – London – UK
01st May 2007

Leslie de Chernatony is a Professor of Brand Marketing and Director of Centre for Research in Brand Marketing at Birmingham Business School, widely acclaimed as one of the leading experts and writers on strategic brand management.
Entitled 'From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation' this brand new brand strategy event builds on Leslie's extensive research and bestselling books and this event was attended for professionals iengaged in developing, creating and implementing successful and sustainable brand strategies.

In his seminar, Leslie emphasizes the topics:

- Brand as valuable assets
- The strategic brand planning framework
- Brand visioning: future, purpose and values
- Auditing the brandsphere
- Evaluating brand performance
- Shifting brand paradigm

It is really difficult to summarise all the topics covered during this valuable section, although I can highlight some important topics, as follow below:

- We are leaving an intangible era which the quality of the company and branding strategy can determine the success of a product or service.
- Companies should clearly state the corporate culture in order to co-create values and relationships with customers.
- Branding planning should include the factors and drivers of success. This means to have a dream to achieve. This dream just can be achieved through a team effort envisaging the company’s culture.
- The brand benefits can be built through three spheres: Rational, Emotional and Rational.
- In nowadays brands represent a company promisse. This promisse must be distinctive, valued, consistently delivered and kept over time.
- Brand evaluation includes: brand vision, organisational culture, brand objectives, audit brandsphere, brand essence and brand resourcing.
- Brand vision includes envisioned future, values and purpose.

In fact, branding must be considered a valued activity inside Small, Medium and Blue Chips companies, because brands represent company’s reputation. This is necessary to involve all the stakeholder in the branding process. Moreover, companies should audit brands’ values and propositions regularly, in order to re-build strategies and tactics.

The seminar was really interesting and valuable for me as a marketing professional, because I could taken part in activities with experieced marketing professionals and to listen Leslie’s feelings and knowledge. I learned a lot today ! I just must say thanks to the University of Hertfordshire – GCU and the Global Marketing for this unvaluable opportunity.

If you are interested in branding, please let me know and I will be pleasured to exchange some ideas and my little marketing knowledge with you all.

Links:
From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation
Global Marketing Network
The University of Hertfordshire
Brand Finance

Fabio Oliveira
MBA Marketing
FGV - Brazil
MSc Strategic Marketing
The University of Hertfordshire

Digital Britain Trends

It is well known that nations are changing, but UK population seems to be changing faster. We should be thinking in the gaps created by these facts. Let's see some facts:

• In 2005, almost half of children aged 8 to 11 - and far higher proportions among older children - owned their own mobile phone.
• More than 40% of the adult population has bought something online in the last 12 months.
• 57% of the British households had an Internet connection.
• In 2007 people aged 65 outstrip those aged under 16 for the first time in UK.
• The fertility rate is still below the necessary to keep the population steady.
• Immigration has helped the population to continue rise !
• 500 UK citizens a day left Great Britain to leave abroad.
• Almost the same number of jobs were performed by women as men in 2006.
• More students are taking jobs and the average student's income from work more than doubled from £822 to £1,821 between 1999 and 2005.
• The fever for healthier lifestyle is still strong.

These figures show to marketers and companies huge market opportunities for innovations.

There are massive gaps, for example in Internet security to avoid electronic fraud transactions and data steal for both sides: companies and customers. This sector needs marketing qualified professionals urgently.

What about the media and advertising industry ? How to adapt the old media for this new reality with high level of immigrants and digital UK population ?

This is just to think about. If you have any comments, please let me know.

Cheers !

Fabio Oliveira

Book:

Permanent Innovation

The Essential Guide to the Strategies, Principles, and Practices of Successful Innovators
by Langdon Morris

Overview

Innovation is the process of creating new ideas and turning them into new business value.

Permanent Innovation is the process of doing it continuously, by developing an organizational culture that embraces innovation as a core value, practices innovation as a core methodology, and produces innovation as a consistent output.

In his book, Morris (2006) emphasize the needs for innovation. If we think about companies such as AT&T, IBM and Bank of America we will see that these companies had lost SBUs, Market share or in the AT&T case, takeover. These companies have something in common: They did not know to create innovative products and services for the extremelly changeable and dynamic modern market.

