Even though the purpose of marketing activity is the same, there are still big differences between interorganizational marketing and consumption goods marketing. The particularities of interorganizational marketing derive from the structure of productive goods markets. Clients of productive goods are economical or non-economical organizations and not the final users (individual consumers), as in the case of consumption goods marketing.
Organizational market implies the assembly of organizations which purchase goods and services in order to produce other goods and services that will be sold, rented or supplied to others. The main particularities of productive goods market are the following:
a. The products have a great technical complexity, defined in technical specifications, joined by a series of services.
b. Goal market is made up of a smaller number of clients, respectively organizations.
c. The demand is derived, being determined by the demand for consumption goods.
d. Buying decision is complex, it is the prerogative of the acquisition centre effort, as a result of negotiations, contracts, for harmonizing the partners’ economical interests.
e. Buyers are “professionals”, well-informed specialists.
f. The elements of marketing mix (product policy, price, promotion and distribution) are the same, but each one’s role is revaluated and adapted to the organizational market particularity.
Other particularities can be mentioned, thus:
− Buyers’ risk is higher;
− Buying time is longer;
− Seller-buyer reciprocity is perceptible.
Counting these differences can be exhaustive, but even incomplete, it can give the illustration of industrial markets (organizational), pointing out operational and attitudinal differences in the conceptual treatment and in defining the methods for putting into practice the competitive advantage.
The specific features of interorganizational marketing are granted by the fact that industrial investment goods are very different (form raw materials to very complex industrial installations), and the clients are especially industrial beneficiaries. As a result, intergenerational marketing (organizational) will have the following specific features (13):
− use of individual solutions (individual marketing) for specific clients;
− enforcing system solutions by offering not only a single product, but a package of products and services (counselling, training, warranty, service);
− development of new products in close collaboration with the clients;
− buying decision is the prerogative of the buying centre made up of qualified staff in all the industry competence areas;
− distribution is usually direct (direct marketing), without intermediaries;
− prices’ battle, as a competition means, but it is rarely used.
The structure and the relations of productive goods market can be rendered as shown in Figure 3 (14) Figure 3. Structure of productive (organizational) goods market
Source: Webster, Jr.; Frederick, E., Industrial Marketing Management, third edition, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1991, p. 5.
Bibliography:
1. Bruhn, M., “Orientarea spre clienti. Teoria afacerii de success”, Ed. Economica, Bucuresti, 2001, p. 16-17.
2. Guerny, J.; Delbes, R., “Gestion concurrentielle, Pratique de la vente”, Ed. Deluras, Paris, 1993, p. 12.
3. McDonald, M., “Strategic marketing”, Ed. Codecs, 1998, p. 19-21.
4. Ristea, A.-L., op. cit., p. 39.
5. Matricon, C., “Le systeme marketing”, Ed. Dunod, Paris, 1993, p. 10.
6. Kotler, Ph.; Dubois, B., “Marketing-Management”, Ed. Publi-Union, Paris, 1992, p. 27.
7. Bruhn, M., op. cit., p. 212.
8. Gummessons, E., “Relationships marketing”, in: Thomas, J.M., “Marketing manual”, Ed. Codecs, Bucuresti, 1998, p. 138.
9. Pop, N.Al., “A new paradigm in contemporary marketing: relational marketing, management and marketing”, 1st year, No.3, Autumn 2006, pp.36-37
10. Lendrevie, J.; Lindou, D., “Mercartor. Théorie et partique du marketing”, Ed. Dalloz, Paris, 1997, p. 14-19.
11. Anton, V., “Interorganizational Marketing”, Ed. Expert, 2006, p. 24
12. Lendrevie, J.; Lindou, D., “Mercartor. Théorie et partique du marketing”, Ed. Dalloz, Paris, 1997, p. 14-19.
13. Bruhn, M., “Marketing”, Ed. Economica, Bucuresti, 1999, p. 32.
14. Webster, Jr.; Frederick, E., “Industrial marketing management”, third edition, John Wiley &
Sons, New York, 1991, p. 5.
