No abstract

This paper reports on concepts and techniques which have been developed for analysing customers and used as an aid to assessing the strategic position of companies in industrial markets. The emphasis on supplier/customer relationships presented here derives from the interaction approach to marketing and purchasing strategy. Many industrial markets are highly concentrated, and many companies develop in conjunction with key customers in a symbiotic relationship, where strategy evolves as proposals made by either side are either accepted or rejected. To take account of this we propose a 3‐stage framework for analysing customers which builds on and transforms techniques traditionally used for an analysis of products. The purpose of the analysis is to improve the allocation of scarce marketing and technical resources, to reappraise the company's competitive position with different customer groups and to ensure that key relationships are managed effectively.

No abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . American Marketing Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Marketing. Kingdom, and the United States The determinants of marketing negotiations in four cultures are investigated in a laboratory simulation. One hundred thirty-eight businesspeople from the United States, 48 from France, 44 from West Germany, and 44 from the United Kingdom participated in two-person, buyer-seller negotiation simulations. The American process of negotiation is found to be different from that of the Europeans in several respects. What the U.S. does best is understand itself. What it does worst is understand others. -Carlos Fuentes (1986) RANCE, West Germany, and the United Kingdom are America's most important European trading partners. During 1986, U.S. exports to the three countries amounted to $29.2 billion and imports were $52.7 billion (merchandise only). This trade comprises thousands of marketing transactions such as capital equipment sales, licensing agreements, distribution agreements for both industrial and consumer goods, and negotiation of service contracts. An integral part of all such commercial activities is face-to-face negotiations between American businesspeople and executives from each of the three countries. Despite the long history and large volume of trade, little has been written about marketing negotiations in the three countries. Moreover, Hall The study was supported in part by the USC Faculty Research and Innovation Fund. The suggestions of the anonymous JM reviewers were most helpful and much appreciated. The Germans, the English, the Americans, and the French share significant portions of each other's cultures, but at many points their cultures clash. Consequently, the misunderstandings that arise are all the more serious because sophisticated Americans and Europeans take pride in correctly interpreting each other's behavior. Cultural differences which are out of awareness are, as a consequence, usually chalked up to ineptness, boorishness, or lack of interest on the part of the other person. The problem of marketing negotiations with European trading partners is both important and understudied. Hundreds of studies of negotiation behaviors have been conducted in the United States over the years (cf. Rubin and Brown 1975). Increasingly, buyer-seller negotiations are the subject of marketing studies (e.g., Clopton 1984; Dwyer and Walker 1981; McAlister, Bazerman, and Fader 1986; Schurr and Ozanne 1985). The associated theories are not yet well formed and seldom have been tested with subjects other than American college students. A few researchers have considered differences in negotiation behaviors across cultures (e.g., ...

No abstract