An Analysis of the Fundamentals of Marketing (part 27)

The Organizational Buying Center

by

Charles Lamson

Most high-value purchases in B-to-B (business to business) markets involve people from different departments and functions within the organization. People play different roles with respect to the buying decision. Several roles are listed below:

• Users In the case of the purchase of a new university computer network system, discussed in an earlier post, users are the people who will use the network. They will probably know much about hardware and software but little about the various network standards and configurations available. Despite this, users should be involved in the buying process so that they can feel included and can contribute usefully their experience of the present system. It would be worthwhile knowing any defects in the present system to ensure that the new system does not replicate them.
• Influencers provide information for evaluating alternative products and suppliers. With respect to the computer network example, the university central computing services personnel should have the expertise to evaluate different standards and platforms. They should be able to help in drawing up a technical specification for the network system and to advise on the performance and reliability of different options. Other influencers would include computing officers within departments who could communicate the specific requirements of each department.
• Gatekeepers control the flow of information to other people in the purchasing process. Primarily, they involve the organization's purchasing agents and the suppliers' sales people. Within the university example, staff within the computing services section and departmental computing officers would act as gatekeepers and would be able to slant the information flow with respect to the options which they thought were not feasible.
• Buyers are usually referred to as the purchasing agents within the role of purchasing manager. In most organizations buyers have the authority to contact suppliers and negotiate the purchase transaction. In the university computer network example, this may be carried out by a person nominated by the university IT committee who would report back to the committee.
• Deciders are the persons with the authority to make a final purchase decision. In the university computing network example it would probably be the university IT committee. This would include personnel from the central university administration and persons representing departments directly involved.

B-to-B decision making can be much more complex than consumer decision making, although sometimes family decision making approximates to it.

*SOURCE: FUNDAMENTALS OF MARKETING, 2007, MARILYN A. STONE AND JOHN DRESMOND, PGS. 101-102*

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