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.     

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.     

Legislation facing high-market-share U.S. industrial manufacturers

The concept of “no-fault antirust” calls for a legislated limit on a firm's market share. The concept's attraction is its implied simplicity. However, the concept suffers from a number of intrinsic faults and its implementation would adversely effect the competitiveness of U.S. industrial firms in both domestic and international markets.     

Broadening the concept of industrial purchasing

Materials management has received increasing management attention in recent years. The materials-management concept suggests that all materials-related functions should be the responsibility of a single manager to ensure improved efficiency in the firm's utilization of materials. A question remains, however, as a firm moves toward greater integration of materials functions, regarding the sequence in which this integration should occur. This research suggests answers of interest both to manufacturers and to industrial firms marketing to companies with materials-management systems.     

Better use of the industrial marketing concept

Customer orientation is vital in order for industrial marketers to enjoy greater profitability in the industrial marketplace, which is at present characterized by rapidly changing environmental factors. These shifts include increased computerization of the purchasing departments, greater social and legal challenges to various buying organizations, deteriorating economic conditions and the changing role of the industrial purchasing manager. This paper suggests a way by which industrial marketers may adopt the marketing concept. The first part of the paper presents evidence of industrial marketers' failure to adopt the marketing concept and highlights the consequences of this practice. In addition, emphasis is given to the manner in which industrial marketers may adapt to the changing conditions—while capitalizing upon new opportunities that become available—by adoption of the marketing concept. The second part explores the use of market segmentation as a means for adopting the marketing concept. After reviewing the approaches that are now being utilized to segment industrial markets, a more pragmatic approach is presented.     

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.     

Impact of purchasing trends on industrial marketers

Purchasing departments have undergone dramatic changes during the past decade. This article examines key characteristics that changed during the 1970s including the purchasers' view of effective salespersons and women in purchasing. It is important that industrial marketers better understand these changes and subsequently implement marketing efforts that compliment the purchasing environment of the 1980s.     

Industrial product adoption in a technology push industry

Studies of the industrial adoption of innovatious have frequently concluded that managerial attitudes are a crucial determinant of adoption behavior. However, these studies have usually offered hypotheses rather than rigorous tests. Equally important, these studies have not specified the characteristics of those managers whose attitudes exert a particularly strong influence on the firm's adoption policy.     

Conflicts between engineering and marketing units

Complex issues in today's highly technological society continue to demand an effective relationship between industrial marketing and engineering. Nevertheless, we may frequently see counter productive and contradictory behavior between the two professions. To broaden and enhance marketing thinking, this article explores a number of relevant challenges, opportunities, and possible solutions for managing potential conflict between industrial marketing and engineering.     

Classifying a customer as a national account

A recent article [Stevenson and Page, Industrial Marketing Management 8, 94–100 (1979)] addressed the issue of how industrial marketers determine if their firms can use national account marketing. Once that decision is made, a next logical step is to determine which customers should be classified as national accounts. This article discusses appropriate classification criteria that industrial marketers can use to make such decisions. The information presented here is based on a study of national account marketing.     

Researching marketing problems and opportunities with focus groups

Focus group research is a popular and effective qualitative research method for generating ideas and assessing marketing programs and concepts. This article provides marketers with insights about implementing focus groups in the industrial environment. It presents a specific procedure for conducting focus groups, potential industrial applications for the research technique, guidelines for making decisions about selecting moderators, establishing objectives, recruiting study participants, and controlling costs.     

A sales mix model for effective industrial selling

The purpose of this article is to focus on one aspect of the marketing mix for industrial firms. Specifically, the control of promotion centers on the promotional mix, which includes personal selling, advertising, and sales promotion. The personal sales mix model (Figure 1) highlights those factors that are controllable by the industrial sales representative. Also, the uncontrollables involved in industrial selling are discussed. An understanding of the personal sales mix model should aid industrial marketers in satisfying buyer's needs through effective selling.     

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.     

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.     

Increasing the role of direct mail marketing in industrial marketing strategy

Direct marketing has long been a dominant factor in the distribution strategy of industrial goods and services. Yet frameworks for strategy formulation in this area are nearly nonexistent in the literature. Much that has been written focuses on successful techniques, such as how to use a specific type of sales letter to improve results. This article outlines a set of key perspectives that industrial marketers may use to evaluate the potential effectiveness of direct marketing strategies.     

Library support for industrial marketing research

The literature of business and management often discusses the need for timely information as a prerequisite to decision-making and planning. The role of the corporate library in supporting management's information needs has rarely been discussed in professional management literature. This article examines the library's role in supporting industrial marketing research. Special reference is made to new technologies that enhance traditional library services.     

Salesforce selection that meets federal regulation and management needs

A key problem for industrial marketing management is to develop a selection process that is both legally valid and managerially useful. By applying a selection approach which incorporates both a sequential selection process and a validation procedure, industrial marketers should be able to make better hiring decisions as well as comply with existing governmental regulations.     

Matching new manufacturing technologies to industrial markets and strategies

Major developments are occuring in the manufacturing technologies used in many industries—especially the metal manufacturing and fabricating industries and the electronic manufacturing industries. These developments provide a basis for developing a firm's distinctive competence but this can only be exploited to the full if Marketing personnel are aware of and take account of the new capabilities offered by these technological developments.     

Guidelines for marketing a new industrial product

This article presents an illustration of what evaluations and obstacles a new product can face in an industrial market. Guidelines are also suggested which will hopefully better prepare industrial marketers for more success in marketing new products.     

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.