IBM's self check out Systems in Turkey

Introduction

This new information technology company plans to take the Information technology market with a storm. This company is committed to provide the best IT services and outweigh all the other competitors in the IT field. We have high usable innovations on customer transactions, complete solutions on the management and control in order to extend functionality. The marketing strategies that should be used to win competitive positioning are product, place, price and promotion

Market and literature Review

IBM is a company that is committed to improve customer services, build shopper loyalty, improve customer quantity, increase operational efficiencies and accelerate returns on investments. In order to achieve this, we have to strategies on the activities that will attract customers. We should therefore use marketing skills that will attract more customers. It is important to note that the main objective of marketing is to create customer value. The marketing skills that can highly attract customers are; public relations, sales promotion, personal selling and direct marketing.

Public Relations

To attract more customers, the company can use the SOSTAC model. SOSTAC simply stands for situation analysis, objectives, strategy, tactics, action and control ( Pr Smith SOSTAC) This concepts helps to make the public relation strategy simpler. The main question we should ask ourselves is ‘’ do we want a market plan?’’ ‘’Do we want a market plan including financials?’’ ‘’

How can the company achieve it?’’ .This concept helps to answer the most critical aspects in public relations. Situation analysis seeks to answer where the company is now. Objectives seek to answer where the company wants to go. (Hitt, 2010) Strategies will help to summaries how to get there. Tactics are simply the details and points of the strategy. The most challenging aspect of this action is getting or putting the strategy to work. We must be able to control, measure, monitor, review, update and modify the marketing strategy in order to achieve the desired results. (Greulich, 2011)

Sales Promotion

Sales promotion is a marketing strategy that helps to identify opportunities such as attaching the connector cross selling tool. This tool helps to deliver solutions by adding IBM hardware, software’s and services to all the sales opportunities. The other opportunity is the sales transaction tool which helps to create and view the opportunities, get the correct prices and place the necessary orders. (Pugh, 1995) The financing promotions such as the e – pricier which help to create opportunities that will offer valuable incentives to the client’s .our sales team have helped us to achieve this. They have created sales opportunities at many different places. This has helped to substantially increase our profit tremendously. It is also a way to advertise our company to the public. (Flynn, 2006)

Personal Selling

Personal selling is a marketing strategy that employs two disciplines. The sales strategy forms separate groupings for the corporate structure and employing specialists or sales persons. Our company intends to employ these two disciplines and use personal selling is a persuasive act.  (Duhe, 2007) Our sales person will need to relate to the customer and offer our products and services to the customers. This in return will help the client or the buyer to buy or achieve their goals in a cheaper and economic way. However, it is important to note that effective and successful selling requires a system approach to develop sales capabilities. (Salameh, 2009)

Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is a strategy that helps to inform, advertise and market a product to the public. It involves different methods of advertising such as exhibitions and trade shows. The role of trade shows and exhibitions is to provide a forum for the company to demonstrate and display the products to existing customers, potential customers and the public at large. We intend to use trade shows and exhibitions to advertise our products and services. This very effective method will help to increase our mileage on the marketing strategy. (Pride, 2010)

The marketing skills that are used in our company are advertising, direct marketing, public relation, sales promotion, and personal selling. The company uses these sales strategies to attract more customers. A public relation strategy helps to control, measure, monitor, review and modifies the marketing strategy. (Bing, 2009) On the other hand the sale promotion marketing strategy helps to identify create and view opportunities in order to get the correct prices and place the necessary orders. Personal selling on the other hand helps to develop sales capabilities. The company therefore intends to use these marketing strategies in order to be one step ahead of the competition. Our prices are quite different from those of our competitors. We not only offer cheap and affordable prices but also give good discounts on certain amounts which are spent. This is because we are aware of the recent inflation. Therefore, we offer our customers a chance to get the best at the best price. It is important to note that cheap or affordable products do not mean that our products and services are not of good quality. Alternatively our products and service are of the highest quality. The many reviews from our happy customers can help to ascertain or prove this fact. (Pride, 2008)

Identity Market Messages

Identity marketing and messages will help our company to think as the customers or client thinks. This will enable us to understand the mind of the customer in order to be able to satisfy the expectations of our customers.

