BUSINESS TO BUSINESS BUYER BEHAIVOUR PART A

MODULE NAME:
MARKETING MANAGEMENT IN THE GLOBAL ENVIROMENT

MODULE CODE:
BU7202

STUDENT ID:
1225028

Content
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................... 3
From Emotional to Rational ............................................................................................................... 3
Purchasing process ............................................................................................................................. 4
How the Organisational Purchasing is structured ............................................................................. 7
Decision Making Unit ......................................................................................................................... 8
Purchasing situations ....................................................................................................................... 10
The international issue in buyer behaviour .................................................................................. 10
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 10
References ......................................................................................................................................... 12

List of figures
Figure 1. Simple comsumer purchasing .............................................................................................. 4
Figure 2 B2B Purchasing: A leap of faith plus justification .................................................................. 4
Figure 3 Comparation between The Organisational purchasing desicion process:B2B Vs The Buyer
desicion Model: B2C............................................................................................................................ 6

INTRODUCTION
The relationship between business to customers B2C when goods and services are
interchangeable differs in multiples conducts when comparing with Business to Business
B2B situation, considering multiple factors as the size of the contract, the purchasing process,
the marketing strategies, the unit decision-making, the influencers, the buying situation, the
length of the process and even of the length of the relationship between buyer and seller, etc.
These variances generate diverse buyer behaviour between B2C and B2B and is very crucial
to understand these modifications in order to generate the suitable strategies in each case
depending on the environment and the customer who is aimed the strategies using effective
communication with the objective to maximise the resources invested in each strategy and
transform it in a worthwhile investment. This report will analyse the different factors in buyer
behaviour when the connexion converts form B2C to B2B from the view of the
communication international management.

From Emotional to Rational

Firstly, the main modification between B2C and B2B buyer behaviour is that B2B is based
on rational decision process, rather than emotional. This means that the brain acts in a diverse
position when the purchasing is developed in a B2B environment, the main difference is the
way how the brain hemispheres interact to each other and how this interaction is able to
decide about the buying. According to Minett (2002)the left side of the brain is named the
hard aspect of the mental life ,is genetically designed and is the part of the brain where we
manage the logic, calculation and analysis, while the right side process the intuition , images,
patter recognition and it is called the soft side, the interaction between those hemispheres

varies depending on the relationship B2B and B2C, and each side has different purpose in
each situation, this connexion is showed in the next diagram:

Figure 1. Simple consumer purchasing

Figure 2 B2B Purchasing: A leap of faith plus justification

Source: Minett (2002) p. 23-24

Purchasing process
Most of the business transactions are made between companies and in many cases are made
between corporations from different countries which are held in an international
environment. However, each company has varied reason to buy goods or services form other
companies. As Lancaster & Reynolds pointed out (2004) the Organisational Buying is
divided in three main elements: Industrial Buying which are companies who buy goods in
order to supply an operational or components of its final product needs, Additionally, There
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are firms that buy for resale, as the supermarket industry and in general the retail businesses,
Finally, exist the institutional buying who buy provisions for its operation , for instance a
school that buys uniforms for its staff. These elements have different criteria when decide
the buying, for instance when the buying is industrial the criteria is the specifications, while
if the buying is from a retail company the main criteria to decide the purchase could be the
price and for the institutional procurement may be the budget limits (inferior and superior),
in the specific case of a bid or Government purchase.
The differences are evident in Buyer behaviour among the B2B and B2C, the selection
criteria and the purchasing process varies in their structure and the decision-making unit, the
next diagram shows the changes in the purchasing process when comparing B2B and B2C,
showing that in Organisational purchasing the process is more consistent and the product
specification stage is an additional stage which is crucial for the process because it could be
seen as the principal objective of the firm: to fulfil a requirement with precise specifications.

