TABLE OF CONTENTS The internet is a major technological development that will continually evolve. It heralds the beginning of the next business revolution that will affect the way we live, work and play for the rest of our lives. The technology involved in setting up the internet has demonstrated to management that it will significantly change the way people interact with each other, particularly so in the sphere of business. The internet crosses boundaries of geography, politics, race, sex, religion, time zones and culture. Technology helps to make possible and improve the way we work. Without it many of the things we do, often take for granted, would be impossible, for example, much of advertising relies on communications technology; effective distribution and logistics relies on transport technologies; marketing research and analysis increasingly relies upon computing technology. This reliance on and use of technology in marketing is not new, but the extent to which it is used and the way it is used today is new. Think how different life would be without the calculator, or e-mail or even television. What would our lives be like without the technology to telephone a relative or deliver electricity and power to our homes and offices? Less noticeably, but no less significantly, technology also affects and helps aid marketing and the marketing process. Some marketing techniques are almost totally underpinned by technology and its application, an obvious example being the use of e-marketing. Some new marketing activities like database marketing, data fusion, electronic data...