Morris (2006) suggests that Innovation is an ongoing process and must be adopted as a habit for companies and professionals. The author gives to us several examples of innovative ideas, how to cope with ideas, how to create a innovative environment inside the companies and the most important: What is the Senior Manager's role in this process ?

Innovation is not an eventual task. The company should has a culture of innovation. According to Morris (2006) in order to be innovative, organisations must define process and best practices (KPIs) and to adopt frequent measures. Then the company can reach high performance.

In fact, it is not so simple like stated above, but you can learn more reading the book !

The author has innovated in the distribution method. You can free download the book. Please find the link below and enjoy yourself. The download happens in a drop of a hat. Believe me !

http://www.innovationlabs.com

If you want to have access to articles and books about innovation, please let me know ! I am looking forward to receive some comments about my posts.

Cheers !

Fabio Oliveira

MBA in Marketing

Fundacao Getulio Vargas - Brazil

MSc Strategic Marketing

The University of Hertforshire - UK

Plan, think, Act !

I know, it seems a jargon ! Although, I have seen people failing down in personal, profissional and academic tasks or just spending more than the necessary time doing something without to think about the reasons of the failures.

In order to improve the overcomes we should have a "natural stratetic thinking" . Companies such as Sainsbury's emphasize in trainning sections for all employees, even for the temporary workers, one single orientation: " THINK, PLAN, THINK, ACT ! It seems really simple, but the majority of people do not do it and they spend company's time and money reducing productivity and profits.

The steps for thinking strategically are:

- To analyse the current situation.

- To think and to set up objectives.

- To establish the necessary actions to be adopted in order to achieve the objectives.

- To rethink about the actions and assessing possible alternative for improving the outcomes and to reduce timming.

- Plan ! What means to determine When, Where, Why, What, Who and How to do the tasks.

- Act !

The most successful people are naturally Strategists ! Think about it ! You can apply this concept in the most basic daily tasks, for instance: cooking or shopping ! You can practice this during all the time and to improve your personal finance, your job productivity and efficiency or just earn more time to have some fun !

If you are a leader in your company I would suggest to you paying more attention in your team and ask yourself: Does my team is thinking strategically ? Do are we doing our best ? Do are we saving time and efforts ? What should we be doing better or differently ?

If you have some interest in this subject, please let me know...

Cheers !

Fabio Oliveira

Assignment I - Practising Marketing in Uncertainty

Hello guys,

here I am again, trying to exchange some ideas with you all. This assignment is about a company operating in an uncertainty country with a high level of environmental dependency. We have to identify the key aspects below:

Take an organisation which is, by its nature, involved in green issues and in politically unstable countries.

How the company should develop a marketing strategy or adapt their strategy to possible issues in terms of unpredictable political situations, changes in legislation and natural disasters as appropriate.

I developed my writing as described below:

1. I have chosen to write about a company called Natura - www.natura.com.br one of the market leader in Brazil and Latin America. They are extremely dependent of Amazon biodiversity to be used as raw material for developing cosmetics products.

2. They are working with extremely poor families in remotes areas of Brazil, in order to grow plants and herbs.

3.They are trying to sell products in international markets such as Paris, Argentina and Colombia. Alhtough, they are still dependent of Brazil's biodiversity.

In my text I tried to answer the follow questions :

- What if Brazilian government decides to control the biodiversity exploration and to change the regulations about working with poor communities, then creating a barrier for Natura to access raw materials ?

- How should Natura being working in order to reduce the Brazilian's biodiversity dependency ?

- What kind of actions I would suggest to Natura ?

I've not used any model such as PEST analysis in the assignment, but in fact, I've made an analysis of all these aspects in order to develop the assignment. The work is short, just 1500 words, then it is better to focus in answering the questions.

I've used a Innovation Framework Pentatlhon by Goffin and Mitchell (2005) in order to analyse the current company situation and to come up with some innovative ideas...it's works !

Again, if you have a different point of view, please let me know.

Bibliography

Books

CRAVENS, D.W and PIERCY, N. (2003) “Strategic Marketing”. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

KOTLER, P. and KELLER, K.L. (2006) “Marketing Management” 12th Ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

MELDRUM, M. (2000) “Marketing Management: A relationship marketing perspective”. Cranfield School of Management. Great Britain: Palgrave.

