Social media is considered as the most important tool in the in the marketing arena. Social media marketing is a type of marketing done through internet by using the social networking websites as the marketing tools. The aim is to provide such substances which will share the social network for the exposure of the company’s brand and reach out to a wider audience. The marketers build up clear strategy which takes into consideration the attainable goals, the target groups and knowledge about the competitors. Social media helps in the identification if the target customers understand their needs and desires, link the company website to their profile, provide valuable content and create an integrated social media strategy (Tuten & Solomon, 2014). The contemporary social media campaigns are a coordinated marketing effort of the business owners to associate with the business objective by using the popular social media platforms. The campaigns differ from the efforts taken by the social media daily because of the target, measurability and an increased focus. To get success in the social media campaign, the businessmen need to select the most effective platforms and determine the short and long term goals with respect to the specific social media channels. This helps in promoting customer involvement and it is ensured that the content is enough to create a voice and value for the product or brand. The businessmen should keep it in mind that the more they will reach out to the customers; it will be a success of their social media marketing. The various social media platforms include- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+.
The internet users have paid attention about the methods that are used b the marketers who offer custom ads. The companies gather a lot of information about the people in different parts of the world (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). This information is used for placing the ads which can tend to be interference in someone’s privacy. The controversy mostly centers on the data collected using third- party cookies which helps in the accumulation of a complete record of the user’s browsing history. It can be clearly considered as an invasion in privacy because the information includes personal data such as name, address and phone numbers of the users. The inclusion of third- party cookies draw a considerable amount of negative attention though all of them are not harmful. It is sometimes argued by the marketers that the people should not have any problem in compromising with their privacy for the sake of advertising. They state that with a bit of violation in their privacy they are only paying the price for the services offered. They also mention that if the personal data is not collected then the ads will not be as personalized as they want and worthwhile which will result in the loss of revenue and they will have to pay more for the content (Chaffey, 2016).
Advertising of small business through social media websites pose a threat on the private life of the customers. For instance, if the marketer uses his client’s words along with a picture on the Facebook page for the promotion of the business, it can be a violation of privacy. This is because the company is not authorized to use the client’s picture without his consent. By doing so, the client has every right to file a case against the company as it is a burning issue of the world. The invasion of privacy can include a number of things such as intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private facts, third party disclosure, misusing someone’s name, picture or likings or giving false impression about someone. The people who are engaged in violating the privacy of internet users do so for the promotion or development of their new products. They match up to the choice of the users by keeping a close look on their social media behavior (Hult & Sjölund, 2017).
The common ways in which the marketers invade social media privacy are-
Data scraping: this process keeps a track on the online activities of the users to gather personal data and use those and other conversations from the social network, job websites and other online forums. At some point, the marketers argue that the users willingly share their personal details online; no one has asked them to share their information. The information that is collected use the personal details to make advertisements specific for the products. In the year 2011, a media research company named Nielsen Co., was caught for misusing the data collected from the online forums of PatientsLikeMe where people share their personal and emotional problems. This is a terrific example of the violation of web privacy (Chang, Yu & Lu, 2015).
Facebook apps leaking personal data- Facebook is such a social networking platform that uses most of the personal details starting from pictures to phone numbers. Many users have complained a million times that their personal information have been leaked by Facebook. Facebook takes consent from the user at the time of installation of the app by clicking “Allow” and then the marketers get hold of that personal information to use them in the product promotion (Tiago & Veríssimo, 2014). The marketers do not announce that they are using the data and the users do not have any clue of it and that is how their online privacy is at stake. The apps of Facebook such as Family tree and Farmville are accused of stealing personal information.
Online social tracking- most of the internet users are unaware of the fact that by using the ‘like’ or ‘tweet’ button, the marketers can easily use the social media websites for the purpose of tracking (Leung, Bai & Stahura, 2015). They mainly work with cookies which make tracking easy in different websites. In this way, the interests and online shopping behavior can be easily scanned by the marketers by invading the online privacy law. There are other tracking tools which keep a track of the kids and teens and their online activities. Snazzyspace.com is one such website which keeps a track on the kids’ use internet.
There is a striking example which shows that social media is violating privacy of the internet users in the name of personalized service. When people were expressing their protests on equality rights by uploading the profile pictures of red and white equal signs, it had raised awareness about the support. Social media has the most effective power of disseminating information faster than any other media (Rodriguez, Peterson & Ajjan, 2015). In the same way the ALS ice bucket challenge can be a good idea of marketing but it failed to raise awareness about the disease or the risk associated with it. Google the technological giant was also accused of violating the user privacy. They were said to enroll the users in Google Buzz even after they logged out. Moreover, those enrolled users were not informed that their emails could be exposed to public. These are some of the many examples of violation of online privacy policy.
