B2B is a business terminology that refers to a commerce transaction that exists between a business and a business such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler or a wholesaler and retailer. In such an environment, the twist that the new technology of e-commerce and the social media introduces requires special attention for a business to survive the cut-throat competition, thus heightening the role marketers have to play. It is with this understanding that Theresa Kushner, the Senior Director of Customer Intelligence at Cisco, explains how her firm is going well past the traditional internet practices to ensure that it maintains its market share. Some of these that Cisco does include:
She begins by exploring how her firm utilizes social media in determining and retaining customers. According to her, social media provides an avenue for feedback immediacy and a one on one interaction with the customers. Cisco is a company that designs, manufactures, and sells networking equipments, she therefore holds that in such an industry it is very fundamental that they get the response of how their customers feel about their products, they thus accustom their products to client specifications. Social media provides a good platform for speedy market research and response determination, and this is a facility that Cisco has continued to use in identifying the unique needs of each and every customer.
Miss Kushner elaborates on the entire social media feedback reception process. This she does by highlighting a three tier process which entails listening, hearing and acting. At Cisco, she says, they do not just listen to what their clients say through the reception of the comment but they hear the facts raised by placing themselves at the feet of the client and creating a similar virtual problem that the client experience from which they build an action. The marketing mogul points a out to a fact that affirm that simply listens to the feedback fro its clients without acting has no place in the market created by the developments in the information and communication technology- ICT.
In the final episode she narrows down her study on how to use the social media in determining new markets. This she does in a response to a question posed by the hoist on how to predict where new markets are and how to determine their purchasing cycle. She says that the social media has a way of connecting target market, in one way or another those who use a given product would find a way of coming together through the social media and it is such groupings and responses that are monitored to reveal more markets, she elaborates on cloud computing and the fact that Cisco adopted it as a response to market demand.
The most impressive item that is impressive in the study is the manner in which the social media opens up newer markets and expands the already existing ones. She explains that through the use of the social sites a firm would carry out research at a cheaper cost and get valid results that if properly analyzed would expand the business resulting into growth, further more social sites can be made to include the other possibilities of e-commerce such as online payments. She therefore refers the inclusion social media on all B2B transactions.