Chapter 6 - Analyzing Business Markets

I. Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should:
q Know what is the business market, and how it differs from the consumer market
q Know what buying situations organizational buyers face      
q Know who participates in the business-to-business buying process
q Know how business buyers make their decisions
q Know how companies can build strong relationships with business customers

II. Chapter Summary
Organizational buying is the decision-making process by which formal organizations establish the need for purchased products and services, then identify, evaluate, and choose among alternative brands and suppliers. The business market consists of all the organizations that acquire goods and services used in the production of other products or services that are sold, rented, or supplied to others.
Compared to consumer markets, business markets generally have fewer and larger buyers, a closer customer-supplier relationship, and more geographically-concentrated buyers. Demand in the business market is derived from demand in the consumer market and fluctuates with the business cycle. Nonetheless, the total demand for many business goods and services is quite price-inelastic. Business marketers ought to be aware of the role of professional purchasers and their influencers, the need for multiple sales calls, and the importance of direct purchasing, reciprocity, and leasing.
The buying center is the decision-making unit of a buying organization. It consists of initiators, users, influencers, deciders, approvers, buyers, and gatekeepers. To influence these parties, marketers must be aware of environmental, organizational, interpersonal, and individual factors.
The buying process consists of eight stages called “buyphases”: (1) problem recognition, (2) general need description, (3) product specification, (4) supplier search, (5) proposal solicitation, (6) supplier selection, (7) order-routine specification, and (8) performance review.
Business marketers must form strong bonds and relationships with their customers and provide them added value. Some customers, however, may prefer more of a transactional relationship.

III. Chapter Outline
I. What is Organizational Buying?
A. The Business Market versus the Consumer Market:
1. Fewer buyers, larger buyers, close supplier-customer relationships, geographically-concentrated buyers, derived demand, and inelastic demand
2. In addition: fluctuating demand, professional purchasing, multiple buying influences, direct purchasing, reciprocity, and leasing
B. Institutional and Organizational Markets
1. The institutional market
a) Institutions tend to have low budgets and captive clienteles 
b) Firms have developed unique operations to serve this market
2. The government market - a major buyer of goods and services 
a) Decision to purchase usually based on cost 
b) Excessive paperwork, but Internet-based changes bringing reform
C. Buying Situations 
1. Straight rebuy (reorder on a routine basis)
2. Modified rebuy (product specs, prices, delivery requirements, or other terms may be modified)
3. New task (a purchaser buys a product or service for the first time with major subdecisions)
D. Systems Buying and Selling
1. Purchasers buy a total solution to their problem from one supplier
2. Effectively provides a turnkey solution
3. Systems selling key to building large-scale industrial projects

II. Participants in the Business Buying Process
A. The Buying Center
Buying center: initiators, users, influencers, deciders, approvers, buyers, and gatekeepers
B. Buying Center Influences
1. Important to know the major decision players and their motivations and operations
2. Business function may dictate priority, finance person concerned about return on investment, while engineer concerned about quality
3. Organizations are made up of people. People have personal biases, job perceptions, and preferences, which are influenced by their own age, income, education, job position, personality, attitude toward risk, and culture
C. Buying Center Targeting
1. Marketers must determine:
a) Who are the major participants?
b) What decisions do they influence?
c) What is their level of influence?
d) What evaluation criteria do they use?
2. Regarding the effort of targeting segments, business customers usually fall into one of several categories:
a) Price-oriented
b) Solution-oriented
c) Gold standard
d) Strategic value
3. Risk and gain sharing can be used to offset requested price reductions
4. Stages. Solution selling can decrease price reduction pressure when used to enhance customer revenues, reduce customer risk or customer costs

