Networks,ecosystems, fields,market systems? Making sense of the business environment

This positioning paper is informed by our judgment that the mainstream research on business marketing and marketing in general is losing its relevance and vigor because it views business environments as narrow “markets” and focuses primarily on dyadic business relationships and their management. Sticking to this limited, economics-driven market view has detached the discipline from major real-world phenomena, leaving it with scant understanding of the contemporary environmental context of marketing and business strategy. Based on a focused reading of literature on business fields, business networks, business ecosystems, and market systems, we venture our own comprehensive theoretical framing of complex business environments summarized in two frameworks. In the pursuit of relevance our integration is avowedly simplifying as we strive for parsimony. Key points explicate the nested, multi-layered, multimodal, transitional and conditioned character of the business environment, and the dynamics, phases and processes of the evolution of that nested environment. We use the frameworks constructed, which form an initial theory of complex business environments, to supply a research agenda for business marketing and offer brief managerial conclusions.     

The business model in entrepreneurial marketing: A communication perspective on business angels' opportunity interpretation

Entrepreneurial marketing has emerged as a recent perspective within the marketing field, taking the challenges and characteristics of small firms and founding teams into account. Specifically, in the early stages of entrepreneurial marketing, besides potential customers a variety of other stakeholders tend to be in the center of attention. Among these stakeholders, business angels as early-stage investors represent a vital target group. In this paper, we aim to shed light on entrepreneurial marketing in the early phases of new venture creation, in which entrepreneurial firms have an inherent need to market the value of a business opportunity toward potential investors. In particular, we contribute to the literature by introducing the business model as a narrative device for the marketing of early-stage new ventures toward potential business angels. In this regard, the business model is suggested as playing a critical role through making the inherent economic value of a technology explicit. Building on narrative theory, we investigate the role that the business model plays in the decision-making process of 17 business angels. Based on our findings, we propose a model that links the business model to a business angel's interpretation of an investment opportunity and discuss implications for theory and practice.     

Return on marketing investments in B2B customer relationships: A decision-making and optimization approach

The basic notion of relationship marketing entails that firms should strive for mutually beneficial customer relationships. By combining relationship marketing theory and operations research methods, this paper aims to develop and demonstrate a managerial decision-making model that business market managers can use to optimize and evaluate marketing investments in both a customer-oriented and economically feasible manner. The intended contributions of our work are as follows. First, we add to the return on marketing literature by providing a first decision-making approach that explicitly assesses the optimization of marketing investments in terms of profitability, effort, and resource allocation. Second, we show how the risk of marketing investments can be assessed using sensitivity analysis. By means of an empirical study the versatility of our decision-making approach is demonstrated by assessing various critical decision making issues for business marketing managers in detail.     

Plant location and place marketing: understanding the process from the business customer's perspective

In the past decade, there has been an increased interest in place marketing, especially as countries and locations have been spending more money to encourage firms to locate their offices and plant locations in the place marketer's area. In this paper, we examine the place marketing from the perspective of the marketer and that of the business customer, specifically in the area of communication and information distribution (in the era of the Internet). In literature, place marketing strategies vary from the very simple to the very sophisticated. Through examination of present marketing and communication practices of place marketers, we find that these strategies are unplanned or “seat of the pants.” We also find that the primary reason for the lack of deliberate and targeted strategies is a lack of understanding of customer decision-making processes. We suggest that only by understanding differences in business customer segments of the market can place marketers become more efficient and effective in winning plant placements. Using data from business customer decision-making processes, we attempt to close the knowledge gap.     

消费者最好的时代 生产者最坏的时代

整个消费社会开始以消费者为中心重新调整,主要体现在以下几个方面:营销:传统的单向度的信息传递为主的模式逐渐转变为以情感和互动为核心的沟通、对话零售:如何能够在线上和线     

产业发展的趋势研判与理性思考

在全球经济一体化，信息化，市场化的大背景下，国际产业发展也是呈现出新的特点，产业的集聚发展，相互间渗透发展以及产业持续发展构成了当今产业发展的主旋律。把握国际产业的发展趋势，可以在我国产业战略调整中通过簇群化进一步提高我国产业的国际竞争力；通过融合化实现产业创新和培育新的增长点；通过生态化促进我国经济的可持续发展。     

How is information technology affecting business relationships? Results from a UK survey

