Strategic decisions for American and European industrial marketers in a unified European market

Strategic business marketing developments in the New Europe: Retrospect and prospect

“…For the European sample, a total of 1557 firms were sent questionnaires, with 52 executives responding, a response rate of approximately 3.4%. Saghafi et al (1995) noted that although this rate of response was low compared to traditional consumer surveys, it is typical of executive surveys, where it is exceedingly difficult to get responses from top executives. The sample of European respondents in the 1993 study represented executives from nine industrial sectors who occupied top level positions within their firms, including senior executives and top management.…”

“…Second, we undertook to compare these effects to those anticipated by executives a decade ago, during the early days of EU market unification. In that regard, we used as a baseline the study reported in Industrial Marketing Management in 1995 by Saghafi et al (Saghafi et al, 1995). That research surveyed European and American executives regarding the likelihood of outcomes resulting from market unification in Europe.…”

“…Likewise, a borderless market allows for faster and more reliable services from a central or limited number of stock locations (Poist et al, 2001). Channel consolidation and cross-border cooperation among distributors were also expected to increase in the post-1993 Europe, all leading to further distribution efficiency (Saghafi et al, 1995). Indeed, some companies reported that their total logistics costs were reduced by as much as 40 -50% (O'Laughlin, Cooper, & Cabocel, 1993).…”

“…In addition, there was a strong expectation among EU industrial marketers that prices of manufactured goods would equalize across Europe and that demand and competitive differences would be dealt with via the use of non-price concessions (''special deals'') to distributors (Saghafi et al, 1995). Research conducted by the European Commission confirmed that price disparities in Europe declined between 1985 and 1993 due to increasing competition and globalization of the EU economy but the decline in price disparity slowed between 1993 and 1996 (Blanco, 2001).…”

“…As previously mentioned, at the dawn of the EU's single market formation, Saghafi, Sciglimpaglia and Withers (1995) conducted an important industrial marketing study to predict the eventual outcomes of the EC 92 changes. In general, the expectations of the executives surveyed were in favor of further environmental convergence, product standardization and more harmonized pan-European marketing strategy over the long run.…”