Pricing issues in industrial marketing

Developing an effective pricing strategy today is becoming a difficult task for industrial marketing managers. The failure of firms to totally understand the implications of their pricing decisions often leads to missed opportunities and eventually lowers profits. Price setting and implementation are multidimensional processes affecting customers, products, cost recovery efforts, produce margin levels, customer retention, market share, and domestic and international sales. This issue of Industrial Marketing Management provides some insights into the complexities of this process for managers by examining pricing on several levels, including the organizational influences on industrial pricing, the factors affecting international pricing, the importance of pricing in controlling supply chain costs, the influence of information on pricing decisions, the degree to which the Internet and reverse auctions are affecting customer relationships with their suppliers, and the importance of developing a strategic pricing plan.     

An agent-based fuzzy cognitive map approach to the strategic marketing planning for industrial firms

Industrial marketing planning is a typical example of an unstructured decision making problem due to the large number of variables to consider and the uncertainty imposed on those variables. Although abundant studies identified barriers and facilitators of effective industrial marketing planning in practice, the literature still lacks practical tools and methods that marketing managers can use for the task. This paper applies fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) to industrial marketing planning. In particular, agent based inference method is proposed to overcome dynamic relationships, time lags, and reusability issues of FCM evaluation. MACOM simulator also is developed to help marketing managers conduct what-if scenarios to see the impacts of possible changes on the variables defined in an FCM that represents industrial marketing planning problem. The simulator is applied to an industrial marketing planning problem for a global software service company in South Korea. This study has practical implication as it supports marketing managers for industrial marketing planning that has large number of variables and their cause–effect relationships. It also contributes to FCM theory by providing an agent based method for the inference of FCM. Finally, MACOM also provides academics in the industrial marketing management discipline with a tool for developing and pre-verifying a conceptual model based on qualitative knowledge of marketing practitioners.     

An investigation into commitment in non-Western industrial marketing relationships

This paper reports an investigation into the antecedents of commitment in non-Western industrial marketing relationships. The authors draw the antecedents from extant literature and posit that commitment is related to trust (integrity and reliability), communication quality, conflict, and similarity (social, ethnic, and economic). It is further argued that trust mediates the effects of communication, conflict, and similarity on commitment. As an extension, the authors examine the moderating effects of normative contracts (an implicit understanding of roles and responsibilities) on the construct interrelationships. The hypotheses are tested using data collected from approximately 150 industrial marketing relationships sampled from overseas Chinese firms. The results generally support the authors' framework; however, the mediating hypotheses are not supported. There is evidence of systematic differences in the effects of the studied antecedents on commitment and trust. Furthermore, a multigroup analysis provides evidence of significant moderating effects due to contracting mode. The study provides new insights into the theory and practice of industrial marketing.     

Market and supplier characteristics driving distributor relationship quality in international marketing channels of industrial products

Although we are beginning to comprehend the fundamental importance of relationship quality in interorganizational exchange, a relatively small, but growing, body of literature that has not kept pace with the tremendous growth in global channel transactions has been devoted to the development of cross-border relationship quality. This study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the extent to which certain market and exporter characteristics affect the development of relationship quality in the context of importing distributors trading with exporting manufacturers of industrial products. Relationship quality is viewed as a higher-order construct composed of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Findings reveal that psychic distance is related negatively to relationship quality, while transaction-specific investments and role performance are associated positively with relationship quality. No link is found between environmental uncertainty and relationship quality. Managerial implications of the findings are considered and limitations along with future research directions discussed.     

‘Good’ case research in industrial marketing: Insights from research practice

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the emerging debate about the use of the case methodology in industrial marketing. We conducted a content analysis of the 145 case studies published in three key journals (Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing) over a 10-year period (1997-2006). The findings highlight the dominance of case research in qualitative industrial marketing research. They also lead us to distinguish between three different practices that influence perceptions of ‘good’ case research in this scholarly domain: ‘common’ practice, ‘best practice’ and ‘innovative’ practice. Our contribution lies in problematising what ‘good’ case research is, and showing how research practice - not just methodological literature - has a role in generating methodological conventions in a disciplinary field.     