ROOME, N. (1998) “Sustainability Strategies for Industry: The Future of Corporate Practice”. Washington,D.C: Island Press

ULRICH, P. and SARASIN, C. (1995) “Facing Public Interest – The ethical challenge to business policy and corporate communications.” Netherlands: Kluer Academic Publishers.

WEICK. K.E and SUTCLIFFE, K.M. (2001) “Managing the Unexpected – Assuring high performance in an age of complexity” California: Jossey-Bass.

Journal Articles

Shapiro, B.P. (1988) ‘What the hell is market-oriented’, Harvard Business Review, November-December, pp. 119-125.

Smith, N.C. and Ward, H. (2007) ‘Corporate Social Responsibility at a crossroads ?’ Business Strategy Review, pp. 17-21.


Web Sites and Reports

DataMonitor (2006) Market Review – The Food Industry [Online] URL: http://dbic.datamonitor.com/companies/ [Accessed 20/02/07].
DataMonitor (2006) Brazil Country Profile [Online] URL: http://dbic.datamonitor.com/countries/country/?gid=Brazil [Accessed 20/02/07].
IBGE (2003) Trabalho Infantil (Infantile Work) [Online] URL: http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/condicaodevida/trabalho_infantil/trabinf2001.pdf [Accessed 05/03/07].
Natura Web Site (2007) [Online] URL: http://www.natura.net [Accessed 21/02/07].

Sistema Sul Ambiental Brasil (2007) – Deforestation in Amazon report. [Online] URL: http://www.sulambiental.com.br/notamb-desmamazonia.htm [Accessed 27/02/07].

45 Million at risk on both sides of Atlantic

Around 12% of Internet users in the UK have been the victims of online fraud, according to government-backed research (DataMonitor:2007). The figures were broken down to show that during 2006, 6% of all Internet users (1.7 million people) had suffered fraud whilst shopping online, 5% experienced another form of general online fraud, and 4% had been subject to bank account or credit card fraud as a result of activity online.

Now, we are facing another threat, at this time the problem is to buy in stores, any of them, paying with debit or credit cards. British authorities last week launched an inquiry into how computer hackers who targeted the cut-price fashion retailer TK Maxx were able to steal information from more than 45 million credit and debit card holders on both sides of the Atlantic (The Guardian:2007).

Names, card numbers and personal data were stolen - and in the US, social security numbers - over a 17-month period and covering transactions dating as far back as December 2002. The firm said it did not know how many of the cardholders affected were shoppers at TK Maxx's 210 stores in Britain and Ireland, although more of them were likely to be American. Canadian shoppers have also been affected. The company disclosed in January that it had a problem but suggested the volume of information stolen was not on a large scale.

The fact is: Who is responsible for these information ? Are the companies prepared to tackle with this problem ? As a marketer, the concern is about misleading promisses and to cope with this kind of problem. Nevertheless, the general media did not broadcast this kind of problem, (probable in order do not create panic) with no doubts this kind of problem can affect TK Maxx's credibility as a brand and company. Moreover, this kind of problem, can affect the way people pay when shopping.

According Peter Drucker (2002), there is 07 opportunities to create Innovation: Unexpected Occurrences, Incongruities, Process Needs, Industry and Market Changes, Demographic Changes, Changes in perception and New Knowledge. I would say that the IT industry has a great opportunity here. Don't you think !

Well, as a consumer I would like to say: Let's pray !

If you are interested to know more about this topic, please be my guest:

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2047193,00.html

http://dbic.datamonitor.com/news/article/?pid=C66B6786-AB87-43F3-B419-42AB0ECF5AA7&type=CommentWire

http://dbic.datamonitor.com/news/article/?pid=40A83C2E-9728-46D0-B9D4-47B8918B92F2&type=NewsWire

http://dbic.datamonitor.com/news/article/?pid=C66B6786-AB87-43F3-B419-42AB0ECF5AA7&type=CommentWire

Segurança Digital: Mais uma barreira quebrada ! (Pelos Bandidos virtuais)

Olá meus amigos,

aqui na Inglaterra, as empresas (melhor a TKMax um dos maiores varejistas do Reino Unido) está sofrendo com mais uma dor de cabeça. Descobriram no mês passado que desde 2005, hackers (prefiro dizer: Bandidos virtuais) roubaram dados de cartões de crédito e de débito de mais de 45 milhões de clientes da rede de lojas espalhadas pelo mundo sem que a empresa descobrisse ! É isso mesmo, dá para acreditar ? Nos EUA eles conseguiram roubar até Security Numbers ( registro equivalente ao nosso CPF).