III. Stages in the Business Buying Process
Business buying passes through eight stages called “buyphases”, as identified by         Robinson and associates in the “buygrid” framework. These phases can be compressed or bypassed depending on the specific situation
A. Problem Recognition Stage (triggered by internal or external stimuli)
1. Internally, most common triggers are need for new equipment or inputs to develop new products, mechanical or system flow breakdowns requiring new parts or solutions, poor product quality, cost reduction efforts
2. Externally, the triggers are new ideas precipitated in industry, potential new supplier defines opportunities to reduce cost or to purchase better product 
B. General Need Description and Product Specification
1. Determine general characteristics and quantity
2. Organization takes on an advisory role with complex solutions
3. Product value analysis (PVA): cost reduction approach to determine products that can be redesigned, standardized, or made with a cheaper production method
4. PVA is also used to help organizations win business
C. Supplier Search
1. Suppliers can use a variety of ways to find their suppliers
a) Vertical hubs focus on industries
b) Functional hubs focus on specific functions
c) Other sources are trade directories, contacts, trade advertisements, and trade shows
2. Suppliers need to make themselves visible
a) Get listed in major online catalogs or services, communicate with buyers, build good reputation in marketplace, gain exposure to agents
b) Develop a knowledgeable sales force
D. Proposal Solicitation
1. Buyers may invite suppliers to submit proposals. Proposals may be simple or complex
2. Suppliers must be efficient and skilled in writing, submitting, and presenting proposals
E. Supplier Selection
1. Buyer identifies key attributes and rates each supplier on these attributes
2. Suppliers need to understand how buyers perceive value of attributes. A research study by Anderson, Jain, and Chintagunta found eight different customer value assessment (CVA) methods
3. Each buying situation dictates importance of attributes
4. Buyers need to determine number of suppliers to be used. The trend is for less suppliers when possible
F. Order-Routine Specification
1. With MRO items, the trend is to use blanket contracts (also called “stockless purchase plans”) and automatic replenishment, which tends toward using a single supplier. This environment also raises entry barriers for new suppliers
2. There is a trend toward more vendor-managed inventory systems. Suppliers have access to buyer inventory levels and have responsibility for continuous replenishment programs
G. Performance Review (three common methods)
1. Buyers solicit internal users of supplier evaluation
2. Buyers rate supplier via weighted core method
3. Buyers aggregate the cost of poor supplier performance to determine adjusted cost of purchase, including price 

IV. Business Relationships:
A. Overcoming Price Pressures
B. Risks and Opportunism
1.     Strong relationships require supplier credibility
a) Expertise
b) Trustworthiness (honest, dependable, sincere)
c) Likeability (attractive, prestigious, dynamic) 
2.     Vertical coordination between customers and suppliers facilitate stronger ties but also risks
a) Partially sunk investments lock partners to a relationship
b) Customer may be held captive due to high switching cost
c) Supplier may have less leverage in future contract
d) Negotiation due to investments in process
e) Opportunism can be thought of as “some form of cheating or undersupply relative to an implicit or explicit contract”. It is a concern due to the opportunity cost of assigning resources for control purposes rather than other productive purposes

V. Summary

IV. Opening Thought
Students unfamiliar with business and related operations will have a difficult time understanding the concept of organizational buying. The major differences between the consumer market and the business-to-business (B2B) market lie in the complexity of the decision process and the amount of people involved in the final purchasing decision.

Instructors can best serve their student audiences by incorporating guest speakers from the business community who are responsible for purchasing products and/or services to help students understand the complexity in the buying process. Sales­people that sell to businesses would also be suitable guest speakers. Instructors can also use university situations or other common business examples to bring across the concept of organizational buying to their students.

V. Teaching Strategy and Class Organization
PROJECTS
1. At this point in the semester-long marketing plan project, no presentations are necessary unless the instructor has approved a business-to-business product or service.

2. Students should select a local firm and interview a member of the buying staff (buyer, head-buyer, purchasing manager, etc.) regarding their firm’s buying processes. An organizational chart depicting all of the buying processe, members, and internal customers involved in a major purchase decision should be drawn. Subsequently, students should compare and contrast the complexity of that buying process to the ones noted in Chapter 5—Analyzing Consumer Markets. How and where are the major points of difference between the two markets in their purchase intentions? Can a firm market its products to both the industrial and consumer markets with one strategy? Are there sufficient differences between markets for different products and strategies to be developed?

