Factors Influencing Organizational Buying Behavior
Organizational buying behavior or business buying behavior can be affected by various internal and external factors. A marketing manager has to study carefully such factors that have an impact on its customer serving, to improves the organization’s marketing policy and plans.
The major factors affecting or influencing organizational buying behavior are:
- Environmental factors
- Organizational factors
- Interpersonal factors
- Personal factors
Environmental Factors
The environmental factors of business buying behavhior include government regulation, technological innovations, demand level, competition, social responsibility, cost of funds, availability of natural resources, etc. Marketing organizations need to assess the strengths and weaknesses of these factors and analyze how they affect their customers.
Then the concerned organization should predict how buyers will adjust their purchase. If necessary, they must be ready to change their marketing strategy to keep up with buyers’ changed behavior.
Organizational Factors
Every organization has a certain goal and objective, accepted procedures for purchasing, and an organizational structure, all of which influence its purchasing decisions. These organizational characteristics provide clues for determining how one industrial buyer might be different from another and how purchase decisions are likely to be made.
The goal and objective of an organization influence the types of products it needs and the criteria by which it evaluates. Different organizations may have different goals and objectives. Buying procedure of an organization may enforce the suppliers to follow several rules beyond which they can not go. By law, governmental organizations must call ‘biding’ while buying products from outside suppliers. Generally, the supplier with the lowest bid is often selected. Similarly, organizational structure assigns responsibilities and authority for decision-making to job positions and determines who should make the purchase decision. The authority may be either high-level or middle-level managers. It is a marketing manager who should find ways of turning these challenges or problems into potential opportunities.
Interpersonal Factors
Within the organization also the primary users include the individual personnel or staff with different motives, interests, and authority. They may interact with each other. For example, a purchasing manager and a product user within the organization may have quite different opinions relative to how important price is about product quality and specific product features.
The purchasing manager may be concerned more with price saving, while the product users may be concerned more with quality and design. In such a situation, the supplier or salespeople and others having direct contact with the organizational buying center should watch carefully for indications of buying center conflict and how it is resolved.
Individual Factors
In any organization, the individual staff makes buying decisions and purchases products. Therefore, organizational buying may be affected by their personal motivations, perceptions, preferences, and background. These individual characteristics are influenced by the individual participants’ demographic and psychological factors. A supplier’s challenge is to learn about the characteristics of the individual participants so that selling appeals can be tailored to the individual nature of the actual buyer(s). A supplier may learn these characteristics through the sales representatives, market research, other concerned business firms.
Analyzing buyer behavior is a challenge for any marketing professional. A supplier must learn about the individuals in the buying center and how they go about selecting products and suppliers. Only then a marketing plan can be designed to appeal effectively to those who will make the purchase.
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