There is not much a user can do to prevent his data from being stolen online. The reason behind this can be that the users are sometimes lured into certain activities from where they cannot step back. They fall into the trap of the marketers where they have to share their personal details unknowingly. The opponents can contradict by saying that the violation of privacy is for the users’ sake only, for their own benefit, for their easy access to the products. Then there arises a question if it could not be done in other way without intervening in the users’ online privacy (Felix, Rauschnabel & Hinsch, 2017). Of course, there are other ways to get information about the users’ buying pattern such as conducting an online survey or carrying out a market research by segmenting the target group. Social media marketing can still be used without hampering the online privacy of the users. The ads can be made in certain way on the basis of hypotheses by observing the behavior of people. The users can also put a check on their online activities to minimize the spread of their personal information.
Personalized services are offered to the customers to show that they are cared and valued. It can be done without hampering their online privacy and using the personal information. It can be said that the user’s intention to use personalized services is affected by his trust and privacy concern. Other factors to be considered here are that the online marketers can work on their abilities to get customer information by building up trust. At this situation, it is a critical point that the marketers realize and assess the different values put by the users to enjoy different types of personalization (Zhu & Chen, 2015).
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term that involves the practices, technologies and the strategies that are used by the companies for the organization and analysis of the customers. This process takes pace throughout the life cycle of the customers with the aim of developing business relationship with the customers. This system is used for gathering information about the customers in different medium such as the company website, telephone, direct mail, live chat, social media and marketing materials. It is responsible for giving the company detailed information about the customer’s personal information, his purchasing record, concerns and preferences related to buying (Boulding et al., 2013). The system uses software which can combine the information of customer in a database for easy accessibility and management of the businessmen. This software is also responsible for tracking various customer interactions and arranging the workflow processing such as alerts, calendars, and tasks. It also gives businessmen the ability to scan activities based on the productivity and performance that are logged within the system (Mithas, Krishnan & Fornell, 2013).
The popular features of the CRM system include marketing automation capabilities for repetitive tasks. These tools influence the marketing efforts to customers at various points in their lifecycle. For instance, when the prospects of sales are indulged within the system it can automatically drive the marketing materials through email or in social media with the aim of transforming the sales lead to a potential customer. The system is also responsible for imitating the efforts put by the salesman and the customer. The system will be able to help in simplifying the task by keeping a follow up of both the sides (Ryals, 2013). Then there is contact center automation which helps in solving the customer problems and also spreads information. The tools that are used in combining the system can also deal with the customer requests and order for cutting down time as well as costs of the customer service processes. Few systems of CRM use technology that can help in geographic marketing too on the basis of the location set by the customers along with the location set by GPS. This technology helps in finding sales prospects on the basis of location. The key vendors of customer relationship management include Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce.com.
It is always considered as a challenge to boost customer experience. For enhancing the business, the marketers always have to take care of increasing the customer base. Expansion of the customer base is only possible when there is a strong balance in the relationship between the organization and the customers. This in turn results in the maintenance of a strong CRM for increasing the customer base. There are certain factors which help in determining the CRM of an organization. These factors are increasing the customer retention, orders per customer each year, average investment per order, cross sales and up sales, referrals of new customers by previous customers and renewal of previous customers (Srinivasan & Moorman, 2013). It should be taken into consideration that all the factors mentioned above can be attained by keeping increased costs from compensating the increased sales. All these factors if implemented in the CRM program will be able to give a competitive advantage if the competitors are using the same system. The effectiveness of these parameters goes further than just gaining competitiveness. Customer expectations, perceptions, emotions, customer history, belief and communication can be considered as those parameters which exceed beyond gaining competitive advantage (Khodakarami & Chan, 2014).
The CRM software for business contributes to the organization by updating its order process, properly managing the potential clients and a careful dealing of the project scheduling. CRM is regarded as the best option for organizations which are looking forward to win over the competitive advantage over the competitors. This is because it provides a competent and useful way of consolidating the operational activities in the organization without compromising on the quality of service. This system is responsible for scanning, recording, keeping a track and reporting on all the probable aspects, clients, activities of the stakeholders and transactions. It helps the business with the information that is easily available, perfectly upgraded so that they can respond at an instant for working with extreme efficiency (Krasnikov, Jayachandran & Kumar, 2013).
If the competitors are using the same system then there is a chance that the CRM would provide a competitive advantage. This can be possible by providing the sales team with the required tools for success. The workflow can be smoothened and the details of sales process can be secured with the appropriate CRM. The sales team needs to convert into sales the quotes, orders and invoices within the CRM. This helps in the ease of the CRM features by enabling better communication and removing errors along with doubling the data entry. When the sales manager can observe all the implemented sales activities inside the CRM then the sales team will be able to spend their time in selling products and services rather than reporting time (Shapiro, Dupree & Keys, 2017).
