Robert Salle

Milieu as a pertinent unit of analysis in project marketing

The purpose of this article is to shift gear from the purely economic to the socioeconomic level in project marketing and consequently to demonstrate that project marketing consists, to a certain extent, in the management of a firms relationships to a local network of business and non-business actors, named the milieu. This networking action forms the basis of a proactive approach aiming at anticipating bids and at maximizing the firms chances of success on on-going projects.

Rituals in managing extrabusiness relationships in international project marketing: a conceptual framework

The current craze for the so-called relationship marketing in business markets must not mask the fact that, beyond economic and technological interdependencies between companies, business relationships are also made up of social interactions. This social dimension often escapes the attention of marketing theorists although it is of major importance in the management of business relationships. On the basis of an investigation into international project activities, this article develops a ritual approach for managing the extrabusiness phase of business relationships. This ritual approach allows us to build a framework designed to encapsulate and, possibly, manage the many faces of the social dimension of business relationships.

From competitive tendering to strategic marketing: an inductive approach for theory-building

Based on the analysis of the strategic marketing approaches implemented by four firms selling projects and systems under the rule of competitive tendering, this article advocates that their marketing approaches depart both from mere reactive behaviours and from rigid strategic planning guidelines to projects opportunities. The strategic approach used by these firms can be conceptualized in a ten-stage process divided into two major phases: a general approach independent of a given project opportunity, and a project-specific approach. The general approach can be seen as an anticipatory process both at the technical and cognitive levels leading to the definition, by the supplier firm, of an overall core offering and to the establishment of a portfolio of project opportunities. The project specific approach can be seen as an adaptation process in which the supplier adjusts his/her overall offering according to project specificities.

The industrial/consumer marketing dichotomy revisited: a case of outdated justification?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to question again the relevance of the differences, which were first discussed over 20 years ago, between industrial marketing and consumer marketing and to suggest new ways to frame the debate on the B2BC dichotomy.Design/methodology/approach – The paper includes an historical review of the principal texts of the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group in order to elucidate the four key characteristics of industrial marketing; the time perspective, the role of the customer, market structure and the unit of analysis. It continues by considering the contributions that Consumer Culture Theory, which it is argued is a powerful renewing force in consumer marketing, can make in respect of these four characteristics.Findings – The dichotomy of B2B/B2C no longer works by simply attributing it to the four historical differentiators of industrial marketing that are currently being adopted by innovators in consumer marketing. Consequently, this paper highlights the pos...

To bid or not to bid: screening the Whorcop project

A major decision for a company selling projects-to-order is to decide whether to bid or not on a specific project. Bidding for a project, usually through a competitive bidding process, involves both a huge expense in preparing the answer to the bid and an important mobilisation of resources that can be damaging for other company businesses. Consequently, the so-called screening of projects or pre-bid analysis appears to be a strategic procedure of paramount importance. It aims at solving the bid/no bid or go/no go dilemma experienced by the company faced with each project. It constitutes the basis for designing the marketing action of the company on the project in a bidding or solution fashion. In this article, we will explore the case of the Catalu shipyard which screens the Whorcop project and then develops a tactic to win the bid.

Portfolio of supplier-customer relationships

The main body of research on industrial marketing over the last 20 years has concentrated on giving a relational framework to an activity which had previously been understood to be essentially transactional. Therefore, the management of business relationships is today considered as a critical task on which a companys very existence depends. Consequently, allotting limited company resources between several relationships has become a major task for marketers who must decide how to divide and allot time and money for customers and prospective customers. In this renewed context, the portfolio concept for supplier-customer relationships are of a continuous nature and when the boundaries of the customer are easy to delimit. In order to widen the scope of their relevance, we propose to re-embed the supplier-customer relationship into the network of business actors that influences it and to be very careful in defining who is the customer.

Creating superior value through network offerings

This paper draws on the experiences of project marketing and solution selling to improve the understanding of how to create superior value for customers. Project marketing and solution selling have both developed approaches to deal with complex marketing situations for a number of years now. The upstream mobilization of customer network actors and the downstream enlargement of the content and scope of the offering are the key features of these approaches. This paper presents two case studies to focus attention on elements that are crucial to this twin-track approach. The downstream extension of the offering relies on services supporting the customers action (SSC), which supplement traditional services that support the suppliers product (SSP). The upstream extension leads to an introduction to other types of services or elements of the offering – the services supporting the customers network actors (SSCN). Furthermore, the paper proposes a marketing process that takes the suppliers viewpoint, for whom the entire approach is a network mobilization, into account. This approach to the offering, which included SSP, SSC, and SSCN, is typical of a network strategy in which the supplier recruits and enrolls new actors to (re)model the buying center. This marketing process is in tune with the latest developments of the service-dominant (S-D) logic, as it proposes a move from the value chain toward a value-creation network/constellation. Consequently, creating superior value for customer means mobilizing and servicing actors far beyond the boundaries of the buying center, supply chain, and customer solution net.

Buying behaviour in European and American industry: Contrasts

The last 10 years have seen an increase in the importance of buyers in industry, and changes in their relationships with suppliers. Bernard Cova and Robert Salle examine the two major schools of thought on buyer-supplier relations at the present time -- European and American. They also look forward to possible new developments in buying in the 1990s.