Emerging Trends in Business Power

Different businesses have diverse sources of power that determine their goal achievement, sustainability and eventual success. There are multiple factors that influence this power is held by individual business entities (Steiner & Steiner, 2009). Business power can basically be defined as the ability to influence people and available resources towards meeting organizational goals and objectives (Steiner & Steiner, 2009). This is deemed necessary especially, in a competitive environment where individual ventures seek to achieve sustainability in the long term. Theoretically, the conventional forms of power exhibited by businesses are reward power, referent power, legitimate power, expert power, and coercive power (Johnson, 2011). The contemporary business environment is significantly volatile with new trends emerging and shaping how business dynamics interact (Stobart, 2016). New trends in business power are more diversified with technology playing a significant role when compared to the traditional forms of business power. Current trends are leaning towards acquisition of technology and the ability to use it to impact change in diverse aspects of business operations (Casado & Younas, 2015). Emerging trends in business power differ significantly from conventional forms in terms of scope, applicability, and innovation. The trends are also driven by consumer trends as well increasing global demand for innovative products that solve both new and existing problems (Casado & Younas, 2015). Conventional business power is more profit oriented, limited in scope, and people oriented (Casado & Younas, 2015). This paper will evaluate emerging trends in business power that are shaping the contemporary world of business, demonstrate how they differ from the conventional forms of business power, and outline the unique causes or driving forces behind them.

 

Review of Literature

In order to have an in depth foundation and understanding of business power and the dynamics around it, this section of the research will explore previous research findings and literature. According to Hacker and Pierson (2002), customers form a significant part of business power as they determine business operations and activities employed by business owners. Based on this perception, business power can be described as the ability to influence consumer behaviors using various strategies in a manner that results to specific actions that are beneficial for the business (Hacker & Pierson, 2002). In this regard, having business power that positively influences consumer behaviour is a desirable aspect for any business. According to Johnson (2016), businesses may exhibit power in the form of legitimate power, coercive power, expert power, referent, or reward power. These are the major forms of power; even though individuals’ businesses may develop unique powers based on their innovation and nature of business operations involved (Steiner & Steiner, 2009). Businesses remain in existence due to the purchasing behaviour of consumers. Business power in the scope of consumers therefore shows effective business leadership, which is critical for business growth and survival.

The degree of any form of power held by a business is influenced by the operational factors that interact around the business. These business factors also determine how individual businesses utilize this power to their advantage. Operational business factors can broadly be categorized into political factors, environmental factors and socioeconomic factors (Steiner & Steiner, 2009). They cut across generally in all businesses but differ in terms of specificity and scope for individuals’ businesses and industries. Individual businesses may also have other unique factors from other ventures.  Businesses may find their power in one of the factors or in a combination of several factors, with varying degrees of intensity and influence (Fuchs, 2007). With advanced technology and globalization, there are emerging trends that are having a significant effect on business power dynamics (Stobart, 2016). These trends are forming foundations for future business power and its impacts.

New trends in business power are mainly focused on delivering business superiority in an efficient manner that is cost effective, sustainable and appealing to the markets. Business intelligence is merging as one of the contemporary trend that is changing the business landscape and influencing the conventional forms of business power (Casado & Younas, 2015). Business superiority in the contemporary space is based on the ability to make innovative and accurate decisions that are guided by consideration of information that is scientifically analyzed and manipulated. Big data analytics and cloud services are also emerging trends that are compressively shaping the path to future sources of business power (Casado & Younas, 2015). Other trends include radical adjacency where businesses are innovatively diversifying into areas where they do not have current managerial experience. Emerging trends in business power seem to be shifting from being people oriented to technology oriented.

Conventional business power is mainly people orientated and focuses on the ability to control business resources. It is less innovative and has a smaller scope of operation (Casado & Younas, 2015). Emerging trends in business power differ from traditional forms in the sense that they are futuristic and technologically oriented. They also differ in terms of innovation as they seek creative ways of doing things such as countering competition, appealing to consumers and introducing new products (Casado & Younas, 2015). The new trends also differ in terms of scope of applicability, which in most cases is globally oriented other than regionally or nationally. The new trends in business power are driven by growing global markets, demand for new products, as well as intense competition in existing businesses. The main drivers of the emerging trends are consumer oriented forces that demand effective ways of solving new or existing problems (Casado & Younas, 2015).

Research Questions

This research will seek to answer the following research questions.

  1. What are the emerging trends in business power in the contemporary business world?
  2. How do emerging trends in business power differ from traditional forms of business power?
  3. What are the main causes of the new emerging trends in business power and how do these causes differ from traditional forms?
  4. What are the emerging political factors that influence business power?
  5. What are the emerging socio-economic factors that influence business power?

