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ORGANIZATIONAL BUYING PROCESSES Most marketing actually occurs in the business to business domain, and this is fundamentally different from consumer marketing, a fact most SME's and professional service firms are probably acutely aware of. The majority of B2B marketing communications is based on personal selling, whilst most consumer marketing is focused on communicating with the customer through advertising. However, the difference runs substantially deeper than this. From a buying behaviour perspective, B2B buying behaviour tends to involve many more people in the process and has more discreet stages often characterized by rational decision processes. In contrast, consumer buying behaviour involves vague mental stages that are often difficult to discern and involve a greater degree of emotional decision processes. In summary, organizational buying is a challenging process that should be clearly understood for maximum benefits to accrue to the marketer.
One of the best concepts for looking at the organizational buying process is that of the buying centre. The buying centre is a concept widely used in industrial marketing as it identifies the different people in an organization who may influence a purchase decision and forces a selling organization to explicitly focus its attention on the often varying needs of these people (normally from different functional departments). The possible buying centre constituents may include:
As an organizational seller, you must determine who these people are in the organization and their degree of influence in the purchase process in order to consider the need to target all or some of them. Once this is done, you must make a conscious effort to understand what kind of information each constituent in the buying centre may require in order to customize the approach and information provided to meet their needs more closely. Remember, buyers are problem solvers, they are looking for a solution to their needs. For example, consider the approver. As a senior manager or even owner in the business, they are naturally concerned with the total cost of any service or product. Additionally, one of their major problems will be an answer to the following questions: Just exactly how is this ¡¥widget' going to improve the operation of my organization? Will it add to productivity and effectiveness? Will it give me an edge over my rivals? These are important concerns and are fundamental. Any manager wants to know what is the return on investment for this purchase and the lifetime or longer term benefits. Always take a customer perspective when selling your wares.
In addition to the buying centre, it is also valuable to understand the basics of the customer decision process in order to give yourself every chance at each stage of the buying and decision process. In the purchasing of professional services, research by Day and Barksdale (1994) has uncovered a number of stages to the decision process. These include: • Recognition of need/problem • Identification, refinement, and evaluation of consideration set • Selection of service provider • Evaluation The authors suggest that a better understanding of these stages will enable professional service providers to conduct more thorough analysis of their clients needs. Additionally, they state that a clear understanding of customer goals is essential to this process. In summary, the organizational buying process is a complex one that no one model can possibly define totally. However, it is crucial to have an understanding of these elements if business development time is to be spent wisely and productively. References Day, E and Barksdale, HC (1994) Organizational purchasing of professional services. Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, 9 (3), pp.44-51.
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