SalesLab's community of marketing & sales professionals

MY FIRST MESSAGE

This is my first entry to not only this weblog but I think any of them. Can someone guide me through a method to this madness we all seem to possess to commuincate? I believe it is absolutely wonderfull and may be one of our biggest  deterrents to long term turmoil in the world however slow it may develop. Communication is the single most powerful weapon we have to preserve ourselves. I briefly looked at the categories and find interest in more than several of them. Any input or help?

Proliferation of E commerce in Developing Nations: An Indian Perspective

Have you ever wondered how convenient it is to shop online these days? There is no traffic, parking issues and aimless walking around malls. Instead in the convenience of your home you can shop at the click of a mouse.

“But aren’t things cheaper on the Internet? Then how reliable is the quality of the stuff one buys online?” This is often the question that deters most people from buying goods online.

It is true that the Internet does offer products for cheaper rates than most other physical stores. But that does not mean quality of the goods sold is necessarily suspect. I have bought, among other things, a mobile phone, an iPod and a watch-- all well known brands at least 30 per cent lower than the market price. And they are all working fine.

What made me buy them online? It started when I realised my mobile phone retailer would not show me the handset unless I bought it. “We are not allowed to open the seal until the handset is bought,” was the reply I got tired of hearing at most places. If I had to see the phone inside the packing, was I not well off buying the same model cheaper? That is when I logged on to an online shopping site. Not only did I see a bigger picture of the handset, I also saw 3-4 pictures of it from many angles- front, back, side, screen shot. What was more I also had a choice of colours to choose for the handset.

How is it that the online medium can offer so much variety at such low prices?

Concept of Dis-intermediation

E-commerce or using the Internet and other electronic media to make financial transactions was based on the concept of dis-intermediation. This refers to a business model where middlemen – distributors, wholesalers and retailers—have been removed from the value chain, their role being fulfilled by the Internet.

This means things are cheaper due to the fact that the amount of money spent on maintaining a physical establishment like a retail outlet is not there.

A retail outlet, as you are aware, has fixed and variable costs. Aspects like rent or mortgage of the rental space would contribute to fixed costs while establishment costs such as electricity, telephone bills and salaries of sales staff would account for variable costs.

The cost savings hence incurred are passed on the customer in the form of discounts on all products—branded or otherwise.

The other interesting aspect of an online transaction is that the payment for the purchase is usually made while placing the order—not on delivery. The product is delivered later. This gives enough time for the company to source and deliver the item at the customer’s doorstep without prior investment in a large warehouse or maintaining inventory.

Does this mean it is easy to run an online store?

The real costs for an online site

When it comes to online purchases, the customer is looking for recognizable names when he logs on to the Internet. In marketing parlance this is referred to as top of the mind recall. This is called the common marketing problem which we call as top of the mind recall. It is this aspect of the business – publicising the site—that requires most money.

Most of us know of amazon.com now. But what we do not know was that the venture was in loss for a long time, funded periodically by the promoters and venture capital money. The site site’s biggest cost— advertising.

So where do these E-retailers advertise surprisingly they mostly use traditional media like print, television as well as radio. How often have we seen the commercials of sites like zapak.com and recently ibobo.com on prime time television. The key is that to have your brand like say Amazon.com on the highest recall rates when the consumer thinks of making a purchase on line.

And its not that only the online retailers have been on the net. Of late the traditional brick and mortar companies have been taking to the net in a big way. Take Staples Inc, the largest office merchandise retailer in the

United States

for example. They have embraced the on-line retail format and in 2007 almost one-third of their revenues came form E-tailing. That’s almost $ 5.7 billion in revenue which is at a lower cost as the traditional costs associated with retailing like ware housing and occupying retail space are not there.

The power of E-tailing became evident the day when Barnes and Nobles the brick and mortar book store went on line to merchandise its books.

