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Global and Domestic Marketing Decisions
Of course, it's tempting to think of business decisions as occurring in a perfect economic bubble?wouldn't it be nice to simply prepare a strategic SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis based on one's industry alone? Alas?or fortunately, depending on one's perspective, however, no company exists within such a comfortable bubble in today's business environment. (SWOT Analysis, 2004) Today, companies must keep abreast of the profound technical, cultural, and ethical shifts that have occurred in today's business climate, reflecting the more forward-thinking yet bearish attitude climate of the 21st century, as opposed to the 1990s.
Technology
From a technological point of view, the Internet has changed global and domestic commerce. In particular, cultural industries such as the music industry have been impacted. No longer can music companies simply bank on the popularity of an individual artist. Nor can music and entertainment companies ignore the dangers of Internet piracy. Instead, they must make legal downloads affordable, exciting, profitable to the entertainer, and yet also attractive to the consumer.
To make use of the technology of the Internet, and to circumvent pirating and copyright infringements that will bankrupt individual artists (and ultimately the industry), international Virgin entertainment mogul Sir Richard Branson recently started a new music store, VirginDigital.com, selling music as streams of bits to be downloaded from the Internet. Virgin, a unit of the Virgin Group, became "the first major music retailer to enter the download market," which had before ...