The organisational purchasing decision

process:B2B
Start

Problem recognition

The buyer decision model: B2C

Start

Problem recognition

Need description
Information search
Product Specification

Supplier search

Evaluation of
alternatives

Supplier selection

Purchase decision

Purchasing Routine
specification

Performance review

Post-Purchase
Behaviour

End

End

Figure 3 Comparison between The Organisational purchasing decision processes: B2B Vs. The Buyer decision Model: B2C

Source: Lancaster & Reynolds, (2004), p. 64;74.

A tracing of this process and the importance of fulfilment the specifications is given in the
next example:
An American manufacturer of cutting tools saves its reputation by changing the supplier of
its blanks, due to its previous suppliers was resulting in loss of production and some
customer, generating three main problems to the enterprise : Firstly, the had to inspect every
single piece because most of the blanks were oversized. Secondly the supplier was unable
to provide the exact sizes needed by the firm and they had to subcontract another enterprise
to cut the pieces in order to obtain the accurate size, and finally and most critical the quality
of the material was unreliable because they were getting returns of broken tools, losing

customers through these failure, This problem is very significant not only because they were
losing customers , also they were losing the reputation in the market which is very difficult
and expensive to rebuilt. Moreover in quality terms is a catastrophic event that the mistakes
or quality failures arrives to the consumers hand. Furthermore, in this example we can realise
how important the specifications are, and to understand the customer specification not only
to achieve it, also to provide added value to this specifications.
The company decided to change its supplier and undertook a rigorous systematic testing
process to the change and solve its problems, they pre-qualified a number of possible
suppliers, after that the price was the consideration to shortlist these suppliers in four,
afterward the performance of the components were tested in a laboratory with Control
Numeric Computerised CNC machines obtaining precise results and finally selecting the
supplier with the best performance. According to the president of the company the material
of the provider selected performed 10 and 20% better than the previous supplier and about
20 to 30% better than the others potential suppliers. Another factor to make the decision was
the suppliers policy: premium blanks .This real life example shows the way that most of
the companies establish specifications and criteria in order to select a long term supplier
were the marketing is focus on the fulfilment of the requirements and after that the policy of
the company can make the difference. (Minett, 2002, p. 25-27)

How the Organisational Purchasing is structured

While the buyer behaviour is motivated by social and cultural influences, as well as specific
social

influences for instance Social class and reference groups, the organisational

purchasing is motivated by a particular requirement and includes structured activities and

process of buying, The larger the organisation , the more structured method of buying should
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be (Lancaster & Reynolds, 2004, p. 77), these procedures can include: A previous list of
suppliers, a template useful to write down the product, quality and design specifications ,
Checklist about this features, Variables defined as A generic characteristic or property ,
such as capacity or height. (Jhonson, 2011, p. 290), also can include Attributes distinct as
The specific measurement being recorder (Jhonson, 2011, p. 290), On this template
depending the product, a Scope of work can be included which describes what the seller will
do for the buyer, for instance if the scope of work is Design as Jhonson (2011)stated it
provides exact details of what is requires and is used when the buyer does not want variance
from specifications. If the Scope of work is about Functionality, the buyer details the
functionality needed in the product and allows the seller to propose their own solution.
Furthermore, the companies have a system to evaluate the suppliers, before, during and after
the purchase, and give calcifications in order to select the most suitable seller, evaluate their
performance and update its list of sellers. For this reason suppliers might be in active
competition with each other, consequently Organisational buyers can have more power.
Moreover this kind of relationships tend to be long-term contract, the supplier becomes a
regular seller for the buyer, as a result, there is a huge responsibility of the seller due to the
accomplishment the buyers demand going to depend on its supply chain, in other word,
depends on its seller in most of the cases. Finally considering the among of the transactions
between organisations which is much major comparing with the B2C environment, the
supplier must to be committed and assure its capacity to achieve the buyers demand.