While our company is looking a brand and messaging issue, the company will to consider a few factors. These factors include;-

• How to brand and message our company. We need a brand that will identify us with our customers. This brand should be able to relate our company name to the products that we produce.

What the company intends to convey to the existing market. Our company intends to convey the availability of these products to the market. The company also intend to convey to the market the fact that our products are not only of good quality but affordable as well. (Meerman, 2010)

• How the company will distribute the message. This is the most challenging aspect in advertising. The company needs to distribute the message to the public. We will distribute this message by using the most effective means of advertising such as sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, personal selling and other tools of advertising.

The band and the message should be of a culture, nature and technology that are understood by the customer or the client. The customer should be able to identify the name and the brand of the company to the products and services the company provides. (Roman, 1995)

Marketing Campaigns

A marketing campaign needs to be carefully researched. These marketing campaigns should not focus on a single grand idea but should focus on the details and execution of the marketing plan. However, the marketing campaign should be flexible and allow changes to be made at any time. In this regard, our company will use marketing campaigns that are carefully researched. (Meerman, 2011) We do not intend to focus on one grand idea but we intend to focus on the many details that that will help us on the execution of the marketing plan. We are concerned that the marketing plan may end up like a jail of some sort, limiting the nature of our marketing strategy. This is why we intend to be flexible and allow for changes in the strategies at any time. (Bly, 1998)

Research Method Justifications

This information has been obtained directly from many sources. The sources of the information are from books which I spent some time in the Library reading. These books are on marketing strategies in relation to information technology. Other sources were from a couple of journals that have been written by reliable and fast growing companies in the world. Additionally, I conducted a study by the use of a questionnaire in order to find out relevant information and advice which I gathered from the public and other growing companies. This questionnaire focused on both the small retailers and large scale stores. Batra, 1999) The study was to find out if they knew anything about check out systems. This survey was carried out in many of regions in Turkey. The survey also focused on groups of individuals who were interested in using self check out systems in our company. I took their opinions about marketing and about self check out systems very seriously and adopted it in this report. The questions were important because they helped to determine the customers or clients view on the same. The specific group that I targeted spoke freely on the individuals own accord and shared the necessary information that they thought was important and pertinent in the questionnaire. The questionnaire has created the grounds from which we are able to discuss and test the IBM’S check out systems new products before launching them to the public at large. Other information concerning potential market expectations of the products were also gathered from the questionnaire .This helped us to focus our attention on the strategies that can help maintain the expectations of the customers on the ground. The internet was also a very resourceful source. We obtained some of the information from the internet. (Lohr, 1999)  The sites that we sourced for information are reliable sites that speak and explain on the marketing strategies in relation to Information technology. The information from these sites was very helpful and it helped to shed light on the many different aspects of marketing strategies. However, we also faced a few problems and challenges while trying to gather the information. The most challenge that we had to face was while distributing the questionnaires. Some people did not want anything to do with these questionnaires and it was a bit of a challenges. (Bidgoli, 2010)  We also faced the challenge of time. This is because time was not on our side as we carried out the study. It also took quite some time for the respondents to answer our questionnaires. We did not have the required resources to carry out this study but we managed with the little resources that we had. We were also limited to the amount of books we had to read at such a short period. In the end we succeeded in obtaining and collecting the relevant information that was required to complete our study on the same. (Smith, 2003)

