In the future, some suggest that the task of searching for suppliers and products may be taken over by software agents which have defined rules or some degree of intelligence that replicates intelligence in humans. An agent is a software program that can perform tasks to assist humans. On the Internet, agents can already be used for marketing research by performing searches using many search engines and in the future they may also be used to search for products or even purchase products. Agents work using predetermined rules or may learn rules using neural network techniques. Such rules will govern whether purchases should be made or not.
Some of the implications of agent technology on marketing are explored by Gatarski and Lundkvist (1998). They suggest that agent technology may create artificial consumers who will undertake supplier search, product evaluation and product selection functions. The authors suggest that such actors in a supplier-to-consumer dialogue will behave in a more rational way than their human equivalents and existing marketing theories may not apply.
Tucker and Jones (2000) also review the use of intelligent agents for sourcing. They foresee agents undertaking evaluation of a wide range of possible alternative suppliers based on predefined quantitative selection criteria including price, availability and delivery. They believe the technology is already available – indeed, similar intelligent software is used for making investments in financial markets. What is not clear is how the software will assess trustworthiness of a supplier or their competence as a business partner or associate.
Source: Dave Chaffey (2010), E-Business and E-Commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, Prentice Hall (4th Edition).
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