Nas turmas de mestrado em Business aqui na Europa, esta é uma discussão frequente dentro das salas de aula. Como conseguir proteger dados de clientes dentro de empresas de maneira a garantir a confidencialidade das informações ? A resposta é um grande e agudo ponto de interrogação.

As Fraudes na Internet estão crescendo muito aqui no Reino Unido e as empresas ainda estão em um processo de adaptações e implantações de sistemas que venham a ajudar controlar este tipo de crime. No entanto, especialistas garantem que empresas podem ter os dados dos clientes roubados sem saber que isto está acontendo.

De acordo com o DataMonitor (2007) 12% dos usuários de Internet no Reino Unido são vítimas de algum tipo de fraude, porção que representa 3,8 milhões de usuários, já que o número de Internautas no Reino Unido é estimado em 29 milhões de pessoas.

Voltando ao problema das empresas, não sou um especialista no assunto Tecnologia da Informação, mas trabalhei em empresa que detinha muita informação confidencial de clientes, e que não possuia nenhum tipo de processo ou métodos de controle de acesso destas informações por parte de funcionários. Não posso generalizar, mas desconfio que muitas empresas de médio porte não possuem nenhum tipo de barreira tecnologica ou processual para controlar este tipo de fraude.

Para nós, como consumidores, só nos resta torcer para que nada nos aconteça, já que mesmo tomando os cuidados pessoais quando navegamos pela Internet não estamos seguros ! Parece que a solução é voltarmos há alguns anos atrás quando não tinhamos cartão de crédito, computadores pessoais e tudo só se pagava no dinheiro. Pelo menos, os bandidos falsificavam somente o dinheiro não é mesmo... (sei que não era tão simples assim ...:-))

Quem tiver interesse, pode visitar a página em inglês para explorar mais o tema:

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2047193,00.html

Cheers !

Tips - Assignment II - Engaging with External Environment

Dear all, I am writing my second assignment for E.E.E. I know, I know, I should been enjoying Easter break, but I prefer to enjoy my summer much better, then working hard now to have time for dissertation later on, finishing till the end of July...

I am writing to exchange some ideas with you about this assingment. Firstly, let's understand the question set:

• To what extent is the organisation currently using relationship marketing ?

In this section, we need to identify the level of relationship the company has with current customers. This seems to be the easiest part of the assessment, but this will determine the success of the assingment. You can figure out this point asking some questions for your chosen company:

- How often do you visit your customers ? Do you keep records about customer's complaints and suggestions ? Do you keep records of solutions adopted for customers ? Do these solutions used as a base for benchmarking ? Do are these information spread out to all members of the company ? Do you have a life time value customer study ? How do you select customers to maintain a close relationship ?

- Here would be great to demonstrate your literature knowledge about the topic. How can you identify a relationship strategy, without to know well what's it ?

• What at the current strengths and weaknesses of its current approach?

- Here, if your chosen company has a selling Culture (transactional culture) it is easier to find weakeness than strengths. I think to be allright to find just negative points and to point out which are the opportunities they are missing not adopting a Relationship approach.

· Where, on the ladder, should they be aiming to move their customers?

Once again, it is important to understand the Relationship ladder and the characteristics of each rung: suspect, prospect, customer, client, team member, advocate and partner. You should pay attention to the characteristics, otherwise you can fall on a mistake.

I've spoken with Caroline about this theory. She didn't remember the source, and I couldn't find the source, as well. If, one of you find, please let me know. I think to be an adaptation of several concepts...I've already seen this in some negotiation books.

· What approaches should they be using?

