| dc.description.abstract | It is crucial that small and medium sized businesses in the ICT sector adopt strategies to
enable them to exploit, capitalise upon, and respond to the digital transformation. SMEs
will need to undergo profound and continuous changes, developing more strategic
focused marketing thinking and business models to enable or find new markets while
attaining and retaining competitive advantage.
SMEs have to fulfil the same marketing tasks as large companies, but under conditions
characterised by smaller sales volumes and small market niches. The major difference for
SMEs relates to the lower availability of resources, especially financial and human
resources. This constraint makes it even more important to define an appropriate
marketing strategy. SMEs need to adopt marketing strategies that build on their main
advantages such as close proximity to customers, operational flexibility, flat hierarchies,
short decision-making paths and rapid reaction times. The researcher addresses the
research question: ‘How should Swiss SMEs in the ICT sector define their marketing
strategy to benefit from digitalisation?’ by adopting a constructivist philosophy utilising
a qualitative approach. Although this has been generally researched for large enterprises,
SMEs with their specific characteristics should also be accounted for. A conceptual
framework was formulated to inform the development of a marketing strategy for SMEs
in the digital context. The research employed a mono methodological research design
involving 14 case studies, conducted across businesses that have successfully transformed
for the digital age. One marketing expert and two marketing agencies were additionally
considered to strengthen the credibility and plausibility of the case studies.
The findings indicate that changes in the market situation and the rapid evolution of
various modern media channels require new levels of personalisation and targeted
campaigns that drive engagement and brand loyalty. The study contributes to the existing
theoretical body by arguing that the current view of marketing strategy in the digital era
needs to be reformed to emphasise on the customer journey and to add data-driven
elements to the mix using key digital marketing metrics. Further, the study suggests that
ICT SMEs can improve customer experience and gain competitive advantage by
designing new customer touchpoints through content. The study makes a practical
contribution by proposing a marketing strategy canvas with eleven dimensions as a tool
to help SMEs strategise digitisation and marketing strategy. | en |
