1. How Organisations adapt in response to IT Developments ORGANISATIONAL ACTIVITIES

2. ACTIVITIES Organisational activities explore the promotion and procurement aspects and how to adapt them to changes in IT development Promotion The marketing of products and services Procurement Acquisition and buying

3. Adapting sales and marketing strategies Organisations are altering the way in which products are marketed and sold to exploit developments in IT.  Marketing products on the internet is swifter and cheaper  Sales reps can do deals over the phone, email and use conference and video calls. Results = deals closed quicker = cheaper to organisation = cheaper to customer.

4. Viral Marketing Marketing that relies on social networks passing on product or service information from person to person  Not all are malicious – some build a sense of community among recipients who want to pass on the message.  Works very well amongst groups with developed social networks such, such as teenagers  Organisations will arrange to promote each others products – for example – you might buy a computer from one website and follow a link to another for software  Pop ups are a type of internet advertising – not a popular choice as they appear without the users permission  Spam emails, such as follow ups from an online purchase is another unpopular choice.

5. Understanding the customers needs  Mass customisation – specialist software can monitor and log sales of a product. The organisation can gain a greater understanding of the impact of the product on the consumer. It gains better and quicker feedback through the ordering process and therefore can adapt the product rand to meet the demands of the consumer  Loyalty cards – These can be used to track the purchases that individual customers make and specialised software is used to identify other similar products in or to target the consumer via vouchers and offers.

6. Adapting new purchasing opportunities  Easier and faster for organisations to talk to one another through their systems  Ordering faster and more efficient – EDI (electronic data interchange) for automatic recording and restocking before stocks run out. Also used to give calculations as to when then next stock will be required basing it on the last stock order.  Organisations can choose how to sell their products and services, through catalogues, over the phone, on the internet, etc. choosing the method that is the most effective – Channel Management

7. Adapting new purchasing opportunities (2)  The relaunching of existing products to keep up with the changing times and make use of the new technology available - examples: Monopoly board game also available as an electronic version. The Poppy Foundation give people the choice of downloading the poppy as an icon for display on a mobile phone

8. Using new technology in customer support Technology has changed the way organisations provide customer support, for example if you have a query on a mobile phone or computer you have the following options  Logging a query on a website  Using the ‘contact us’ section  FAQ’s  Automated telephone system – not so popular with the consumer but very effective to the organisation

9. Secure Funds Transfer  Paying on-line for goods  Banking on-line (e banking) With more and more users moving money via online transactions, the opportunities for hackers to steal funds has increased. Software is required to provide security for the transfer of funds – We explore this further in the Managing Risks section

10. Automating manufacturing process In the last 20 years there have been huge changes in the way we work – Typewriters, Word Processers, Computers, Fax Machines and Email…. And now…. ROBOTS  Car industry use robots to build and spray paint cars  Formula 1 industry uses programmable machinery to carry out dangerous and precision tasks such as cutting sheet metal and welding.  Highly specialist care manufacturers combine both automated and manual processes due to fine precision engineering and the hand built approach i.e. Astin Martin  Even sweet manufacturers use automated machinery to make and pack their confectionery