This section is about the marketing tools they should be using, if they are not using yet. The approach depends of the rung customers are setted. For instance, if customers' rung are Client, what to do for moving to Advocates ? First, the company should identify profitable customers to invest in a relationship, then to study customer's needs and characteristics, then apply some techniques such as: promotions, events, etc.

· What recommendations do you wish to make for this organisation?

In this section, we should recommend some actions or techniques to create loyalty, to invest in relationships after present the benefits in previous sections. Sometimes, the company just need to adjust their communication with customers: For instance, to establish frequent communication with customers highlighting benefits delivered during the relationship.

Please, if you have different viewpoints on this, send me an email and I will post on here ! Thanks !

Bibliography

Books

CHERNATONY, L & M MACDONALD. (2003) Creating Powerful brands, 3rd ed. Great Britain: Elsevier

DONALDSON, B. (1998) ‘Sales Management: Theory and Practice.’2nd Ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

DOYLE, P. (2002) Marketing Management and Strategy, 4th ed. Great Britain: FT Prentice Hall

EGAN, J. (2004) ‘Relationship Marketing: Exploring Relational Strategies in Marketing’. 2nd Ed. New York: Prentice Hall.

LITTLE, E. and MARANDI, E. (2003) “Relationship Marketing Management” London: Thomson Learning.

MITCHEL, R. and GOFFIN, K. (2005) “Innovation Management: Strategy and implementation using the Pentathlon Framework”. England: Pelgrave.


Journals

Guenzy, P. and Pardo, C. and Georges, L. (2007) ‘Relational Selling Strategy and key account managers’ relational behaviours: An Exploratory Study’. Industrial Marketing Management. Vol.36. p.p. 121-133.

Gronroos, C. (1997) ‘From Marketing mix to relationship marketing – towards a paradigm shift in marketing’, Management Decisions, 35(4) p.p. 322-339.

Berry, L.L and Shostack, G.L and Opah, G (1983) ‘Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing’. Chicago, I1: American Marketing Association, p.p. 25-28.

Reichheld, F.F. and Junior, W.E.S.(1990) ‘Zero defections: Quality comes to Services.’ Harvard Business Review. Sept-Oct. pp. 105-111.

Narayandas, D. (2005) ‘Building Loyalty in Business Markets’. Harvard Business Review. September, p.p. 131-139.

Morgan, R., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). ‘The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing’. Journal of Marketing, July Vol. 58, p.p. 20−38.

Payne, A. (1994) ‘Relationship Marketing: Make the Customer count’. Managing Service Quality. Vol.4,6. p.p. 29-31.

What makes a top-class corporate web presence ?

According to Bowen,D.(2007) from Financial Times, a good corporate Website allow you to move around easily without losing your bearings. This means a sign both of good construction and good governance.

Second, the best sites do all the jobs they could be doing offering a high-quality service to all stakeholders, since for jobseekers to investors and they offer a good point of contact.

Third, they make good use of web technology. With broadband spreading even in developing countries, video, podcasts and other features make sense, although imaginative use of less bandwidth-hungry tools can be at least as valuable.

The use of Web 2.0 and interactive functions to build communities online are not identified yet in almost the best Websites.

Companies are using a Website to protect and sometimes to rebuild their reputations. As people are interconnected and plugged on the Internet almost everyday in developed countries, companies are facing a challenge to cope with this new reality. A good Website, more than has a good design and to use the technology, as suggested in the recent study, conducte by Financial Times, it is compulsory to allow users to interact with the company, sometimes in real time.

If you are a marketing manager or student, you must consider that Webuser are even more impatitent and timeless. Therefore, we need to think well when developing a Website and interactions with our target market.

Web 2.0

I have been reading some stuff related to blogs, podcasts, twitter, web 2.0 generation and web interactions. This week, The Financial Times reported the top 20 corporate web sites elected according the criterias below:

Construction, Message, Contact, Serving Society, Serving Investors, Serving the media, Serving jobseekers and Serving Customers.

It seems to be simple and easy to have a Global Website, in order to attend all the stakeholders interested in the company. Although, it is not a easy task. More than high level of investments, it is necessary to understand the User's behaviour, and each one of this Stakeholders has a different needs and they are seeking or looking for different kind of interaction with the company.

