Applying territoriality to steps in the buyer/seller process

Territoriality is the drive of an individual to stake out, establish, maintain, and defend an area of space for personal use. The “area of space” may be physical or psychological. Industrial buyers and others involved in the buying process, as members of organizations, will act to establish individual territories within the organization and may also act to represent an organization's territorial needs. Because an understanding of the behavior of buyers is important to industrial sales people, and because the concept of territoriality is a mixture of psychological processes, physical behavior, and the space surrounding an individual, a Territoriality Scan System is proposed to assist the salesperson in improving his or her sales communications with industrial buyers. A salesperson can gather important information about an industrial buyer's psychological processes by observing the buyer's physical behavior and surrounding physical space using the Territoriality Scan System. These observational measurements can then be used to enhance the entire sales presentation.     

Overall corporate strategies for new product programs

The strategy an industrial firm elects for its product development program is increasingly viewed as a critical element of the firm's total corporate strategy. New product development and technology bear an integral relationship to an industrial company's strategic direction by helping to define the range of its possibilities [13]. This article reports the results of an empirical study whose purpose was to identify the major types of innovation strategies that firms pursue—strategy scenarios. A second purpose was to assess which strategies yield the best results.     

Marketing research by a small industrial firm: A case study

There is a growing need today for industrial marketers to conduct marketing research and use the results in making profitable business decisions. This paper describes a marketing research study conducted by a small industrial firm and discusses the nature and extent of its impact on the firm's operations. Several implications and practical guidelines are derived for industrial marketers in general, based on the firm's marketing research experience.     

Measuring the industrial firm's image

This article addresses the auditing of the firm's current marketing position. The corporate image of a medium-sized industrial manufacturing company is analyzed to determine how the company is perceived in the market by its own management and by its existing and potential customers relative to competition.     

China's wheat import programme

China is the world's largest foodgrain producer. It is also the world's major grain trader. China's participation in the world's grain market is unique because of its importance as both a grain importer and exporter, unlike other grain trading nations. This article considers the reasons for China's wheat import programme by following the controversy among Chinese academics, and attempts a more systematic appraisal by the application of regression analysis.     

Effective selling approaches to buyers' objections

Approaches for responding to an industrial buyer's indecision and price objections were uncovered. When an industrial buyer refuses to make a purchase decision or objects to price, an effective salesperson will seek understanding of the buyer's indecision, consciously look for common underlying objections, address the buyer's specific concern, and establish a decision deadline for the buyer.     

The information society in California: Social factors influencing its emergence

The authors identify three elements which will influence California's future. First, demographic shifts in the state's population have altered California's ethnic and cultural foundations. Second, the state educational system does not seem prepared to train larger numbers for information work, especially members of its growing ethnic population. Third, almost half the state's workforce is now employed in information-oriented work, whether in the industrial, service, or agricultural sectors. The authors demonstrate that the interaction of these elements has profound implications for California's development.     

Product vs. customer focused industrial selling

Successfully introducing sophisticated new product innovation in industrial marketing requires a high degree of customer empathy on the part of the salesforce. This article describes a group-oriented exercise designed to improve the performance of the salesforce by their analyzing a specific new product's relative advantages, compatability, divisibility, complexity, and risk as perceived by its customers. A follow-up survey of the salesforce indicated that, as a result of this exercise, greater effectiveness and efficiency in achieving marketing objectives were realized.     

A model of industrial satisfaction/complaining behavior

A model of the purchaser's satisfaction with supplier response to a formal buyer complaint is developed and tested. The authors answer two important questions: (1) what variables affect the purchasing agent's satisfaction with a supplier's response to a complaint? and (2) how can the supplier respond so as to keep that customer in the future?     

Key managerial factors in new venture departments

Two clusters of factors —the “corporate strategic posture” and the New Venture Department (NVD) “political posture” — appear to determine the direction of an NVD's evolution. The “corporate strategic posture” refers to the cycles of diversification and consolidation that typically characterize corporate growth. A corporation's “strategic posture” at any given point in time can be positioned on a continuum, one end of which is a “diversifying” posture, while the other end is a “consolidating” posture.     