ASSIGNMENTS
Small Group Assignments
1. In the journal Marketplace (Winter 2006), the Institute for the Study of Business Markets listed the top business marketing challenges for the years 2005 to 2007. In small groups or individually, ask the students to interview local business managers/owners to find out: if these challenges have migrated to the present year; how well they fared against these challenges; and the challenges they face in the years ahead.
2. To improve effectiveness and efficiency, business suppliers and customers are exploring different ways to manage their relationships. Have the students visit each of the company’s websites mentioned within the chapter. Which one(s) do the students feel most effectively and efficiently addresses the needs of the corporate buyer? Which websites fall short? What do they think is missing from the least effective websites? How can the firm do better in its execution?
3. Contact a sales representative from a local publishing house and ask him/her to make a presentation to the class on how he/she sells to your college or university.
4. To prepare case studies based on the following materials from Chapter 6 and to present these:
• Mini case: Cisco
• Mini case: General Motors
• Innovative Marketing: GE

Individual Assignments
Have students read Bob Donath’s “Emotions Play Key Role in Biz Brand Appeal”, Marketing News, June 1, 2006, p.7 and comment on their perception of how effective business brand appeal is in their lives, particularly when purchasing products.

Think-Pair-Share
Small businesses have been described as the “lifeblood” of the economy. Students with after-school jobs in small businesses should be assigned to interview their employers, managers, or purchasing departments to understand how these businesses purchase goods and services. How many concepts in this chapter do small-business owners actually employ (e.g. are their purchasing habits organized, how many decision makers are involved in the purchasing process, how important is the customer-supplier relationship to them, is their purchasing just transactional)? Students should prepare to present their findings to the class either orally or in a report. Students that are not employed should be prepared to question the presenting students on their understanding of the reasons for such actions.

END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT

MARKETING DEBATE

Business-to-business marketing requires a special, unique set of marketing concepts and principles versus Business-to-business marketing is really not that different and the basic marketing concepts and principles apply.
VI. Case Study
1. Marketing in China: TetraPak in China
1) Analyze TetraPak’s effective market strategies in China’s business-to-business (B2B) market, drawing comparisons with international corporations that are less successful.
2) In order to develop new customers in China, what local adjustments have TetraPak made to its customer relationship strategies?

2. Chapter Case: How Does Wal-Mart Purchase in China
1) How does Wal-Mart develop and control the relationship with its suppliers in China?
2) Use the cases of Wal-Mart and TetraPak in China to analyze these corporations’ core competencies and their keys to success in the B2B market.

VII. Main Topic(s)
A. “Business Marketing in a Changing Global Environment”
This discussion focuses on some of the daily considerations a business marketer faces in organizing and operating in an increasingly complex business-to-business marketing setting. Students may have difficulty identifying with the business marketing process since few have had any direct connection with it. For this reason, the discussion focuses on some rules or guidelines and allows the instructor an opportunity to add various current examples.
The discussion begins with an overview of the changes in the business-marketing environment and then moves through some of the most important rules for the business marketer. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of these concepts on the industry.

