Reducing overreaction in contract markets

Predicting market share can be difficult for industrial firms whose sales occur in the form of a few large contracts received at irregular intervals during the course of a year. This article discusses the problems that this type of sales pattern may cause and provides a solution for determining probabilistic share forecasts.     

What buyers like from salesmen

This study applies content analysis to determine the attributes or factors of salespeople that provide industrial purchasers with the greatest level of satisfaction. The results provide valuable information to industrial marketers in their selection of salespeople, developing sales training programs, and understanding buyer characteristics, as well as formulating and developing strategies.     

Small business purchasing of capital equipment

This article concerns the results of a study employing consumer brand-choice methodology to explain the evaluation and buying decisions for light excavators by individual entrepreneurs. First, the purchasing of industrial products by small businesses is briefly discussed conceptually. Second, the buying decisions of Finnish contractors for light excavators were investigated with a multiattribute choice model. The results indicate that buying decisions are based on product attributes that differ from one excavator model to another. The usefulness of the selection model is evaluated, and a framework model describing factors affecting an individual entrepreneur's excavator buying process is suggested together with certain implications for marketers.     

Coalitions in organizational buying

It has been argued that many, if not most, organizational buying decisions are made not by individuals, but by coalitions. At the same time, coalition formation has been all but ignored in theoretical and empirical research on the buying process. This article discusses the nature of coalitions and their likelihood in industrial buying. Managerial implications of the presence of coalitions are drawn for both the industrial buying and selling organization.     

产业技术选择与产业技术生态环境的耦合效应分析

技术选择问题是技术经济学研究的核心问题。技术选择在技术转移、技术扩散与技术变迁过程中起着重要作用。是发展中国家技术能力发展的首要阶段。本文从生态学角度,系统分析了产业技术选择与技术生态环境耦合效应,并以吉林省37个工业产业研究对象进行了实证研究。实证结果显示,吉林省工业产业中技术选择与技术生态环境之间不匹配现象普遍存在,超过80%产业耦合效应处于失调状态,并且产业规模是制约产业选择技术水平的约束因素。     

Vendor segmentation: An additional level of market segmentation

This article describes a new conceptual approach, called “vendor segmentation,” which will be useful to industrial marketers in making their vendor evaluation and selection procedures more customer oriented, and hence more profitable, than conventional procedures. A practical approach for doing vendor segmentation analysis is outlined as a stepwise procedure, and the potential benefits and limitations of using this approach are discussed.     

Using humor in the industrial selling process

Humor is an oft used promotional tool in advertising, and the question naturally arises as to whether humor can also be designed to accomplish specific goals in the industrial selling process. In this article, principles of humor are applied to the buyer/seller process, with particular reference to the steps of the sale. The judicious use of humor by the industrial salesperson can enhance the sales presentation and favorably influence the overall buyer/seller relationship, provided the salesperson has adequate knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of humor.     

Industrial product innovation: An international comparison

This paper presents and discusses the data obtained from a study of 500 industrial innovations introduced in major industrialized countries from 1953 to 1973. The trends in industrial innovation of both the country of origin and the country of market introduction are examined based on the data presented.     

The industrial proposal as a promotional tool

The industrial marketer's promotional tool, the formal proposal, has been little more than an informative but relatively dull statement of supplier qualifications and technical specifications. This article outlines the phases of conventional bidding or proposal preparation, employs exploratory research findings to help identify current weaknesses, and introduces the emerging storyboarding process as a stimulus to the increased vitality of the industrial promotional atmosphere.     

