Insights from Factor Analysis on the Marketing Practices of ICT Firms in India

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector operates in a highly competitive environment. Hence the marketing of these high technology (HT) products differs significantly from the marketing of other low technology products. Although the importance of marketing for the success of HT firms is widely recognized, very little research has been undertaken into the strategic marketing practices of these firms. The gap in literature and the need for theory development in regards to the marketing practices of HT firms have been identified by the researchers. This paper seeks to address this need for both conceptual and empirical research in this area. More specifically the paper examines the marketing practices of the ICT firms in India. The conceptual framework developed for this research integrated literature from different schools of marketing such as HT marketing, marketing mix theory, relationship marketing theory and social media. Exploratory factor analysis of survey data revealed ten factors that were indicative of the strategic marketing practices (SMPs) of the ICT firms in India. Interestingly, Social Media emerged as a new construct and some of the items used to assess Social Media practices are loaded in the factors such as Relationship Marketing and Market Research. Cronbach's alpha obtained from reliability analysis of the composite measures ranged from .752 to .920. Reliable measures for Social Media practices were obtained from this empirical study. This research also provides a basis to explore the influence of these SMPs on firm performance.