    Marketing Insight: Big Sales to Small Business

Teaching Objectives
· To stimulate students to think about the critical issues in business marketing.
· To consider how to proceed with the considerations and strategies related to business marketing.
· To discuss specific approaches to help the marketer more effectively meet his or her business-to-business marketing objectives.
Discussion
Introduction
In this era of fast-paced marketing change, mistakes can be and frequently are fatal for the unwary or lackadaisical. This is especially true in the business-marketing arena. In fact, some of the “Must” items can turn into “Never!” depending on the industry, product, service, offer, and positioning in the marketplace.
There are as many or more variables in business marketing than in consumer marketing. Everything depends on the way the product or service is distributed and sold, the seasonality of demand, the length of time taken to sell it, whether it is sold directly through the mail or leads are created for the sales force, the details of the offer, credit availability, size of the order, and much more.
Rules of Business-to-Business Marketing
The first rule is that the business marketer has to invest considerable time and effort to prepare to deal with customers in the business-to-business (B2B) marketplace. Within this arena, it is essential to know what is going on with all the significant players in the industry. It is a well-known rule that professionals ask around in the industry, and take advantage of various B2B direct-marketing programs by examining all direct mail received. 
Another rule is that if you are likely to be the other firm’s customer, they could be your customer as well. Professional buyers check all the likely and unlikely industry periodicals they can think of. One often finds a competitor has just entered, or just been eliminated, and there is some new sales program worth checking. We can learn from others’ successes and mistakes.
A good and efficient rule is to examine public information about parallel businesses that have the same or similar customer base but are not competitors. For example, both bath soap and corn flakes are sold to supermarkets across the country, but they are not competitors for the same dollar. What do they have in common? Which bath soap ideas can be used to sell more corn flakes? It is likely that there will be selling parallels that can be carried from industry to industry.
An old adage in business marketing holds that typically about 40% of B2B direct-marketing results will come from the firm’s choice of database or list. Sadly, it is often the case that the amount of time, thought, and energy put into the selection of the list for a direct-marketing effort is far less than 40%, and the campaign suffers for it.
Other Considerations
The next 40% of the results will be determined by the offer. Business marketers must consider what they are trading with the audience in exchange for their time, commitment, money, or attention. There are many variables such as credit, delivery, bulk pricing, and other similar arrangements. Overall, the primary variable is the degree to which the potential supplier firm is able to differentiate itself and make dealing with the potential customer firm special and better than any other option.
The remaining 20% of the results are determined by the “creative” copy, art direction, headlines, and the overall appearance of the marketing/advertising effort to create a positive attitude with the client/customer about the supplier’s products. However, this is not the only variable, because the best creative effort is useless if it is not seen by the right people or does not include an offer that provides visible value for the customer.
As in the consumer market, if the business marketer is not really tuned into the business customer, there will be problems. Unless the supplier firm’s products or services are perceived as completely new, the supplier’s sales and marketing staff will have some historical perspective on who buys those products. It is not enough to know that “50% of the sales come from SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) code 12345, 30% from SIC code 98765, and the last 20% from a mix of automotive mechanics and university professors”. Rather, it is better to look at the people in the industry as individuals, understand their past buying patterns, their requirements, etc.
The business purchasing process usually has more players involved than the typical consumer purchase effort. The user very often only recommends but does not specify; the user’s supervisor does not just recommend but can sometimes specify. Above these strata is the level that specifies; these are the people who control the budget and make approvals. Finally, there is the purchasing agent. Every one of these people has a name, a title, a role, a turf to protect, employees to serve, bosses to manage, quotas to meet, budgets to beat, and a thousand other headaches as well.
It is now widely recognized that the best place to invest marketing and sales efforts is in the current customer base, recalling that it is much harder to gain a new customer than to make an existing customer more satisfied. One way to wed customers to a company and its products or services is to show them that they are so important that the supplier firm takes the trouble to learn as much as possible about the customer firm. Every business marketer should start by knowing names, companies and products, as well as critical buying concerns.
