TEchNOLOGy TRaNSFER MODEL - Javna agencija

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Product and Service Dissemination
The marketing plan consists of six important elements
• Marketing objectives (mission, vision, sales goals, market share…)
•T arget customer segments (demographic, psychographic, industries…)
• Market research and strategies (customer‘s preferences, competitors, sales forecast, strategy…)
• Product / service offering description and the focus of creating a relevant competitive advantage (primary attributes, benefit,
product positioning)
• Marketing mix (4 or 7 or 8 P‘s)
• Customer Relationship Management (acquisition, satisfaction, retention…)
But in the field of innovation marketing the traditional marketing programs may fail because of the assumption, that customers
understand the usefulness of products and services and know how to evaluate its features.
• Marketing should integrate the „education“ of customers
• Understanding the new need / the concept of the product
• Understanding the different types of products / services
• Giving evidence that you are offering the best solution
Marketing of new products and services is in general more difficult than marketing of existing, known products with a more or
less established circle of customers. The customer of an innovative product has to be motivated to adopt this novelty.
9.4 The definition of dissemination
Dissemination is generally seen as a measure, through which the results are brought into the awareness of certain target groups.
In this case, dissemination (diffusion) refers to a special communication process, which spreads information to the members of a
community. Dissemination is expressly limited to concern those messages only, which contain new ideas, whereas communication
research concerns all kinds of communication (Suurla & Markkula, 1999).
The purpose of dissemination is to influence people’s behavior, so that they will adopt or at least become aware of a new idea,
product or service, which is being disseminated. The use of various kinds of methods supporting each other is important when
planning dissemination. Research results show, that although the communication media are the best channels to introduce innovations,
the change of attitude required for their adoption is most effectively achieved through interaction between people (Rogers
& Shoemaker, 1971). The interesting aspect of dissemination is the very interdisciplinary aspect of this field of science. It combines
topics from psychology (human behavior), sociology (inter personal and inter group behavior), education (the share of knowledge),
economies (know how of market forces, pricing strategies, business models), communication theory (effects of mass media, mass
communication and new media) and many other sciences.
9.5 The process of innovation / technology management
In companies dealing with new technologies and innovation the innovation process in its most typical form is described by the
steps: analysis, planning, developing, testing, integration and marketing.
Sadly this process – from a technical viewpoint regarding the development of new products and solutions - is frequently linked to
the classical sales process only at the very end. Marketing, respectively dissemination is reduced to the task of simply selling the
new development and innovation.
Figure 2: The Process of Technology Management
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