I have no doubts to affirm that Marketer's tasks are difficult nowadays. We must know much more than marketing theories, marketing tools, macroenvironment relationships, relationship marketing or antropology and customer behaviour. In the modern world, we need to understand the level of interactions people want with the medias. For instance, Newspaper companies, such as Guardian and The Independent have been investing millions of pounds in Webpages in one attempt to interact and delivery to web users contents in different formats: news, comments and analysis delivered as text (SMS), interactive blogs, audio podcasts, video and automated gadgetry.

While here in Europe, companies like these are trying to follow the new wave created by the technology, in Brazil users still have to subscripe online content to have access to complete news and quality information. Then, I ask myself: When companies, such as Folha de Sao Paulo and Estado de Sao Paulo will start the process to interact with Web users ? Maybe, when the Web advertising revenues surpassed the newspaper advertising revenues, such is happening in UK right now.

The fact is, WEB USERS are gainining control over the media through using the available technology to be interconnected between each other, creating communities, exchanging ideas and opinions. The challenges for companies are huge because the technology has broken security barriers and issues like spam, worms, Trojans, viruses, phishing and pharming and denial for service are taken into account, the responsibility and organisation - or rather, its management - bears for the safety and integrity of its information is both obvious and onerous. The question is: What to do, in order to be protected and avoid all of these threats ?

In an attempt to overcome these challenges, we have now ISO 27001 the number one internationally recognised standard for information security. For whom of you that already experienced an ISO process in a company, you know the problems and the hard work necessary to implement such processes and KPIs inside a company. Can you imagine this certification ? A company electing to go for ISO 27001 will probably take 12 months or two years to put all the proper procedures in place at which point... well, if everything gone be alright, of course !

By the way, the top 20 sites mentioned before are:

Siemens, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Nokia, AstraZeneca, Total, IBM, ING, UBS, General Electric, Vodafone, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, ENI, Nestle, Roche, Wal-Mart, Chevron, Cisco System and GlaxoSmithKline.

According to Financial Times, 28 March 2007, Compania Vale do Rio Doce, the Brazilian mining giant, has an expensive site that just does not work well, at all.

Good Start !

Hello my friends. I started very well 2007. I can myself be said that with the right foot!
I've just been contracted by the University of Hertfordshire as a consultant researcher.

The University has a department that offers some types of services for companies, wherever the industry or sizes, in projects of business-oriented development and research.

The consultants are PHDs in diverse areas of business. These leaders hire team members of work enlisting the best Masters and PHDs students of the university.

Offering this services to companies they are killing two rabbits with an only shot! They offer for the students an excellent chance to apply the theory and to have access and contact with future employers, and for the companies a high quality and low cost service .

That's it, new year, new life and great challenges. For whom knows me well, I love new challenges, to initiate new projects and to work very, but very hard!

With no doubts, a great start for my international pretensions!

There it is the Brazilian flag being shown in here, with much claw and determination.

See ya guys !

Fabio Oliveira
MBA Marketing - FGV - Brazil
MSc Strategic Marketing
The University of Hertfordshire
England

Bom Começo de 2007 !

Olá amigos. Eu comecei muito bem 2007, pode-se dizer que com o pé direito !

Acabei de ser contratado pela Universidade de Hertfordshire como um assistente de consultoria empresarial. A Universidade possui um departamento que oferece vários tipos de consultoria para empresas de todos os portes e tamanhos em projetos de desenvolvimento e pesquisa de negócios. Os consultores são PHDs em diversas áreas de negócio que montam seus times de trabalho recrutando os melhores alunos dos cursos de mestrado e PHDs da própria universidade. Desta forma, eles matam dois coelhos com um único tiro ! Oferecem para os estudantes uma excelente oportunidade de aplicar a teoria e ter acesso e contato com futuros empregadores, e para as empresas um serviço de alta qualidade e com preço menor do que consultorias privadas.

É isso aí, novo ano, vida nova e grandes desafios. Para quem me conhece bem, sabe que amo novos desafios, iniciar novos projetos e trabalhar muito, mas muito hard !

Um grande abraço à todos ! Sem dúvidas, um grande começo para as minhas pretensões internacionais ! É a bandeirinha brasileira sendo mostrada por aqui, com muita garra e determinação.

