Paul Harrigan

How Can Marketing Academics Serve Marketing Practice? The New Marketing DNA as a Model for Marketing Education

This article seeks to address how marketing academics can best serve marketing practice through marketing education. It is contended that, where technology is driving marketing in practice, it is afforded significantly less attention in both theory and education. Thus, the marketing graduates being produced from universities are often lacking in the skills that 21st-century marketers require. Where the focus of the article is on marketing education, a broad analysis of the content of marketing textbooks and degree programs is presented and an “old Marketing DNA” presented. The study also adopted an inductive approach to data collection where the aim was to investigate the exact nature, constituency, and role of marketing in organizations. Qualitative in-depth interviews were undertaken with senior marketing managers and executives in U.K. organizations. Findings are organized into the areas of customer-led marketing, value-driven strategic marketing, channels, data-driven marketing, and online and off-line integrated marketing communications. The article concludes that there is a disconnect between marketing education and marketing practice and goes some way to recommending what the response of marketing academia should be through the “new Marketing DNA.” This article aims to inspire a holistic response from marketing educators to bring their practice more in line with what is actually being practiced by marketing practitioners in the 21st century.

Critical Factors Underpinning the e-CRM Activities of SMEs

Abstract Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital components of our economies, but many struggle to perform the marketing prescribed theoretically for large organisations. In practice, marketing is performed in SMEs through an intrinsic customer orientation, which exhibits striking resemblances to customer relationship management (CRM) theory. This paper presents research evidence to help us understand the impact of Internet-based technologies (IBTs) on the CRM activities (that is e-CRM) of SMEs in Ireland. A quantitative approach (online survey questionnaire) was adopted and distributed to 1445 SMEs. Exploratory factor analysis uncovered eight distinct yet inter-related factors underpinning the practices and processes of e-CRM in SMEs. Briefly, findings illustrate that SMEs are performing e-CRM to varying extents, reaping a range of performance benefits and facing a range of challenges. It is true that SMEs are not adopting e-CRM per se, as described in the large organisation-biased literature, but they are adopting relatively simple IBTs to improve their customer communication and information management capabilities and thus to create competitive advantage in their own strategic way. The study adopts a strong managerial focus, where pertinent practical implications and recommendations around e-CRM are provided for SME owner-managers, helping to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

CRM to social CRM: the integration of new technologies into customer relationship management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a continually evolving domain and now social media technologies have revolutionized the way businesses and consumers interact. Hence, the new dimension of social CRM focuses on customer engagement domain, and now social media technologies have revolutionised the way businesses and consumers interact. This paper focuses on social CRM and builds on a previous CRM model proposed by Jayachandran et al. (2005), adopting the resource-based view theory and the equity theory. This paper presents a new model for social CRM, including a new construct of customer engagement initiatives and adaptations of other constructs, to take cognisance of the impact of social media technologies on CRM. Data were collected from a population of marketing practitioners using an online survey technique and the model was tested using PLS-SEM. From a theoretical perspective, the study contributes to an understanding of the change in communications between the customer and the marketer, and focuses on interactive relationships with customers. From a managerial perspective, businesses should utilise the rich customer information generated through every customer engagement using social media, to drive future marketing decisions.

Investigating the e-CRM activities of Irish SMEs

Purpose – Relationship marketing principles have seldom been applied to the small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise (SME). The purpose of this paper is to develop what is a striking link by presenting empirical evidence on the role of internet technologies in the customer relationship management activities of Irish SMEs. More specifically, this is a comparative study investigating electronic‐customer relationship management (e‐CRM) in international and domestic firms. The nature and role of e‐CRM is assessed, the strategies behind e‐CRM delineated, and the ensuing benefits and challenges revealed.Design/methodology/approach – The paper has an exploratory outlook and a quantitative approach to data collection is adopted to facilitate broad classification in an under researched area. A self‐completion questionnaire is distributed to a sample of 1,445 SMEs. A response rate of 20 per cent is obtained, providing 286 usable responses. Univariate and bivariate analyses were performed using SPSS.Findings – The finding...

e‐CRM in SMEs: an exploratory study in Northern Ireland

Purpose – Relationship marketing principles have seldom been applied to the small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise (SME). The purpose of this paper is to develop what is a striking link by investigating the role of internet technologies in the customer relationship management of SMEs based in Northern Ireland (NI).Design/methodology/approach – This study took an exploratory outlook and a quantitative approach to data collection was adopted. A self‐completion questionnaire was distributed by post to a sample of 300 SMEs in NI. A response rate of 18.6 per cent was obtained.Findings – The findings of this study illustrate that SMEs are implementing fundamental electronic customer relationship management (e‐CRM) practices and reaping the benefits from internationalisation. Challenges are few, but centre on a preference for face‐to‐face relationships and a lack of government support.Research limitations/implications – It is hoped that this exploratory research has laid the foundation for further examination of e‐C...