Global marketing of industrial products: Are interpersonal relationships always critical?

The present paper examines the issue of whether interpersonal relationships are critical for global marketing of industrial products. The fields of relationship marketing, IMP group research, sales research, and network theory have stressed the importance of interpersonal relationships in the business-to-business or industrial marketing context. In contrast to this emphasis on interpersonal relationships, we argue that industrial firms can both conceive and enhance marketing strategies based on developing high quality and consistent processes, products, services or outcomes (consistent processes and outcomes). Such strategies are especially important given the fact that developing interpersonal relationships is expensive due to their reliance on frequent and/or face-to-face communications. In this paper, we examine industry and country contexts that lead to the choice of alternative industrial product marketing strategies and highlight some future research directions and managerial implications.     

Global marketing and procurement of industrial products: Institutional design of interfirm functional tasks

Marketing and procuring component parts in the global marketplace can pose such significant trading hazards that industrial transactions often must be embedded in protective governance. This article identifies key forces influencing the institutional designs that best safeguard exchanges between international trading partners for such industrial tasks as the design, fabrication and delivery of component parts. The effectiveness of designs such as market contracting, alliances, and international joint ventures are shown to be a consequence of the transactional characteristics of a given task, the governance risks experienced by both buyer and supplier, and the differences between the institutional environments of the partners' countries. In addition to a comprehensive institutional design model, several propositions are developed to serve as a guide to future empirical research in the areas of global industrial marketing and procurement.     

A new marketing tool: Life-cycle costing

Life-cycle costing is a method of calculating the total cost of ownership over the life span of the industrial product. It can be especially useful in the marketing of industrial products that sell for high initial prices, but which provide long-run cost savings. This paper explains the life-cycle concept and its implementation.     

Artificial intelligence-based systems applied in industrial marketing: An historical overview,current and future insights

Intelligent systems have particular potentialities and strengths to support decisional situations faced by companies, especially those of a strategic nature, where good strategic intelligence is necessary. In this paper, we carry out an historical literature review of artificial intelligence-based systems applied to marketing, covering a time period of several decades (from the 1970s to the present day), with special focus on applications to industrial marketing. A detailed review is presented, along with conclusions and some future insights. Then, we briefly introduce the set of papers in this special issue.     

Applying knowledge management to project marketing in a demanding technology transfer project: Convincing the industrial customer over the knowledge gap

Literature in project and knowledge management has examined knowledge management in projects, but the utilization of knowledge management in project marketing is still largely unexplored. This study examines the links between knowledge management and project marketing activities in a project where the seller wants to convince the potential buyer about a demanding investment project. An in-depth case study illustrates this in a situation hampered by a technical knowledge gap between the parties. The buyer is committed when they can trust the seller's capability to successfully accomplish the project. The seller must criticize and communicate its core and project specific knowledge of technologies and customer needs through project marketing. A framework and implications on knowledge management and project marketing activities in different project phases is presented. It is proposed that knowledge management is a pertinent tool for project marketing as it helps to understand the roles of different knowledge types.     

A framework for offshoring marketing processes in business-to-business marketing relationships

Outsourcing has been a prominent aspect of business strategies in the last three decades. Outsourcing of manufacturing processes is now complemented with outsourcing of various marketing process as well. More importantly, outsourcing to foreign locations — offshoring — has increased for marketing processes in recent years. In this context, the present paper develops a model that identifies the types of marketing interactions and processes that can be offshored in business-to-business markets. We suggest that the decision to offshore marketing processes and interactions depend upon the interaction process that is preferred and the importance of interaction process itself. Marketing interactions that are not critically important and/or those that can be performed through technology can be easily offshored. However, other marketing processes need to be examined in depth before being offshored. Implications for research and practice in the area of offshoring, as well as in the broader area of outsourcing, are also highlighted.     

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.     