Fabio Gonçalves
MBA Marketing - FGV - Brazil
MSc Strategic Marketing
The University of Hertfordshire
England

Scene 2007 - Highlights for Marketing Professionals

Convergence of the media:

In November of 2006, the SKY Europe closed agreement with the Google to manage the commercialization of the medias of the group. The agreement has as objective to integrate the medias of the SKY being included the interactive medias as Internet. This strategy involving two leaders and giants companies indicates one strong trend in the market of communication, either in Global or Local level.

Sony recently launched in the Europe the Walk digital Man. The device is not a simple MP3 to player, but a conectivity tool that receives images from television, sound and telephonic linkings with necessary mobility in the modern life. Cellular devices as the last launching of the Nokia that stores 3000 musics in MP3, has digital camera of 2.0 megapixels and receives images from television through download. How it will be that the Apple leader with its Ipod will react to the risk that runs? It will enter in the age of the convergence, will make partnerships that guarantee her sustainable advantage? It will react to the launching of the Zune of the Microsoft who allows the music exchange musics between users of the MP3 through wireless transference?

Integrated and powerful Consumers:

The companies SKY and Google understand that the consumer today is connected and linked in net, or either, it decides on which type of message, when, where and for how much time will be displayed it. Today the complexity of the mix of communication of any campaign is huge, as well as the importance of the interactive medias. A recent research carried through by the British periodical The Guardian, indicated that 1/3 of the Internet broadband British users watch less television, while 27% leave to read conventional periodicals and 50% leave to hear radio. We notice therefore that, one mix of conventional communication is total impracticable. Furthermore the consumer has the power of expressing, and to make with that its ideas reach a number of people that have 05 years behind would be impossible. The old jargon that affirms that an unsatisfied consumer speaks about its negative experience stops up to 15 people is definitively dead ! Sites as Youtube, blogs, personal sites, email, etcetera, are simple tools and free ! The consumer has the power of the communication in net, they are well informed and values to each day its money and demands of the companies to delivery of the fiance' in the communication campaigns well, Moreover consumers want to be heard by the companies, through the participation in the process of development of products and services that take care of it. The consumer wants what we call customization, not only in services but in products. Companies as Procter & Gamble and Unilever already had understood the trend and include consumers during the development product process , not only in the test phase or product conception as suggested in the marketing literature.

Sustainability

The people are each time more worried about the environment and the quality of life in the micro and macro environment. The search for the innovation that allows a sustainable extration of the necessary resources for the economic development of the nations and the companies is an inevitable trend. The growth of economies as China and India are reached through the uncontrolled exploration of natural resources, that destroy the environment generating for next 10 years consequencies that can kill thousand of people and to cost more to the world than had costed the two world-wide wars. Until when consuming of the North America, Europe and Latin America will continue buying imported products of China and India at the cost of much corruption, illegality, exploration of cheap labour costs and destruction of the environment?

Global Companies as Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Nike, to only cite some, also are including controls in its supply chain in way to guaranteeing the sustainability of the activities of all the involved ones in the productive process.

Conclusion

It is obvious this variable varies in importance from country to country . However, the indicated trends are a reality and must be considered in any economy and for any size of company. The complexity of the administration of current marketing, only can be surpassed through the good planning including a criterioulsy analysis of the high competitiveness, technology and new established psicographyc standards in the modern economy.

Moreover, the planning and the strategy apllication are primordial and must involve all the levels of the company. Since a small restaurant or hotel until global companies must consider the new consumer behaviour in its actions.

Have a Good 2007 !

Fabio Gonçalves
MBA Marketing - FGV - Brazil
MSc Strategic Marketing
The University of Hertfordshire

Cenário 2007 - Relevantes considerações para profissionais de Marketing

- Convergência das mídias:

