Understanding demand and supply paradoxes and their role in business-to-business firms

In this paper, we explore paradoxes firms face when managing demand and supply activities and managers' experience of coping with and transcending these paradoxes. Following an exploratory research approach and based on the analysis of interviews with executive managers, documents from, and observations of 19 business-to-business (B2B) firms, we develop empirically grounded propositions. We first find and explain three major demand and supply paradoxes, namely collaboration-competition, concord-conflict, and integration-differentiation. We then expand on the handling mechanisms B2B firms employ to respond to these paradoxes. We find that B2B firms that understand, balance, and transcend demand and supply paradoxes achieve greater synergy between demand and supply activities and leverage both demand and supply approaches as overarching guiding principles for their strategy. Our study informs B2B marketing and marketing strategy by exploring the nature and role of paradoxes that shape the relationships between demand and supply activities. In doing so, it also offers an empirical account of the discrepancy between the theory and practice of demand and supply integration.     

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.     

The B2B-RELPERF scale and scorecard: Bringing relationship marketing theory into business-to-business practice

It is becoming increasingly important from both theoretical and managerial perspectives to measure Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a key intangible asset. This paper seeks to bring relationship marketing theory into practice by developing a new measure of relationship performance between two firms, the business-to-business relationship performance (B2B-RELPERF) scale. Survey findings from a sample of approximately 400 purchasing managers operating in a B2B e-marketplace reveal that relationship performance is a high-order concept, composed of several distinct, yet related, dimensions: (1) relationship policies and practices, (2) relationship commitment; (3) trust in the relationship, (4) mutual cooperation; and (5) relationship satisfaction. Findings reveal that the B2B-RELPERF scale relates positively and significantly with customer loyalty. The paper also presents the B2B-RELPERF balanced scorecard, which combines tangible and intangible metrics. While existing IT solutions usually focus exclusively on the use of tangible CRM indicators, this new tool includes the “voice of the customer”. At the managerial level, both the scale and scorecard could act as useful instruments for short- and long-term management, controlling, planning, and improvement of B2B relationships. Implications for relationship marketing theory are also presented.     

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.     

Understanding the links between technological opportunism, marketing emphasis and firm performance: Implications for B2B

The capability of firms to sense and respond to changes in technologies, called technological opportunism, is of growing importance to managers as a source of competitive advantage. However, exactly how technological opportunism impacts firm performance is still not clearly understood. Furthermore, the role of marketing in this relationship, if any, has yet to be examined. Understanding this relationship is critical for marketing managers not only for determining strategic investments of resources but also for demonstrating marketing return on activities. This paper explores the links between technological opportunism and firm performance. The results show that technological opportunism has a strong positive impact on key measures of performance such as firm sales, profits and market value. Importantly, marketing emphasis is the mechanism through which the technological opportunism-performance relationship is achieved. Finally, the impact of marketing emphasis on B2B firms is different than that for B2C firms, highlighting the importance of these activities for B2B marketing managers.     

Real-time big data processing for instantaneous marketing decisions: A problematization approach

The collection of big data from different sources such as the internet of things, social media and search engines has created significant opportunities for business-to-business (B2B) industrial marketing organizations to take an analytical view in developing programmatic marketing approaches for online display advertising. Cleansing, processing and analyzing of such large datasets create challenges for marketing organizations — particularly for real-time decision making and comparative implications. Importantly, there is limited research for such interplays. By utilizing a problematization approach, this paper contributes through the exploration of links between big data, programmatic marketing and real-time processing and relevant decision making for B2B industrial marketing organizations that depend on big data-driven marketing or big data-savvy managers. This exploration subsequently encompasses appropriate big data sources and effective batch and real-time processing linked with structured and unstructured datasets that influence relative processing techniques. Consequently, along with directions for future research, the paper develops interdisciplinary dialogues that overlay computer-engineering frameworks such as Apache Storm and Hadoop within B2B marketing viewpoints and their implications for contemporary marketing practices.     

Multivariate statistics in industrial marketing management: A practitioner tool kit

Much published work over the years has pointed to the differences between business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketing. An undesirable by-product of this sometimes misdirected distinction is that managers working within B2B environments have generally not considered the use of what are seen as B2C techniques, such as multivariate statistical analysis. This article is structured in three parts. First, the argument for the similarities between B2B and B2C marketing is developed; second, three different multivariate statistical techniques are presented and combined to form a practical tool kit for use by B2B managers on strategic, operational, and tactical levels; and third, the results of an application of the techniques in the life science research chemicals industry is reported, demonstrating that the tool kit substantially enhanced managerial understanding of customer decision processes.     