Decision Making Unit

The decision making unit in an B2C environment is formed by friends, family, social groups
and the marketing exposure, While in B2B atmosphere the decision making unit depends on
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the service or good to being purchased and if the purchase function is centralised in the
company and in most organisational buying involves group of decision maker as Lancaster
and Reynolds (2004) mentioned. Moreover each person implied in the decision making
process has a specific role such as, Gatekeeper, user, deciders, buyers and influencers.
In this case, the important question to answer is what finally leads to the decider to make a
decision. In Both environments are the differentiator factors. According to Minett (2002)
the decision criteria could be possibly extend over the entire working life-time of a purchaser
in B2B situation, and three basic strategies must be considered by the salesperson to influence
the decision criteria: firstly, reinforce the criteria to achieve. Secondly, build incidental
criteria and finally reduce the importance criteria that the seller cannot meet. When the firms
are appraising options also are trying to identify differentiators between various options
available, and this options not only needs to fulfil the requirements, also, must differentiate
between products. However, the option would thus be the best fit between the differentiators
and the customers decision criteria (Minett, 2002, p. 31), In other words, the supplier must
achieve the most important criteria for the customer following by others differentiators.
There are Soft and hard differentiator according to Minett (2002) , the hard differentiators
are obvious as weight or speed and the soft differentiators are less obvious and requires
specific communication approach , it can be defined as secondary characteristics that
enhance the differentiators criteria. The decision criteria is based on the hard differentiator
rather than in B2C environment is based on soft or emotional responses. Consequently, the
marketing strategy in B2B environment must be focus on turning any soft differentiator into
hard, in order to increase the awareness of the decision-making unit about the soft features.

Purchasing situations
The regular consumers buy any product for need, desire or social belonging in order to
achieve any motivational stage, meanwhile, the organisations have three specific buying
situations as Lancaster & Reynolds (2004)pointed out : Straight Rebuy which involves a
current item or commodity , the suppliers are known , therefore the process does not involves
great effort. Modified Rebuy which includes a change of the level of the purchasing, product
specifications or regular supplier. New task which is developed when an unfamiliar or new
product or new specification have become standard, In this case the marketing team can
forecast this event and create the suitable marketing and communication strategy.
The international issue in buyer behaviour
Considering the previous analysis when talking about buyer behaviour , a huge number of
variables must be also considered, such geographical area, the language ,cultural factors,
standards of education, law and politics (Lancaster & Reynolds, 2004) religion , in general
those influences that build a customer profile, consequently a buyer behaviour, those
variables had to be clearly understood in the B2B environment, because, a misinterpretation
can conduct the successful or failure when doing business in the perspective of
communication manager.

Conclusion
When analysing and comparing the buyer behaviour between B2C and B2B from
communications management perspective, a huge number of variables become evident
showing the gap and the differences in the behaviour. The main difference when the
purchasing propose is in B2B is totally rational while the B2C has numerous emotional

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factors, as a result, the organisational purchasing process is more structured and in several
cases the companies has planned and controlled procedures in order to execute a specific
purchase and scoring its suppliers at the same time, due to when a company choose a seller
the relationship is generally long term, furthermore, the successful fulfilment of its demand
could depend on its seller because it is part of its supply chain and for this reason the
accomplishment of the criteria and Hard Factors is decisive and obtain differentiator aspects
understanding as well as the international influences and communicating these aspects
effectively no matter if there are soft factors because an effective strategy must be able to
convert this factors into hard factors or decision criteria aspects. On the other hand, In B2C
the behaviour is more focus in soft aspects and the purchasing operation can be defined by
only a single transaction. The main importance of these differences in buyer behaviour
between B2C and B2B situation is that the understanding supports the ability and knowledge
to purpose and implement the correct strategy in each case considering who are our customers
and how is our relationship.

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References
Jhonson, T. (2011). PMP Exam Success Series: Bootcamp Manual (Fourth ed., Vol. 8.2).
(C. P. Inc, Ed.) Carrollton, Texas, USA.
Lancaster, G., & Reynolds, P. (2004). Marketing. Hampshire, United Kingdom: Palgrave
McMillan.
Minett, S. (2002). B2B Maketing A radicallly different approach for business to business
marketers. London, United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited.

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