Write a 250 to 300-word response to your classmate. Your reply must make a recommendation to your classmate of a peer reviewed journal article that provides additional information on their topic. In your response, you should give a summary of the article in your own words and discuss why it is relevant to their forum topic. It must be different than articles they reference in their forum. Include an APA formatted citation at the bottom of the reply.
1. Student
This study looks at the relationship between marketing agility and its effect on start-ups. There are many ways to study this multifaceted and highly theoretical topic. The research covered looks at the impact marketing agility has on a firms performance, as well as the antecedents to effective implementation of marketing agility. As well as what internal changes are needed for a firm to maintain competitiveness in a changing environment. It will look at how effective marketing agility is in different environments that are more complex or more turbulent, and the moderating effects of environment on the link between marketing agility and the innovative-capability of the organization. Finally, it will look at the challenges that start-ups face in implementing marketing agility.
There have been numerous studies on the effects of marketing agility on the performance of a firm. However there have been fewer studies looking at the effect marketing agility has on younger firms. According to Kalaignanam and Tuli and Kushawaha and Lee and Gal (2021), marketing agility is prevalent at all levels of an organization to include the individual, team and organizational levels. They also suggest that in each of these levels, to be successfully implemented, it is suggested that the organization have the correct culture, team dynamics and mindset. It has also been suggested that marketing agility is dependent upon other factors such as the social responsibility of the organization, their effectiveness at building quality relationships, and how well they innovate (Zhou and Mayondo and Saunders (2019). There is also evidence to suggest that marketing agility when combined with flexible resource allocation, provides for increased performance because it reduces the time needed to acquire the necessary resources to react (Khan and Movondo and Zahoor, 2022) Khan (2020) found that Indirectly, marketing agility stimulates or enhances marketing program adaption, which further influences firm performance. This was confirmed by Zhou and Mayondo and Saunders (2019) when they found that companies that have better marketing agility, meaning being able to quickly adapt to changes in the market, perform better than their less agile competitors. The effectiveness of marketing agility comes down to the leadership of the organization and that organizations ability to recruit experience talent, which can be more difficult for start-ups with less capital (Kalaignanam and Tuli and Kushwaha and Lee and Gal, 2021). The times that marketing agility is the most effective at improving performance is when there is an increase in market complexity (Khan, 2020). The more quickly the market is changing, or the more turbulent the markets, the stronger the link between marketing agility and the financial performance of the firm (Zhou and Mayondo and Saunders (2019). They also suggest however that the link between an organizations innovation-capability and their marketing agility are weaker in highly turbulent markets.
Future areas of research could be on the internal changes that an organization needs to make and their interaction with the environment, to adapt to a quickly changing environments (Kalaignanam and Tuli and Kushwaha and Lee and Gal, 2021). It would be interesting to see how useful the role of technology and its increasing complexity, increasing digitalization, and the size of the firm would be as moderators. (Khan, 2020) To determine cause and address the ddeciciencies of the cross-sectional data, there couold be research around a longitudal study (Zhou and Mayondo and Saunders (2019. Additional research could include multiple studies across multiple organizations to better understand how marketing agility evolves (Osei and Amankwah-Amoah and Khan and Gutu, 2019). How entrepreneurial marketing activities such as process and technology developments, and green product development effect the link between the different resources available to a firm and marketing agility (Khan and Movondo and Zahoor, 2022).
2. Student Jacob Creedle
The selected topic for my marketing discussion board post is, “Macro Trends Influencing Customer Decision Making.” This was a subtopic under research priority 1, “Delivering Customer Value”, of the Marketing Science Institute. The content here included observing the factors of marketing that influence the way customers choose between businesses and products. Customer decisions can vary depending on the market, and with increased globalization creating newer markets all the time (Paul, 2019), there are always new trends to be studied. In order for a business to truly know its audience, attract new customers, and retain older ones, the business must have insights into how customers within a certain market think. I was able to find examples within different markets and industries that showcase different strategies for interacting with customers in the digital age. These strategies, along with the digital technology examples, will be included in my current trends paragraph below. The current state of research in this sub-area involves these differing strategies, tools, and emerging markets for each industry. The major themes found with the current trends will be outlined in the following paragraph as well, with future recommendations requiring further research outlined in the final paragraph.
Current Trends Paragraph:
As pointed out in the article from Paul above, there are many emerging markets across the globe, with differing customer trends appearing in each one. It can be difficult enough as is to understand how a consumer in one industry thinks, and when comparing across different industries, it only gets more complex. The challenges facing customers in agriculture with advisory apps, farm management software, and digital platforms (Birner et al., 2021), are different from those facing the manufacturing industry with organizational and ecosystem transformations (Kowalkowski et al., 2021). Because of these differing challenges, a business must make the distinction between each market for the customers that need specific solutions for their problems. Not every customer, or even every market, is alike or should be treated as such. Even the examples above including agriculture and manufacturing can have their markets broken up further, with small, medium, and large enterprises existing within each one (Zikowska, 2021). The commonality between most modern markets has been observed to be digital technology with data-driven services, as pointed out in the articles from Paul, Birner et al., and Kowalkowski et al., respectively. The digital technology available to businesses today allows for more efficient attraction of new customers, with many small factors compiling together to make a big impact in the marketplace overall (Curtin, 2019). No matter the industry, whether agriculture, manufacturing, or something entirely different, there is a place for digital technology in marketing practices.
Future Research Paragraph:
There are still many factors of digital technology used for marketing and customer decision making that require future research. The cost of implementation for these different technologies requires more research, and as Birner et al. and Kowalkowski et al. pointed out, the cost between markets in different nations will vary. This again may be attributed to differing factors between markets, which also influence customer decisions as a result. Any new solutions developed for digital marketing should have their cost of implementation weighed alongside their projected benefit. Likewise, Curtin and Paul both pointed out a need for further research in data collection for improvement of data-driven services, while Zikowska added that the improvement needs to be looked into for consumers, businesses, and the overall marketplace. Collecting data is essential for figuring out the current needs of the customers in a market, with the same being true of figuring out how to improve the technology implemented to support them. While there are existing methods in place for this, outstanding questions that need to be addressed include which one is most optimal for smaller enterprises, and what methods of security there are for protecting customer data. When these outstanding questions are addressed, customers will be able to make decisions more comfortably and have businesses optimally address their needs.
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