Another way of winning over competitive advantage is by providing personal service. When it is known to everyone about the promises made and the orders given, the ongoing projects and the upcoming ones, the customer expectation is increased. It does not matter which department is making the call, it must be known to them what is currently going on by previewing the previous interactions. There are full featured CRMs such as the Results CRM which keeps all the departments bound together and makes it easily accessible for the customers. With this system the information can be easily gathered which will help in establishing and retaining wonderful relationships. Customer satisfaction can also be ensured by providing constant service delivery and there should not be any loop hole. Such consistent services at the right time can be assured with the help of a proper CRM who will enhance the business processes. For instance, in the Result CRM, building up of a library of customized process templates automatically allocates tasks to the right people at the correct time (Srinivasan & Saravanan, 2015).
The developed and matured products of CRM are not limited to Contact management for the whole business. It is the responsibility of CRM to connect the departments of sales, finance, billing and service. By making CRM the central location for the company with broad contacts such as QuickBooks, Outlook, Constant Contact and Excel spreadsheets. By making CRM the central location the company can spread important information across the organization and the double- entry can be reduced with the procedure of both way communications among the products. The most important part in this respect is that the most recent and updated information is available here. In this rapidly moving world the customers are always expecting quick and instant response. The shift time and location do not matter nowadays and the CRM should offer the appropriate information about the company which is needed for production from any place. The role of CRM is not dependent on the size of the organization. Whether the company is large or small the main priority is to stay in the competition, boost productivity and revert to requests or opportunities at the best possible speed with a lot of efficacy. If a company is still yet to use the CRM system then there is a chance that it is losing on the opportunity to create a distinctive position for itself in the competitive market. It should not be too late before the company considers this process for its own benefit (Choudhury & Harrigan, 2014).
With a good CRM system, the company can gain real competitive advantage by containing and gathering data. With the information gathered, it becomes easy to create proper business intelligence. For instance, if a customer places order every month but is yet to place so for the current month, so it will require attention on the part of the company. The probable reason behind this can be the approach by a competitor due to which the customer has changed his buying pattern. When the company is not sure of the reason, the CRM system should start acting fast in this situation for improving their sales management by looking at the behavior and retain the existing customers. But reacting to situations is not enough for a CRM system. The sales management team with the executives can make use of the information to disclose the opportunities. For instance, the company is aware of the fact that a client sells product B but purchases only product A and not B. This can be set as an opportunity for cross-selling the products and make a personalized offer such as integrating the deliveries in order to save on the costs (Carmen & Marius, 2016). At the same time, it can be observed that the client purchases a range of other products. If it can be foreseen that a crisis in the materials can increase the price, then the company can increase the value of relationship with the customer by requesting him to save money and secure the supply of material by buying at the present time. If there is an excess supply of the product, the benefit lies with the CRM which will permit in finding out the potential buyer of the product and thus allows connecting with those clients efficiently with the suggestion of taking the extra. Again the obvious benefit of CRM includes the empowerment of the process of sales management to ensure the resources are being used properly with the right activities.
Supply chain is the most important part for any activity. It includes most of the processes that tend to be facing unethical behavior. The supply chain managers are responsible for promoting ethical practices. There is constant pressure on the companies to make supply chain more ethical. Therefore the companies are assessing the supply chain which is being questioned from the environmental standards to use safe and secured products and treat the workers well. There are certain companies which are using corporate responsibility codes and there are others who are using new technologies for establishing transparency (Ferrell et al., 2013). When these companies are putting their effort to overcome the challenge they have to come across several obstacles which includes far- flung supply chains and the different regulation standards of different countries. The consequences in such failures are really high because the bad news spread about a company’s supply chain will hamper the reputation of the company. This in turn will lead to the reduction in sales and the change in investors which will spread negative review about the company in the market.
With the change in the working environment, it is not possible for any company to carry out an ethical global supply chain. Even if they start following, it will not take them too long to shift from the process. Due to the constant changes, the company will not be able to maintain ethics in the process of supply chain management at a later stage (Stevens & Johnson, 2016). The scenario can be support with the instance of a Virginia- based company, Lumber Liquidators. This company was ruling the world few years ago being the largest retailer of hardwood flooring in North America. Their net sales were around $1 billion and the stock price had increased to more than $35 per share. But the disaster came in 2015, when a CBS news program broadcasted that the laminated floors made in China contained formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a carcinogenic element which was used at a rate more than the allowed limit. At this point, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the materials used in flooring could lead to an increase of 6- 30 cases of cancer in every 100000 people (Monczka et al., 2015).
