With the advancements in business processes and the evolution of new-age digital consumers, Strategy, Marketing and Technology have become the critical functional areas of the business. Among these three functions, marketing has been an old discipline that has always played a key role in the business. With the changing customer landscape and how businesses interact with their customers, Strategy and Technology have evolved as the critical disciplines of the business.
Why is Strategy Important to Business
Strategy and Innovation form the core around which a business model is built. They help a business in differentiating itself from the competitors and define its USP. Innovation is always associated with generating new ideas while the strategy may not necessarily be always new. Strategy in the majority of the situations deals with how to increase the profitability of the organization, not just the revenue. A well-defined strategy assesses the strengths and weaknesses of its resources and products and designs business processes to achieve maximum productivity with the resources at hand.
There are a number of reasons why strategy can and often does determine the success, growth, or failure of a business. Without a strategy, the business is responding to internal and external circumstances or demands without the advantage of a plan in place to address them. This sometimes leads to wrong decisions or weak decisions and the business loses the opportunity to turn the circumstance into an optimal resolution that results in profits and better business.
While it is always important to have a coherent strategy in place, it cannot always be rigid. Adaptability is the differentiator between designing a great strategy and a good strategy. A great strategy should always have an understanding of the changes in the marketplace and adapt itself to succeed in those circumstances.
Why is Marketing Important to Business
Marketing as a discipline has evolved over the years which has an increasing role to play across all the business functions. The core function of marketing remains to make a business more competitive and make more money – which is what all businesses are about. The marketing efforts and strategy of a business can often make or break the business. It plays a major role in understanding the pain points of potential customers and delivering an appealing product or solution that matches their needs.
The role of marketing starts with finding out market trends to identify the potential business opportunities and target markets. The target markets are then assessed to determine an accurate prices for the product in the market. The key function of the marketing lies in promoting the business and increasing awareness about the business. These activities ensure that a business finds its potential customers and directly aids in increasing the business.
Why is Technology Important to Business
Technology revolutionized the way businesses are run. Increased efficiency and accuracy have always been synonymous with the technology driven changes in the business process. Technology has been playing an increasingly important role in implementing the strategies and making optimal use of available resources which would eventually result in reduced costs. This allows the business to scale at a faster pace.
Technology also brings the much needed transparency across various departments of the business by enabling better communication among them. This ensures a seamless flow of information across various departments. Be it tracking of inventory, flow of raw material during the manufacturing process, maintaining a database of the products or recording and tracking the marketing analytics, technology has an important role to play across all the departments of the business.
These three important aspects of the business have varied roles and responsibilities in the business process. However, majority of the successful businesses have always been able to connect these three distinct areas to define a successful business model.
