Husna's Blog: WEEK 24

BUSINESS BUYER BEHAVIOUR

In business to business marketing there are alot of different kinds of organisations involved like goverment organisations for example policing, health, education, transport e.t.c. In stitutional organisation for example not for profit, community based organisation e.t.c. Commercial organisation for example distributers, original equipment manufacturers, users or retailers.

At the most basic level, marketers want to know how business buyers will respond to various marketing stimili. As with consumer buying the marketing stimili for business buying consists of the four p's: Product, place, price and promotion. Other stimuli consists of major forces in the environment: economic, technological, political, cultural and competitive.These stimuli enter the organisation and are turned into buyer responses: product or service choice, supplier choice, order quantity, delivery service and payment terms. In order to design good marketing mix strategies, the marketers must understand what happens within the organisation to turn stimuli into responses.

Looking at the following website:

http://www.b2bm.biz/

It has an article about big brands such as Dell, Hertz and PC world have signed up to a business cash back website companycashback.com, it is viewed as a golden sales opportunity by larger firms targeting this market.

This kind of merges are part of the business buyer behaviour as it is a business doing marketing through another business organisation.

Within the organisation buying activity consists of two major parts the buyer centre which is all the people involved in the buying decision, and the buying decision process. The buying centre and the buying decision process are both influenced by internal organisational, interpersonal and individual factors as well as by external environmental factors.

Looking at a case study about real marketing regarding the company called IKEA which is the worlds largest furniture retailer. It shows that last year it had 410 million customers throughout the scandinavian retailers 236 huge stors in 34 countries. They generated more than $18bn in sales which shows that they had a potentially huge order value. Looking at another organisation which is the MRI scanner manufacturer, they have very few customers one of which is the NHS, but they potentially have a huge order value of £825,000. As the MRI scanner manufacturer has fewer clients they cannot afford to loose any. And looking at the sales it shows that there is alot of money and risk at stake they need to be able to built trust with their clients. To do this they need to know how they will achieve this, how they will advertise, make sure they have face to face communication and also have sales promotions. All this is part of the customer relationship management.

Geographically concentrated buyers may need to consider their marketing as their customers may know each other and communicate regularly which means their recomendations to each other may influence the others buyer behaviour. This king of buyer behaviour is also affected as they may live close to each other.