Contents
Rationale
Business-to-Business (B2B) stands for relations between enterprises, contrary to relations between enterprises and other groups (e.g. consumers, public administration). The term is today used in marketing however it was established to describe the electronic communication relations between enterprises in order to distinguish it from the communication between enterprises and consumers B2C.
While in former times one spoke primarily of industrial marketing or capital goods marketing, today the term B2B-Marketing is widely used. B2B-Marketing covers all products and services used by enterprises. B2B marketing is considered more complex than B2C marketing because on the buyer´s side, there is often more than one person involved in a B2B sale, the buying center.
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Strategies
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Introduction to Business-to-Business Marketing
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Buyer decision processes are the decision making processes undertaken by consumers in regard to a potential market transaction before, during, and after the purchase of a product or service.
More generally, decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action from among multiple alternatives. Common examples include shopping, deciding what to eat. Decision making is said to be a psychological construct. This means that although we can never "see" a decision, we can infer from observable behaviour that a decision has been made. Therefore we conclude that a psychological event that we call "decision making" has occurred. It is a construction that imputes commitment to action. That is, based on observable actions, we assume that people have made a commitment to effect the action.
In general there are three ways of analysing consumer buying decisions. They are:
Economic models - These models are largely quantitative and are based on the assumptions of rationality and near perfect knowledge. The consumer is seen to maximize their utility. See consumer theory. Game theory can also be used in some circumstances. Psychological models - These models concentrate on psychological and cognitive processes such as motivation and need reduction. They are qualitative rather than quantitative and build on sociological factors like cultural influences and family influences. Consumer behaviour models - These are practical models used by marketers. They typically blend both economic and psychological models.
Nobel laureate Herbert Simon sees economic decision making as a vain attempt to be rational. He claims (in 1947 and 1957) that if a complete analysis is to be done, a decision will be immensely complex. He also says that peoples' information processing ability is very limited. The assumption of a perfectly rational economic actor is unrealistic. Often we are influenced by emotional and non-rational considerations. When we try to be rational we are at best only partially successful.
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Classifying Customers, Organizations, and Markets
Tutorials
Readings
Organizational Buying and Buyer Behavior
Tutorials
Readings
Organisational Markets and Buyer Behaviour
The Marketing Environment
Tutorials
- The Legal and Political Environment
- The Marketing Environment and Competitor Analysis
- Internet Applications
- Self-assessment
Workshop
Readings
Competitor analysis in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats. Profiling coalesces all of the relevant sources of competitor analysis into one framework in the support of efficient and effective strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring and adjustment.[1]
Competitor analysis is an essential component of corporate strategy. It is argued that most firms do not conduct this type of analysis systematically enough. Instead, many enterprises operate on what is called “informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained through the tidbits of information about competitors every manager continually receives.” As a result, traditional environmental scanning places many firms at risk of dangerous competitive blindspots due to a lack of robust competitor analysis.[2]
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Business
Law and The Legal Environment
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Concepts and Context of Business Strategy
Tutorials
Readings
Strategic management is a field that deals with the major intended and emergent initiatives taken by general managers on behalf of owners, involving utilization of resources, to enhance the performance of firms in their external environments.[1] It entails specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs. A balanced scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance of the business and its progress towards objectives. Recent studies and leading management theorists have advocated that strategy needs to start with stakeholders expectations and use a modified balanced scorecard which includes all stakeholders.
Strategic management is a level of managerial activity under setting goals and over Tactics. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization Studies. In the field of business administration it is useful to talk about "strategic alignment" between the organization and its environment or "strategic consistency." According to Arieu (2007), "there is strategic consistency when the actions of an organization are consistent with the expectations of management, and these in turn are with the market and the context." Strategic management includes not only the management team but can also include the Board of Directors and other stakeholders of the organization. It depends on the organizational structure.