Since the interaction approach to the study of business-to-business relationships was developed in the early 1980s [Hakansson H, editor. International marketing and purchasing of industrial goods: an interaction approach. Chichester: Wiley, 1982.], significant changes in the business environment have occurred. The change from manufacturing to services in the more mature economies, globalisation and the rapid evolution of IT and e-commerce are obvious examples. The development of IT and e-commerce on the Internet has been predicted to dramatically affect the way business is conducted, with most surveys pointing to the dominant role that it will play in business to business markets [Key Note. Internet usage in business. London: Key Note Market Reports, 2000.]. In this paper, we examine the impact that information technology is having on business relationships, which lie at the very centre of current thinking in marketing. The results of our initial study shows that the uptake of new technology in business to business companies to be very variable. The usefulness and frequency of use of mobile phones, e-mail, the Internet, intranets, extranets, and audio- and video-conferencing will we believe increase in the future, but perhaps not as quickly as many of the forecasts have predicted. Interestingly, although suppliers are more computer literate than the buyers, the buyers are using the Internet to source suppliers from abroad.     

浅谈如何在关系营销中建立和完善客户关系管理体系

随着燃气这个清洁能源的普遍应用,燃气企业的知名度也在飞速提升。然而,当前我们面临的首要任务之一,就是在以信息化建设为依托、以燃气为中介,从关系营销中,如何建立出满足当今市场竞争的用户关系,如何改善用户服务体系,从而增强用户的满意度,占有更多的市场份额。关系营销,是一种符合现代企业发展的经营理念,我们要在获得新用户、新消费者的同时,还要加大管理力度对已有的用户信息进行维护和更新。迅速有效地实现"5化"精细管理:营销管理集中化、组织扁平化、服务便捷化、资源最优化、信息共享化。从公司营销的市场应变能力、用户服务能力、管理控制能力和营销运作能力入手,整体促进公司的全面可持续发展。     

Building competences for new customer value creation: An exploratory study

Recent marketing literature suggests companies to become market driving (proactive business logic, changing the rules of the market) instead of market driven (reactive business logic, customer-led). This transformation implies that companies are able to boost their capacity to create new customer value. Based on survey data of business-to-business markets, we advance a tentative model that links competence development to new customer value creation. Although exploratory in its nature, our study exhibits that companies should build three types of competences: marketing practices for external knowledge absorption, general organizational competences and supply chain/network competences. Using cluster analysis, we are able to further link these competences to the capacity of new value creation. Four clusters are detected with different degrees of expertise in new value creation and each displaying their own profile of competences. Becoming market driving requires an integrated and balanced view on marketing practices.     

论煤炭企业营销体系中的“三大支柱”

煤炭企业作为市场经营活动的主体 ,在竞争的环境下必须搞好煤炭营销“龙头”工作。煤炭市场营销是一个完整而科学的体系 ,其中的煤炭市场环境分析、用目标市场选择、煤炭营销组合设计则是这一体系中的“三大支柱” ,必须予以高度重视 ,以保证煤炭产品的适销对路和运销过程的快速、高效     

Product‐market strategy and the marketing capabilities of the firm: impact on market effectiveness and cash flow performance

We report on two studies (a single and a multi‐industry) that empirically investigate a nomological network of relationships between strategic business unit product‐market strategy (differentiation, cost‐focus, and product‐market scope), marketing capabilities (architectural and specialized capabilities, as well as their integration), and business unit performance (market effectiveness and subsequent one‐year objective cash flow), along with a series of controls. Addressing important lacunae in the resource‐based view our main research objective is to augment understanding of how critical firm‐level marketing capabilities enable the realization of strategy, thus, further advancing both the resource‐based view and more recent capabilities theorizing. Specifically, we test seven hypotheses and find strong evidence that both architectural and specialized marketing capabilities, and their integration, positively mediate the product‐market strategy and derived business unit performance relationship. In contrast to many extant studies, both survey and objectively measured data are combined, and because the secondary data collected contains both resource‐level (input) data and subsequent one‐year financial data, a higher level of confidence may be attributable to our findings. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

新形势下工商管理本科教育发展模式探究

尽管近几年受传统发展模式以及就业环境的影响,工商管理专业的发展出现了一些困境,但从安博教育集团发布的专业景气度指数以及社会对工商管理专业人才的需求趋势来看,该专业在本科教育中有其存在的必要性。为解决这种困境,当前有四种模式可供各大本科院校在专业建设上借鉴:一,开设工商管理高级班,培养高层次、国际化管理人才;二,与热门专业和行业嫁接,突出专业方向;三,以传统工商管理专业培养模式为依托,加大实践教学力度;四,整合社会资源,培养创业管理人才。     

