ANALYZING BUSINESS

MARKETS
LECTURE 6
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• What are Business Markets?
• Buying Situations
• Stages in the B2B buying process
• Systems Buying and Selling
• The Buying Center
• Purchasing vs. Procurement Process
 Business Markets
• The Business Market consists of all the organizations that acquire goods and
services used in the production of other products or services that are sold, rented or
supplied to others.
• More money and items change hands in sales to business buyers than to
consumers.
• Given the highly competitive nature of B2B markets, the biggest enemy to
marketers here is commoditization.
• Thus, a critical step in business-to-business marketing is to create and
communicate relevant differentiation from competitors.
Buying Situations
Stages in the B2B buying process: The Buygrid Framework
 Systems Buying and Selling
• The practice of buying a complete solution to a problem or need rather than a number of component
parts; for example, an organization may purchase an entire accounting system from one supplier
rather than computers from one supplier, software from another, staff training from another, and so
on.

• Sellers have increasingly recognized that buyers like to purchase in this way, and many have adopted
systems selling as a marketing tool.

• Systems selling is a key industrial marketing strategy in bidding to build large-scale industrial
projects such as dams, steel factories, irrigation systems, sanitation systems, pipelines, utilities and
even new towns.
 Buying Center
• Buying Center consists of all those individuals and groups who participate
in the purchasing decision-making process, who share some common
goals and the risks arising from the decisions.

• The Buying Center includes all members of the organization who play any
of the following seven roles in the purchase decision process.
Buying Center Roles
 Purchasing vs. Procurement Process
• Procurement refers to the process of identifying, shortlisting, selecting and
acquiring suitable goods or services or works from a third-party vendor through
a direct purchase, competitive bidding or tendering process while ensuring
timely delivery of the right quality and quantity.

• Purchasing is the set of functions associated with acquiring the goods and
services that an organization requires. Purchasing is a small subset of the
broader procurement function. This process includes activities like ordering,
expediting, receiving and fulfilling payment.
THANK YOU