“Strategic management is an ongoing process that evaluates and controls the business and the industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a new economic environment., or a new social, financial, or political environment.” (Lamb, 1984:ix)[2]
- Concepts/approaches of strategic management
- Strategy formation
- Strategy evaluation and choice
- Strategic implementation and control
- General approaches
- The strategy hierarchy
- Historical development of strategic management
- The psychology of strategic management
- Reasons why strategic plans fail
- Limitations of strategic management
- The Journal of Business Strategies
- Strategic Planning Society
- The Association of Internal Management Consultants-The nationwide network of Strategic Management and Planning professionals
Assessing Customers, Markets, and Competitors
Tutorials
Readings
Competitiveness is a comparative concept of the ability and performance of a firm, sub-sector or country to sell and supply goods and/or services in a given market. Although widely used in economics and business management, the usefulness of the concept, particularly in the context of national competitiveness, is vigorously disputed by economists, such as Paul Krugman.[1]
The term may also be applied to markets, where it is used to refer to the extent to which the market structure may be regarded as perfectly competitive. This usage has nothing to do with the extent to which individual firms are "competitive'.
- Customer
- Competition law
- Global Competitiveness Report
- Ireland's National Competitiveness Council
- Organizational performance index (OPI)
- World Competitiveness Yearbook (IMD Lausanne)
- References
- Institute for Competitiveness, India [3]
- WEF Global Competitiveness Report
- World Competitiveness Yearbook by IMD Lausanne
- Ireland's National Competitiveness Council
- Croatia's National Competitiveness Council
- Sri Lanka's The Competitiveness Program, Sri Lanka
- U.S. Council on Competitiveness
- Basque Country (Spain) Basque Institute of Competitiveness - Orkestra
- AccountAbility Responsible Competitiveness
Competitive advantage is defined as the strategic advantage one business entity has over its rival entities within its competitive industry. Achieving competitive advantage strengthens and positions a business better within the business environment.
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Selecting Markets - Segmentation and Targeting
Tutorials
Readings
A marketing strategy is based on expected customer behavior in a certain market. In order to know the customer and its expected buying process of segmenting and positioning is needed. These processes are chronological steps which are dependent on each other. The process of market segmentation and of positioning are described elsewhere within the Wikipedia. This topic elaborates on the dependency and relationship between these processes.
- market segmentation
- competitor analysis
- positioning
- target market
- market research
- commercial planning
- www.themanager.org [1]
- B2B Marketing Org[2] - How to develop a positioning statement
- Identifying Market Segments and Targets
Targeted advertising is a type of advertising whereby advertisements are placed so as to reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, purchase history, or observed behavior.
Two principal forms of targeted interactive advertising are behavioral targeting and contextual advertising.
See also
Planning and Positioning the Value Offering
Tutorials
Readings
Although there are different definitions of Positioning, probably the most common is: "A product's position is how potential buyers see the product", and is expressed relative to the position of competitors.
This differs slightly from the context in which the term was first published in 1969 by Al Ries and Jack Trout in the paper "Positioning" is a game people play in today’s me-too market place" in the publication Industrial Marketing, in which the case is made that the typical consumer is overwhelmed with unwanted advertising, and has a natural tendency to discard all information that does not immediately find a comfortable (and empty) slot in the consumers mind. It was then expanded into their ground-breaking first book, "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind", in which they define Positioning as "an organized system for finding a window in the mind. It is based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances." (p. 19 of 2001 paperback edition)
What most will agree on is that Positioning is something (perception) that happens in the minds of the target market. It is the aggregate perception the market has of a particular company, product or service in relation to their perceptions of the competitors in the same category. It will happen whether or not a company's management is proactive, reactive or passive about the on-going process of evolving a position. But a company can positively influence the perceptions through enlightened strategic actions.
In marketing, positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization. It is the 'relative competitive comparison' their product occupies in a given market as perceived by the target market.
Re-positioning involves changing the identity of a product, relative to the identity of competing products, in the collective minds of the target market.
De-positioning involves attempting to change the identity of competing products, relative to the identity of your own product, in the collective minds of the target market.
The original work on Positioning was consumer marketing oriented, and was not as much focused on the question relativity to competitive products as much as it was focused on cutting through the ambient "noise" and establishing a moment of real contact with the intended recipient. In the classic example of Avis claiming "No.2, We Try Harder", the point was to say something so shocking (it was by the standards of the day) that it cleared space in your brain and made you forget all about who was #1, and not to make some philosophical point about being "hungry" for business.
The growth of high-tech marketing may have had much to do with the shift in definition towards competitive positioning.