It is useful to keep in mind that the more the business marketer knows about his or her customers at this moment, the better he or she can decide which lists and databases to use when prospecting for new clients. Unless the marketer and company change the product and service mix considerably, future customers are likely to be like current ones.
A response file is a database of individuals in companies who have responded to a B2B direct-marketing message. A list of people in the commercial refrigeration business who accepted an offer for a free book on “Developments in Commercial Refrigeration” would be an example of a response file.
The alternative is a “compiled” file: a database that has been constructed from researched information. For example, a list of purchasing agents, vice presidents of purchasing, and purchasing executives in the umbrella industry compiled from membership rosters in various umbrella and purchasing industry organizations would be a compiled file. There may be a tremendous amount of overlap between a response file and a compiled file.
Why is one type of file preferable to the other? The answer is that there is one thing we certain about the people in the response file: they have shown that they respond to direct marketing. Individuals on a compiled database may or may not be responder material. Using a response list helps the business marketer to stack the deck in his or her favor.
Other ways to gain an advantage include testing for affiliations and other objective correlatives that reveal the kind of people you want to hear your B2B message. Look for people who attend industry conventions and read industry publications. Among buying professionals, these are key contact points.
Up until 1997, the business marketer could use SIC codes to segment the business market. If an organization’s product is used to move liquids from one place to another on dairy farms, then the SIC code is 0241. Another possible SIC code is 2033, Canned Fruits and Vegetables Manufacturing; or SIC code 2061, Cane Syrup, Made from Sugar Cane; or even SIC code 2013, Canned Meats. All of these options could provide additional business that might use the equipment. Then the marketer could seek out lists of other food or cosmetics producers to see if there is a reasonable fit with the product. As businesses began outsourcing or moving part or all of their operations across borders in North America, it became increasingly difficult to identify which business an organization was in and where they were located. A new business coding methodology, the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), was put in place in 1997, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. NAICS uses a six-digit coding scheme. The first five digits are standard across North America. The sixth and last digit, is country-specific.
Business marketers also improve marketing operations and success by approaching others in the potential customer company. They talk to sales people, staff engineers, and others to identify the sales process at the customer firm: who to talk to and their positions, how long it takes to get an appointment, how many visits it takes to make a sale, and who the players are in a company by title and by function. Organizations are increasingly reliant on software systems to maintain their competitive position in the sales environment. Systems provided by companies such as salesforce.com and Seibel are a critical component of an organization’s competitive toolkit. Real-time access to information on a customer or prospect is almost the norm.
Another approach is to ask company sales people for the names, titles, and addresses of 50 individuals they want to sell to but who are buying from the competition; then market to people in their hit list.
It also pays to identify the “worst” customers too. The comparison can be useful in designing a program to migrate the worst customers to a better category. A customer who provides a large amount of revenue usually demands more from their business partner and thus may be less profitable, especially when opportunity costs are included in the profitability assessment.
Achieving and measuring results is very important in business marketing. An ad for a retail store in the local newspaper can be measured by the number of cars in the parking lot and the amount of cash in the cash register the following morning. It can take a lot longer to fine-tune B2B marketing activities into a money-making machine.
The buying environment has become more challenging as organizations leverage technology in support of the buying process. Reverse auctions have to a certain extent commoditized some products and services. Marketing databases have become an increasingly important asset as organizations can leverage all relevant data surrounding their relationships with businesses. Requests for information (RFI) and requests for proposals (RFP) are now all mechanized, and the speed of creation and dissemination puts more time pressure on potential suppliers. Conversely, technology can also be harnessed in the creation of responses to these vehicles. The end result is that the buying environment is becoming more dynamic and organizations must invest and optimally use these technology enablers.