CO C ON NS SI ID DE ER RA AT TI IO ON NS S A AB BO OU UT T T TH HE E M MA AR RK KE ET TI IN NG G O OR RG GA AN NI IZ ZA AT TI IO ON NA AL L M MI IC CR RO O M ME ED DI IU UM M
Anton Vasile University of Oradea
Abstract: The marketing medium comprises the all factors influencing the enterprise activity, so that it can be defined as the assembly of all actors and external forces of the organization – susceptible of affecting the manner in which it enlarges or maintains changes with its markets. The micro medium comprises those internal factors and external forces which influence directly the enterprise activity and can be imaged and controlled. The organization internal medium contains the sum of the elements providing the performance of the activity object, which are conditioning each other, amplifying, or, contrary, diminishing the potential and the capacity of the economical entity. The external micro medium comprises factors and forces like as:
suppliers, mediators, clients, competitors, public structures and institutions.
Key words: organizational medium, internal medium, external micro medium, organization’s potential.
Introduction
The enterprise medium has a multi dimensional character, so that, generally speaking, the medium is the
“assembly of the dimensions of the material, technical, institutional, economical, demographical, social and cultural reality which form the universe within the enterprise is sited and whose forces influence it directly or indirectly” (1).
The adapting degree to the external medium depends on the organization’s internal medium, but the organization’s success is the result of the vision directed from exterior towards interior, so that the clients’
needs and wishes are to be satisfied at an upper level, under profitability conditions. In Ph. Kotler’s opinion (2), an organization of high performance is that that has “a model based on four factors: the affair’s users, processes, resources and organization”, - constituting the force lines which are intersecting the internal medium with the external one.
The marketing medium comprises the all factors influencing the enterprise activity, so that it can be defined as “the assembly of all actors and external forces of the enterprise – susceptible of affecting the manner in which it enlarges or maintains changes with its markets” (3).
The medium agents and factors are operating with different intensity and in different degrees upon the enterprise activity. Some factors influence through direct relations imposed by the need of carrying out the objective of the organisation’s activity (enterprise micro medium), while other factors have an indirect, weaker and remote influence (making the enterprise macro medium).
The factors - forming the micro medium (specific medium), and the organizational macro medium (general medium) can be seen as follows:
Figure I. Micro and macro medium factors
It results that the medium includes all the organization’s exterior elements, of economical, technical, political, cultural, demographical, scientific, educational, psychological and ecological nature, etc., - influencing the establishing of the objectives, the obtaining of the resources and the adoption of the decisions.
The micro medium factors are directly and strongly influencing the organization activity, while the macro medium factors have a weaker, indirect and longer time influence.
The organization’s medium analyse and knowledge assure:
− satisfaction of the request men’s necessities and needs;
− elaboration of the organization’s strategies and politics;
− procuring the resources necessary for the organization (human, material, financial, informational);
− organizational, informational and decisional subsystems’ implementation.
For many times, the precise delimitation of the micro and macro medium becomes very difficult because the dividing limit is in a continuous changing, so that, a factor which at a moment has a general, indirect influence, may become a factor of a direct, strong influence. Both the micro and macro medium factors are operating not as closed systems, each of them separately, but interacting mutually, influencing and being influenced by the organization.
While the macro medium factors have a remote, long time and indirect influence upon the organization, the micro medium factors have a direct, immediate influence and, the interdependences can be controlled. The micro medium comprises those internal factors and external forces which influence directly the enterprise activity and can be generally imaged and controlled. The micro medium comprises both the internal medium of the organization and its external micro medium.
Fig.II. The organizational micro medium
Organization internal medium
The organizational internal medium comprises the sum of the elements which assure the performance of the activity object - conditioning each other, amplifying or, by contrary, diminishing the potential and the capacity of the economical entity. The internal medium is identified, at last, with the enterprise itself, regarded as an economical agent, inside of which the combination of the production factors takes place – in order to produce goods and services. So, the internal medium comprises the resources used by the organization: financial, human, informational materials. From their combination results the organization particularization and its potential on market. The analyse of the internal medium becomes deeper by evidencing the medium of the resources physical existence, like that:
− endowments (buildings, equipments, infrastructure), pieces of ground, and other natural resources;
− currency availabilities (personal, borrowed or attracted);
− human resources (structure number, qualifying degree, age, abilities, motivation); the organization’s relations with the own employers can be conceived in a set of specific actions – constituting the nucleus of the internal marketing.
