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Who was Joeseph Alois Schumpeter? And what the hell has he got to do with internet marketing?

Joeseph Alois Schumpeter, was born in Moravia in present day Czech Republic, he later became an american citizen. An ecconomist and potitical scientist, who tried to integrate sociological understanding into his ecconomic theories. He saw innovation as fundamental to the entreprenurial process of wealth creation and is one of the most influencial ecconomist of the first half of the 20th centruary.

He produced two major strands in his work and you can apply either to your business today.

Schumpeter I

In his earlier writings mostly termed Schumpeter I, there is the idea of the entrepreneur as the heart of the business. Idea generation is the birth-place of many great new products. Without an idea we wouldn’t have a keyboard to type the article on etc etc.. Within the Schumeter I approach the role of the individual is of absolute importance. Whithin this model for successful new product generation and innovation you would have to be the entrepreneur yourself.  If this is your path then I highly recommend you take Russell Brunsons training on offer at the contest.

The world however got smaller when the size of corporations grew and with this Schumpeter produced a second model of innovation which is generally termed the Schumpeter II model.

Schumpeter II

This second theory of innovation has been changed radically because of the size and overlap of industries, things being more interconnected and the flow of information being much faster. It is easy these days to scale something to fit a niche to rebrand something alter some content and pass it off as your own. Even collaborate on multiple tasks with multiple people accross many geographies involving multiple media and many timeframes. Check out Soren’s eBook and start producing your own innovations based from a quality platform.

What does the shorter new product cycle and drive towards global economy mean for managers and individuals in an international business environment? Developments will be trace dsimplistically in terms of opportunities and threats.

What are the implications of a global marketplace?

Globalisation ensures specialisation in production of goods and services as more competition ensures unique needs are catered for. – “A good thing?”.

There will be an increase in the super rich and the divide will increase daily between the wealthiest and the poorest. There are billionaires created every day in this marketplace FACT. – “A bad thing?”.

What are the opportunities that international business can take advantage of?

Speed of communication – (Information can be sent with the push of a button from anywhere and be received in seconds. A product launch can be emailed to millions of email addresses with the click of a button.)

Automation – Product may be mass produced at reduced cost per unit. Sales processes can be automated scripted from a call centre. Sales can be automated your web presence can be your 24 hr sales team. (Customer Services, R&D can be automated based on customer feedback depending on your website architecture.)

Centralisation – Can reap economies of scale not only on production but on human resources, a central legal and financial unit would also be sensible options to have on board. Massive cost savings can be had and everything here can be scaled.

Product Lifetime Extension – A re-launch of a mature product in a less developed environment can breed new life and sales. A change of package or presentation can do the same. Do you sell an ebook online? Get it turned into an audio an sell it pre-loaded on an mp3 player on ebay.

Some threats posed by the increase in globalisation

Technology becomes more available - Michael Porter has mentioned five forces in a competitive environment. With the rise of the internet then each individual will face an increase in all five namely
New Potential Entrants
Increased Customer Choice
More Power to existing suppliers
Threat of substitution of product increases
Rivalry among competitors in the marketplace.

Socio-Cultural issues – often called “psychic distance” there are barriers created by cultural disparities between the two countries, problems arise due to differences in social perspectives, attitudes and language. ( It would be wise for international marketers to target countries that are psychically similar to begin launching new products into.)

Some examples of translation issues

A Thai Dry Cleaners – “Drop your trousers here for best results.”
A Spanish Sports shop – “The athletes foot.”

Even for the giants

Come alive with Pepsi – translated “Rise from the grave with Pepsi” :happened in Germany.

Political/Legal – An understanding of the general attitudes of foreign governments to imports and foreign direct investment will be extra specially important. ( Some legal issues will be involved with certain types of MLM type organisations as they are deemed pyramid and illegal.)

The Chinese governments censorship of information has been a barrier to the early entry of Google into that country.

Understanding the processes is key online there are many - How I Quadrupled My Blog’s Traffic In 3 Months Is an awesome post.

What are the strategy issues involved in a product launch?

This begs the question what is a strategy and there are plenty of different versions of this. Here’s a few for you to muse over while we look at some strategies involved in product launches.

“Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through it’s configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and stakeholder expectations.” Johnson

“course of action for achieveing an organisation’s objectives.” De Witt & Meyer

“Goal-directed descisions and actions in which it’s capabilities and resources are matched with the opportunities and threats in the external environment.” Coulter

“Strategy of a corporation is a comprehensive plan stating how the company will achieve it’s mission and objectives.” Hunger & Whellen

It is not a short term aim. This is a massive issue that most one man bands cannot fathom when they come online, when they purchase their product and it doesn’t change their lives in a month they become disheartened with marketing and they believe that the only successful strategy is to be a conman and cheat their way to riches like they think the over hyped product they purchased promised them.

Strategy depends on the competitive environment.

This requires an ongoing undestaning of the marketplace you exist within it’s customers as well as consumers. Existing competitive products and potential new entrants into the same marketplace. With regards these points why would anyone want to enter the affiliate marketing for marketers market place?

Opportunities

There is a never ending stream of new customers entering this marketplace. More of the world is coming online every day and the speed and increase of quality connections is growing every day.

The competing products in this marketplace can be improved upon. Even the very good ones you can add your input and offer support to the product that some other product owners cannot match if anyone has downloaded Soren’s internet marketing success formula. Then leave me a comment on that post with anything else you require clafification off.

There will always be a new medium that you can promote your business through if you watch the market leaders and general super-affiliates then you can get a handle on what is new and working before it becomes saturated and your voice is one of many. Become a first mover and you will be noticed and gain presence.

Threats

Monetisation of leads and customers is becoming harder. There are many reasons for this a major one has been the increase in jv giveaways in our industry. Customers are expecting things free. See my previous post a change in internet marketing
Change in technologies if you are not looking at audio and video then you are already behind the times, this is also an opportunity if you embrace the moment.

For your own product launch
consider if?

1. You can compete on price and still offer value.
2. Are you looking to dominate a market or trying to block a competitors domination.
3. Is a prelude to a bigger and better offer.
4. Is it easily copied - People will rip you off.

If after you have looked at the four above then you must choose whether there is a need for what you have to offer and how it relates to your long term plans and goals.

Related Issues from this post

Kansas Reflections - A reflection on Problem-solving vs Decision-making
WarHistorian.org - Strategic Blogging
MiXT Media - 10 Strategic Communications Insights–from the Government, no less