Automating information processes in marketing
In the 21st century, a breakthrough in many industries will undoubtedly be the automation of information processes in marketing, as well as the introduction of artificial intelligence in industry. On the other hand, the complete informatization of all spheres of society undoubtedly changes the role of information and information technologies in the social and economic development of many enterprises and companies. The level of economic and social development of enterprises and companies depends on the size and quality of the use of information technology in the professional activities of specialists and managers at all levels of management.
Therefore, regarding the strategic development of the company, the problems of training and developing qualified specialists in the field of marketing activities have a special place. In turn, such specialists should be able to work with developed informatization — the saturation of both the production and non-production spheres with colossal flows of information. Currently, in business and marketing, the problems associated with the collection, storage, search, dissemination, and use of information are vital.
Marketing is one of the fastest developing sectors in terms of information processing and technologies, since the automation of information processes in this area in the conditions of intensive growth of market relations is a factor in staying strategically competitive.
Only the most innovative information technologies make it possible to almost instantly connect to electronic arrays, receive all important information, and use it for analysis, forecasting, and making managerial decisions in various areas. These include business processes, entrepreneurship, and marketing. Knowledge and tools of specialists and managers in the fields of marketing, management, finance, and information technology are the main requirements in the organization of intra-production and market relations.
Thus, the increase in labor productivity, which takes into account informatization in the field of marketing and finance, is carried out based on a cost-performance ratio, as well as the professionalism of managers and leaders at all levels of management. One study examines the systematization of the creation of information technologies in the field of marketing activities, as well as the processes of modeling and designing information processing systems with automation for solving the problems of marketing activities of the Ford Motor Company and JSC AvtoVAZ.
In recent years, the need for developing an automated marketing and economic system has been growing rapidly. Such developments are accompanied by high-quality design and the implementation of information technology products based on the use of modern computers and networks. On the other hand, communication and information technologies have reached a higher, more innovative level, which allows for solving complex economic, organizational, and other tasks at the company level without significant cost or need for capital.
At present, information covers all areas of economic interest and production, provides management at all levels with a trouble-free control mechanism with the correct setting of tasks, and a software and hardware tool for solving them. Today, in market conditions, the most urgent problem for identifying the positive results of any company is to minimize the time between the performance of production and business activities and its information output for making management decisions.
This problem is solved by the introduction of innovative information technologies. Firstly, the use of special software for identifying, processing data, obtaining analytical information about the state of sales, the situation on the sales markets is the basis of marketing activities (that is, the efficiency of the company) and enterprises and firms producing high-tech products depend on it.
Secondly, in the future, as innovative equipment is introduced into domestic production, companies will demand both complex automated production control systems and process design systems. At present, the need for telecommunications and connections for many companies is becoming more and more important.
Finally, the processes of informatization are influenced by internal factors, such as the intensive development of the industry by the information flow, the development and implementation of software technologies into a type of business process, the formation of the domestic computer market, thanks to the availability of innovative technology and software as products.
Today, all production units of the Ford Motor Company and JSC AvtoVAZ are computerized and use innovative information technologies that allow rationalizing and optimizing the management function in marketing using innovative tools, collecting, transmitting information, and increasing its predictive capabilities, allowing for making quick decisions.
At present, all marketing managers and heads of production departments can quickly get complete information about products, demand for products, and prices for them — all right at their fingertips. Such changes in the planning and organization of managerial work is due to a significant change in the technology used.
Recently, thanks to the introduction of innovative technology into production, such elements of the production process as automation of information flows, the use of economic and mathematical methods (EMM) of data processing, and the introduction of databases into practice have adopted completely new, specific ways of forming and preparing management decisions. Among the automobile companies of the USA “Ford Motor Company” and the Russian Federation’s JSC “AvtoVAZ” have a long history of using complex information systems.
Such a system can be represented as a set of elements connected with both each other and with the external environment, the functioning of which is aimed at achieving a strategic goal and a positive result.
Therefore, based on this, we can conclude that almost every organization (as a part or whole) can be considered as an open system, striving to achieve its goal in its functioning. In the conditions of the functioning of a buyers’ market, the company’s marketing can be considered as a complex system that implements a set of measures to meet consumer demand for products through exchange. In turn, the complexity of the system depends on many elements and factors, their structural interaction, and on the complexity of internal and external relations and dynamism.