面向卓越工程师的服装专业人才培养创新机制研究

"卓越工程师教育培养计划"是我国深化高等工程教育,培养高级工程技术人才的战略决策。文章在分析本科院校服装专业人才培养中存在问题的基础上,结合"卓越计划"的内涵要求,探讨如何改革服装设计与工程专业课程体系和教学方法,着力提高学生的工程实践能力,培养出卓越的服装工程师。     

Business models: Impact on business markets and opportunities for marketing research

Business models have evolved in the context of new venture creation. By offering an entrepreneurial perspective to established marketing elements such as value propositions, value capturing and value networks, business models provide marketing discipline with both challenges and opportunities to engage with entrepreneurial environments. In particular, business models call for approaches that elucidate value-in-use of marketing offerings, reveal the performance of contracts in orchestrating value networks and identify the performance of network configurations. In this article we present some implications of and opportunities for business models for marketing research.     

Resource acquisition strategies in business relationships

Integrating the IMP Group approach with aspects of the resource-based view of the firm, we seek to develop and test a typology of relationship strategies based on different resource acquisition foci. For this purpose, we conducted interviews with thirty CEOs and other senior marketing managers in the UK and the USA. In-depth content analysis identified five main resource acquisition strategies (RAS) behind building business relationships: money bonds, new market bonds, utilization bonds, intellectual bonds, and credibility bonds. We further carried out a quantitative study with 658 senior managers in the USA to test for the generalizability of our findings. Results of a one-way repeated ANOVA and multinomial logistic regression analysis show significant differences between the five RAS for business relationships. However, a pair-wise comparison provides evidence for the existence of hybrid strategies. In addition, an investigation of the association between the RAS of business relationships on the one hand, and business strategy on the other, revealed equifinality of alternative business strategies vis-à-vis the applied relationship strategy. Finally, our analysis revealed no significant differences between the distributions of RAS types for knowledge intensive versus non-knowledge intensive business services. However, we found that RAS distribution is significantly associated with company size.     

Cognitive computing,Big Data Analytics and data driven industrial marketing

The integration of cognitive computing and big data analytics leads to a new paradigm that enables the application of the most sophisticated advances in information and communication technology (ICT) in business, including industry, business to business, and related decision-making process. The same paradigm will lead to several breakthroughs in the subfield of industrial marketing: a field both promising and extremely challenging. This special issue makes a case that cognitive computing and big data are a source of a new competitive advantage that, if properly embraced, will further consolidate industrial marketing management position in the of core the decision-making process of businesses operating locally and globally. In this vein, the value added of this special issue is twofold. On the one hand, this special issue communicates high quality research on big data analytics and data science as it is applied in industrial marketing management; On the other hand, it proposes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the design, implementation and provision of sophisticated applications and systems necessary for data-driven industrial marketing decisions.     

Dark network tensions and illicit forbearance: Exploring paradox and instability in illegal cartels

In this case study investigating illegal cartels, we contribute to our understanding of the dark side of business relationships in three different areas. First, we expand upon the dark side of business relationships theme, by investigating the nature of opportunism in price-fixing cartels and the role of illicit forbearance. Due to their illicit nature, cartels are forced to operate outside legally binding contractual frameworks requiring other ways to facilitate agreements to avoid opportunistic behaviour. Second, our investigation contributes to our understanding of tensions in business relationship settings. Our findings indicate that network tensions are made significantly worse by the illicit nature of cartels, resulting in inherently unstable relationships. Third, in addition to cartels, we argue for a broadening of the scope of the ‘dark side of business relationships towards one that recognises the importance of illicit practices undertaken by marketing managers. This is significant because illicit relationships are often archetypal examples of opportunistic behaviour, which are likely to result in different types of conflict in a business relationship/network context. In the case of cartels, this opportunistic behaviour influences cartel participants, customers, suppliers (not privy to the cartel agreement) and the wider public. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.     

Segmenting a business market for a professional service

This article uses benefit segmentation to analyze the structure of an industrial market for professional services— the market for CPA services among business firms. Data were collected from a random sample of U.S. business firms, stratified to include a broad cross section of the market for CPA services. Benefit segments were described by linking CPA selection criteria importance ratings with client firm characteristics such as business firm size. Examples of ways in which information about market structure can be used in marketing professional services are presented. The results provide evidence about the applicability of prior industrial marketing research and multilevel industrial market segmentation models to a professional services market.