SAM — a baby with many faces

In the last issue of Food Policy, two articles appeared on the subject of the Mexican Food System, or the Sistema Alimenticio Mexicano (SAM). The first article by Frank Meissner¹ reviewed the background to SAM, the proposed strategies, intended targets, its funding and put forward a strong case for considering SAM as a constructive policy for alleviating Mexico's food and nutrition problems. However, Michael Redclift commented in his article that:² ‘There are three principal points to be made of Dr Meissner's article: its interpretation of Mexico's recent agrarian development is questionable; it does not distinguish between the analysis provided in the SAM documents and the policy measures to which they give rise; and, it glosses over serious problems of implementation, giving too little weight to the participatory element without which SAM is doomed to failure’. This rejoinder is Frank Meissner's response to Michael Redclift's comments.     

The learning curve,demand growth,and market concentration

This paper explores the relationship among an industry's levels of learning, expected demand growth, and concentration. The analysis uses comparative statics and simulations to explain how the incentives associated with learning can result in a positive relationship between the industry's expected demand growth and its equilibrium level of concentration.     

Marketing executives' perceptions of equitable salary increases

Employees' perceptions of fair and equitable salary increases is the subject of this article. Factors hypothesized to be the major determinants of the “perceived amount of pay that should be received” in Lawler's model of pay satisfaction are employed as predictor variables in a multiple regression equation context to explain the observed variation in executives' perceptions of fair and equitable salary increases. A national sample of industrial marketing executives were surveyed. A significant relationship was observed between employees perceptions of fair and equitable salary increases and a number of perceived personal job input and job demands related variables, current salary and wage history, and perceived non-monetary outcomes which are theorized in Lawler's model to be among the major determinants of the perceived amount of pay that should be received.     

Developing and using a customer profile data bank

This article proposes the implementation of a customer profile system to aid the industrial marketer in: making daily sales decisions involving the firm's customers; the development of the vendor's “buyer mix”; and the production of marketing analysis reports used by the firm. The components of the customer profile are presented and the procedures by which these elements can be incorporated into the firm's decision making are explained. Working examples are also provided to reinforce the concepts. Unfortunately the names of the actual corporations had to be deleted or changed for reasons of confidentiality.     

Purchasing's role in computer buying: A comparative study

The sale of Electronic Data Processing (EDP) equipment represents a large and growing market both in number of dollars and products. This article analyzes the purchaser's perceived role in the EDP acquisition process from both public and private sector perspectives. Major public and private sector purchasing differences are discussed in terms of their implications for improving EDP marketing success. Differences discussed include: purchaser influence in the EDP decision process, necessity of seller-buyer interface, method of purchase, and purchasing's organization structure for buying EDP equipment.     

A policy for UK sugar supplies

A substantial shift in the balance of UK sugar supplies has taken place since entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) as a result of an increase in the production of domestic beet sugar, a fall in consumption, and a reduction in cane sugar imports. This shift in favour of beet sugar would have been greater had the domestic beet sugar industry been able to take full advantage of the increase in production quotas since 1975 under the Community's common sugar policy. A further increase in domestic beet sugar production might yet take place now that the Community's new sugar regulation, which was to have come into force in July 1980, has had to be deferred to 1981. The European Commission has proposed that under the new sugar regulation production quotas should be cut to reduce the size of the Community's structural sugar surplus. The UK government has issued a statement which welcomes the Commission's proposal to reduce the Community's sugar surplus but rejects any cuts in production quotas which would restrict the expansion of its own beet sugar industry.¹     

Sales management control and job performance

A national firm's salespeoples' perceptions of their management control system were related to their performance and satisfaction. Salespeople who perceived job goal clarity, control over their work, and job rewards as being based upon performance were found to be relatively higher performers and better satisfied with their job.     

Revitalizing weak industrial products

The study reported in this article focuses on the policies and practices of industrial goods companies to revitalize weak products. The decision was found to be a multiple-stage sequential process that begins with “diagnostic” routine to identify the causes of a product's unsatisfactory performance and ends with the implementation of a corrective action that management believes could restore the product's health.     

Industrial product managers: Authority and responsibility

This exporatory study concentrated on large industrial firms. The data indicate the IPM is well accepted, and has a very bright future. Their authority and responsibilities are similar to consumer goods PM's with technical aspects being the exceptions.