Methodology

The research methodology will follow a qualitative design where already published sources will be used. Journals, online publications, and books will be used as the sources of data for the study. The methodology will focus specifically on literature covering business power, business growth and sustainability. Inclusion criteria will be formulated and used to select credible sources in order to ensure that only relevant information will be used to draw reliable and accurate conclusions.

Emerging Trends in Business Power in The Contemporary Business World

Significant technological trends in big data systems and models have emerged in the recent past. Compared to various classical databases, it can be noted that Big Data applications are quite demanding when it comes to matters concerning operational costs, concurrency, economy of storage, efficiency, and access requirements (Casado & Younas, 2015). Such needs have been met by the emergence of new databases that are quite different from traditional databases. For instance, after Amazon faced growth challenges in their data in 2007, they developed the dynamo is a No SQL database (Casado & Younas, 2015). The other significant development happened to Google in 2008 where they formed the BigTable which is a new NOSQL data store (Casado & Younas, 2015). Both companies had faced the same problem which made them focus on bulk processing. The Dremel technology was published in 2011, which provides interactive, scalable ad-hoc query system with a low latency in terms of Big Data sets (Casado & Younas, 2015). Dremel inspires Apache Drill and complements BigTable storage systems. The NoSQL databases offer good horizontal scalability for database operations that may be distributed over several servers. It is important to note that traditional SQL databases have little ability to do horizontal scaling. An important feature of the NoSQL system is partitioning data in several servers (Casado & Younas, 2015). As a result, they are able to support different write and read operations.

Expanding automation is an important emerging business trend. Baltzan (2012) opines that governments, organizations, and companies have different systems that automate different tasks such as supply chain technologies, forecasting, and management of customer relationship, customer and product databases, and resource planning. With time, such systems have become interconnected via standards for representing business processes and exchanging data in bytes and bits. In addition, information is combined in different ways to automate various activities, from customer service to inventory management (Baltzan, 2012). According to van der Aalst (2013), by linking and leveraging systems to enable automation of processes for answering questions from customers, the cost of serving them has significantly reduced. It also leads to increased loyalty and satisfaction. Consequently, large companies such as Metro and Carrefour have adopted digital-tagging technologies to automate inventory and supply chain management (van der Aalst, 2013). Thus, expansion of the automation process has not just focused on IT department, but has transcended to organizational levels and beyond.

Unbundling delivery from production is also quite effective. This technology helps different companies to apply fixed assets by disaggregating different monolithic systems into components that can be reused (Baldwin, 2011). Communications and information technologies handle the critical metering to new models, enabling effective capacity planning and allocation systems. For instance, Amazon.com expands its business models to allow retailers to use its distribution and logistics services (Baldwin, 2011). Independent software are also given an opportunity to buy processing power. Another good example is the mobile virtual-network that provides wireless services without necessarily having a network infrastructure (Baldwin, 2011). Thus, unbundling helps remove the complex structures involved in communication between departments and branches.

Technology now helps managers to exploit large amounts of data to make wise decisions and develop ways that create new business models and competitive advantages. Baltzan (2012) states that the technology helps to create insight for predictive markets, decision making, processing, and ubiquitous processes that are based on technologies, which promote aggregation. Thus, enhancing these capabilities works to create a network between customers and business by simplifying marketing and purchase of products.

Additionally, social networks continue to be crucial tools in advertising products. Tuten and Solomon (2014) posit that social platforms such as Face book, LinkedIn, and Twitter enable the selling of items with original brand content. Through such networks, businesses expand and deepen their messages so that they may influence people to buy their products. Businesses have grown significantly due to increased advertisements in social media. The videos and blog posts about items create a sense of excitement and authenticity among consumers (Tuten & Solomon, 2014). As such, the growing social media presence for most companies has been due to the increased number of people in social networks and its low cost in marketing.

Differences between Emerging Trends in Business Power and Traditional Forms of Business Power

The use of traditional advertising forms has continued to reduce as more effective and modern alternatives come into play. Some of the traditional methods of non-digital marketing and advertising include radio advertisements, door-to-door sales, banner ads, television advertisements, print advertising, off-site signs, and billboards (Baltzan, 2012). Such old methods have been used for a long time. However, the expectations and needs of consumers have also evolved, thus leading to evolution of marketing, which has created an opportunity for new digital and media marketing methods.

New media of marketing is also a known as digital media, which mainly consists of online means or the internet. Such methods include social media, pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, email marketing, and search engine optimization (Baltzan, 2012). Over the last few years, new terms have been coined to describe both traditional and new media. Fo instance, outbound marketing has been a term used to refer to traditional advertising while inbound marketing refers to new media (Baltzan, 2012). Outbound marketing relies on messages that are sent to customers. On the contrary, inbound marketing is the type of marketing where consumers search for companies (Baltzan, 2012). In the past few years, it has been noted that outbound marketing has declined in popularity. Today, potential customers use channels such as social media, the internet, and websites to discuss and search various companies (Baltzan, 2012). After that, customers choose what advertisements they should ignore.

