Analysing Business Markets - Business buying process

1. ANALYSING
BUSINESS
MARKETS
PART III

2. 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

4. • 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

5. ROLES IN
BUYING
CENTER

7. Initiators
Users or others in the
organization who
request that something
be purchased

8. Users
•Those who will use the
product or serice.
•They initiate the buying
proposal and help
define the product
requirements.

9. Influencers
•People who influence the
buying decion.
•They often help define
specifications and provide
information for evaluating
alternatives.

10. Deciders
People who decide
on product
requirements or on
suppliers

11. Approver
People who
authorize the
proposed actions of
deciders or buyers

12. 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.

13. Gatekeeper
People who have
the power to
prevent sellers or
information from
reaching members
of the buying
center.

14. Buying center roles

15. Buying center Influences

18. Targeting Firms
and
Buying
Centers

19. 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

20. Targeting
Firms

21. • 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.

22. • 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.

23. Big
sales
to
Small Business

24. Guidelines for
selling to small
Business

25. DON’T LUMP SMALL AND MIDSIZE
BUSINESSES TOGETHER

27. USE THE INTERNET

28. DON’T FORGET ABOUT
DIRECT CONTACT

29. DO PROVIDE SUPPORT AFTER SALE

30. DO YOUR HOMEWORK

31. TARGETING
WITHIN
THE
BUSINESS
CENTER

32. • Who are the major decision
participants?
• What decisions do they
influence?
• What is their level of influence?
• What evaluation criteria do
they use?

33. • 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

34. 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

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