Imc and Ethical Concerns

IMC and Ethical Concerns

With the constant advances in technology, the business world has become global. Companies compete with the business across the street as well as the business halfway around the globe. Organizations must be innovative to not only thrive but also just to survive. They must be aware of the internal and external factors both locally and globally that can affect their business.

Internal Factor and External Factors

Internal factors are within the organization. They encompass the marketing mix, ethics, corporate culture, and diversity. The company should ensure that the internal factors are conducive to and support the marketing message that they are trying to convey. If a company's advertised benefit is excellent customer service, employees need to be empowered to take care of customer concerns quickly. If the organizational structure is vertical, the internal factors may not be in line with the message and will create dissatisfaction among consumers. External factors are factors such as the culture or social standards in a community, the economic status of the nation, technological advances, legal parameters, the competitive landscape, and ethics. These factors are not within the control of the company. Businesses should be flexible and be able to react to changes in the business environment and implement necessary changes internally. In order to do this, research is essential. A company must know all that they can about their product or service, the local and global market, their competitors, how they want to be perceived, how they are perceived, and their target market. Businesses research through primary and secondary sources. Without research, a company will be unaware of all the factors that influence their business. With competitive advantage almost nonexistent, companies need this to maximize their revenue and increase market share. This research,

Ethics 3

although always essential, is vital in a company that operates globally. Different factors influence businesses in different areas of the globe. Customers behave differently. Ethics, both an internal and external factor, become an issue for organizations.

Ethical Challenges

The Enron and Worldcom scandals bolted the issue of corporate ethics into the headlines. Today, the ethics of a company are just as important as the actual product or service that the business provides. Ethics refer to whether an action is right or wrong. Ethics are subjective. One person may find an action unethical while another feels the same action is acceptable. This becomes even trickier when taken into the diverse global business environment. Organizations must research each market to ensure that their actions are ethical within those specific boundaries. "Culturally-based differences influence how consumers perceive business practices, including those practices that have ethical content. Such effects should become increasingly relevant as marketers expand their efforts from one culture to the next. Marketers must understand the necessity to familiarize themselves with the culturally-based ethical norms that are dominant in the countries they have targeted for entry (Singhapakdi et al, 1999, p.257)." Acts such as CD piracy or brand counterfeiting are illegal and are considered unethical by consumers in the United States; however, these are quite common business practices in many East Asian nations. For example, China has recently been accused of intellectual property theft of products such as movies, music and computer software originating in the USA. Other Asian markets are similarly flooded with Taiwanese and Korean "knock-offs"