ANALYSING BUSINESS MARKETS

PART III

Participants in the Business Buying Process

•Purchasing agents are influential in straight-rebuy

and modified-rebuy situations

• Engineering personnel usually have a major

influence in selecting product components and

purchasing agents dominate in selecting suppliers

• It is the decision-making unit of the

buying organization

• consists of all individuals who

participate in the purchasing decision-

making process,who share some

common goals and the risks arising

from the decisions

ROLES IN

BUYING

CENTER

Initiators

Users or others in the

organization who

request that something

be purchased

Users

•Those who will use

the product or serice.

•They initiate the

buying proposal and

help define the

product requirements.

Influencers

•People who influence

the buying decion.

•They often help define

specifications and

provide information for

evaluating alternatives.

Deciders

People who decide

on product

requirements or on

suppliers

Approver

People who

authorize the

proposed actions of

deciders or buyers

Buyer

•People who have formal

authority to select the

supplier and arrange the

purchase items.

•Buyers may help shape

product specifications,but

they play their major role in

selecting vendors and

negotiating.

Gatekeeper

People who have

the power to

prevent sellers or

information from

reaching members

of the buying

center.

Buying center roles

Buying center Influences

Targeting Firms and

Buying Centers

Successful Business-to-Business

marketing marketers know which

types of companies to focus on in

their selling efforts, as well as who

to concentrate on within the

buying centers in those

organizations

Targeting

Firms

• Business marketers may divide the

marketplace in many different ways to

decide on the types of firms to which they

will sell.

• Finding those business sectors with the

greatest growth prospects, most profitable

customers and most promising

opportunities for the firm is crucial.

• In developing selling efforts, business

marketers can also consider their customer’s

customers, or end users, if these are

appropriate.

• Many business-to-business transactions are to

firms using the products they purchase as

components or ingredients in products they

sell to the ultimate end users.

Big

sales

to

Small

Business

Guidelines

for selling

to small

Business

DON’T LUMP SMALL AND MIDSIZE BUSINESSES TOGETHER

USE THE INTERNET

DON’T FORGET ABOUT DIRECT CONTACT

DO PROVIDE SUPPORT AFTER SALE

DO YOUR HOMEWORK

TARGETING

WITHIN

THE

BUSINESS

CENTER

• Who are the major decision

participants?

• What decisions do they

influence?

• What is their level of

influence?

• What evaluation criteria do

they use?

• Small sellers concentrate on reaching the

key buying influencers.

• Large sellers go for multilevel in-depth

selling to reach as many participants as

possible

• Business marketers must periodically

review their assumptions about buying

center participants

A number of

different people play

a role in the

purchase of hospital

products such as

surgical gowns; all

these people have

their own objectives

and interests

Created by Aburvaa Ramesh, SVCE , during an internship By Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.www.IIMInternship.com