Traditional forms of business power were less productive than the current emerging methods. Zolt et al. (2011) state that most of the emerging business models make use of modern technology, thus, increasing the efficiency of operation. High productivity is also achieved due to effective methods of marketing and advertising. Traditional forms of marketing and advertising are slower than modern forms, thus, reaching fewer consumers.

In emerging models of business power, there are fewer employees than in traditional forms of business due to automation of operations. According to Everything et al. (2011), the work that was previously done by an employee is now done by the use of machines. Such machines also increase efficiency, which can explain the automaton in production of products for most companies. Some of the automated processes and activities include packaging, supplies, marketing, and surveillance, thus, reducing the work burden and the number of employees.

Causes of New Emerging Trends in Business

One of the main causes of emerging trends in business today is increasing the efficiency of operations due to high rates of competition. Kearney (2012) posits that the effective application of data is a vital basis of competition in the modern world. Most business owners derive insight from information so that they may make real time, better, and fact based decisions. The demand for depth of knowledge and skills has led to the growth of media platforms and big data tools. The organizations leading the change include big data from both outside and inside the enterprise. This also includes machine data, unstructured data, structured data, mobile data, and online data to provide a clear basis for predictive and statistical views as well as historical views (Kearney, 2012). Therefore, incorporation of big data analysis and new trends in operations has arose from the need to make better decisions that will enable companies to outshine their competitors.

Emerging business trends are mainly designed to improve how businesses compete. For instance, big data changes the way an organization operates and competes. Companies investing in data have an added advantage over competitors as digital channels and emerging technologies are developed because they offer better delivery and product acquisition mechanisms (Kearney, 2012). Such technologies are also designed to enable easier and faster analysis of data (Kearney, 2012). Traditional business forms were mainly developed to increase the efficiency of operations as opposed to emerging business forms, which are mainly developed to help business gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.

In the modern world, there is need to store and capture large amounts of data. In the past, most businesses did not have to store a lot of information as compared to the present times. According to Trimi and Berbegal-Mirabent (2012), new business models are emerging since there is need to store and capture large amounts of data at a fast rate. Big data technology is mainly designed to improve data storage, processing, and interpretation. Traditional business forms did not store their information in digital forms. Most analysis, data processing, and interpretation is mainly done manually (Trimi & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2012). In emerging trends of business forms, new ways of data storage and processing are developed due to increased use of digital methods of marketing and the internet.

Currently, technology increases the efficiency of services and also raises overall productivity. Most emerging trends are aimed at increasing the application of technology. There is need to understand the changing customer behavior and need. Companies are forced to have the ability to evolve their culture and to take maximum advantage of new technology. Enterprises also find the need to focus on ecosystem partners, workers, and consumers to accomplish a lot through the use of technology (Kearney, 2012). Companies also incorporate emerging technologies to create a culture that enables employees to view technology as something critical to enable them to continually learn and adapt, create changes, to create new solutions, and to cause changes to the status quo (Kearney, 2012). In essence, investing in new technology should not be seen as a costly venture but as an opportunity to better the process of decision making and increasing efficiency in business operations.

The Emerging Political Factors That Influence Business Power

The regulation of various issues such as taking over of organizations is an issue with protection and legislative control that is favored by political parties. Culpepper (2011) explains that changes in regulatory mechanisms as described in the book are not based on ideologies but on political salience. Culpepper (2011) also states that political salience is more important to businesses than the average voters. Political salience according is more important than other political issues. Culpepper says that politicians exert a lot of influence to businesses policies (Culpepper, 2011). Such business policies are based along ideological backgrounds.

When dealing with income taxation issues in a place with low political salience, then most business issues are made through ‘quiet politics.’ According to Culpepper (2011), when issues are referred to as having less political significance, corporate actors become determined to change policies. Such an area as described by Culpepper is corporate governance. Due to limited interest of the public in corporate governance issues, there develops corporate and corporation lobbying groups that cause a major influence over the corporate structure (Culpepper, 2011). As such, bodies gain expertise in their respective fields; the representatives of corporates are represented in political committees regarding corporate regulations.

