B2Bridge

Last week, I had an interesting phone call with Robert Salle, professor in marketing at EM Lyon Business School. He says "Business marketing and consumer marketing do have similarities, e.g. they both aim at setting up lasting relationships with their customers. However, they do that in fundamentally different ways, and according to different market mechanisms. Consumer marketeers try to increase brand loyalty. Business marketeers, on the other hand, try to establish profound relationships with their clients. In consumer marketing, there is always the same one dominant party in the relationship -- the supplier. In business marketing both client and supplier interact more intensely and both parties negotiate towards their agreement."

According to Kotler, indeed, consumer marketeers first define their offering and then use an army of sales people, distribution channels and communications media to get this offering towards the consumer who can only act by accepting the offering or not. Suppliers act, consumers react. In order to be more succesful, consumer marketeers try to understand their customers better and in more subtle detail, and then define their offering as close to those needs as possible and profitable. But even then, the consumer has to take it, or leave it.

In business marketing however, clients negotiate the price, they can change the modalities of the contract, they can even change the product or service assembly or change the distribution method, ... hence clients play a more important role in the relationship. There is not one dominant party at all times. That is why Robert Salle mentions that business marketing is all about the interaction between suppliers and customers. Moreover, business marketing suppliers find themselves nested in a complex network of partners, clients, colleagues, competitors, etc. So, in order to be succesful, business marketeers are to be great in network management.

The phone call with Robert brought much more insight than these few paragraphs. Maybe one day, I'll use that material in another post. Anyway, thanks for your input, Robert.