E-commerce is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. E-commerce is in turn driven by the technological advances of the semiconductor industry, and is the largest sector of the electronics industry.
Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost.
Marketing management is the organizational discipline which focuses on the practical application of marketing orientation, techniques and methods inside enterprises and organizations and on the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities.
Competitive analysis in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats. Profiling combines all of the relevant sources of competitor analysis into one framework in the support of efficient and effective strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring and adjustment.
Salesforce management systems are information systems used in customer relationship management (CRM) marketing and management that help automate some sales and sales force management functions. They are often combined with a marketing information system, in which case they are often called CRM systems.
Market penetration refers to the successful selling of a good or service in a specific market. It is measured by the amount of sales volume of an existing good or service compared to the total target market for that product or service. Market penetration is the key for a business growth strategy stemming from the Ansoff Matrix (Richardson, M., & Evans, C.. H. Igor Ansoff first devised and published the Ansoff Matrix in the Harvard Business Review in 1957, within an article titled "Strategies for Diversification". The grid/matrix is utilized across businesses to help evaluate and determine the next stages the company must take in order to grow and the risks associated with the chosen strategy. With numerous options available, this matrix helps narrow down the best fit for an organization.
Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response marketing. By contrast, advertising is of a mass-message nature.
Marketing intelligence (MI) is the everyday information relevant to a company’s markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development metrics. Marketing intelligence is necessary when entering a foreign market.
A rebate is a form of buying discount and is an amount paid by way of reduction, return, or refund that is paid retrospectively. It is a type of sales promotion that marketers use primarily as incentives or supplements to product sales. Rebates are also used as a means of enticing price-sensitive consumers into purchasing a product. The mail-in rebate (MIR) is the most common. A MIR entitles the buyer to mail in a coupon, receipt, and barcode in order to receive a check for a particular amount, depending on the particular product, time, and often place of purchase. Rebates are offered by either the retailer or the product manufacturer. Large stores often work in conjunction with manufacturers, usually requiring two or sometimes three separate rebates for each item, and sometimes are valid only at a single store. Rebate forms and special receipts are sometimes printed by the cash register at time of purchase on a separate receipt or available online for download. In some cases, the rebate may be available immediately, in which case it is referred to as an instant rebate. Some rebate programs offer several payout options to consumers, including a paper check, a prepaid card that can be spent immediately without a trip to the bank, or even as a PayPal payout.
Customer satisfaction is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals." Customers play an important role and are essential in keeping a product or service relevant; it is, therefore, in the best interest of the business to ensure customer satisfaction and build customer loyalty.
Diversification is a corporate strategy to enter into a new products or product lines, new services or new markets, involving substantially different skills, technology and knowledge.
Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a 10 percent share in that market.
In Internet marketing, search advertising is a method of placing online advertisements on web pages that show results from search engine queries. Through the same search-engine advertising services, ads can also be placed on Web pages with other published content.
All-commodity volume or ACV represents the total annual sales volume of retailers that can be aggregated from individual store-level up to larger geographical sets. This measure is a ratio, and so is typically measured as a percentage.
Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer and an organization through various online or offline channels. For example, Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen's S-D logic-informed definition of customer engagement is "a customer’s motivationally driven, volitional investment of operant resources, and operand resources into brand interactions," which applies to online and offline engagement.
Customer retention refers to the ability of a company or product to retain its customers over some specified period. High customer retention means customers of the product or business tend to return to, continue to buy or in some other way not defect to another product or business, or to non-use entirely. Selling organizations generally attempt to reduce customer defections. Customer retention starts with the first contact an organization has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship and successful retention efforts take this entire lifecycle into account. A company's ability to attract and retain new customers is related not only to its product or services, but also to the way it services its existing customers, the value the customers actually perceive as a result of utilizing the solutions, and the reputation it creates within and across the marketplace.
Sales effectiveness refers to the ability of a company's sales professionals to “win” at each stage of the customer's buying process, and ultimately earn the business on the right terms and in the right timeframe. Improving sales effectiveness is not just a sales function issue; it's a company issue, as it requires deep collaboration between sales and marketing to understand what is working and not working, and continuous improvement of the knowledge, messages, skills, and strategies that sales people apply as they work sales opportunities.
A phase-gate process is a project management technique in which an initiative or project is divided into distinct stages or phases, separated by decision points.
Innovation management measurement helps companies in understanding the current status of their innovation capabilities and practices. Throughout this control areas of strength and weakness are identified and the organizations get a clue where they have to concentrate on to maximize the future success of their innovation procedures. Furthermore, the measurement of innovation assists firms in fostering an innovation culture within the organization and in spreading the awareness of the importance of innovation. It also discloses the restrictions for creativity and opportunity for innovation. Because of all these arguments it is very important to measure the degree of innovation in the company, also in comparison with other companies. On the other hand, firms have to be careful not to misapply the wrong metrics, because they could threaten innovation and influence thinking in the wrong way.
Industry averages are generally using as benchmarks or tools which helps business to make comparisons that helps to determine its position within the industry and evaluate financial performance of the business. It is a useful tool for business managers and investors, helps with decision making process. It represent data figures of various business organizations across different industries of producing distinct products and services. Some individuals and organizations use industry averages as a useful tools, it gives a medium level of all other competitors performance. Compare their own data figure with those averages, it could help individual or organization to make decisions and predictions about possible outcomes. Such as, Investors compare an organization's financial ratios with industry averages to evaluate whether the organization have potential power to growth in the future, and level of risk for the investment. All those factors contribute to decision making and deeper analysis. Data required can be collect through survey or through several professional statistic websites, for individuals are more likely to obtain information using internet. Industry averages could also refer to terms related to industrial sector such as industry averages salaries, unemployment rates, Clickthrough rates and so on, using as benchmarks for comparisons.