In an interview to CBS, the founder and chairman of the company mentioned that the Chinese mills who supplied the materials of the floor were supposed to adhere to the Californian laws and policies. A detailed investigation on this matter was carried out by CBs and it was found out that the statement was totally false. The verification was proved to be correct because the employers of the company said so and therefore CBS had exposed the truth in the open light. This breached the ethical policies of supply chain management. When the report as published by CBS, the company had suffered a loss 13.7% when in the same year it had a plunge in the share price of less than $13 before the news came forward. The CEO of the company had resigned after this mishap took place (Alexander, Walker & Naim, 2014).
Ethical behavior and social responsibility are something which is considered as more important than financial necessities in a business. Although technology has developed to a great extent, the global supply chain is based on the interaction among the people which builds up ethical issues across the various stages. The cause for this uncertainty in preferring the values is because of the fact that corporations only pay attention towards containing cost. Cost is the only key driver behind the unethical behavior of the companies. As per the case of Lumber Liquidators, this report on the violation of ethics of supply chain, the company further suffered a loss of $19.8 million (Schilling, 2016). The situation further worsened when the company was hit with $13.1 million in the form of legal penalties when it was found out that the Chinese suppliers had imported wood from the eastern Russia forests. Those forests are a habitat of the endangered species such as Amur leopards and Siberian tigers. It is a disruption of the ecological balance to damage the natural habitat for serving the commercial purpose and thus an invasion of the supply chain ethical policies. They were accused of disputing the initial reports founded by CBS. In May 2015, they stopped selling of all the laminated flooring materials that were made in China. They also agreed to pay $2.5 million to the Californian legal body as settlement charges related to the safety of their flooring but denied any kind of wrongdoing (Simangunsong et al., 2016).
The process of supply chain consists of a number of links that facilitate the movement of products to the consumers from the producers. These numbers of steps are also responsible for acquiring costs of the different entities involved. With the involvement of several parties in the process of supply chain the question of being fair and ethical is always at the top. Tension is created in the supply chain because of the understanding of a fair game in between the parties. Even if something is found to be legitimate in the course of the business but then also it can be considered as unfair by others. If there is a need for assessing the case of supply chain by different companies without getting into any kind problem that can arise with its failure, Lumber Liquidators is the most striking example. This company is probably the first one to be interrogated regarding its ethics in supply chain. The companies that were once considered responsible for the happenings of cross- border suppliers facilities were rechecked and verified for the increasing movement to make ethical global supply chains (Harbert, 2016). Many companies have also developed programs and code of conduct related to corporate social responsibility programs. Other companies are also on the verge of adopting new technologies for increasing clarity and transparency by utilizing radio frequency tags to store information on the validity of a product.
As compared to the effort put by the company Lumber Liquidator their graph of progress is moving slowly. The reason behind this can be regarded as the complexity involved in the task. The supply chains are longer and more widely spread on a global scale and therefore the chances of problems occurring have also increased. Another challenge that can be considered in the process of supply chain is the varying norms and policies in various countries (Johnson, 2014). It becomes difficult for the companies when they purchase materials and resources in some other countries where the laws are different than their own country. There is another problem apart from the already mentioned one. It can be asked that what can be considered a benchmark of ethics in the process of supply chain management. The term is not just limited environmental issues such as pollution or conservation of energy but a lot more than that. It covers a range of social issues such as animal and human rights and food security issues. Then there are universal issues such as human trafficking and slave labor which has a large impact on several industries.
The problems are tend to be increasing instead of reducing because there is a lack of clear and codified global regulations. The companies’ own code of ethics might not match with that of the suppliers’ or the manufacturers’ country code. The governments of California, USA and UK have already adopted the rules and regulations necessary for the companies to reveal what steps are they using for investigating their supply chains and rectification of the problems (Pierce et al., 2017). The companies often need to balance one ethical consideration against another. If it is seen that there are poor working conditions then it can be assumed that the governments probably do not have health and safety regulations which keeps a track of the companies’ deeds or does not utilize them. The contemporary meaning of supply chain has changed beyond the source and movement of materials, parts and labors which process into the finished product. It now covers everything from the base to middlemen to the intermediaries up to the final product. Earlier the supply chains used to be linear starting from the raw materials and moving up to the finished product. At present, it has taken a circular shape where the business finds out the designing and manufacturing of products in such a way that the raw materials can be recycled, reused and recovered. Therefore the ethics associated with supply chain needs to be taken proper care as it can damage the reputation, affect sales which results in the loss of interest of the investors (Offermann, 2017).
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