Introduction
Innovation is quickly taking over industries, hence the need for a qualified workforce that understands the technology and utilizes it to enhance business processes. Steam Engine Global is an organization that describes itself as a “strategic advisory and consulting to establish diverse and inclusive organizations that attract, retain, and build talent to foster innovation” (Steam Engine Global, 2022, par.1). The company’s vision is to develop programs, services, and other products that bridge the gap between training and the application of skills at the workplace. The organization primarily offers its services to underrepresented talents like women and the youth, offering them the inspiration and empowerment they require to develop skills and streamline innovation. Steam Engine Global endeavors to accomplish its businesses profitably while enhancing its economic, social, and environmental impact on the world. The potential opportunities that Steam Engine Global can use to achieve this mandate include expanding business online, utilizing a customer management system, attending business events, and conducting comprehensive market research through information gathering.
Discussion
Expanding Business Online
One of the opportunities that Steam Engine Global can utilize to grow and enhance its economic, social, and environmental impact is expanding its businesses online. The online environment offers a wide variety of opportunities with the potential to impact a company’s economic, social, and environmental aspects positively. Social media has revolutionized how businesses conduct their processes, including how they reach new consumers and maintain old ones, which consequently increase revenues. The online platforms offer businesses a more affordable alternative to reach and engage a larger population. According to Carlson et al. (2018), brand pages on social media facilitate voluntary engagement and collaboration, which consequently stimulates innovation efforts. The pages enable consumers to speak freely about a brand, which serves as a source of information that companies that intend to improve their services and meet client expectations. As a result, the company becomes innovative in its endeavors to meet these demands. Fig.1 shows higher sales with online presence than physical brick and mortar shops:
Similarly, Steam Engine Global can utilize social media to achieve a similar level of social engagement, while expanding its global reach to attain a significant market share, hence higher revenues. The company can create social media brand pages where it can engage with its target market openly and freely. Research evidence has also proven that social media is a crucial educational tool. According to Ansari and Khan (2020), social media and mobile devices improve the transfer of resources and interactions between academicians in higher learning institutions. Therefore, the organization would benefit from the improved interaction with clients and the potential to reach a larger audience, hence achieving higher social impact. Social media is also a relatively affordable means of reaching a larger population, compared to other contemporary advertisement methods such as print, television, and radio.
Customer Management System
Implementing a customer management system, CMS, is another opportunity that Steam Engines Global can enhance the social, economic, and environmental impact on the world while growing the business’s profitability. A CMS is a combination of all business processes, applications, and services necessary for managing customer relations (Soltani et al., 2018). The system’s primary function is to facilitate communications between an organization and its existing and potential clientele. While the use of the CMS is shrouded in criticism regarding its ethicality, it has proven useful in improving organizations’ social and economic impact on the world. The system enables service providers to interact better with their potential and existing clients because it facilitates social tracking, tracking of communication, and nurturing relationships between a company and its clientele. Improving the social impact would translate to higher revenues due to the returning clients and sustained existing ones. Therefore, Steam Engine Global can utilize this opportunity to enhance its social and economic impacts on the world. Fig. 2 shows the components of CMS and its effects on various business processes:
Attending Business Events
While better virtual presence is good for the social and economic status of a company, the impact would be heightened by physical presence. Attending business events is one of the ways that the company can improve its physical presence. The events serve as a medium for networking and learning from investors, stakeholders, and other businesses within the same industry (Davidson, 2018). The business events can be productive in terms of providing essential insights regarding more efficient business operations, which can help achieve greater environmental impact. For example, Steam Engine Global may acquire crucial information regarding the use of technological devices in the place of the traditional pen and paper as tools for learning. The company can cite sustainability as its basis for using technological devices to record new knowledge in the place of paper and pen. Fig. 3 is a representation of the benefits of business events:
Comprehensive Market Research
Conducting comprehensive market research would also be beneficial to Steam Engine Global’s social, economic, and environmental impact on the world. Hudson and Hudson (2022) emphasize the importance of this strategy, as it enables firms to analyze the market, hence enabling the decision-makers to distinguish between worthwhile business endeavors and those that they should overlook. Identifying viable ventures is a crucial approach to attaining significant economic impact. Miśkiewicz (2018) also opines that market research facilitates knowledge transfer, hence improving innovation within an industry. Therefore, conducting comprehensive market research would be vital in achieving higher economic, environmental, and social impact, while growing business profitability. Fig. 4 demonstrates market process research:
References
Ansari, J. A. N., & Khan, N. A. (2020). Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning. Smart Learning Environments, 7(1), 1-16.
Carlson, J., Rahman, M., Voola, R., & De Vries, N. (2018). Customer engagement behaviours in social media: capturing innovation opportunities. Journal of Services Marketing, 32(1), 83-94.
Davidson, R. (2018). Business events. Routledge.
Hudson, S., & Hudson, L. (2022). The importance of market research. Good Fellow Publishers.
Miśkiewicz, R. (2018). The importance of knowledge transfer on the energy market. Polityka Energetyczna, 21, 1-14
Soltani, Z., Zareie, B., Milani, F. S., & Navimipour, N. J. (2018). The impact of the customer relationship management on the organization performance. The Journal of High Technology Management Research, 29(2), 237-246.
Steam Engine Global. (2022).Bridging the gap and streamlining for innovation.