Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic

Marketing: A

Global−Managerial

Approach, 14/e

7. Business and
   Organizational Customers
   and Their Buying Behavior

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

186 Chapter 7

there’s nothing worse to a manufacturer than shutting down a production line

because sellers haven’t delivered the goods. Dependable product quality is important

too. For example, a bug in e-commerce software purchased by a firm might cause the

firm’s online order system to shut down. The costs of finding and correcting the

problem—to say nothing about the cost of the lost business—could be completely

out of proportion to the original cost of the software.

Understanding how the buying behavior of a particular organization differs from

others can be very important. Even seemingly trivial differences in buying behavior

may be important because success often hinges on fine-tuning the marketing mix.

Sellers often approach each organizational customer directly, usually through a

sales representative. This gives the seller more chance to adjust the marketing mix

for each individual customer. A seller may even develop a unique strategy for each

individual customer. This approach carries target marketing to its extreme. But sell-

ers often need unique strategies to compete for large-volume purchases.

In such situations, the individual sales rep takes much responsibility for strategy

planning. The sales rep often coordinates the whole relationship between the sup-

plier and the customer. That may involve working with many people—including

top management—in both firms. This is relevant to your career planning since these

interesting jobs are very challenging, and they pay well too.

Many marketers discover that there are good opportunities to serve business cus-

tomers in different countries around the world. Specific business customs do vary

from one country to another—and the differences can be important. For example,

a salesperson working in Japan must know how to handle a customer’s business card

with respect. Japanese consider it rude to write notes on the back of a card or put

it in a wallet while the person who presented it is still in the room. But the basic

approaches marketers use to deal with business customers in different parts of the

world are much less varied than those required to reach individual consumers.

This is probably why the shift to a global economy has been so rapid for many

firms. Their business customers in different countries buy in similar ways and can

be reached with similar marketing mixes. Moreover, business customers are often

willing to work with a distant supplier who has developed a superior marketing mix.

Business customers usually focus
on economic needs when they
make purchase decisions, so
Microsoft wants top decision
makers to realize that its reliable
server software eliminates
downtime costs because it is up
and running 99.999 percent of
the time.

Even small differences
are important

Serving customers in
international markets