Targeting technical information to organizational positions

This article describes the importance of scientific and technical information for the technical personnel at various organizational hierarchies and how these people satisfy their information needs. Inter- and intraorganizational channels used for information acquisition are discussed. Implications of these channels are discussed for industrial marketing.     

Financial and intangible factors in fleet lease or buy decision

We show that there is no single “best solution” in the leasing versus company ownership problem for the fleet administration industry as a whole. Because of the different styles and traditions of firms and because of the emphasis on intangibles beyond economics, a unifying framework of reference including the variety of factors is developed as a hierarchy and evaluated for priorities serving as a useful tool to guide each company to make its decision whether to lease or to buy. This appears to be an effective way for assessing tradeoffs previously regarded beyond the realm of measurement.     

Vendor selection and the buying process

This paper reports the results of a study dealing with the vendor selection process in organizational buying. Purchasing managers in two different types of organizations assessed the importance of vendor attributes and buyer information sources in connection with two different buying tasks. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in connection with: (1) the relative importance of vendor attributes and buyer information sources; and (2) the influence that different buying tasks and different buying organizations have on the importance of vendor attributes and information sources.     

Industrial buyer complaining behavior

Many areas of household consumer behavior research were extended to study organizational buyer behavior in the recent years. However, one exception is the buyer dissatisfaction and complaining behavior area. This article discusses the various conceptual aspects of organizational buyer complaining behavior. A model of buyer complaining behavior is proposed and some theoretical portulates are formulated for additional research.     

Get Ready for Innovation by Invasion

From many years of field research in West Germany and the United States, and especially from a recent study of relatively mature firms in Ohio, Gerhard Mensch has become aware of the disruption caused by the invasion of industries by new technologies from the outside. He sees the frequency of these invasions increasing in coming years for reasons that go beyond technological matters to the pressures for change coming from the capital markets. In this Perspective , he suggests the invasions can be countered and the capital markets satisfied by giving a more prominent role to the innovation manager in the strategy development process.     

A dynamic industrial product model

This article reports on the development of a marketing model for industrial products to aid marketing managers in developing marketing programs on a quarterly and yearly basis. The system incorporates a market response model which relies heavily on the involvement of managers in providing inputs. The model was parameterized and tested in the context of a large manufacturer of capital goods. The results were supportive of the conceptual soundness of the moral and its utility in decision making.     

Product-market strategies in the minicomputer industry

The minicomputer industry has undergone rapid technological change over the last decade and is now characterized by high growth, the emergence of new markets, and intense competition. This article addresses the marketing strategies employed by large and small firms in the minicomputer industry and identifies trends and dimensions that are important for success in such a rapidly changing environment.     

Salesforce entertainment activities

Sales managers need guidelines for controlling the entertainment costs incurred by their sales personnel. Because of the difficulty in measuring the payoff associated with particular entertainment costs, the decision of whether to spend or not to spend is, of necessity, somewhat subjective. One guide is to compare entertainment activities among different salesforces. A survey of over 1300 salespeople employed in a wide variety of jobs in a large number of industries revealed the extent of entertainment efforts in five areas: taking clients out for lunch, for an evening meal, for a drink, for leisure activities, and parties for clients.     

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.