Em Novembro de 2006, a SKY Europa fechou acordo com a Google para gerenciar a comercialização das mídias do grupo. O acordo tem como objetivo, integrar os meios de comunicação da SKY incluindo as mídias interativas, como Internet. Esta estratégia envolvendo duas empregas líderes e gigantes, indica uma forte tendência no mercado de comunicação, seja em nível Global ou Local. A Sony recentemente lançou na Europa o Walk Man digital. O aparelho não é um simples MP3 player, mas sim uma ferramenta de conectividade, que recebe imagens de televisão, som e ligações telefônicas com a mobilidade necessária na vida moderna. Aparelhos celulares como o último lançamento da Nokia que armazena 3000 músicas em MP3, tem camêra digital de 2.0 megapixels e recebe imagens de televisão através de download. Como será que a líder Apple com seu Ipod reagirá ao risco que corre ? Entrará na era da convergência, fará parcerias que garantam a sustentabilidade dos benefícios do seu produto ? Reagirá ao lançamento do Zune da Microsoft que permite a troca de música entre os usuários do MP3 via transferência wireless das músicas ?

- Consumidor Integrado e poderoso:

A empresas SKY e Google entendem que o consumidor hoje é conectado e interligado em rede, ou seja, ele decide sobre qual tipo de mensagem, quando, onde e por quanto tempo ficará exposto à ela. Hoje a complexidade do mix de comunicação de qualquer campanha é muito grande, assim como a importância das mídias interativas. Uma pesquisa recente realizada pelo jornal britânico The Guardian, indicou que 1/3 dos Internautas Britânicos assitem menos televisão, enquanto 27% deixam de ler jornais convencionais e 50% deixam de ouvir rádio. Notamos portanto que, um mix de comunicação convencional é totalmente inviável.

Mais do que isto, o consumidor tem o poder de se expressar, e fazer com que suas idéias alcancem um número de pessoas que há 05 anos atrás seria impossível. O velho jargão que afirma que um consumidor insatisfeito fala sobre sua experiência negativa para até 15 pessoas está definitivamente aposentado ! Sites como Youtube, blogs, sites pessoais, email, etcetera, são ferramentas simples e grátis e alcançam o mundo todo !

O consumidor tem o poder da comunicação em rede, é muito bem informado e valoriza a cada dia o seu dinheiro e exige das empresas a entrega do prometido nas campanhas de comunicação, mais do que isto, ele quer ser ouvido pelas empresas, através da participação no processo de desenvolvimento de produtos e serviços que o atendam. O consumidor quer o que chamamos de customização, não somente em serviços mas em produtos. Empresas como O Boticário, Procter & Gamble e Unilever já entenderam a tendência e incluem consumidores no processo de desenvolvimento do produto, não somente na fase de teste ou concepção do produto como sugere a literatura de marketing, mas em todo o processo.

Sustentabilidade e Responsabilidade Social

As pessoas estão cada vez mais preocupadas com o meio ambiente e com a qualidade de vida no micro e macro ambiente. A busca pela inovação que permita uma extração sustentável dos recursos necessários para o desenvolvimento econômico das nações e das empresas é uma tendência inevitável. O crescimento de econômias como a China e India são alcançados através da exploração descontrolada de recursos naturais, que destroem o meio ambiente e as consequências para os próximos 10 anos pode matar milhares de pessoas e custar ao mundo mais do que custou as duas guerras mundiais. Até quando consumidores da América do Norte, Europa e América Latina continuarão comprando produtos importados da China e India ao custo de muita corrupção, ilegalidade, exploração de mão-de-obra barata e destruição do meio ambiente ?

As empregas globais como Unilever, Procter & Gamble e Nike, somente para citar algumas, também estão incluindo controles da sua cadeia de suprimentos de maneira à garantir a sustentabilidade das atividades de todos os envolvidos no processo produtivo.

Conclusão

É óbvio que para cada econômia estas variáveis tem maior ou menor importância. No entanto, as tendências indicadas são uma realidade e devem ser consideradas em qualquer econômia e para qualquer tamanho de empresa. A complexidade da administração de marketing atual, só pode ser superada através do bom planejamento incluindo uma análise criteriosa da alta competitividade, tecnologia e novos padrões psicográficos estabelecidos na economia moderna. Mais do que isto, aplicar o planejamento e a estratégia é primordial e deve envolver todos os níveis da empresa. Desde um pequeno restaurante ou hotel até empresas globais devem considerar o novo comportamento do consumidor nas suas ações.

Um bom 2007 para você !

Fabio Gonçalves
MBA Marketing - FGV
MSc Strategic Marketing
The University of Hertfordshire