This phenomenon has taken a new turn when Unilever in

India

decided to go online and with the help of Web 2.0 created a socially interactive site for its hair care product ‘sunsilk’. This was a classic case of co-branding, a social interactive site with an old economy product like shampoo. The result was a site called ‘sunsilk gang of girls’ which offered Career advice apart from the usual beauty and hair tips. As a matter of fact the brand ambassador for sunsilk actress Priyanka Chopra writes an infomercial in a leading daily about her inspirations in life. A case of online venture advertising in traditional media.

So what can you buy on the net?

Not everything can be retailed through the internet. Any product that is standardised can be merchandised on the net. Branded electronics items like IPods from Apple, Sony Ericsson mobile phones, digital cameras from Canon can be bought on the net. As these products come with an international warranty and assured quality the consumer can buy them without being worried. Same for Books, music cd and DVDs can be bought on the net.

What can’t be bought on the net? Definitely clothes where the touch feel and colour becomes important.

And as I get back to my computer to click for a new digital camera, I can already hear my wallet tick. All this from the comfort of my house (You can also be sitting in your office!).

New to SalesLab

Hello my name is Alba Henderson and I new to SalesLab.  I look forward to being a great part of this community amongst greatest marketing and sales professionals.

I am sure it will be a wonderful experience.

Best

Alba

SaaS predictions for 2008 and beyond

Now that 2008 has arrived, along with the New Year's resolutions and the ever-present pundit predictions, I thought it was the perfect timing to dive into what Saugatuck Technology just reported as being their Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) predictions, highlighting five key trends for 2008 and beyond:

SaaS platforms and marketplaces will begin to proliferate, becoming a significant channel opportunity for vendors, as well as a key means by which users will gain access to SaaS solution capabilities.

SaaS is becoming an international phenomenon, driven by both local demand as well as large multi-nationals who are adopting SaaS business solutions on a global basis. While US SaaS adoption is clearly going “mainstream”, Europe and Asia are only now beginning to experience the steep adoption ramp that the US has witnessed over the past two years. Whereas average US market growth rates will likely slow into the 35-40 percent range in 2008, European market growth rates should exceed 60-70 percent next year.

SaaS merger & acquisition activity will explode. No doubt a serious feeding frenzy is about to unfold and it could be anticipated that a large number of venture-backed start-ups and emerging SaaS companies would be acquired by either SaaS pure-plays, ISVs hungry to enter the SaaS fray or on-shore & off-shore IT services and BPO providers who are eager to leverage a SaaS model.

Traditional on-premise application ISVs will earnestly begin to fight back. Approximately 15-20 percent of ISVs have already either begun new initiatives or gained access to SaaS assets and development experience through M&A activity. However, over the next 12-24 months, this number is anticipated to rise dramatically, as a tougher economic climate will only exacerbate an already challenged on-premise and traditional perpetual license model.

SaaS development platforms will evolve and 2008 will see explosive growth in the adoption and use of SaaS-based software development platforms and services. Wide availability of open, standardised tools and technologies in subscription-based, on-demand environments will help streamline and reduce the costs of software development and customisation.

Other key insights and Strategic Planning Positions provided by Saugatuck include the following predictions …

Robotic SALES REPRESENTATIVES

Welcome to the future :

greetings from worldmart- This mall is the future concept of me ajeet vakil where each customer -irrespective of caste creed or origin is treated as global citezen (36 digit unique id)

This malls shall be automated and 24/7 open to public

The concept can be made in place to serve all customers on robotic sales representatives ,floor managers,and mall divisions incharge pre programmed to a level of at par to human

discussions open and i shall be here to discuss the same

more details and complete concept and biz plan available to whomsoever interested 

Ajeet vakil

Unleashing the power of remote collaboration & virtual team management

When thinking about factors that distinguish top performing companies, the root of their success often can be traced to the human equation. But how many companies are able to tap more than a fraction of their workforce potential? How many are able to take advantage of latent talents, ideas and contributive strengths waiting to be switched on? How many are able to unleash the power of remote collaboration & virtual team management? The companies that find the means to use a larger fraction of their human resources will undoubtedly supersede their competitors. That is their edge in the global economy.