On the other hand, political ideologies and political parties are not the reason for differences in corporate governance. Culpepper argues that the differences political powers influenced managerial objectives and business structures in the two countries. For instance, both Germany and France saw political parties take control but the legislative efforts on different hostile takeovers were different (Culpepper, 2011). The managers of German companies mainly concentrated on shareholding while those of France concentrated on international capital markets thus favoring business deconcentration. Consequently, German businesses lobbied on adoption of clauses that do not concentrate on shareholding while companies in France preferred on lobbying on clauses that favor shareholding. This is a good example of how businesses are affected by political powers. As a result of low political saliency of the issues involved in both countries, businesses achieved their objectives through informal mechanisms and formal mechanisms on the businesses’ structure (Culpepper, 2011). Examples of formal mechanisms include transposition of directives while those of informal mechanisms include internal preference on the company’s structure.

Protection against unwanted takeovers is formalized through legislation. Culpepper (2011) also notes that the occurrence is not a matter of corporatist coalition but as a result of low political saliency on issues regarding corporate control. The votes may be focused on various saliency issues such as immigration and taxation which affect businesses (Culpepper, 2011).  Taxation affects the prices of commodities, the types of businesses started in certain places, and the nature of businesses developed.

Emerging Socio-Economic Factors That Influence Business Power

Business can highly benefit if entrepreneurs understand the education and income of their consumers. Since such elements keep shifting, new market trends are observed. If competitors assume that the small groups of people in the society such as veterans, the underprivileged neighborhoods, and the physically challenged lack money and education, then other business can take advantage of the situation by concentrating on such people (Galvaan, 2012). Such groups if taken into consideration, may become quite significant to the economy.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation usually requires businesses to make contracts with the government so that they may meet specific socioeconomic guidelines; for example, fair hiring of individuals (Galvaan, 2012). They mostly require business to ensure that the minority in the society also get fair chances of getting employed. Minority owned businesses are now encouraged to make applications of various government contracts. Businesses that offer services to underprivileged people can now apply for contracts. The heads of minority-owned businesses get assistance from the Business Development Program, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the HUB Zone program (Galvaan, 2012).  Businesses owned by the minority can now get government funding and also get government contracts. Significant help is now available for socioeconomic groups that were previously underserved.

It is important to note that the countries that were previously disadvantaged are now trading partners of developed countries. It, therefore, means that small businesses have the ability to trade with countries that have a high buying power. Small nations in regions such as Southern Africa, Europe, Asia, Middle East Africa, and Latin America are now establishing vibrant economies (Hacker & Pierson, 2002). As a result, small business owners now have the potential to conduct joint partnerships and foreign investments.

In the United States, the Small Business Administration targets the underutilized areas of businesses which as referred to as HUBZones. Such neighborhoods require economic development. People living in the HUBZones can easily get assistance to enable them develop their businesses (Cheav, 2013). Target marketing comes after such areas have significantly developed. The socioeconomic status in such areas keeps shifting thus resulting to increased business opportunities.

Increasing the diversity of employees at a workplace is a current socioeconomic trend. It is now possible to get tax credits as a result of hiring veterans. The federal Tax Credit on work opportunity allows employers to hire qualified veterans so that they may receive as much as $9, 600 (Hacker & Pierson, 2002). Tax credit can also be given to businesses hiring people who receive public assistance or food stamp recipients. In other cases, employers may receive tax credits when they hire or provide accommodation to individuals with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act states that businesses employing more than fifteen workers who are physically challenged should provide accommodation to them so that they may get the tax credits (Hacker & Pierson, 2002).

Recommendations and Conclusion

From the above discussion, businesses should consider using multisided business models to help create value through making interactions with different stakeholders. This enables the businesses to create more value than the traditional informal exchanges. Additionally, adoption of technology and its usage is quite impressive and should be taken seriously. Disruptive business models usually arise especially when technology is combined with extreme conditions of the market. Extreme market conditions lead to customers demanding for low price points. Technology enables businesses to measure, monitor, bill the usage of assets, and monitor services at a finer level that it was previously. As a result, asset owners are able to create services around traditional products.

As businesses evolve and make use of emerging business trends, they should consider environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability and stewardship is an important issue among outsider influencers of businesses and stakeholders. If not taken into consideration, negative environmental impacts such as pollution lead to increased costs of maintenance and prevention.

Before businesses engage in a new trending business model, it is important for them to conduct thorough analysis to reduce the probability of making losses. Analysis makes it possible to determine what the best for the business is. Thus, big data plays a crucial role in making of such decisions and shaping the way businesses operate.

Conclusion

The trends and innovations business trends have occurred in different areas such as processing, system integration, business models, and application of new technologies that improve data storage, marketing, advertising, and automation of services. Emerging forms of businesses and digital marketing such as use of social media and the internet to market products have led to increased efficiency of operations and increased productivity. Businesses that make proper use of emerging business trends are also able to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. Traditional business models have fewer benefits than those derived from emerging business models. In this dynamic world since consumers keep changing their tastes and preferences, it is also important for businesses to evolve and find better ways of improving their operations.

References

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