The organization potential expresses its capacity of carrying out its activity objective and is given by:
− the productive potential is the organization capacity to manufacture the products or the services according to the market demand;
− the commercial potential is given by a number of indicators, like as: list of market, quality of the products, demand covering degree, politic of marketing mix elements, etc.
− the financial potential refers to the organization capacity of engaging the expenses necessary to reach the objectives (financial stability, capital flux, cash-flow, etc.).
− the informational potential has in view the possibility of carrying out the marketing and management informational system, endowment with IT means;
− the managerial potential expresses the organizing and leading capacity of the organization in order to perform the strategic objectives and assure the success – by using the modern and efficient managerial methods and techniques.
e organization internal potential can be determined by evaluating the strong and weak points, and a possible list of the indicators evaluating the organizational potential can be illustrated as follows (4):
Marketing micro medium
Internal medium – organization and its nature
External micro medium - clients
- suppliers - competitors - mediators
- public organizations
Fig.III. Indicators of evaluating the organizational potential
Commercial capacity Financial capacity Productive capacity Organizing capacity 1.Organization reputation 8. Costs/capital 11. Means of production 15. Visionary
management
2. Market list 9. Numeral flux 12. Scale economies 16. Employees
involvement 3. Products and services
quality 10. Financial stability 13. Qualified human
resources 17. Organizing capacity 4.Efficiency of the price
,distribution and promoting politic
14. Technical attitudes 18. Organizing flexibility
5. Efficiency of sale Force
6. Innovation efficiency 7. Demand cover at territorial level
Among the components of the internal micro medium, previously analysed, we can also mention some others:
− the conception that is directing the marketing activity, respect., the philosophy towards the clients and society;
− the integration of the marketing function in the organization activity, as a determinant factor in reaching some high performances, by creating and propagating a set of common laws and specific values;
− the enterprise culture is a matrix of specifications, demands, practices, knowledge – guided by a set of principles - explaining and justifying the organization existence and direction.
Organization external micro medium (5)
The organization external micro medium comprises a series of factors and forces which have a direct incidence upon the capacity of satisfying the needs and preferences of the consumers: suppliers, mediators, clients, competitors, public structures and institutes. A description of the relations of the external medium on market can be illustrated through the central axis suppliers-enterprise-mediators-clients.
The enterprise micro medium – consisting of the relations assembly enlarged by the organization with actors on market – can be illustrated like in figure IV.
a. The suppliers are the enterprises offering the resources necessary to the affairs activity: raw materials, materials, energy, technical equipments, information, financial resources, human resources, services carrying out.
The adjustment of the organization relations with its suppliers is materialized in specific strategic options: assuring the suppliers’ optimum structure, promoting of some relations established for a long period of time, up-stream integration, inverted marketing (purchases marketing), etc. The modern systems of establishing the relations between organization and its resources and components suppliers are provided with efficient forms, like as the strategic partnership, simultaneous engineering, mixed entities, boundless companies, etc.
The organization is able to develop a single relation to supply with a certain material, raw material, etc., situation in which it becomes dependent on that supplier, or may promote more relations in order to purchase the same material-, by cooperating with more suppliers. In the first case, the higher risk presented by the furnishing oneness is counter balanced by the company of a known and permanent partner – presenting quality and confidence guarantees. Minimizing the problems regarding the supplying risk is performed through the application of some solutions as buying in advance, strictness in stocks control, stipulation of some special clauses in the delivery contracts, etc.
