Building Loyalty in Business Markets

“Building Loyalty in Business Markets”

By: Das Narayandas

Analysis By:

John C

1. The Central Idea of the Assignment

The central idea of this article is to explain the importance of business-to-business relationships in the work environment. The article explains that there are crucial differences in the way that that we market our company in a business-to-business standpoint compared to consumer marketing. Many marketers focus on creating value instead of providing the customer with the available benefits their company can offer. Communication is key as establishing loyal relationships with few customers can often be much more beneficial than creating relationships with many.

2. Reasons underlying the authors’ work

The author of this article is Das Narayandas. He is a very credible source as he is a college professor of Business Administration at the University of Harvard. Professor Narayandas wrote this article in order to publish it for the Harvard Business Review. I believe this article’s mission is inform young and upcoming professionals as well as seasoned professionals the best possible ways to conduct business-to-business activities around the world. The article addresses key roles in order to improve strategy and give professionals new insights when conducting business in order to create loyal customers gaining a positive impact within their organizations.

3. Major Points with Sufficient Explanations

The first question that a business must ask itself is “what business are we in?” This is an important first step as a major error in creating loyal relationships in the business-to-business format is realizing that you are not marketing yourself to consumers but other businesses. These two types of marketing are very different from each other for multiple reasons. For example, when dealing in a consumer market you may market to a large number of buyers, transactions are usually in small value, and parts are massed produced. On the other hand with a business market, you will market yourself to fewer customers, transactions tend to be much larger, and your customer may want a product in which you will need to customize in order to meet their specific demands. Probably the number one mistake that marketers make when dealing with marketing to other businesses is the idea of value. In a business-to-business format marketers need to focus on how their product/service can benefit that specific customer rather than how the product is better than other competitors.

Narayandas groups benefits into four categories in order to access value a product may offer. Tangible financial benefits being the first category. In this category the buyers and sellers can easily distinguish benefits that offer value. For example, a car company can list statistics about the cars such as horsepower and gas mileage in which will be beneficial to the buyer. This does have a downside of course as competitors in the same industrial will also have tangible financial benefits listed and buyers will be able to compare.

When talking about tangible financial benefits there will also be nontangible benefits. These types of benefits are not as easy to communicate with buyers. There is often a lot of skepticism involved with these benefits but sellers can overcome skepticism a number of ways. There are multiple ways to overcome skepticism. Companies could use research from a third person party such as an independent agency. Companies could also offer money back guarantees or penalty payments if the product doesn’t perform up to standards.

The third category is that of tangible nonfinancial benefits. These types of benefits take some time for sellers to aquire. For example, a buyer may feel much better about purchasing from a company that has built a reputable name for itself. Buyers also feel comfort sometimes by the scale of the company and also their innovation capabilities. This category of benefits often influences buyer’s choices but it also has a downside. Companies with good tangible nonfinancial benefits often come with a high price of goods.

The last category, being that of nontangible nonfinancial benefits, is a group of benefits that must be experienced first hand during the business process. These benefits coming into play when the time comes to retain current customers. Some such benefits could include delivering on holidays or maybe even free shipping. These are the benefits that