Competitive Intelligence and Research Assignment Proposal

Competitive Intelligence and Assignment - Research Proposal Example The proliferation of the social media has created a potential for investors to roll out their products to the customers worldwide with higher efficiency. However, this approach has its own limitations as organizations raise question as to whether social media is an adequate platform for organizations to build strong customer relationship. For a long period now, the literature concerning the relationship between customer relationship and an efficient online presence has increased, yet it has not yet answered the question of whether organizations should focus on this business option. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether social networking based marketing helps a business to build a positive customer relationship with its customers. This research will employ a deductive approach to identify the merits of using social media for marketing in the modern business environment (Mehrdad & Seyedeh, 2013). A qualitative approach will be used to identify the various benefits and challenges of marketing on social media and to draw the relationship between customer relationship and the online strategy. The main focus of the research will be to evaluate how the social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype affects aspects of customer loyalty within any particular market. The research intends to close the literature gap that exists concerning social media advertisement and to end the controversy that has limited organization indulgence in social media advertisement. The findings of this research will help organizations from across the world to underst and the value and the limitations of focussing on social media marketing, and to identify strategies that they can use to optimize customer relationship building. In the recent past, business researchers have engaged in research to investigate the impact of social media advertisement and the

Identify and critically assess the principles which underpin the EU Essay

Identify and critically assess the principles which underpin the EU Public Procurement - Essay Example Framework Procurement can be defined as â€Å"the purchase of commodities, goods, works or services by public administrators†.1 A public administrator in the EU Law includes state, government, association governed by public law and similar bodies. Collectively, public procurement accounts for 13.5% of the European Union’s GDP.2 This therefore means that the authorities have a duty to provide a legally acceptable set of guidelines that promotes the European Union’s single market system and also prevents leakages and unfair procurement practices and corruption. However, some challenges in the EU Procurement Laws do not enable the EU Procurement system to achieve its objectives. In the UK, the threshold for the observance of EU Public Procurement Law is ?100,000 for government supplies and ?4 million for works and services.3 These thresholds are really high. This gives room for various forms of manipulation. A public institution that desires to be mischievous is lik ely to buy goods and services in lower amounts so that they will not be required to follow the EU Procurement Rules. This gives room for easy evasion and manipulation. Reasons for the EU Public Procurement Laws The first reason why the EU Public Procurement Law was enacted was that the European Union has laws that guarantee the freedom of movement, person, capital and services across borders so nations and governments should not have public procurement systems that discriminate against people from other EU nations.4 Also, non-tariff protection exists for all EU businesses in the transfer of their goods and services across the various borders.5 The EU Procurement Law avoids amongst other things, discrimination against efficient companies by ensuring the fair treatment of all potential bidders for a public supply tenders across the EU. The extent to which the procurement law has protected non-national businesses in bids and tender is quite questionable. This is because with higher tra nsportation costs and diversity issues, it is often common for public institutions to choose local suppliers and not external suppliers. In summary, the EU Procurement Laws state that public institutions should honour three things in their operations.6 The are: 1. They must treat a business and person of other EU nationality fairly7 2. No discrimination, there should be equality 3. There should be transparency in bidding and tender selection process. However, with the uneven trends of development in the EU, there are cases when there is the need for positive discrimination to help some national businesses to grow by supplying to public institutions in the country. Adhering strictly to the public procurement framework can only cause some local businesses in smaller nations like Portugal and Latvia to collapse in the face of other richer businesses from more powerful nations like Germany, France and Britain. Overview of Underpinning Principles The main areas and aspects of the EU Publ ic Procurement policy include transparency, publicity, objectivity, accountability, non-discrimination and flexibility/redress.