Like households, organizations make many buying
decisions. In some instances, these buying decisions are
routine replacement decisions; at other times, they
involve new, complex purchase decisions. Three purchase
situations are common to organizational buying:
straight rebuy, modified rebuy, and new task. Each of
these purchase situations will elicit different organizational
behaviors.
The organizational decision process involves problem
recognition, information search, evaluation and
selection, purchase implementation, and postpurchase
evaluation. As with household decisions, the Internet is
an important element across various phases of the organizational
decision process, including the information
search and decision phases. A conjunctive process is
typical in establishing an evoked set, and other decision
rules are used for selecting a specific vendor. While
functional attributes such as price and quality certainly
play a critical role, brand image can also be important,
in some cases even increasing the prices that organizational
buyers are willing to pay.
Purchase implementation is more complex and the
terms and conditions more important than in household
decisions. How payment is made is of major importance.
Finally, use and postpurchase evaluation are
often quite formal. Many organizations will conduct
detailed in-use tests to determine the life-cycle costs of
competing products or spend considerable time evaluating
a new product before placing large orders. Satisfaction
depends on a variety of criteria and on the opinions
of many different people. To achieve customer satisfaction,
each of these individuals has to be satisfied with
the criteria important to him or her.
Organizations have a style or manner of operating
that we characterize as organizational culture.
Firmographics (organization characteristics such as
size, activities, objectives, location, and industry category,
and characteristics of the composition of the organization such as the gender, age, education, and income
distribution of employees) have a major influence
on organizational culture. The process of grouping
buyer organizations into market segments on the basis
of similar firmographics is called macrosegmentation.
Reference groups play a key role in business-tobusiness
markets. Reference group infrastructures exist
in most organizational markets. These reference groups
often include third-party suppliers, distributors, industry
experts, trade publications, financial analysts, and
key customers. Lead users have been shown to be a key
reference group that influences both the reference group
infrastructure and other potential users.
Other external influences on organizational culture
include the local culture in which the organization operates
and the type of government it confronts. Internal
factors affecting organizational culture include organizational
values, perception, learning, memory, motives,
and emotions.
Organizations hold values that influence the organization's
style. Individuals in the organization also hold
these values in varying degrees. Organizations also
develop images, have motives, and learn. Seller organizations
can affect how they are perceived through a
variety of communication alternatives. Print advertising,
direct mail, sales calls, and the Internet are
common. Whereas organizations have rational motives,
their decisions are influenced and made by people with
emotions. A seller organization has to understand and
satisfy both to be successful.