Analysis and Discussion

International business machines (IBM) is one of the largest computer companies in the world and has the most profitable information technology in the world. The company manufactures a wide range of products which range from computer software, hardware and other services. This company has gone through a lot of challenges in order to enjoy the success that they have. The key event that were challenging were the introduction of relational data bases, introduction of xerographic copiers, introduction of the speech recognition technology among many others On the other hand the NRC Corporation is a company that specializes in products from retail, financial, travel , entertainment industries among many other industries. (Pagiola, 2008) This company expanded quickly through the years. However, IBM is still miles ahead of NRC .This is because of the marketing strategies and approaches that are used by both companies.IBM has been stepping up its efforts in order to grow sales to midsize business. This marketing strategy will give IBM a substantial increase in the marketing investments .This is in effort to making the marketing channel more efficient. This strategy will see the IBM Company spending a lot of money in order to achieve the desired results. (Smith, 2004) On the other hand NCR marketing strategy involves and Our Company intends to make our corporation one of the best in the shortest time possible. This is because the goal of the company is to reach the highest peak in the market and be ahead of all the competitors such as NRC. (Haig, 2006) Our company is confident that we will attain the level that we anticipate in the information technology market. This is because of the introduction of new products to the market and the use of unique marketing strategies. (Kotler, 2001)  The strategies that we used were price, product, promotion and place. This means that we will introduce new products to the market, use promotions to advertise and bring the products to the clients, promote our products at the places where we are more likely to get the public’s attention and offering affordable prices on our products. (Watson, 1990)  Our total revenue will must be able to balance with the initial capital investment that we started with. We are aware that the accounts of the company are a very crucial part of the company that determines the success or failure of the company. In this regards, we will try to balance our company accounts by using reliable accounting methods .We had to consider and adopt unique marketing strategies before starting the marketing approach. In order to achieve this, we had to carry out intensive research on the different aspects and perceptions of marketing strategies in relation to Information technology. One of the effective strategies for a successful business is to think as the customers think. We had to think as our customers think. (Sobel, 1981) That is why we used questionnaires to try to find out or read the mind of the customers. In this way, we were able to obtain relevant and important information. We attribute the success of our study to the fact that we focused our study on the intention to provide information to our customers. (Blythe, 2005) We felt that we needed to ensure that our customers got an overview of what we were we are all about and what we were promoting .The reason for promoting the products was so that the customers would buy the products . It is thus very important to provide relevant information. Success in marketing is dependent on the equilibrium of demand and sales. (Richard, 1998) This is where the company is able to supply and sell the demands of the customers without fail. Marketing is also important to create brand and message for our company. The brand and message will ensure that our customers relate out company with the products that we offer. We are committed to making sure that our products are of good quality. This will help to maintain our existing customers and attract other customers. Good marketing strategies will help us to stay on top and be a step ahead of other competitive companies. Our company has remained on the top for many years and we intend to stay at the top. (Chopra, 2005) We are aware of the competitive market and we recognize some of our competitors. For example, NCR Corporation. We appreciate our competitors because they help to keep us on our toes .In this way we strive higher and for better. We recognize that competition is healthy. This is because it does not allow any room for stagnation. Thus we are always on the move, innovating, and creating, strategizing, monitoring and researching new marketing strategies to help put Company to keep growing and remain at the top. (Ramachandran, 2008)

Recommendations

It is important to note that any business returns are contingent to stake holders and on the awareness of the company. A poor return on the investment represents a stumbling block in the company’s endeavor or quest to get strategic benefits. In this regard, corporate communication is a very important tool which helps the build the company’s reputation and enables the company to pursue its business and marketing strategies. Therefore, from the research we carried out we recommend that The Company should seek activities that fit into the business and marketing strategy. We also recommend that the company should emphasis its commitment in order to impact customer advocacy. The other recommendation is that the company should encourage its employees and the customers as well. Selecting social initiatives will help the company to prioritize critical issues in the company and undertake the initiatives with high issue support.

Conclusion

This paper seeks to outline the marketing strategies in relation to information technology that can determine the success or the failure of a company. It shows clearly the strategies that our business will follow in order to remain on top and be a step ahead of our competitors.