Shareholder Value
Pricing Policies
Tutorials
Readings
Pricing is the process of determining what a company will receive in exchange for its products. Pricing factors are manufacturing cost, market place, competition, market condition, and quality of product. Pricing is also a key variable in microeconomic price allocation theory. Pricing is a fundamental aspect of financial modeling and is one of the four Ps of the marketing mix. The other three aspects are product, promotion, and place. Price is the only revenue generating element amongst the four Ps, the rest being cost centers.
Pricing is the manual or automatic process of applying prices to purchase and sales orders, based on factors such as: a fixed amount, quantity break, promotion or sales campaign, specific vendor quote, price prevailing on entry, shipment or invoice date, combination of multiple orders or lines, and many others. Automated systems require more setup and maintenance but may prevent pricing errors. The needs of the consumer can be converted into demand only if the consumer has the willingness and capacity to buy the product. Thus pricing is very important in marketing.
External links and further reading William Poundstone, Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) Hill and Wang, 2010
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Innovation, Productivity, and Competitiveness
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Readings
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.
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- Academic article on Being a Systems Innovator on SSRN
- "Communication on Innovation policy: updating the Union's approach in the context of the Lisbon strategy" – The European Commission.
- Commission proposes 2009 to become European Year of Creativity and Innovation – The European Commission.
- PRO-INNO Europe – Innovation policy analysis and development throughout Europe (Initiative of the European Commission).
- 12 Innovations that Changed the World
- Ulrich Hottelet: Invented in Germany - made in Asia , Asia Pacific Times, October 2007
The following article is about the economic concept. For the historical role of technology in creating the modern economy, see Productivity improving technologies (historical). For biological productivity, see Productivity (ecology). For productivity in linguistics, see Productivity (linguistics).
Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input. Productivity is a measure of output from a production process, per unit of input.
At the national level, productivity growth raises living standards because more real income improves people's ability to purchase goods and services, enjoy leisure, improve housing and education and contribute to social and environmental programs. Productivity growth is important to the firm because it means that the firm can meet its (perhaps growing) obligations to customers, suppliers, workers, shareholders, and governments (taxes and regulation), and still remain competitive or even improve its competitiveness in the market place.[1]
Business-to-Business Selling
Tutorials
Readings
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, ecommerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online. It also includes the entire online process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing and paying for products and services. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction's life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices and telephones as well.
A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely in electronic form for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but mostly electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers are now electronically present on the World Wide Web.
Electronic commerce that takes place between businesses is referred to as business-to-business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market). Electronic commerce that takes place between businesses and consumers, on the other hand, is referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. This is the type of electronic commerce conducted by companies such as Amazon.com. Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce where the buyer is directly online to the seller's computer usually via the internet. There is often no intermediary service involved, and the sale or purchase transaction is completed electronically and interactively in real-time. However in some cases, an intermediary may be present in a sale or purchase transaction, or handling recurring or one-time purchase transactions for online games.
Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of business transactions.
- History
- Business applications
- Governmental regulation
- Forms
- Global trends
- Impact on markets and retailers
- Distribution channels
Channel
Relationships
Tutorials
Readings
- E-Commerce and E-Business at Wikibooks
- Innovation in Marketing Channels: Relationships, Technology, Channel Structure
- US Small Business Guide to E-Commerce Laws and Regulations
Communicating with the Market
Tutorials
Readings
Marketing Communications (or MarCom or Integrated Marketing Communications) are messages and related media used to communicate with a market. Marketing communications is the "promotion" part of the "Marketing Mix" or the "four Ps": price, place, promotion, and product.
Those who practice advertising, branding, brand language, direct marketing, graphic design, marketing, packaging, promotion, publicity, sponsorship, public relations, sales, sales promotion and online marketing are termed marketing communicators, marketing communication managers, or more briefly, marcom managers.
The communication process is sender-encoding-transmission device-decoding-receiver, which is part of any advertising or marketing program. Encoding the message is the second step in communication process, which takes a creative idea and transforms it into attention-getting advertisements designed for various media (television, radio, magazines, and others). Messages travel to audiences through various transmission devices. The third stage of the marketing communication process occurs when a channel or medium delivers the message. Decoding occurs when the message reaches one or more of the receiver's senses. Consumers both hear and see television ads. Others consumers handle (touch) and read (see) a coupon offer. One obstacle that prevents marketing messages from being efficient and effective is called barrier. Barrier is anything that distorts or disrupts a message. It can occur at any stage in the communication process. The most common form of noise affecting marketing communication is clutter.[1]
Traditionally, marketing communications practitioners focused on the creation and execution of printed marketing collateral; however, academic and professional research developed the practice to use strategic elements of branding and marketing in order to ensure consistency of message delivery throughout an organization - a consistent "look & feel". Many trends in business can be attributed to marketing communications; for example: the transition from customer service to customer relations, and the transition from human resources to human solutions and the trends to blogs, email, and other online communication derived from an elevator pitch.
