The paper will focus on identifying the millennial generation; show their characteristics, values and importance. These characteristics will be further implied into business and how can an organization make a profit by knowing their needs, desires, wishes and expectations.
There had been many studies of characteristics from different generations. There is a presumed pattern for every generation. The Millennial generation is generated prior to the homeland generation and has been living in the postmodern and global preoccupations about war on terror. Their status type is hero, civic and were born between 1982 and 2004. The gap between the generation and their elderly is not so big, the generation still looks to their parents for validation in confronting the future challenges. The generation has been labeled also with the word misunderstood. This hap has shown also in the television shows such as Modern family. Also in the groups there can be distinguished between the early and late since they differ in values. The early generation members are more obsessed with the technology since they witnesses its revolution, but the younger also use it, but have learned from the elders (Bitterman, 2013).
Millennials are those borne between 1977 and 1996 or through 1980 to 2000 (). They make up a 50% of the 18-49 demographic. Their ancestors were baby boomers. They have higher expectations because of the different family treatment with young parents, lived in a society with targeted marketing actions, and technology on communication levels. Their characteristics were shaped by society, family and technological development and improvements. There have been some presumed characteristics of the millennial generation, such as optimism, indulgent, empowerment, egocentrism, education, entitlement and ambition Schmitt 2008). The word and generation have been studied through various different fields from commercial, marketing, and sales to economics, sociology and business.
The angle of business owner will be examined. The question is therefore how can a business be more successful by focusing the offer for the millennials? They combined one of the largest group of population living in the world today and that is why the focus on them can be important to achieve better effectiveness and efficiency of the company or business. As seen from the Deloitte Millennial Survey (2016) for the generation of positive views is focused on ethical and legal acting. The generation believes that the success of the business should not be measured only in terms of profit. For the business to be successful in the eyes of millennials, it needs to act in accordance with the sustainability, god ethical conditions and not focus only on the financial terms. If the company will be perceived as a good actor it will have more potential customers and clients. The marketing should be focused on the social media campaigns since this is the generation that grew up with emerging of new technologies, TV, computers, internet, handy, smart phones and other interactive and communication tolls. The business should focus on the right motivations since the millennials are active citizens involved with volunteer, campaign, donations, and in the social, political and environmental affairs. To attract millennials the organization needs to focus on people, their treatment and satisfaction. The long term profit and success are the ones that matter the most. Business and companies must therefore focus on investing in growth business initiatives, fair dealing with suppliers, making a positive impact on customers with ethic behaviors, developing new products and services and ensuring the long term profit (Deloitte, 2016).
The products offered to the millennial generation should not be based on gender. They were growing up in a different set of values where gender did not play an important role. They are perusing luxury and they have the financial backing of their parents. The youth does not mean anything when it comes to buying expensive things. They want the newest the latest products and services. The personalization also matters. The social interaction plays an important role. The generation is mainly confident and complex on the other hand (Schmitt, 2008).
On the other side the problem that can organization and business be confronted with is with employees. Job dissatisfaction among millennials is high (Dumlao-Abadilla, 2016). The research has been made among the Filipino millennials where a big percentage of the current workers were dissatisfied with their current job positions and were having plans to leave the job within the next two years or even before. Since the millennials are now around 16-35 years old which is the major working year group the companies could be losing a lot of good talented people. The information pointed out by Dumlao-Abadila (2016) that on the global basis within two years around 44% of millennials were expected to resign wile a vast 66% have plans to do the same within the five year time frame. The companies should therefore prepare themselves to the possible loss of working force make some compensation before it can come to that. The millennials want to be in charge and want to have more control, so leaders and managers need to have this in mind and start to develop strategies how to deal with their ambitions.
In order to understand the individual needs it is good to know its characteristic. Bitterman (2013) has, however pointed out that generalization of one generation does not always bring good results and can lack objectiveness. Overgeneralization can be dangerous because it can quickly shape how the students and collages teach and can limit their opportunities. There has been many researches made regarding the millennials many have shown that there can be found correlations and general similarities among the peers, but there were also many others that pointed out that among any generation there are exceptions and it is not true that all characteristics defined would hold for everyone just like stereotypes are just stereotype not the truth. So having in mind that not all are the same the specific marketing actions can be imposed targeting specific generation.
References
Bitterman, Albert. (2013). The College Question: Why Collage (as we know it) isn’t Working for the Millennial Generation. New York: Balanne & Co. Press
Deloitte. (2016). The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey: Winning Over the Next Generation of Leaders. Retrieved http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/About-Deloitte/gx- millenial-survey-2016-exec-summary.pdf
Dumlao-Abdilla. (2016). Job’s Dissatisfaction High Among Millennials. Retrieved http://business.inquirer.net/206376/job-dissatisfaction-high-among-millennials
Schmitt, Genevieve Dealernews. (2008). Millennial generation: here are the characteristics that define your future customer base. Retrieved http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2156/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b43eb5ed- 8604-4c60-9d9b-8c91c70ae8a3%40sessionmgr4004&vid=1&hid=4214
