Business Market
The business market refers to the group of organizations that purchase goods and services for use in their own operations or for resale. This market includes businesses of all sizes, from small enterprises to large corporations, and encompasses a wide range of industries and sectors. Understanding the needs and behaviors of the business market is crucial for developing effective marketing strategies and building successful B2B relationships.
7 Key excerpts on "Business Market"
eBook - ePub- Sally Dibb, Lyndon Simkin(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...43: Business-to-Business Marketing Key definitions Organizational marketing, industrial marketing, or business-to-Business Marketing is marketing activity targeting other organizations rather than end-user consumers. An organizational business-to-Business Market is made up of individuals or groups that purchase a specific type of product for re-sale, for use in making other products, or for their use in daily operations. Business-to-business customers are other organizations and not end-user consumers: manufacturers; channel members such as retailers, wholesalers, agents, brokers, distributors and dealers; public sector bodies; not-for-profit organizations; other companies, or government departments. Types of business-to-business purchases are new task, modified re-buy or straight re-buy. Key issues Business-to-Business Marketing involves exchanges and transactions between companies or organizations, including manufacturers, channel member organizations, public sector bodies, not-for-profit bodies, government departments and other companies. The terms business-to-Business Marketing, industrial marketing and organizational marketing are often used interchangeably. Products include raw materials, major equipment, component parts, accessory equipment and supplies, process materials and business services. There are often fewer customers in target markets than in consumer markets, and a great deal of data are routinely collected about organizational markets. In some respects, therefore, it is often stated that target marketing is relatively more straightforward in business-to-Business Markets than in consumer markets. Customer grouping for targeting used to be based on the industrial sectors into which customers fell...
eBook - ePubBusiness-to-Business
A Global Network Perspective
- Mario Glowik, Sarah Maria Bruhs(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The fact that industrial products tend to involve a high degree of complexity and technical content requires all functional areas of the organization to adopt a highly customer-oriented and market-driven approach (Webster 1991: 14). Close relationships with suppliers, customers and competitors are required to increase the business seller’s flexibility and responsiveness to the market. This has led to a situation where, in both consumer and Business Markets, the marketing agent has increasingly taken the role of a relationship manager. In the industrial company, however, due to its need for cross-functional market orientation, it is even more critical that all business units are driven by a general relationship awareness. In this way, it is not solely the marketing department acting on the surface with the organization’s outside environment, but also other operational functions that are in constant interaction with external actors. Table 2.2 summarizes the major differences of business-to-business vs. business-to-consumer markets, as they have been discussed throughout the chapter. Management and marketing approaches for Business Markets and consumer markets are not strictly separated from each other. Just as personal selling, though largely understood as a widespread marketing tool in industrial markets, might be applicable in specific consumer purchase situations (e.g. financial advising in a bank), so too there are industrial companies who sell highly standardized product offerings to a large number of different business customers, thereby adapting a marketing strategy that is typically associated with consumer-goods selling. Despite that, many companies have started to sell more or less the same product to organizations and individual consumers simultaneously...
eBook - ePubBusiness-to-Business Marketing
How to Understand and Succeed in Business Marketing in an Emerging Africa
- Richard Owusu, Robert Hinson, Ogechi Adeola, Nnamdi Oguji(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Productivity Press(Publisher)
...E. (1992). The changing role of marketing in the corporation. Journal of Marketing, 56(4), 1–17. Wu, F., Yeniyurt, S., Kim, D., & Cavusgil, S. T. (2006). The impact of information technology on supply chain capabilities and firm performance: A resource-based view. Industrial Marketing Management, 35(4), 493–504. Zimmerman, A., & Blythe, J. (2018). Business to Business Marketing management: A global perspective. Routledge, New York. Chapter 4 Selling to Business Buyers After reading the chapter, the reader will be able to: Identify and explain who business buyers are in a business-to-business (B2B) transaction Discuss the B2B buying situations and stages in the B2B decision-making process Enumerate the factors that influence the buying behaviour of B2B buyers Discuss effective B2B buying and selling strategies. 4.1 B2B Buyers According to Grewal et al. (2015), global business-to-business (B2B) transactions are growing rapidly and accounted for nearly 42% of US total revenue in 2015. Similarly, the B2B transactions dominate the business landscape in Africa and other emerging markets (Ndubisi & Nataraajan, 2016; Verster et al., 2019; Swani et al., 2019). It is therefore crucial for organisations that sell in the B2B marketplace, particularly in emerging markets, to have a comprehensive understanding of B2B buyers, their buying behaviours, decision-making processes and strategies. This is because B2B buying behaviours differ substantially from consumer buying behaviours. In B2B buying, organisations buy goods and services to meet the needs and wants of other organisations (Grewal et al., 2015). A B2B buyer, therefore, is a business customer. The B2B buyer buys on behalf of an organisation, not for personal use, and the organisation is the purchaser of goods and services (Zimmerman & Blythe, 2018)...