Measuring and managing customer relationship risk in business markets

There have been repeated calls from top management and marketing academics for greater accountability in marketing so that the financial returns of marketing investments can be more robustly evaluated. These are coalescing around the issue of whether or not marketing delivers shareholder value. One promising line of enquiry explores customer lifetime value and the profitable management of these relationships. Although helpful, this approach fails to make the final link with shareholder value since customer lifetime value is still essentially a profit or cash flow measure and does not fully account for customer risk. This paper describes empirical research which explores differing approaches to measuring customer risk and the creation of shareholder value through customer relationship management (CRM). We develop a customer relationship scorecard which proves an innovative tool for managers to use in determining the risks in their customer relationships and developing risk mitigation strategies. The scorecard is then used to forecast retention probabilities, from which a risk-adjusted customer lifetime value is calculated. Both the scorecard and the calculations have an impact on the CRM practices of the customer relationship managers. From a theoretical perspective, an enhanced consideration of customer risk and returns is an important additional step towards demonstrating that marketing creates shareholder value.     

The relationship between marketing agility and financial performance under different levels of market turbulence

Marketing agility is an example of dynamic capability that has significant influence on ordinary capabilities leading to superior financial performance. This makes it of interest to marketing managers. Yet the way in which this capability aligns with turbulent market environments to simultaneously influence ordinary capabilities and performance has not been adequately examined and empirically tested. This study seeks to close this gap by positing that marketing agility has both direct and indirect (through innovation capability which is an ordinary capability) impacts on financial performance. However, these relationships are moderated by market turbulence to yield both mediated moderation and moderated mediation effects. The study was undertaken in the Chinese food-processing industry where a sample of 518 companies participated. This provides an opportunity to validate theory developed in the western economies and to generalize some previous findings. Contrary to received literature we found that the impact of innovation capability on financial performance is stronger under low market turbulence; and that market turbulence moderates the indirect relationship between marketing agility and financial performance. The indirect effect is stronger when market turbulence is low than when it is high. Implications for managers and academia are discussed and limitations of the study are pointed out.     

From complexity to transparency: managing the interplay between theory, method and empirical phenomena in IMM case studies

Theory, method and empirical phenomena are the three cornerstones of research. In this paper we contemplate the interplay between them when case research in industrial marketing is concerned. Developments in research depend on what empirical phenomena we are able to capture, how theories are developed to understand and explain these phenomena and what methods we use and/or develop in the process. While the emphasis is often put on one of these aspects alone, this paper focuses on the links and interplay between theory, case method and empirical phenomena in the development of research in industrial marketing. Specifically, we seek to provide common ground between orthodox (deductive) and unorthodox (abductive) approaches to managing the interplay by making a pragmatic call for transparency in research procedures. In this endeavour we use the papers included in this special issue as examples of various aspects of this interplay. We conclude by suggesting that there is a gamut of approaches possible to case research in industrial marketing, each with its specific links to theory and empirical phenomena, and that this is promising for the development of research in the field, as long as it helps reduce, rather than increase, the complexity of the case studied.     

Psychosocial antecedents of communication,trust, and relationship effectiveness in new product development projects: a functional manager perspective

The basic differences between marketing managers and their technically trained counterpart managers [e.g., research and development (R&D), engineering, and manufacturing managers] in terms of work experience, training, and differing decision‐making styles have often been suggested as a source of conflict, which acts as a barrier to effective working relationships and integration during new product development (NPD) work. In this paper, we empirically explore this issue by developing and testing a model of psychosocial differences (thought worlds and psychological distance) between the two groups of managers and their effect on communication, trust, and relationship effectiveness during NPD projects. We find that while thought world differences do still matter, it was from a marketing perspective that they had a stronger effect. These findings have implications for top management trying to manage the functional manager interface during NPD projects. We propose a semi‐formalized approach to relationship building that may speed up the acquisition of social data that is often necessary to elevate working relationships to trusting ones and improve the efficiency of NPD work. Our model is tested using data from two samples, 184 technically trained managers and 145 marketing managers from Australian companies involved in NPD work.     

Outside-in marketing: Why,when and how?

We explore the nature and evolution of outside-in marketing. Outside-in is the marketing view of strategy, with inside-out being the traditional view. We show how outside-in and inside-out clash culturally, and trade off strategically, especially in service. Technological advances in communications and information technology have enabled closer relationships with customers, and “big data” for managing those relationships. The marketing function is important for managing outside-in, because market orientation alone is insufficient. Outside-in management is most effective for focusing on customer satisfaction and revenue, since insights about customer needs and wants tend to move bottom-up through the organization. Taken to its logical conclusion, outside-in implies replacing inside-out, product-focused management (e.g., brand managers) with outside-in, customer-focused management (e.g., customer managers). Customer-focused, future-oriented metrics (e.g., customer satisfaction, customer lifetime value, customer equity) increasingly grab attention away from aggregate, short-term metrics (e.g., product sales). Long-term impact from customer-relevant issues such as discrimination plays out over time, and must be researched using longitudinal methods. Eventually, even the meaning of “outside” will change, as computers increasingly become the customer.     

