Guest editorial

Citation

Paliwoda, S.J. (2004), "Guest editorial", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 7 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr.2004.21607aaa.001

Guest editorial

About the Guest EditorStanley Paliwoda is Professor of International Marketing at the Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham. He has an interest in how the Internet has created new markets of existing, sophisticated customers who are searching for added value and convenience. This phenomenon has been witnessed across national markets and there are interesting segmentation possibilities yet to be explored, as Internet sales are still at a fairly low, embryonic level. He has contributed a number of case studies with colleagues at Birmingham who collaborated with the Council of Marketing in publishing a total of more than 100 case studies on the Web site: www.e4M.biz

World-wide, society is continually being challenged by change agents such as politics and finance, which created a common Euro currency zone out of 12 nation states, but also by technology. On the one hand, we have people expressing wishes for things to be different; on the other, we have almost, in response, a constant introduction of new products and processes. When the two forces stabilise we have equilibrium. However, in addition, technology has continued to offer us through the generations the necessary new vocabulary to cope with the many facets of change that it brings. The advent of the Internet has brought us many new terms which have outlasted the "dot.com" stock market bubble including "deconstruction", "disintermediation", "e-commerce", and "m-commerce". The Internet has unscrambled many of our traditional ways of working and in so doing has unscrambled some traditional organisational forms but has also created new ones. At the same time, new competitive pressures as well as new opportunities have been created. E-commerce provides a very good example and a good rationale, if one were needed, of how we must first attempt to understand before we rush to quantify. It is a precept on which this very journal was founded.

E-commerce has changed behaviour both individual and corporate and it has changed our perspectives in very many ways as well.

E-commerce has brought immediacy to the world economy. It is an enabling technology, which, in Western developed markets, has empowered the individual consumer. We are only now at the outset of an information revolution that still has a long way to run. Not only can we shop around internationally for the best bargains inside and outside the Euro zone but we can also use this same technology to do everything with the relative speed of light. Prior to the advent of the Internet, exchange transactions were cumbersome and costly but today we can purchase over the Internet using credit cards with greater security than we could hope for over the telephone. Similarly, the buying and selling of stocks and shares has always been surrounded with a good deal of pomp and circumstance, which have helped justify the high commission prices of the brokers. Today, though, we have the added incentive of being able not only to compare prices but also to knowingly take advantage of the many discounts that are available for things that we may care to buy through this medium. This applies to loans, mortgages, travel, hotels and car rental – the list is extensive. In many respects, the Internet has become a low cost distribution channel. However, there are inherent dangers in this strategy, for, as Porter (2001) has pointed out, to shift the basis of competition away from quality, features and service and towards price makes it harder for anyone in their industries to turn a profit.

Ohmae (2001) refers to the challenge of this invisible continent which is harder to quantify, which is borderless but constantly accessible 24/7 and which has a fourth dimension of high multiples where leveraging based on imaginative assumptions takes place. Post-Enron, few would disagree with that statement. While invisible, this invisible continent is not totally uncharted territory but hosts new markets of existing sophisticated consumers. These new markets have been one of the major successes of this new medium. Auctions include closed sites such as Covisint, a grouping of five automobile manufacturers and their world-wide suppliers, currently numbering 76,000, which was established only in February 2000. This interactive medium allows for live transactions and so is sure to change the way in which we do business in an industry that has always been international in outlook.

From auctions formed of automotive manufacturers and their suppliers to the successful e-Bay consumer auction, success has only become possible because of the ability of this medium to bring people together. Of course, there are dangers for both suppliers and customers. A Web site on its own gives the customer none of the reassurance of a bricks and mortar store. On the Internet, no one can confirm your size or your experience or your ability to deliver but the challenge is starting to be addressed. Buy from an individual seller on Amazon or one of the auction sites and you will see reviews from those who have purchased from this vendor before. Ultimately, it is the customer who defines the market but the boundaries are yet to be defined never mind regulated.

Convenience, ease of access, added value are all factors that are appreciated by all of us as consumers. As long as we can continue to meet consumer needs at relatively lower costs there will be a need for this medium. Yet not all companies have been able to quickly comprehend what has been happening to the Internet. Certainly, it started with the corporate world thinking that the Internet was just a massive filing cabinet for boring, unimportant wads of data that people might only want to search occasionally. However, from being this repository of unwanted data, the Internet has responded well to this challenge and has moved on to becoming an interactive information medium. Again, not all companies offer interactivity through their Web site but it is on the increase. From being simply a channel of one-way communication it has matured into a two-way communications tool and an important point of sale for many. Importantly, the Internet has also provided an opportunity to identify and to respond to the company's most loyal customers. There are clear opportunities for information sharing here. Knowing your customers better means being able to provide better for them. From being an information dump, the Internet has become a means to go beyond providing information to targeting the needs of the chosen.