eBook - ePubInnovative B2B Marketing
New Models, Processes and Theory
- Simon Hall(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Kogan Page(Publisher)
...01 Introduction to Business Marketing The changing business landscape In less than 100 years we’ve moved through multiple eras of business and industry, from the production age through to the marketing age and recently from the globalization era to the era of digital and applications. Various factors have affected a shift away from internationalization and globalization in the 21st century; businesses during this period moved from a model of focusing on globalizing to a more balanced model where businesses benefited from globalization but reverted to a more localized business approach; sometimes called the ‘Glocal’ model. Business today looks and feels very different even compared to 10 years ago; they need to deal with increased data and information; to understand and capitalize on digital technologies; to operate with rapidly shifting business models and new working behaviours where location becomes less relevant. As a result of this dynamically changing business environment, business-to-Business Marketing has needed to change, new models have needed to be developed and old models adapted. This book looks at the core areas of marketing where change has occurred and provides up-to-date tools for B2B marketers to deal with this challenging new business environment. What is B2B marketing? B2B marketing, sometimes referred to as ‘Business Marketing’ or ‘industrial marketing’, is the practice of individuals or organizations marketing products or services to other companies or organizations...
eBook - ePub- Ross Brennan, Louise Canning, Raymond McDowell(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...5 Researching Business-to-Business Markets Learning Outcomes After reading this chapter you will: be able to explain why accuracy, timeliness, relevance and uniqueness are valuable characteristics of marketing information; understand how the fundamental characteristics of business-to-Business Markets affect the market research process; know how to apply market research sampling techniques in Business Markets; know why survey response rates tend to be low in business-to-Business Market surveys, and what techniques can be used to improve response rates; be able to use a standard industrial classification as a basis for sample selection in Business Markets; and understand how the relationship between a market research agency and a business-to-business client organization can affect the success of a research project. Introduction In the preceding three chapters, we have looked at how organizations buy, how inter-firm relationships are becoming ever more important in Business Markets, and the key aspects of strategy in Business Markets, in particular how Business Marketers must deliver superior value to customers. In general terms, it is clear that Business Marketers must be concerned with questions such as: What are the buying criteria and buying processes of customers and potential customers? How important are inter-firm relationships in their target markets? What are the strategic plans, positioning strategies and target markets of those customers with whom they seek to develop partnering relationships? How do customers and potential customers define value? The only way to answer these (and many other) questions for specific markets and specific customers is to undertake market research...
eBook - ePub- George Stonehouse, Bill Houston(Authors)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 5 Products and markets DOI: 10.4324/9780080476346-5 Introduction and chapter overview The way in which an organization relates to its markets is one of the most important aspects of competitive strategy. The idea of a market as a place where buyers and sellers come together can apply to both inputs and outputs. Product markets are those in which an organization competes for product sales; resource markets are those in which an organization competes for its resource inputs. In this chapter, we discuss the key elements of this system: the nature of markets and the nature and importance of products. The way in which an organization configures itself in respect to these elements is crucial to the success of business strategy. Learning objectives After studying this chapter, students should be able to: explain the term market and describe three ways by which markets can be defined; describe market segmentation and explain the ways in which markets can be segmented; describe three ways of approaching market segmentation; explain the term product and describe Kotler's five levels of product benefit; describe and criticize Copeland's product typology; understand the stages in, and uses of, the product life cycle; explain the concept of portfolio; describe the composition and limitations of the Boston matrix; explain how the GEC matrix works. Ways of defining and understanding markets Defining markets and market share Economists refer to a market as a system comprising two ‘sides’. The demand side comprises buyers or consumers of a product or resource; the supply side produces or manufactures the same. In strategy, we often use the term slightly differently. By market, we usually mean a group of actual or potential customers with similar needs or wants (the demand side)...
eBook - ePub- Marilyn Stone(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...For example, when engine manufacturers raised the prices of aircraft engines, Boeing was forced to raise the overall price of its planes. Manufacturers are often clustered together in locations such as the Ruhr valley in Germany. Since the late 1970s manufacturing has been in decline in the UK although it remains significant in other European countries such as Germany. As global capital has shifted to find lower costs elsewhere, so manufacturing industry has shifted to the Pacific rim and more recently to India, Sri Lanka and Morocco as well as to China. Increased global competition means that costs, quality, throughput and flexibility are major issues for those who wish to supply manufacturers. Reseller markets Reseller markets are composed of those intermediaries between manufacturer and the consumer which are known as wholesalers and retailers. Wholesalers purchase products for direct sale to retailers, other wholesalers, producers and government. On the other hand, retailers purchase products and resell them to final customers. There has been a general decline in wholesaler numbers in the UK over the past thirty years while retailer power has grown substantially (see Chapter 11). THE ORGANIZATIONAL BUYING CENTRE Most high-value purchases in B-to-B markets involve people from different departments and functions within the organization. People play different roles with respect to the buying decision. Several roles are listed below: Users In the case of the purchase of a new university computer network system, discussed earlier, users are the people who will use the network. They will probably know much about hardware and software but little about the various network standards and configurations available. Despite this, users should be involved in the buying process so that they can feel included and can contribute usefully their experience of the present system...
