Marketing and Competitive Performance - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Relationship Marketing and Competitive Performance. Answer: Introduction The Logistics industry is investigating the innovative delivery methods for improving their operational effectiveness by the incorporation of E-business and logistics resources. The Drone technology offers the best solution for the logistics service contributors for solving the supply chain issues, involving employment problems and last second affinity. The recent advancements related to drone technology have produced indications that it has the ability to be embedded into the delivery options between the year 2017 and 2020 (Nwokah, 2009). For example, Amazon has already launched the drone service termed as Amazon Prime Air that will deliver the packages under 5 pounds in 30 minutes or lesser than that. The employment of unmanned aircraft helps the organizations to reduce the delivery time and the cost of delivery. This report illustrates the logistics business perspectives for the application of the drone technology in DHL organization. Moreover, it also explains the future prospects of the technology. The impacts of drone technology in DHL are divided into four categories namely Urban First and Last Mile, Infrastructure Surveillance, and Rural Conveyance. The accelerated urbanization is a big trend now and for the future in evolving markets. According to the insurance company Swiss Re, the urban population all over the globe will increase from 1.4 billion to 5 billion between the years 2011 and 2030 (Doyle Wong, 1998). The negative effect of this particular trend results in the pollution, crowded roads, etc. This is the most evident impact in the logistics industry. Moreover, the privacy and security concerns can be increased in more populated environment. The infrastructure surveillance operation allows the DHL Company to observe their own worksites and the properties. The DHL infrastructure status is accessed from the air and the damage can be found out. In future, the drones can also repair the difficult-to-repair portions of infrastructures. Moreover, the DHL supports energy consumers with the additional facilities of properties tracking and Health, Safety, Security, and Environment (HSSE) record keeping enhancements. The prospective of drone technology is also clear in the rural places with poor framework. To attain the competitive advantage, the Deutsche Post DHL joined with the drone manufacturer Microdrones during December 2013 for delivering the medicines to the employees at DHL headquarters located in Germany (Nwokah, 2009). This operation has simplified the flight operations and provides easy drop which is possible in rural areas. Organizational Advantages of employing Drone Technology The senior vice president for strategy marketing and development Matthias Heutger said that, The utilization of drones for delivering and administering logistics is becoming important across the globe, especially in the disaster and remote locations. The DHL has expended Euro 100 million for the purpose of warehousing, manpower education, transportation, and for framing information technology network in the last three years (Lieb, 2005). There is a huge competition between the technological leaders Amazon and Google, since German Express ad Logistics Behemoth DHL is the first enterprise to employ the automatic drones. It also obtained the permissions to start utilizing the unmanned aerial vehicle called parcelcopters for delivering the medications of 1.2 kilograms to North sea islands in critically designed containers. At the same time, the Amazon asking permissions for utilizing the drones for commercial purposes have to wait until the regulations governed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are met. The FAA wont give permission for the automatic flights without any pilots until the rules for drafted for them (Lieb, 2005). The customer convenience can be handled by various aspects like delivery speeds, delivery locations, consumer-specified delivery times, delivery return choices, and product packaging. The DHL crafts the delivery services together with partners, for reducing the hassles. By adding the value-added delivery solutions, the convenience of the consumers can be increased further. According to the recent study conducted by the Deutsche Post DHL group, the online shopping customers can also obtain satisfaction from the greater choice of deliver location since 94% of the respondents told that they are very glad when they could decide parcel lockers like DHLs Pack stations as the substitute delivery addresses, while one in two customers told that they would recommend the choice of delivery to their trusted neighbours when they are absent (Bergman Klefsj, 2010). By 2020, the delivery convenience will be in full swing with new competitors and by using new forces. Conforming with Supplier or Customers Demand In order to meet the industrys modifying demands, innovative supply chains should be developed. The DHL improves its work procedures and artefacts constantly for supporting this supply chain expansion. The DHL consolidates the interior logistic services assisting the whole sector, inclusive of IT, finance, Acquirement and legitimate, in DHLs Global business services. The evolving demand for packaging functions, warehousing, and temperature assertive transportation are enhancing the growth in Healthcare sector. The DHL offers high service quality all over the globe to the customers and hence meet the high demands on their infrastructures, employees, and products. The DHL launch in Singapore is after the success of its first centre in Germany. Now the DHL is arranging to invest 16.3 million dollars for incorporating the Drone technology for administering logistics and delivery purposes (Bergman Klefsj, 2010). During June 2016, the DHL declared that it extends its existence in China with the extension of the delivery centers in Shangai, Hong Kong, and Shenzen. The drones implemented in logistics industry will create new employment opportunities. There will be requirements