Social commercials are rising, thanks to services like YouTube and Vimeo. According to a 2011 study, "88% of all companies that have conducted social media advertising are satisfied with it." [2] Indeed, social commercials are steadily permeating our everyday lives, in the forms of billboards, apps, TV, and even print media.
In branding, every opportunity to impress the organization's (or the individual's) brand upon the customer is called a brand touch point (or brand contact point.) Examples include everything from TV and other media advertisements, event sponsorships, webinars, and personal selling to even product packaging. Thus, every experiential opportunity that an organization creates for its stakeholders or customers is a brand touch point. Hence, it is vitally important for brand strategists and managers to survey all of their organization's brand touch points and control for the stakeholder's or customer's experience. Marketing communications, as a vehicle of an organization's brand management, is concerned with the promotion of an organization's brand, product(s) and/or service(s) to stakeholders and prospective customers through these touch points.
Marketing communications is focused on the product/service as opposed to corporate communications where the focus of communications work is the company/enterprise itself. Marketing communications is primarily concerned with demand generation and product/service positioning while corporate communications deal with issue management, mergers and acquisitions, litigation, etc.
External links
- The Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications
- STC Marketing Communication Special Interest Group
Business Ethics and Crisis Management
Tutorials
Readings
Business ethics (also corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.
Business ethics has both normative and descriptive dimensions. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. Academics attempting to understand business behavior employ descriptive methods. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the interaction of profit-maximizing behavior with non-economic concerns. Interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporations promote their commitment to non-economic values under headings such as ethics codes and social responsibility charters. Adam Smith said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."[1] Governments use laws and regulations to point business behavior in what they perceive to be beneficial directions. Ethics implicitly regulates areas and details of behavior that lie beyond governmental control.[2] The emergence of large corporations with limited relationships and sensitivity to the communities in which they operate accelerated the development of formal ethics regimes.[3]
- History
- Overview
- Functional business areas
- International issues
- Economic systems
- Law and regulation
- Implementation
- Academic discipline
- Religious views
- Related disciplines
Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. The study of crisis management originated with the large scale industrial and environmental disasters in the 1980's.[1] Three elements are common to most definitions of crisis: (a) a threat to the organization, (b) the element of surprise, and (c) a short decision time.[2] Venette[3] argues that "crisis is a process of transformation where the old system can no longer be maintained." Therefore the fourth defining quality is the need for change. If change is not needed, the event could more accurately be described as a failure or incident.
In contrast to risk management, which involves assessing potential threats and finding the best ways to avoid those threats, crisis management involves dealing with threats after they have occurred. It is a discipline within the broader context of management consisting of skills and techniques required to identify, assess, understand, and cope with a serious situation, especially from the moment it first occurs to the point that recovery procedures start.
- Introduction
- Types of crisis
- Crisis Leadership
- Models and theories associated with crisis management
- Examples of successful crisis management
- Examples of unsuccessful crisis management
- Lessons learned in crisis management
- Public sector crisis management
- Professional Organizations
- Common Alerting Protocol
- Contingency plan
- Crisis
- Cross-cultural communication
- Emergency services
- Emergency management
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- ISO/TC 223 Societal Security
- Management
- Management by exception
- Risk Management
- Social Responsibility
- References
- Further reading
- Crisis management and business continuity planning. 2007. United Kingdom Government Business Link.
- Crisis Manager Newsletter, a free collection of 600+ articles on crisis management-related topics.
- Crisis Management and Communication Entry Institute for Public Relations article
- CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY A short program offered at MIT
- TURNAROUND MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION Certifying Body for Certified Turnaround Professionals/Crisis Managers
- The International Research Group on Crisis Communication Publications and crisis institutions database
Recommended Texts
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Business Marketing Analysis and Practice in a Dynamic Environment Vitale,
Rob Giglierano,
Joe
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