产业链“波粒二象性”研究——论产业链的特性、结构及其整合

由于对产业链特性认识不清，产业链的研究总是处于夹缝之中，依附于产业或企业的研究。正如光既不是“波”也不是“粒子”一样，产业链实际上是一个具有“波粒二象性”的特殊产业组织。它的结构也不是通常的产业纵向关联形式，而是类似“玻尔原子”结构式的企业关联状态。这种特性和结构就决定了产业链研究的核心问题是如何整合产业链，完成产业创新和实现产业价值。解决的主要思路就是根据产业链的“波粒二象性”来调控产业链间的企业关系，促进产业链条的优化。特别是在企业之间形成“量子纠缠”．推动“量子跃迁”。“量子纠缠”是为了无形“隐性知识”在产业链条中的“隐性传输”．“量子跃迁”是为了有形“中间产品”在产业链条间的“显性传输”。     

A critical review of industrial market segmentation

This article reviews approximately 30 articles over the past 20 years that have addressed the topic of industrial market segmentation. The pursuit of a normative model to guide practitioners in segmenting industrial markets has made some progress with three identifiable models. There are a host of problems with the work done in the area both conceptual and methodological.     

A stochastic shift model for economically designed charts constrained by the process stage configuration

An economic model including the labor resource and the process stage configuration is proposed to design X¯ charts allowing for all the design parameters to be varied in an adaptive way. A random shift size is considered during the economic design selection. The results obtained for a benchmark of 64 process stage scenarios show that the activities configuration and some process operating parameters influence the selection of the best control chart strategy; to model the random shift size, its exact distribution can be approximately fitted by a discrete distribution obtained from a relatively small sample of historical data. However, an accurate estimation of the inspection costs associated to the SPC activities is far from being achieved. An illustrative example shows the implementation of the proposed economic model in a real industrial case.     

Direct mail response factors for an industrial service

This article addresses the lack of quantitative research on industrial services marketing communications by providing a quantitative study of a direct mail promotion for an industrial service. Prenotification, the structure of the letter, the ethnic background of the signatory, personalization, and prequalifying the respondent were tested as factors influencing the response rate in the direct mail promotion. The results are useful as baseline information for current practitioners and to provide insights for the future development of theories of marketing communications for industrial services.     

Predicting industrial ad readership

This study examined the effect of visual and psycholinguistic elements (such as picture size and the number of adjectives in the headline) on industrial advertisement readership. Multiple regression techniques were used to analyze the data, which were obtained from AD-CHART. AD-CHART is a research firm which specializes in the measurement of industrial ad readership. The analyses showed that visual and psycholinguistic elements are better predictors of industrial advertising readership than more complicated models.     

Shippers' transportation choice processes under deregulation

Deregulation of the motor carrier industry affords an opportunity to better understand industrial choice processes during a period of significant environmental uncertainty. Partial validation of a decision process model and the managerial implications of that model are presented.     

A critical review of recent organizational buying research

The purposes of this article are to examine the major contributions toward understanding industrial buying behavior and to suggest possible areas for future research. Many of the more recent studies have attempted to apply research findings in communications theory, consumer behavior, quantitative methods, and managerial decision theory in defining the decision process which constitutes industrial buying behavior. These research efforts have not been thoroughly evaluated.     

Industrial marketing education: Practitioner's views

A study of industrial marketing practitioner perspectives on industrial marketing education was conducted. Attitudes toward the educational process, definition of skills, continuing education, practitioner assistance in education and topic importance were queried. In general it was found that practitioners are favorably disposed toward industrial marketing education, are willing to assist in the educational process and have distinct perceptions on the nature of the educational process and how it should be carried out.     

Factors that influence the length of industrial channels

This article is concerned with the length of channels utilized to market industrial products. Several marketing scholars have proposed that the appropriate channel structure is a function of conditions associated with the market for the product, the nature of the product itself, and characteristics of the producer and middlemen. By means of a survey of industrial product manufacturers, this study identified six characteristics of middlemen, industrial markets, and industrial customers that appear to be significant influences on the length of channels used to distribute industrial products.     

How valid is the buy-grid model?

The purpose of this paper was to test the effects of product type and purchase experience on industrial buyer behavior. The research was conducted in the commercial construction industry. The findings indicate that product type is a meaningful variable which is related to industrial buyer behavior; however, the purchase experience variable or buyclass variable is not significantly related to buyer behavior as measured in this study.     

Impact of purchasing systems contracts on distributors and procedures

Under systems contracting the buyer is supplied with all of his MRO items from a single source. This article discusses some important marketing strategy implications of systems contracting for both the manufacturer and industrial distributor of MRO items.