Business Buyer Behavior
Business buyer behavior is the intent and action of companies and their employees to purchase and acquire products and services for the organization. It is a concept that helps in understanding the business needs and wants and making the necessary purchases, which, in the long run, becomes helpful for the company to achieve its goal of making profits ( Kemp, Borders, Anaza, & Johnston , 2018). Every company has specific people with specified roles in making business purchases, which is referred to as business buyer's position.
The concept can be best understood through considering the basis of a business buying process, which is essential to organizations in getting access to raw materials and goods which can be processed to produce final products with profitable returns ("MKT 3331 introductory marketing concepts and strategies Textbook.pdf," n.d.). The research will first discuss the business buying process which includes the buying centers, buying situations and stages of business buying. The second and the last section of the research discuss the business buyer factors and how customer service supplements buying process.
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Business Buying Process
Buying Centers
A buying center is a group of employees, members of a family, or any part of organizations responsible for finalizing the major purchase decisions. Businesses require that the significant purchases are made through inputs from various departments such as finance, purchasing, information and technology management, and senior management involvement ( Yawson, 2019). The composition of employees who make up the buying centers usually varies depending on the products that are being purchased.
Buying Situations
To understand how to market their product to other businesses, it is essential to know how many business customers react to buying process. Companies are always different from those single consumers concerning buying strategies as they always involve pursuance is larger contracts with such great care ( Ganzer, Chais, & Olea , 2017). Therefore, it is still essential that while understanding the buying situations, an organization should consider the how they make their decisions, whether spontaneity or strategy, the difference in using, repeat purchases, the role played by the purchaser at the organization, and payment approaches.
Stages of Business Buying
The process assumes a five-stage list that guides the responsible entities on the criteria when making purchases or an organization (Korhonen, 2019). Five-stage includes:For a firm to market their products effectively, it important that they understand the key stages of business buying. According to Pedeliento, Andreini, Bergamaschi, & Salo (2019), a business buying decision is a process that assumes five stages and it is from this list that the organization or people responsible for purchasing relies on to make their vital decisions.
Step 1. Recognition of Problem
At this stage, a need is recognized, for instance, a machine malfunction. The firm, during the recognition, modifies the product to identify the exact need.
Step 1. Development of Product Specifications to Solve the Problem
Once a problem is identified and needs to be accepted, the buying center moves ahead to assess the situation to determine the specific requirement that can resolve the issue.
Step 3. Searching and Evaluation of Possible Products and Suppliers.
At this stage, the buying center, upon identifying the specific product that can resolve the problem, looks into the company files and other contact details, reaches various suppliers for information, and requests proposals from vendors. The buying center also examine companies’ websites, catalogs, and other trade publications to obtain the product's necessary details before they make a purchase. Once they receive the elements, they then conduct a value analysis to evaluate each of the potential purchases' components to determine quality, designs, and materials. After the value addition, the team performs vendor analysis through a formal and systematic evaluation of the current and potential vendors. At this step, their evaluation focuses on price, quality, availability, delivery service, and overall reliability.
Step 4. Select Product and Supplier and Order Product.
The step uses the analysis details of step three above. Once the center captures all the needed information on the product and companies, an organization may decide to use different suppliers for multiple sourcing. The importance of numerous sourcing is that it reduces the possibility of a supply shortage that might result from bankruptcy. A company may also decide to use one supplier, known as sole sourcing.
Step 5. Evaluate Product and Supplier Performance.
This is where the team responsible for purchase compares the products concerning the specs. The results obtained becomes the feedback for other stages for future business while making a purchasing decision. The process stages are crucial in understanding customer buying behavior, especially for a company dealing with marketing to correctly market its product. For an organization to entice and persuade a consumer to buy a company product, marketers must tell and determine the behavioral process of how such a product they are dealing with is purchased.
Business Behavior Factors
Certain factors influence a business buying behavior decision making in an organization. These factors include:
Environmental Factors
These are factors that influence the organization, such as government regulations, business location, industrial development, cultural factors, and technological advances. Both internal and external environmental play a role for the success of the business and it is up to the business to take them into consideration when carrying its activities. The organization needs to stay updated with such factors and adjust accordingly.
Organization Factors
The objectives of the company as well as the purchasing policies are crucial factors that ha influence on the buying process. Another organizational factor that has the potential to influence the buying decision process is busying centers of the company. Its composition influences the relationship among the people who are posted in the department, hence, have a potential of affecting busying process.
Interpersonal Factors
The existing interpersonal relationships between employees at the buying center has teh potential to affect the buying process. It is therefore necessary that those people stationed at the center work on the relationship, build trust so that they can be able to work under full disclosure
Customer Service to Supplement Products.
Customer service deals with providing services before, during, and after their purchase from a company. Such services are used to support customers in making the right choices that are cost-effective and to realize the best from the acquisitions. It is referred to as a supplement. For instance, in a case where a product is faulty, good customer service would help bring it back to use to some extent by helping the customers either get a replacement or a guidance how to repair the fault (Anshari, Almunawar, Lim, & Al-Mudimigh , 2019). The importance of customer services does vary from one organization to another and product to another.
Companies use this specific section of management depending on what they are dealing with. For instance, a retail business would handle returns, exchanges, and customer complaints. In the general sales process, customer service plays a crucial role in its ability to generate income and revenue from its sales.
Conclusion
The research shows that business buyer behavior is a crucial part of any business organization purchasing goods and services. It is a concept that defines how a business can set up responsibilities that are allotted to employees who are then made responsible for any purchases. The business processes provide a satisfactory analysis of an image that the team responsible for buying should adhere to for a successful business behavior study. The research has also analyzed the business buying behavior factors that influence the decision making in an organization that includes environmental factors, organizational factors, and interpersonal factor.
The study has also captured buying centers as the focal department in business buying behaviors that control all company purchases. The department is constituted depending on the type of product and organization. It draws individuals from different company sections varying from finance and information technology to senior management. Finally, businesses must understand how they market their products to other companies and how their clients would approach the processes in place. Companies should understand the buying situations while making their decisions. Hence, buyer behavior analysis is an important marketing tool for any organization that intends to succeed in the market and returns.
References
Anshari, M., Almunawar, M. N., Lim, S. A., & Al-Mudimigh, A. (2019). Customer relationship management and big data enabled: Personalization & customization of services. Applied Computing and Informatics , 15 (2), 94-101.
Ganzer, P. P., Chais, C., & Olea, P. M. (2017). Product, process, marketing and organizational innovation in industries of the flat knitting sector. RAI Revista de Administração e Inovação , 14 (4), 321-332.
Kemp, E. A., Borders, A. L., Anaza, N. A., & Johnston, W. J. (2018). The heart in organizational buying: Marketers’ understanding of emotions and decision-making of buyers. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing , 33 (1), 19-28. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim-06-2017-0129
MKT 3331 introductory marketing concepts and strategies Textbook.pdf . (n.d.). Google Docs. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1es2EjLJvoJFg4_D3yW4J61Rn-br--RS5/view
Pedeliento, G., Andreini, D., Bergamaschi, M., & Salo, J. (2019). End users’ purchasing task involvement, power and influence strategies in organizational buying. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing , 34 (1), 150-165. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim-01-2018-0037
Yawson, S. (2019). Novelty, Complexity, Importance, Products and Industry groups as Causal Determinants of the Buying Center Involvement (A multiple case study of Private Organizations in Ghana) (Master's thesis, Høgskolen i Molde-Vitenskapelig høgskole i logistikk).