The marketing services of the Ford Motor Company and JSC AvtoVAZ are examples of such elements that implement complex internal and external communications. The activity of these services ensures the adequate study of the market situation and analysis of demand and sales of products, ensuring the competitiveness of products and meeting consumer demand. Management is the most important function in any industry. Without it, the purposeful activity of the socio-economic, organizational, production, and logistics systems of the Ford Motor Company and JSC AvtoVAZ is unthinkable.
This is associated with the exchange of information between the elements of the system, as well as with the environment. The management process allows for obtaining information about the state and results of the system, as well as ensuring the implementation of management decisions. Therefore, the management systems of the Ford Motor Company and JSC AvtoVAZ, as production and economic objects, must comply with their marketing information systems.
The totality of internal and external flows of direct and feedback information communication of the company, methods, tools, and specialists involved in the process of processing information and developing management decisions forms an automated marketing information system (AMIS).
This system allows for serving personnel with information and performs technological functions for the accumulation, storage, transmission, and processing of information. This system is formed and operates according to the regulations, certain methods, and management structure adopted in a company, and can implement the strategic goals and objectives facing it.
Today, an in-depth study of information processes in a company is necessary to understand the use of technical means of obtaining the necessary information in the course of monitoring a company’s activities, collecting data, registering it, and transmitting it through communication channels. In a company, along with the creation of appropriate control algorithms, to process significant amounts of various information, effective control actions are also needed.
Therefore, it was required to develop automated marketing information systems (AMIS) for managing a company’s activities.
We represent automation as a set of measures and actions of an organizational, technical, and socio-economic nature, which allows to reduce the degree of personnel participation in the implementation of a particular function of the production process and the management process.
So, based on the above, AMIS can be imagined as a human-machine system with automated technology for obtaining information about the results of activities, allowing to serve managers, managers, and specialists, as well as for optimizing the management process in all areas of production activities.
AMIS make it possible to provide multi-variant calculations, as well as to make rational management decisions. In addition, it helps to carry out comprehensive accounting and economic analyses and to achieve the necessary efficiency of information used in management.
From the point of view of the functions performed and technology, AMIS can consist of several subsystems. From the point of view of technology, we can single out the management apparatus, marketing information, methods, and means of its technological processing. The remaining subsystems form an automated information technology for data processing (AIT).
AIT is a set of methods and means for implementing various operations of searching, collecting, transmitting, processing and protecting information necessary for solving management problems based on the use of innovative software using computer technology.
The main functions of AIT allow you to determine its structure, which includes the collection and registration of information, the processing, storage, and transmission of data, and the results of the calculations obtained to consumers of information.
The main components of an AIT structure are collection and information. In different industries this happens differently. For example, in the automated management processes of the Ford Motor Company and AvtoVAZ JSC, the procedure proceeds with some complexity due to the primary accounting information of each model of product that reflects production activities. In the bodies of marketing, economic, and financial activities, such a procedure is less complicated, since only monetary resources are processed.
As noted above, one important point in this case is the timeliness and completeness of the primary information, because collection and reception of information is carried out when performing various production operations when, for example, receiving and dispensing necessary components, components for main production, receiving finished products, and for when conducting financial and monetary transactions with various organizations.
Today, the provision of instrumental and technical means for the design of automated technologies is rapidly developing. Such new technologies make it possible to implement the process of operational decision-making. Thus, an automated marketing information system can be represented as a set of software modules and an information database necessary for making marketing decisions in a company.
At the same time, the main tasks of this system can be distinguished: forecasting consumer demand, pricing, optimizing the range of products, choosing methods for their promotion and delivery, and analyzing the external environment.
Ensuring the competitiveness of a company requires the fulfillment of certain requirements and the solution of the practical problems of marketing at the microeconomic level. In this regard, it is required to develop a methodology for microeconomic end-to-end market modeling, designed to link the information of financial and product markets within a single organizational and marketing system.
Thus, the functioning of an automated system of end-to-end market modeling, in conditions of economic instability, would be beneficial. This is because it allows you to transfer the automatic distribution of resources when demand for products decreases, to assign affordable prices for products, and to streamline and build the most expedient market activity of the company. At the same time, the competitiveness of the system as a whole can be ensured through optimal coordinated management, and the stability indicators of the company’s production and financial system can be improved.