This leads us then into finding areas of value added relevant to our customer base. The recognition of value added is recent but it has led to new definitions of marketing (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001), whereby companies are encouraged to put most of their resources into value-building marketing investments. The distinction is between short-term and long-term recognition of customer needs. To build true value for the customer will require investment but the flipside should be greater customer loyalty.

In the compilation of this Special Issue, we must first acknowledge the investment made by IBM in encouraging research in this important area through their sponsorship of an annual e-commerce conference.

This Issue has an interesting array of contributors and contributions. It is international in terms of author and research base but eclectic in terms of approach and content. Cox and Mowatt examine consumer-driven innovation networks within the UK food-retailing industry and show how, through exploiting the information gathered directly from customers at point of sale, loyalty card information, Internet order histories and through data mining, supermarkets are able to identify consumer preferences and also co-ordinate new product development via innovation networks. Initially what were supply chain systems have become more sophisticated and have become capable of revealing and satisfying customer demand. As a result of this, supermarkets' e-business systems have established new competitive processes in the UK food-processing and retailing industry and are an example of consumer-driven innovation networks. This has also strengthened their position within the industry and has created a new competitive structure.

Lindgreen et al. focus on video chat on the Internet and their paper consists of a market feasibility study for software that edits video chatters from the original background and inserts them into a new background where you are able to insert advertising. This could prove to be an important application for the advertising industry. From a study of the Web cam market, Lindgreen et al. move into video chat and conduct a macro segmentation and then a micro segmentation of the video chat market and then into advertising, where they found their ideas were received positively. Advertisers are always looking for new products that are better targeted and are more interactive. This information then gathered the pertinent information on the potential clients' needs and the amounts of money they were ready to pay for the service. An interesting study.

The focus of the paper by Ramsey et al. is that of e-business scenarios for small and medium-sized firms (SMEs). The very nature of services, such as the intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity, durability, perishability, customisation versus standardisation debates would, they say, suggest that they are well equipped to take advantage of Internet-based technologies in service delivery. The ability of SMEs to sense and respond to new technologies is an important area of research. Here, the research sought to elicit information from owner-managers associated with adopting, adapting and assimilating Internet-based technologies for business/e-business purposes. The research methodology employed was a projective technique using word association. The survey, the tests used, and their interpretation are of interest to all in the research community. Companies need to apply the same rigour to the Internet as to any other area of business. The message here is that being able to sense and to respond to the market is important and so the Internet should therefore be a key tool for SMEs.

Hill and Scott examine the role of business intelligence and e-business in management and marketing decision making in knowledge-based and high-tech start-up companies. This involved in-depth discussions with 12 companies. The study examined the extent of business intelligence usage and evaluated the extent of implementation of effective e-business systems in the sample companies. The study concludes that, while the sample firms recognised the value of both business intelligence and e-business models, the modus operandi of the entrepreneurial high-tech start-up is very much rooted in the traditional small firm paradigm of personal contact networking. The paper therefore provides a set of recommendations with respect to the successful implementation of business intelligence and e-business systems within these firms.

Clarke and Doherty provided a case study of Egg to deliver on the importance of a strong business-IT relationship for the realisation of benefits in E-business projects. The case study was conducted into the system development approaches at Egg, one of the UK's leading online banks. The paper presents a qualitative study in an important area of research. The key finding is that, whilst the balance between the IT and business input does change over the course of a project, its successful outcome is highly dependent upon the evolution of a strong IT-business relationship that endures for the duration of the project. The evidence indicates that the strong IT-business relationship at Egg has arisen as a result of the adoption of appropriate development processes, and the fostering of shared beliefs such as the absolute importance of customer service. Follow-up surveys might be useful to explore the prevalence of such close relationships, while detailed longitudinal case studies across a variety of organisations would allow their implications to be more thoroughly evaluated.

"Online banking information: what we want and what we get" is the theme of the paper by Waite and Harrison. This reports on young adults and their expectations and perceptions of online retail banking information. This study employed focus groups and used a questionnaire survey to measure these gaps between perceptions and expectations. Results indicated that respondents expected bank Web sites to be easy to use and to provide them with basic account and product details. These features are valued more than the technological aspects. Yet perceptions of actual information provision differ. While basic account and price information is perceived to be provided, certain features are perceived to be less prevalent, rendering bank Web sites ineffective at aiding consumer decision making. The research questions the role of the Internet in information provision and suggests how banks can improve their Web sites to assist consumer decision making.

There is an abundance of rich research material here. I thank all the contributors for their patience over the last few months and for sharing this with me and with you.

Stanley J. PaliwodaProfessor and Head of the Department of Commerce, Birmingham University Business School, Birmingham, UK