VIII. Background Article(s)

Issue: Developing B2B Campaigns 
Source: “Constructing B-to-B Campaigns,” BtoB, April 16, 2001, p. 20.

Solid marketing fundamentals are the most important component in building business-to-business (B2B) campaigns. Ten lessons that B2B marketers should follow when building ad campaigns includes being clear about the campaign’s objective.
If there is one thing marketers have learned in the past year, it is that nothing replaces solid marketing fundamentals when it comes to constructing B2B campaigns.
During the “go-go” advertising craze in 1999 and early 2000, driven largely by dot-coms looking to drive up their IPO stock prices, marketers spent with an almost reckless abandon. Many neglected their core audience in favor of wide-appeal TV campaigns that would capture interest on Wall Street, while others quickly wore out the novelty of Web banner ads and saw the return on their Internet investments plummet.
Now, in the slow economy, where every ad dollar must be justified, marketers are going back to the principles on which all effective ad campaigns are built.
In talking with a variety of advertisers and agencies for this special report, BtoB identified 10 valuable lessons that B2B marketers should follow when constructing ad campaigns:
1. Be clear about your campaign’s objective. Everything during the development of the campaign, from positioning strategy to media placement, should be designed to meet that objective.
“Internally, as a client, you need to be certain about exactly what you want to do, then you need to evangelize the hell out of it,” said the director of worldwide brand management at Seagate Technology Inc.
When developing an integrated campaign for its Barracuda ATA III disk drive, Seagate brought together its product marketing, channel marketing, and branding teams to agree on positioning even before the agencies got involved.
“If the client isn’t sure of what he wants to say, the agencies aren’t going to say it right.”
2. Communicate openly about everything with your agency. In working with outsourced experts, communicate regularly on everything from brand positioning to copy used in creative development. If multiple agencies are involved, the advertiser should have a lead contact person to handle all communication.
“It’s got to start with straight talk with the agency,” said the vice president of worldwide marketing, IBM Software Group.
“It’s important to leverage the creative juices of the agency with the business discipline of the advertiser, and together drive those synergies to establish a world-class campaign,” he said.
3. Identify the core influencers. When IBM Corp. was developing its “Codernaut” software campaign, it did extensive research with its agency OgilvyOne to identify the core influences for middleware software. After it learned that these users spend a great deal of time online, IBM doubled its ad budget for Web spending.
4. Use integrated media when possible. An integrated approach usually yields higher results than a single medium, such as TV, print, direct mail, email, or online, particularly if the campaign has multiple objectives.
5. Test the product positioning and creative concept with the target audience. Use focus groups, teleconferencing, online research, and other market research.
When Emerson Electric Co.’s Micro Motion Inc. launched its new R-Series flowmeter, which was the introduction of its first low-cost measuring device, it conducted focus groups with its audience of manufacturing equipment buyers to make sure the positioning was well received.
“To answer the question, ‘How will we build awareness quickly?’ we went straight to the people we were going to sell to,” said the manager of global marketing communications at Micro Motion.
6. Use creative measures that will stand out with relevant messages. Balance intrusion with information. This is especially important for hard-to-reach target audiences.
When developing the online ads for Seagate’s Barracuda ATA III campaign, Lot21 Interactive Advertising Group Inc. used larger pop-up ads that contained a lot of product information, because the value-added reseller audience tends to respond less to online ads, according to the director of media services at Lot21.
7. Follow up on direct campaigns. It is vital to contact the recipient through telemarketing, sales calls and other sales efforts. The more contact with the target, the better, as long as there is permission given, such as a response to a direct mail or email.
For the direct mail component of its R-Series campaign, which was supported by print, Micro Motion established three points of contact with prospects, including the targeted direct mailing, a follow-up telemarketing call to those who responded, then a sales call if the lead was “hot” .With these efforts, it achieved a 1,477% return on investment.
8. Build in metrics to measure the results. If it is a branding campaign, determine the timeline and measurement system to gauge movement in perceptions and attitudes about the brand and how that may lead to more sales. If it is a direct response campaign, build in a link to follow, such as leads generated from direct mail or traffic driven to a unique URL from a print campaign.
IBM has a monthly monitoring cycle for all of its campaigns, during which time its market intelligence team contacts tens of thousands of prospects about the effectiveness of its advertising.
9. Don’t be afraid to make changes midstream. This includes pulling ads that are offensive to the audience, and changing copy and being creative when possible.
Particularly for online executions, offers can be adjusted to take advantage of changing variables such as pricing or inventory levels.
10. Take what you learn from one campaign and build on it. Just because one campaign worked for a specific objective does not mean it will work the next time around. Seagate learned that its VAR audience responded well to the larger online ad units, driving six to seven times the average traffic to its reseller’s site. So, in a campaign launched this month for its Barracuda 180 drive, Seagate is building on its online ads developed by Lot21, including an online product demo in a pop-up ad.
The bottom line of all this? Advertising is a constantly moving target, and campaigns need to reflect that. There’s nothing wrong with trying new techniques, but to forget the fundamentals is just plain foolish.