Marketing and Different Vendors Essay

Having multi-vendor partnerships has its advantages and disadvantages. In the long run, supporting such a partnership would be difficult to maintain. Here are some of the concerns: * Change: Hardware and software requires constant upgrades to keep up with the technology changes. Changes in systems from multiple vendors can cause integration problems and requires a rigid process of testing and configuration. * Knowledge: IT staff must be well-trained in all the systems of the multi-vendor environment. Without a good IT support, the harder it is to find the source of the problem, and the longer it takes for them to resolve it. * Communication: In-house IT staff may have all the knowledge on the systems in the multi-vendor environment, but sometimes support from the vendors is required. In such cases, a support engineer is required to communicate with other support engineer, and it would be easier if it is done within the organization, but this is not usually the case. . Focusing IT on top line requires bringing in revenue for the company by increasing sales, whereas focusing IT on the bottom line requires bringing the cost down by reducing on operating cost. Focusing IT on the top line is more challenging because IT is not able to control who and when someone will actually buy the products and services. On the other hand, focusing IT on the bottom line can be predictable as there are sets of parameters within he organization that can be controlled, for example, reducing the number of employees. 3. Some ways for IT to bring in revenue is by increasing the number of customers and retaining customers. To increase the number of customers, IT systems such as online marketing tools can help to generate sales leads and increase customer awareness by sending out emails or direct mailers to potential customers. Such tools can help in segmenting customer profiles and evaluate the performance of the marketing campaign.