Use of the Backhaus model in marketing and sales-force management as a predictor of B2B buying behavior

Abstract

Contemporary business landscape is depicted by dominant orientation towards the economy of scale, specialization and increased dependency on building strong and long-term relationship with plethora of buyers in highly competitive markets. Marketing and sales managers are placing more emphasis on building effective sales force, while theorists and practitioners are searching for models to provide guidance for this process.This paper examines the organizational buying process of business to business (B2B) companies throughframework developed by Backhaus and model proposed by Hutt and Speh. Empirical qualitative research,on the sample of Austrian companies, is conducted in order to identify main differences in purchasing processes between model and real life, and to identify the most critical processes from perspective of the buying organizations. Finally we developed suggestions for the marketing and sales side regarding what issues and steps need to be addressed in order to successfully start and develop relationship with B2B customers.