The main objective of this chapter is to analyze the concept of competitive advantage of organizations from the study and valuation of their intangible assets. The evolution of marketing is analyzed from the materiality of the commercial transactions of purchase and sale of products and services, to the intangible aspects inherent to the transactional process, based on intellectual capital and values of spiritual nature. In the context of a new cosmogony, the authors conclude on the deciding role of the intangible assets of organizations in order to create their competitive advantage, based on the concepts of value, satisfaction, trust, and customer loyalty. They conclude with a proposal of a conceptual model for the sustainability of organizations in the transition from the traditional to the digital world.
TopIntroduction
What is called the ‘information society’ is, in fact, the production, processing, and transmission of a very large amount of data about all sorts of matters – individual and national, social and commercial, economic and military. Most of the data are produced to meet very specific needs of supercorporations, national government bureaucracies, and the military establishments of the advanced industrial state. Herbert Schiller, 1981, p. 25
At the time, when concerns about the future of the Information Society (IS) are growing, the strategic management of the competitive advantage of organizations, as an elementary factor for its functioning and development, seems to be determining.
Thus, taking into account that organizations are created to perform certain functions that are felt to be necessary by other agents, it is of paramount importance the permanent study of the needs and motivations of the various stakeholders involved in the process of creation and performance evaluation of organizations in order to ensure their survival2. However, considering the context of accelerated change, unpredictability, instability and uncertainty, where the emphasis of the rational leading of organizations' activities is on their productivity, quality, degree of competitiveness, customers and in their capacity of integration in a global market, it is determinant for the success of several organizations the adoption of a marketing philosophy and attitude3.
In the context of this reasoning, we believe that the success of any organization can only be achieved through a high degree of satisfaction between the people who do the work and the client who receives it, and through the development and prosperity of the Society as a whole. The assumption of this success is based on the idea of organization, understood as a social entity composed of people who work together and that is purposely structured in a division of labor to achieve a common goal (Chiavenato, 1999), and which is generally based on the happiness of the human being. Therefore, there are organizations with specific goals of different nature, such as meeting spiritual and physical needs, providing entertainment, developing art and culture, etc., all originated for three main reasons: social, material and synergy effect.
In this context, the competitive advantage of each organization will lie in its ability to create value for the environment in which it operates: improving the lives of its employees, reducing costs, increasing profits through productivity, quality, creativity and the innovation of its supply or its degree of competitiveness. This creation of value requires excellence in the performance of organizations, that must be increasingly combined with a drastic reduction of tangible resources on a global scale, and which, in the name of sustainable development, must lead, either at a micro and a macro level, to an increasing valuation of the intangible assets of organizations in particular and society in general4. Consequently, the future of IS, characterized by the domination of access to means, will be a natural evolution to the Knowledge Society (KS), in which prevails the use that is made of the accessed, stored and processed information for the benefit of the common good.
TopFrom Commercial Transactions To Spiritual Values
The concept of marketing can be seen as the balancing concept to that of macroeconomics. Whenever the macroeconomic environment changes, so will consumer behavior change, and this will lead marketing to change. Over the past 60 years, marketing has moved from being product-centric (Marketing 1.0) to being consumer-centric (Marketing 2.0). Today we see marketing as transforming once again in response to the new dynamics in the environment. We see companies expanding their focus from products to consumers to humankind issues. Marketing 3.0 is the stage when companies shift from consumer-centricity to human-centricity and where profitability is balanced with corporate responsibility. Kotler; Kartajaya e Setiawan, 2010, p. XI-XII]