Sustainability and business-to-business marketing: A framework and implications

Researchers in several business disciplines have convincingly argued that environmentally responsible strategies can contribute to competitive advantage and superior financial performance. While debates on ecological conservation and environmental practices within marketing have raged for over three decades, much of the focus has been on identifying and targeting the environmentally-conscious consumer. Less attention has been given to marketing's role in a green supply chain and its interface with environmentally-friendly manufacturing and operations. We integrate disparate streams of research and develop a broader framework to understand the appropriate role and focus of business-to-business marketing in the supply chain for achieving environmental sustainability objectives. We identify three major strategies - the reduction of surplus supply of products, reduction of reverse supply, and internal marketing - where marketing's role in environmental sustainability is crucial for achieving superior competitive advantage and financial performance.     

A simulation of business-to-business decision making in a relationship marketing context

The dynamic and interactive SUGARSCAPE simulation is adapted to represent agent-based relationship marketing models in business-to-business exchanges. Computer-generated selling agents operate in complex environments using relationship marketing approaches that may or may not be uniformly distributed inside their organizations. The intricate nature of these models also allows for diverse combinations of buyer traits that impact their decisions as well as seller profitability. These features include individual and firm exchange experiences, the ability to identify and to become loyal to sellers, and the sharing of information within and among buyer firms. Relationship marketing is played out or operationalized based on pricing tactics that show differences between asking prices and post-exchange value.     

浅析数理统计方法在高校教学管理中的应用

本试就高校教学管理中数量统计方法的用途、工程程序以及教学质量的波动规律、数据的搜集方法等方面作一粗浅探讨。     

Institutional theory in business marketing: A conceptual framework and future directions

Institutional environments exert significant effects on organizational behavior, structure, strategy, governance, and process. To gain competitive advantage, managers are striving for legitimacy while maintaining efficiency. In line with this thinking, we propose the developmental process of institution-driven and legitimacy-embedded efficiency, and emphasize the confluence of legitimacy and efficiency in the context of business marketing. We then highlight several promising directions for further research on the development of institutional theory and its application in business marketing. Finally, we present a brief summary of each paper in this special issue.     

Project marketing in multi-project organizations: A comparison of IS/IT and engineering firms

An emerging trend suggests that a project marketing approach could, or should, be merged into project management. Consequently, an exploratory study has been made of the project marketing and management functions in four firms in two different industries and analyzed with a project marketing overlay. Contrasts were noted. The engineering firms actually described their marketing activity as a sales activity and the function tended to be differentiated from project management. The IS/IT firms, on the other hand, appeared to be particularly oriented toward establishing mutual understanding of customer needs and marketing was closely integrated with project management. Major differences are associated with the relative environments in which the firms work.     

Product profile analysis: A tool for industrial selling

The purpose of this article is to provide a step-by-step approach to how product profile Analysis (PPA) can be applied to industrial selling. Specifically, the sales representative can use PPA to help the prospective buyer identify the key criteria involved in the purchasing activity. The concentration on buyer-oriented criteria will aid in the development of the sales representative's role as a consultant to the client. The use of PPA will also help the buyer defend the purchasing decision that was made.     

A service perspective on business relationships: The value creation, interaction and marketing interface

Adopting a service perspective or logic on business directs suppliers' focus in business relationships towards engaging with their customers' business processes. The purpose of this article is to analyze implications for value creation and marketing of adopting a service logic in business relationships. In the article it is demonstrated that a service perspective is multi-dimensional, enabling the mutual creation of value, with service as a mediating factor in that process. It is argued that value creation, purchasing, usage and marketing are intertwined processes. Here supplier-customer interactions are in a focal position. This perspective enables marketers to better understand how to develop and extend service offerings through assistance to customers' processes relevant to their businesses. Therefore, the underpinning logic of industrial interactions is analyzed in detail, extending marketing's conventional boundaries.     

Malawi: reforming the state's role in agricultural marketing

The role of the state in agricultural marketing activities has been a contentious issue in many countries undergoing structural adjustment. This paper examines three examples of smallholder market reform in Malawi to illustrate the case for various forms of state involvement and the complexities involved in reducing the state's role when this is required.