The development of e‐procurement within the ICT manufacturing industry in Ireland

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that e‐procurement provides manufacturing firms with new and efficient solutions to drive significant value into their business, yet generally the use of internet technologies to accommodate e‐procurement systems remains in a formative stage. Previous research tends to focus on larger economies, so this paper provides a new perspective by presenting evidence from the Irish ICT manufacturing industry.Design/methodology/approach – The research locale is justified on the basis that the ICT manufacturing sector has a greater propensity to adopt technologies such as e‐procurement. In addition, by conducting the research in a small peripheral economy, a gap in the knowledge base is being addressed. The exploratory research adopted a quantitative methodology with a questionnaire instrument being employed to investigate various e‐procurement activities within a sample of top performing ICT manufacturing firms.Findings – Findings show that e‐procurement is developing ...

Internet Technologies, ECRM Capabilities, and Performance Benefits for SMEs: An Exploratory Study

Research on large firms suggests that dedicated customer relationship management (CRM) software applications play a critical role in creating and sustaining customer relationships. CRM is also of strategic importance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but most of them do not employ dedicated CRM software. Instead they use generic Internet-based technologies to manage customer relationships with electronic CRM (eCRM). There has been little research on the extent to which the use of generic Internet technologies contributes to SME performance. The present study fills the gap, building upon the literature on organizational capabilities, marketing, and SMEs to develop a research model with which to explore the relationships between generic Internet technologies, eCRM capabilities, and the resulting performance benefits in the SME context. A survey across 286 SMEs in Ireland finds strong empirical evidence in support of the hypotheses regarding these benefits. The study contributes to managerial decision making by showing how SMEs can use generic Internet technologies to advance their customer relationships and contributes to theory development by conceptualizing eCRM capabilities in an SME context.

Exploring entrepreneurial marketing

This paper furthers the conceptual development of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) as theory. EM draws on the work of both marketing and entrepreneurship scholars and has evolved primarily from the marketing management and entrepreneurship literatures. Beginning with an overview of the different schools of thought from which the concept of EM has evolved, this paper attempts to outline and review the issues of EM that delineate it as a distinct area within the discipline of marketing. The discussion presents three potential locus of EM thought within the firm: vertical EM, horizontal EM, and EM as a temporal phenomenon. Finally, in adopting Hunts (2010) benchmarks that seek to verify the existence of a distinct body of theory, the paper concludes that EM is advancing towards theory construction.

From e-CRM to s-CRM. Critical factors underpinning the social CRM activities of SMEs

Abstract This paper builds on previous research that investigated the critical factors underpinning the e-CRM activities of SMEs. However, marketing practice has moved on from the ‘e’ in e-CRM. Today, the disruptive technologies in CRM are social media. This is particularly true for SMEs, where social media are free tools that can be used to foster engagement between organization and consumer, and thus social CRM (s-CRM). An online survey was completed by 156 SMEs, and exploratory factor analysis uncovered seven factors underpinning their s-CRM activities. Findings illustrate the importance of a customer relationship orientation, uncover support and data issues around social media use, promote the importance of customer engagement in online communities, and recognise the driving role of information processes. This study contributes to theory by measuring s-CRM in SMEs through a dynamic capabilities lens. For SME owner-managers, it emphasises the need to strategically combine social media use with CRM activities.

Exploring and explaining SME marketing: investigating e-CRM using a mixed methods approach

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital to our economies, and they perform marketing resembling customer relationship management (CRM) theory. This study investigated the role of technology on the CRM activities (i.e. e-CRM) of SMEs in Ireland. This paper both reports the findings and the methodological process undertaken, which was a mixed methods research design comprising quantitative and qualitative methods. Hence this paper constitutes a methodological contribution to the small business discipline. Regarding the research problem, the research design facilitated significant theoretical and practical contributions to small business marketing, regarding using technology in customer communication and customer information management in e-CRM. SMEs are performing e-CRM that enables customer communication and customer information capabilities, but challenges focus on balancing e-communication with traditional communication and integrating technologies into existing processes. For SME owner-managers, ‘Ten Commandments for e-CRM’ are presented as the papers managerial take-away.