Figure IV. The enterprise’s market micro medium
b. The clients represent another component of the micro medium, of great importance for any producer, as taking into account the fact that without clients you cannot exist. The clients make the market components, the producers find their way about. The main types of the buyer’s markets are:
1. the individual consumers’ market;
2. the inter organizational market consisting of:
− the producers’ market – these are buying goods and services for processing in the production process;
− the merchants’ market – these are buying different goods in order to sale them again and get some profit;
− the non-profit organizations market - where they buy goods to furnish services of general interest;
− the government market – where the state institutions buy goods to produce public services;
3. the international market refers to the buyers from abroad. They can say that the organization evolution on long term depends on the dynamic of its relations with the clients – strongly influenced by the affairs philosophy. Gathering and analysing large quantities of information, the organizations will detect the clients’ preferences and wishes – they being going to be directly involved in the operational and production processes. Alvin Tofler even speaks about “pro summator”, a word that wants to emphasize the fact that the consumer himself will participate to the process of conceiving and making the product. The new relations with the clients impose a change in the directing towards marketing and client: assurance of the flexibility in anticipating the consumers’ needs, leading capacity on the basis of the marketing philosophy, authority delegation, etc.
c. The competitors form a distinct element of the external micro medium on market, ubiquitous in the competitive medium. The competitive relations are mainly influenced by the number and size of the enterprises which are controlling the offer of a product or service. From this point of view, four types of market competitive structures can be evidenced: monopoly, oligopoly, monopolist competition and perfect competition. From the point of view of the product substitution degree,
activity level (industry, agriculture, etc.), formal competition (between organizations offering products meant to satisfy the same needs), generic competition (between all organizations).
The competitive strategy, being the basis of the competitive medium, has in view that, after defining the market-target, to set up the necessary decisions regarding the identification of the direct competitors, the examination of the actors in the competitive medium, of the threats from market, establishment of the competitive advantage.
d. The mediators for distribution represent that category of actors - supporting and, sometimes competing with the products sale by the final users (commercial mediators, intermediary agents, physical distributors, searching and consulting organizations, etc.).
The commercial mediators buy and sell products on personal account, being the owners of the commercialized goods :
− the intermediary agents are operating as the representatives of their clients – being reward with commissions or fees;
− the physical distributors are the operators of the storehouses and transport organizations – bringing the goods to the users;
− the other organizations facilitating the good operation of the activities are the publicity, consulting, researching agencies of the market, etc.
e. The public structures represent a component of the external micro medium – comprising categories of structures which are interested, or influence the manner in which an organization achieves the marketing management. Philip Kotler groups them in seven categories: consumers’
associations, professional organizations, mass media, large public, public administration and power, groups of political and civic interests, internal public.
The internal public of the enterprise is formed by its own human resources which have to become a vector of development and an image of the enterprise – constituting by itself in an essential objective of the internal marketing. This is performed by a continuous informing strategy and staff motivation, creating an encouraging atmosphere of the personal creativity and initiative (see fig.V).
The internal marketing or, the marketing for the human resources represents an assembly of methods, techniques, procedures. Applying them, you can obtain an increasing of the performance level both in the clients’ interest and that of the own employers and collaborators (7). The managerial objective of obtaining a total connecting of the employers to the organization politic and activity has in view both everyone’s motivations and the specific motivations appearing at the level of some groups and at the level of the employers collective, as a whole.
Figure V. The essential elements of the of the internal marketing
The necessity of the organization to communicate with the medium factors has been
materialized in the appearance of the public relation department – having a special role in promoting the relations favourable to the organization with all the categories of public structures.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Serraff G., “Dictionnaire méthologique du marketing”, Les Editions D’Organization, Paris, 1985, p. 106.
2. Kotler Ph.; Dubois B., “Marketing management”, Ed. Publi-Union, Paris, 1992, p.130.
3. Kotler Ph., Dubois B., op. cit., p.138.
4. Macarie F.C., “Firm Affairs Medium”, in :”Marketing-Management”, vol.IV/2004 (82), p.250.
5. Ionescu Gh., “Management Cultural Dimensions”, Economical Ed., Bucharest, 1996, p.44.
6. Balure V., (coordinator) “Marketing”, Uranus Ed., Bucharest, 2002, p.85.
7. Florescu C.; Mâlcomete P.; Pop N. Al. “Marketing-Explanatory Dictionary”, Economical Ed., 2003, p.448.
Attraction, development, motivation and maintaining the qualified employees
Consumer`s knowing
Competition for talents`
engagement
Vision offer
Preparing the staff for performance
Measurement and reward
Freedom factors balancing