Business relationships are of a great importance in industrial markets and this phenomenon has been studied extensively. As a crucial condition for an effective operation of business relationships, numerous studies stress out the importance of a good communication between actors, especially today in the age of globalization and internationalization of businesses.

All the studies emphasize that high quality communication, in terms of frequency and richness of information is necessary for developing strong relationships between buyers and suppliers. The development of successful business relationships, which is very critical in business-to-business marketing, greatly depends on the quality and quantity of information exchange.

During the last decade, the internet has gained attention in a number of studies due to its influence on organizations’ communication and business. These studies clearly indicate that the usage of the internet in communication contributes to the enhancement of business relationships. We found that the usage of the internet in communication between suppliers and buyers resulted with increased overall communication in relationships.

The usage of the internet leads to improved quality of communication in a relationship. Hence, since quality of communication affects quality of a relationship, it can be argued that the usage of the internet in communication enhances relationship quality. Moreover increased communication between organizations strengthens their relationship and boosts efficiency. While a number of studies emphasize that, in business relationships, person-to-person communication is of vital importance, recent studies indicate that internet -based channels are becoming the basis of many new relationships. As a result, comparison of the internet with face-to-face contacts has been discussed greatly concluding that the internet is not a substitute for the face-to-face communication but rather a complement. In addition face-to-face communication is a crucial prerequisite for the successful usage of the electronic communication media.

However, although unquestionably the internet is not a replacement for the face-to-face communication, its increased usage in a business communication calls for an additional scientific attention. The area of the internet has been studied extensively in the marketing literature and several groups of studies can be identified. One group of studies deals with an impact of the internet on the marketing discipline in general. Also, an area of interest was internet as a relationship-marketing tool. Further, in the business-to-business setting specifically, a group of studies examines an impact of the internet on business-to-business marketing and categorization of business-to-business websites. Additionally, a group of studies focuses on the usefulness and the frequency of the usage of the internet in the B-to-B context.

Lately, an increasing number of studies deal with an impact of the internet on business-to-business relationship components, such as trust, commitment and satisfaction. However, although the usage of the internet in business has evidently stimulated many studies, certain gaps in the research can be identified. These gaps point towards a lack of the research that explores the characteristics of internet communication throughout the relationship development process.

In general, the field of internet communication demands more research, especially since it is characterized by great changes and developments. Next, majority of studies on the internet in business-to-business context focuses merely on a process of purchasing, but not on a process of a relationship development and on stages through which this process evolves.

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Be linked or be lost or be on the Web or be out of business would have been an over the top statement in 1995, even for me. Today, it’s right on the mark. Think about how well you could compete today without a fax machine or voice mail. Your company would be hurting. The Internet was enjoying the spotlight in 1995 and not participating was to hide one’s head in the sand. It would be like having a booth at a major trade show in your industry — you may not receive millions of leads or made thousands of sales, but not participating would make your company conspicuous by its absence. Yesterday, we began to see changes in the landscape.

You have no Web site, what you mean your information is not available electronically? I’ve already downloaded product information from your competitor.” Today, it’s hard to justify doing business with a company that isn’t aggressively using the Web to recreate itself. There’s no time to decide if the Web site you put up a couple of years ago might be worth serious investment. We’re past that. With its multimedia capabilities, the World Wide Web captured the imagination of computer users everywhere, and corporate marketers rose to the challenge.

Today, the marketing department is teaming with the information systems people and together they are leading the company into a whole new era. But realize that with the wholesale reduction in the cost of communication and the speed at which global commerce is creating new ways of doing business, the word revolution isn’t hype anymore. Developing a successful internet marketing strategy is an essential part of your online success. In order to succeed, you must develop and implement a strategic plan that includes all of the following:

A great product, a website specifically designed to sell and a killer marketing strategy. Each step plays an important role in your overall strategy and must be developed to its fullest potential. If even one step fails, your chances of success will be minimal. Your first step will be to develop a great product. You’re probably thinking that’s easier said than done, but it’s really not. The absolute best product is one that you can develop you and deliver over the Internet.

With today’s technology, there is absolutely no reason why you can’t create your own product. The knowledge you have within your own mind is extremely valuable. Everybody is good at something, has a special talent or some specialized knowledge. Use this knowledge to create a product. The key to developing a great product is exclusiveness. Your product should be unique and not be in competition with hundreds of other similar products. You must give your potential customers exactly what they want. Develop a high-quality product that fills a void to increase your chance of success. Another consideration of great importance is your target market. Keep in mind, the Internet is a global marketplace. Develop a product with a large geographic target and a wide appeal. A great product will fulfill a need or desire and provide instant gratification.

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Incorporated or Integrated marketing is much and little depending on one’s perspective. There are those who believe it refers to maximizing a marketing-mix (e.g., integrated media) brought to bear on a targeted audience in support of a product or service being offered in the marketplace. Integrated marketing communications (IMC) extends beyond this in that it assumes the perspective of the customer or prospect in developing marketing communications. It takes into account controlled and uncontrolled communications, outgoing messages as well as customer- or prospect-initiated communications (e.g., how the telephone is answered in your office is a form of communications). It is a bit more complicated than this but not much.

As to your question regarding how using it would be beneficial to build your staffing client base, I believe it would be very beneficial. IMC requires you to genuinely understand your customers and prospects, including understanding their needs regarding staffing, understanding how, when, and where they are most receptive to communicated messages, and understanding how to foster mutually beneficial ongoing conversations.

The emphasis on marketplace conversations, of course, encourages the use of interactive media, including the Internet. Another simple way to look at integrated marketing is to think about your customer (your target, ideal customer) and analyze all media that you’ll need to use in order to reach him/her with your message.

Incorporated or Integrated marketing also deals with managing those media so that you coordinate activities that will generate a higher impact when combined. Different customers will require a combination of different media. In your case, you need to come up with the ideal combination (radio, TV, newspaper, etc.) that your budget allows and draw up a plan to use them in the most effective way possible. This is particularly so with integrated marketing communications (IMC) which extends far beyond the mere bundling of media for synergy’s sake. As one of the key premises of IMC is “data-driven, purposeful dialogue with customers, prospects and stakeholders,” it would seem positioned to avoid the potential failures of mere “integrated marketing” as identified in the article you recommend, including incorrect strategic assumptions, poor communication, and inferior tactical execution. If you are having meaningful and mutually beneficial marketplace conversations with customers and prospects, there should be no incorrect assumptions, poor communications, or problems with tactical execution.

It would seem to be in its ability to identify the pitfalls in misunderstanding the potential of integrated marketing when the focus continues to be on marketing as something done to customers rather than with customers at a time when consumers are increasingly insisting on being co-creators of value in the marketplace. IMC presents the concept of integrated philosophy/way of thinking which governs all the business tactics of communication (advertising, sales promotion, public relations).

In other words, all the approaches in order to communicate a message whether this is via advertising, or sales promotion or public relations, must rely on the same axis of communication. Starting from the needs of the customer, all the different actions of creating and implementing the communication strategy are harmonized under the same concept (with a unified voice, unified message), in this way the final consumer will have a unified perception for the product or service and will be motivated to take action (trial or re-buy of the product) in simple words, IMC means exploiting all the means to promote a product from formal advertising to arranging interviews and press conferences in order to activate positive publicity! IMC may even include handing out leaflets or exploiting word of mouth.

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