The impact of psychological contract breaches within east-west buyer-supplier relationships

The expanding role of Asian firms in global supply chains has meant that their Western counterparts need to be capable of transcending the East-West divide in their relational building efforts if they wish to successfully participate in these networks. This paper draws upon social exchange (SE) theory to integrate the exit, voice, loyalty, neglect (EVLN) typology with the psychological contract (PSYCON) literature, to examine how Australian buyer firms build and nurture relationships with their Chinese suppliers. Data from 327 Australian managers collected using an online self-administered questionnaire reveals the negative effects of PSYCON breaches towards their suppliers on neglect, voice and loyalty in the relationship. In addition, contrasting effects of neglect and voice behaviours on trust and commitment, suggest that these behaviours can help erode and build East-West B2B relationships, respectively. These findings extend research on B2B relationships and offer useful managerial insights for decision makers operating in global supply chains involving relationships between firms from Eastern and Western backgrounds.     

Examining the application of behavioral price research in business-to-business markets

Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets differ in many ways as documented in the contemporary marketing literature. However, many behavioral characteristics of human beings – particularly those related to judgment and decision-making – are present across diverse contexts. From this insight, we derive a proposition: many behavioral price concepts developed in the past B2C behavioral price research may be applicable in B2B context as well. The objective of this paper is to examine this proposition through analyzing the existing evidence on five important behavioral price concepts: reference price, price thresholds, acceptable price range, price as an indicator of quality, and the price–perceived value model. At a more general level, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of recognizing how buyers' responses to prices and price information differ from the traditional assumptions about such behaviors in B2B marketing literature.The results provide strong evidence for the applicability of the reference price concept in B2B markets. The price–perceived value model is widely applied in B2B pricing, although in narrow form. Use of price as an indicator of quality also receives some support. For price thresholds and acceptable price range little research activity exists in B2B domain. Overall, while there has been some behavioral price research specifically in a B2B context, nevertheless it is comparatively sparse, and for some concepts virtually non-existent. We end the paper with a call that more behavioral price research is needed as such research has potential to help business marketing managers make more effective pricing decisions.     

How mutuality reinforces partnership development: Japanese and Korean marketing perspectives

Relationship building is about ‘mutuality’ and how an organizational cultural value system enhances the development of long-term relationships that influence the marketing strategy process. This paper explains how senior managers embrace the concept of mutuality in order to establish a partnership arrangement in the context of a vertical marketing system. From the literature, four propositions relating to customer service policy, the process of innovation, relationship marketing and comparative national culture were developed and placed in the context of a Japanese and a South Korean electronics company based in the UK. The propositions were validated using in-depth, personal interviews with a limited number of senior managers in the two global companies. Evidence suggests that managers in Japanese companies formulate industry and country specific customer service policies, dictate R&D programmes, and spend a long time getting to know an individual in a potential partner organization(s) before they engage in any form of business integration. Whereas managers in South Korean companies are keen to communicate extensively and seek to acquire additional skills and knowledge so that they can innovate and implement cost effective strategies.     

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.     

Building commitment in buyer-seller relationships: A tie strength perspective

The strength of inter firm buyer-seller ties is vital to understanding the formation of commitment. Drawing upon the tie strength sociology and embeddedness literature, this study conceptualizes four dimensions of tie strength and examines their effects on the buyer firm's commitment to the selling firm, as well as the impact of commitment on favorable buyer behavior. A survey of 119 buyer organizations reveals that three of the four identified properties of tie strength (reciprocal services, mutual confiding and emotional intensity) are positively related to buyer commitment to the selling organization. Interestingly, the strongest relationship was found between emotional intensity and commitment — an understudied dimension of buyer-seller relationships. This study contributes to the B2B relationship marketing literature by increasing our understanding of the differential effects of behavioral and emotional aspects of ties on commitment. The study suggests to managers in manufacturing firms to develop strong behavioral and emotional ties with buyer firms in their relationship marketing strategy.     

Flexibility in marketing & sales interfacing processes

Preliminary insights in the marketing literature indicate that flexibility is important in marketing and sales processes and interaction. However, to date, marketing and sales management literature lacks an understanding of what flexibility in marketing-sales interfaces looks like, its potential organizational consequences, and potential boundary conditions. Using data from interviews with marketing and sales managers, this study explores the nature, outcomes and facilitators of flexibility at the marketing-sales interface. This study conceptualizes marketing-sales interface flexibility (MSIF) as a process of flexible cross-functional resource exchange and finds that MSIF has positive organizational outcomes (both in terms of performance and relationship quality), that MSIF is essential for firms when dealing with exigencies in turbulent environments, and that the utility of MSIF is conditioned by the speed with which MSIF is implemented. The research contribution is twofold. At a theoretical level, the study defines the construct for the first time, revealing MSIF's conceptual composition for examination, and develops theory regarding MSIF's direct relationships with key business outcomes, as well as likely contingencies that shape its importance. At a practical level, the study's framework offers a tool that managers can use to help build organizational success through enhanced flexibility in their marketing-sales interfaces.     

基于B/S结构的销售管理系统

销售是供应链管理的重要环节,也是企业生产、管理、运作的关键。随着Internet的迅猛发展,新经济时代的销售是一个动态、渐进的过程,基于B/S结构的销售管理系统接受并应用流行于国际企业的现代营销管理的新方法,即"客户关系管理(CRM)",使销售从无序的管理走向更科学的管理,使管理者更能把握业务的中心。本文对基于B/S结构的销售管理系统的组成、功能、特点等进行了进一步的探讨。