for drone operators to accomplish works for drone customers. But the additional employment is unnecessary when the drones are fully automated. Even there will be an evolving demand for drone administrators and it will leads to the employment in business and insurance companies that are helping the drone users and industries. An innovation of DHL is Smart Trucks that uses the drone technology to assist the vehicles for meeting the urban logistics provocations, and mobile pouch for providing safer and streamlined liquidate on delivery processes in order to sanction suitable negotiations for e-commerce customers. Implementation and Operational Challenge of Drone Technology in DHL: The implementation of drones in DHL depends on three factors namely consumers, delivery providers, and traders each containing own operational challenges (Ahmed Rafiq, 2003). The consumers have many expectations related to delivery speed, safety, delivery cost, and flexibility. According to the Deloitte survey conducted in the year 2015, free shipping is more important for consumer more than fast shipping (Lieb Lieb, 2010). Merchants have various concerns regarding high shipping rates. They lack in more number of distribution centers and negotiating power that lets the competitors in the same industry to provide inexpensive and speed delivery. Product deliverers contain their own set of challenges to commercially encounter the merchant and customer expectations. Couriers should be able to provide flexible delivery catering to the customer expectations, while successfully administering the peer costs. The imperfections on the products packaging leads to the problem creation of 30% to the delivery providers and can influence the merchants, who is responsible for the cost of returns on the fault products. The supply chain of future will be faster and self-adapted. This change is driven by some technologies that will be incorporated by the industry contributors for the next 15 years. The future technologies given below are based on three aspects namely industry, business, and industry/market. Manual travelling inside the warehouse is one of the time consuming and inefficient tasks. It will be addressed by the implementation of fully automated mobile robots since it is able to pick the tasks four times quicker than the man. Truck trooping and automatic trucks will come into reality by 2030 (Grnroos, 2000). A new emerging influence called Big Data creates an impact on the supply chain management. All of the efforts using drones and robots are centered on reducing the delivery time and acquiring the data required by the user. In future, an interesting aspect is the possibility of the logistics industry turning out to be a data focussed industry in which the information focuses on the logistics services. Innovative Logistics Providers is less Property Focussed The logistics industry is turning out to be non-property based or less-property based since some person has to operate the properties. The innovative logistics providers that do not have their own warehouses or fleets will be able to offer the logistics services by adding up the information about the properties from the people who have their own assets by grasping the asset information through them. So in future, the logistics industries need not to incur the costs related to asset management or dealing with the asset pressure. Hence, this is an essential indication of the consulting based approach of the typical logistics suppliers and vendors in future. In the future, mobile-based cargo dealers will draft the internal software solutions by facilitating OEMs and telematics suppliers. The future will pave way for eliminating the cargo dealer enterprises by providing flexible logistics services. Since the Internet is responsible for the progression from client based applications to web based applications, cloud technology, and Software As a Service (SAAS), the peer-to-peer business model generates new channels on how the logistics applications are crafted and employed. The Block chain technology will be utilized to avoid the failure on supply process, since it lets the users to have direct contacts with the suppliers who can provide the terms and conditions in clear manner. The blockchain technology deals with the supply administration tools which will keep track of the details ranging from the initiation of the order by customers to shipment details. This will leads to the transparency within the supply chain and permits all users to acquire the legitimate real-time information at anywhere and anytime. Conclusion: By concerning the role of drone technology in DHL organization under logistics industry, the strength and weakness of DHL are analyzed. The strengths of DHL include consumer satisfaction, green program, etc. The weaknesses include price, accountability in insurance, etc. The opportunities provided by DHL comprise collaboration development, creativity, and imposing potential threats to the competitors. The advantages and opportunities offered by DHL are considered as the DHLs competitive strengths, while the faults and imposed threats are the DHLs competitive weakness which is required to be settled. References: Ahmed, P.K Rafiq, M. (2003). Internal market issues and challenges. European Journal of Marketing, 37(9), 1177-1186. Bergman, B Klefsj, B. (2010). Quality from customer needs to customer satisfaction. Studentlitterature AB, Lund, Sweden. Doyle, P Wong, V. (1998). Marketing and competitive performance: an empirical study. European Journal of Marketing, 32(556), 514-535. Grnroos,C. (2000). Service Management and Marketing: A Customer Relationship Management Approach. Wiley, Chichester. Lieb, R. C. (2005). The 3PL industry : where it's been, where it's going. Supply chain management review, 9(6), 20-27. Lieb,K.J Lieb, R.C. (2010). Environmental sustainability in the third-party logistics (3PL) industry. International Journal of Physical Distribution Logistics Management, 40(7), 524 533. Nwokah, N.G. (2009). Customer-focus, competitor-focus and marketing performance. Measuring business excellence, 13(3), 20-28.