HCD Global successfully held the open seminar of “Digital Marketing”for a domestic leading company in 3C industry in July 2011

In a recent research report, Boston Consulting Group（BCG）pointed out that China has already become a digitalized nation and will potentially turn into the biggest digital business market in the whole world by the year of 2015. By then, about 330 million consumers will be shopping online. One noteworthy thing is that Chinese net users are in a leading position when it comes to commenting on products, 40% of consumers have posted comment on products. While, the percentage for consumers in the US is less than 20%.  At the same time, the influence of Internet on the Chinese market is not limited to first-tier cities, the middle class in small cities, especially city consumers who live in the third or fourth-tire cities are keen on word-of-mouth communication over the Internet. Obviously, in the Web 2.0 era, there are two prominent trend.

 

1.The popularity of new social media, new ways of communication and propagation.

2. Consumers are fairly able to keep their online shopping experience under control, and this not only applies in Chinese is market but they do even better. When facing this giant cake of online business, business owners and managers appear to be very cautious. They are well aware of the big risks if this double-edge sword of Internet is not used properly. They might even lose their original accumulation. 

To do or not to do, this is a tough call.

This becomes even more of a prominent problem when traditional trades entering the zone of digital business and online marketing. As a domestic pioneer in the 3C market, the middle/high level management from The Company also have many concerns and worries:

In the social networking era, what behavioral changes will occur to consumers?

How do we make our strategies? 

How do we define our brand and products? How to unify online marketing and brand management? 

How do we connect online and offline business? How do we define both? 

With the information spreading so rapidly on the social network media and its massive influence, how do we deal with positive comment? How about negative comment? 

What is the best practice like in the leading foreign enterprises in the field of electronic commerce, network marketing and online social media? 

These are also questions a lot of enterprises are pondering over: 

1) Electronic business market: is it just shunting of sales or is it new growth of Sales? 

2) Is the purpose of establishing the network to explore a second channel or what? 

3) How much should online business occupy in the entire sales quota in percentage? What is the estimated investment budget like? How about the returns? 

4) Does online business equal to lowering prices? 

5) Brand + goods: should it be price-oriented? Or brand-focused? Should we stick to the old brand or promote a new brand? 

6) Logistics: do we use the existing system and warehouses or establish exclusive warehouses and process independently or create an entirely new process? 

7) Channels: is it direct sales or distribution? Should products be sold everywhere or only to certain good places? 

8) Marketing: should we do media advertisement? Or key word promotion? Or social media? How do we ensure ROI? 

9) When to start and what requirements are there? 

……

As a leader in the international education industry and being a cutting-edge company in the field of international education management, HCD Global has always been adhering to providing the most cutting-edge and the most advanced management concepts and management experience. It has always been seeking mutual development with customers. The Company( the leader of 3C market in china )and HCD Global have been in close cooperation for 8 years and we wasted no time making the course proposal right after getting to know what their needs are. Meanwhile, with our strong international background, we chose the most prestigious professor in the industry: internationally-known electronic business and online marketing master, Ph.D, Venky Shankar.

Venky Shankar is currently a senior professor of marketing and Doctoral tutor in Mays Business School. His research focuses on such fields as online Marketing Strategy, Interactive Marketing, Marketing Innovation, International Marketing, and Search Advertising etc. As a leading expert, Venky Shankar has long been a member and consultant for many professional societies, including European Electronic Business Center, IBM Academic Advisory Committee on Electronic Commerce Conference and Marketing Science Congress. According to the SSRN Report from Google, Doctor Venky Shankar’s works in the online marketing research field are the most cited by professionals.

Due to his outstanding contribution in the field of e-commerce and online marketing, DMA from the US established an award after his name “Shankar-Spiegel Award”  to reward the best research in this field. Clients he has served are all Fortune 500 enterprises: Allstate Insurance Company, Gemini, IBM, HP, Intel, Lucent, Philips, Honeywell, Pepsi, Medtronic, Wan Hao group, Wanda Fung, Colgate, GlaxoSmithKline and Volvo etc.

A professor with both profound insights and rich enterprise training experience is exactly what The Company needs. The confirmation of the project was fast, however, the implementation stretched for half a year. On one hand, GS has very high expectation and strict requirements for management courses, which, of course is the reason why the company always chooses HCD Global; on the other hand, we need to give our professor enough time to gather a huge amount of information about our domestic market. Furthermore, we need to communicate on every detail of the course to ensure the practicality and timeliness of the course.

When the course finally starts, knowing that there is no perfect course, we still felt unease seeing familiar faces sitting together in the classroom and feeling their thirst for knowledge.

In suits and tie, Doctor Venky Shankar warmly greeted participants with smile like always. Before the class, he didn’t express his opinions or answers to the participants’ questions directly, but listed all the questions on the white board first. The teaching content was around three core points: E-business, Digital Marketing Mix, Social Network and Social Media, which were analyzed one by one from three levels: the enterprise’s strategy, tactics and implementation. His speed was sometimes fast and sometimes slow. All the knowledge points were melted quickly in his mouth which could let everybody get the main points very fast. Combined with the brilliant cases-analysis and interactive exercises, the characteristics of whole internet era were presented clearly to the participants. The three days’ program was full of inspiration and tension. Once came into a wonderful explanation, the participants would clap or laugh from time to time. And when professor was explaining a profound part, they would frown and cup the chins. The program came to the end, and every team gave a summary brief about their harvest. Look back to all the questions which had been listed on the white board before the class. And all of them were not problems any more now.

The participants gave a high evaluation to the program and finally we were relieved. All the positive evaluations are related to the following key words: strategic, forward looking and practical. The program performs as a guide for company’s decision and strategy, especially for those traditional enterprises. It also helps to systematically understand the e-business and comprehensively understand the online marketing. And there are the newest and practical cases-analysis, etc.

Back to the question mentioned at the beginning of the article: for e-business and online marketing, to do or not to do? We can answer definitely according to Doctor Venky Shankar’s point of view: of course we should do it, and the faster the better! Because all the leading enterprises in internet era are pioneers!