With increased globalisation, virtual leadership has started gaining a strong foothold in recent times. As the workplace evolves, the techniques for managing employees are changing. Today’s leaders and managers are faced with a different set of challenges for managing employees who work in various locations across the globe or telecommute. Managing in the virtual environment can be quite a daunting undertaking.

The biggest challenge with remote collaboration & virtual team management is actually to maintain quality and productivity across all participants, despite the physical and cultural distance. Other associated issues are operational. Indeed, you do need to ensure that everyone is working on “the same project”. Social issues may also come into play: If the teams adopt an “us versus them” mindset, they might well wind up working at cross-purposes. All these challenges may finally be exacerbated by time zone and language differences that make collaboration and real-time communication even more difficult.

Advances in information and communications technologies have enabled businesses to become truly global in scope. There is an abundance of technology available today for collaboration. However, a company's culture and processes that encourage people to share work in a productive manner are central to effective collaboration.

So how are top performing organisations avoiding the many pitfalls of remote collaboration & virtual team management and what are the key to success for adapting to this complex and ever-changing working environment?

Sales 2.0: Taking sales to another level

Yes, the '2.0' hype is getting somehow out of hand and the moniker now comes to Sales … There’s been a lot of talk recently about 'Sales 2.0' and how companies can benefit from adopting Web 2.0 concepts and technologies in sales. The movement is under way to classify and clarify this latest version of sales-related technology. So before we dismiss Sales 2.0 as yet another buzz word, let's try and identify what 'Sales 2.0' really means for the sales and marketing disciplines.

It seems that Sales 2.0 truly merges sales and marketing into a seamless effort to target buyers more effectively using innovative and integrated tactics with an objective to bring in a lot more business at a lower cost. It is also about making anything and everything in the sales and marketing lifecycle measurable, so that you can take that information and resulting analysis to further optimise your sales process. More streamlined processes, together with the technologies to carry out smarter approaches, can immediately help organisations that are committed to moving their sales and marketing efforts to the next level of performance and dramatically accelerate their sales cycle.

More than a collection of technologies that help sales professionals personalize information for customers and interact with them rapidly, Sales 2.0 should be considered as the synthesis of new technologies, models, processes and mindsets.

3 years in the making

3 years in the making

Virtual Iris has developed patent approved technology that enables online retailers, marketers and advertisers to use functions like zoom, rotate, measure, hot spots, color swatches and much more without Flash, Java Applets, Plug-ins or Pop-ups.  This technology can be deployed in email and banner ads as well.

This new spin on the old product presentation technology reaches into community and social networking sites because the output is in pure HTML. 

Ebay users can also use Virtual Iris to do really slick product presentation for their online auctions.

Visit www.virtualiris.com for more information and a download of a free trial version of VI.

Now that's SMART technology!

Do-It-Yourself Market Research

Christian contacted me via LinkedIn earlier this month, connected me to the SalesLab community and offered me the opportunity to introduce my company's flagship service. I thank you all for the opportunity to share what I believe could be a valuable resource for SalesLab members.

I am Director of Marketing for Vizu Answers, a service that allows anyone to conduct affordable do-it-yourself market research by combining an easy-to-use polling platform with a network of diverse websites. Our polls never take you away from a site. I've included a sample poll in this post as an example.

Clients use Vizu Answers to validate value propositions, vet new product concepts and obtain preference data that can aid marketing, communication and positioning decisions. Feel free to review our case studies, sample polls and pricing information.

As John Maynard Keynes said, "It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong." Vizu Answers allows you to ask the right question to the right audience and receive affordable market research at the speed of today’s new business world.

I am extending a 50% off coupon to SalesLab members good until July 31, 2007 and would also appreciate your feedback on the site, service and experience.

Simply use the code SALESLAB upon checkout and you'll receive 50% off your poll purchase.

Thank you again and please contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Smart technology for sales rep's, marketers and researchers browsing the internet

I came through what seems a very promising technology for capuring sales and marketing data from the millions of company web sites, blogs, forums, etc. available on the net. It automates the search, capture and fills your contact database, CRM system or research data. We haven't tested it yet.

Check it out at www.broadlook.com and please provide feedback if you test it.