Sample Undergraduate International Marketing Strategy Essay

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Effect of Market Orientation on Buyers and Business

Introduction

Different organizations have different cultures. The belief that organizations might possess specific cultures is scattered based on business policies and strategies adopted. It has been identified that a firm’s market orientation depends on the culture build within an organization as it integrates into the organization’s marketing strategies to generate value for the consumers and the organization that affects the performance of their business. The primary aim of this essay is thus three-fold.

First, evaluate market orientation concerning a firm’s organizational culture and its effect on the business’s performance; Second, relate these points with customer-led business characteristics and the involved processes to maintain and create a competitive advantage. The third aim is to identify the impact of organizational culture on business performances and buyer behaviour. This essay puts forward an integrative perception of corporate culture as a valuable metaphor to study market orientation.

Discussion

Organisational Culture

The organizational culture is based on shared beliefs, values, and assumptions regarding how individuals should interact and behave and how work activities and decision-making should be carried out (CMI, 2015). It has also been measured that organizational culture is an assumption that is always taken for granted and an individual’s behaviour that makes sense in an organizational context.

It significantly contributes to the reactions and behaviour of a group of individuals concerning the problems they face. Organizational culture is therefore found to have a significant impact on corporate strategy development. Though, it has been seen that organizations’ powerful cultures are one of the essential strategic possessions as it serves as the core of all the implementation and creation of strategies (Elsmore, 2017).

Every organisation has its own particular culture and personality as individuals living in a society. Organizational culture has been of great importance, but it is invisible in individuals working together. Still, it acts as an influential force that impacts the group members’ behaviours (Eric, 2018).

Organizational culture is also known as corporate culture, and it is comprised of numerous elements; the flow of power and information throughout the hierarchy. It has been observed that an organization’s culture has a significant effect on performance and productivity.

Characteristics of Creating a Customer-led Business

Successful businesses are those which can stay customer-focused in whatever they do. Such businesses are named 3D businesses as they are “Demonstrably and Dramatically Different” from their respective rivals. In contrast, these businesses meet consumers’ expectations, exceed them and thus create loyal customers (Hanselman, 2018).

Characteristics to establish a customer-oriented business are stated below:

• Response Speed: They are very quick to respond to the customer by any means.
• Easy: They create easy means of purchasing both offline and online
• Spontaneous planning and exceeding expectations
• Empower staff: They empower their employees to act smartly and take the initiative to exceed the customers’ expectations.
• Handle disappointment: They consistently as well as proactively spot and gracefully deal with customer disappointment.
• Equip their staff: They ensure that their staff is fully equipped with skills, attitthey areective tools to perform their tasks.
• Spot and eradicate blockages: They identify customer touchpoints and eliminate their customer touchpoints.

To create a customer-led business, a company should be customer-oriented. Their integral focus should be increasing the base of the cut-through internal communications, discussions, and team meetings.

The Process of Maintaining a Customer-led Business

To withstand consumer focus, companies need to ensure that employee and consumer feedback are steady and align brand value according to buyers’ and consumers’ needs. The significance of strong consumer-oriented behaviours and values along with continuing feedback will offer a framework according to which employers can evaluate performance, hire staff, propose career development strategies as well as compensate consumer-oriented behaviour; thus, it will assist in creating a customer-led organizational culture that will deliver concerning customers vision.

Eventually, the impact of applying this approach and shifting from consumer strategy to consumer culture can be estimated by the increased number of reliable customers, balanced records, the progress of the business, and profitability. However, the following steps should be considered to maintain a customer-led organization: (Customer Champions, 2019).

• Organisation orientation
• Senior team members need to check if their behaviour aligns with the customer’s vision commitment.
• Consider working on relationship building as well as encourage internal communications in the organization
• Customer Journey Mapping should be practised
• Customer feedback values should be maximized.

To create a customer-focused organization, the services, quality, and competent skills should be based on customers to create a competitive advantage (MacDonald, 2019).

Theories of Organisational Culture and Buyer Behaviour

Many organizational culture theories and models are present, which greatly influence the business’s performance and consumer buying behaviour as it can be seen that CCT (Consumer Culture Theory) has been identified as an interdisciplinary research field that is oriented to develop an enhanced understanding of what and why the consumers do and why consumer culture transforms in the form it does.

However, theorists have emphasized comprehending the relationship between several economic, institutional, symbolic, and social relations while evaluating their impacts on consumers, society, the marketplace, and other institutions (Arnould and Thompson, 2005).

Moreover, it has been observed that the majority of the consumer behavioural aspects are culture-bound. It has been seen that the Hofstede model of culture analyses cultural associations with personality, self as well as and attitude, which form the ground of consuming behaviour models, advertising as well as branding strategies.

Hofstede’s model is usually applied to elaborate these variances (Mooij, 2015). Harrison presented a model of culture in 1972. Organizational culture is mainly distributed into four categories; task, power, role, and individuals culture, which affects the business performance and helps an organization achieve its primary aim.

Influence of Organisational Culture on Buyers Behaviour and Business Performance

It has been indicated that higher business performance can be achieved by emphasising employee participation and information more. However, to reveal a high level of confidence within employees, the managers can positively impact the performance of the company’s business. This way, the organisational culture becomes economically significant. Moreover, to achieve a successful management process in any organisation, supportive culture is essentially required.

As cultural changes take time to happen and cannot be achieved on short notice, to sustain and establish an influential organisational culture, the fastening business process on the entire hierarchical levels should be frequently pursued. Furthermore, it has also been evident that to drive a forward strategic orientation, management and structural conditions are found to contribute to superior business performance (Moormann and Grau, 2017).

Corporate culture is one of the top drivers to improve the value of a firm. Customer-led organisational culture will increase performance, productivity, and more significant customer experience (Price, 2017). Organisations should be aware of the effects that corporate culture has on customer experience or their buying behaviour. Thus, companies should emphasise the below-mentioned points to create a workplace that will consistently deliver a positive experience, and in return, the company will get positive buyer behaviours. Below stated are some means by which organisational culture can influence buyer behaviour and experience.

• Instead of being a profit-driven organisation, a firm needs to cultivate a satisfactory and happy culture for its employees. It will result in employees who value their buyers, which will eventually affect customers’ buying behaviour.
• To use customer satisfaction as a tool for on-job success has been identified as a definite way to ensure great buyer behaviour.
• Establishing an organisational culture with friendly competition among employees will enable a company to offer a great customer experience and improve buyer behaviour.
• Employee empowerment allows them to take the initiative, take charge, and solve customer-related issues to create a positive impact on the company and thus improve the customers’ buying behaviour. (Colquitt et al., 2011).

An organisation’s internal factors that influence buyers’ decisions are their particular aims and objectives that need to be accepted by the systems and producer in terms of buying and a suitable organisational structure. These factors are found to directly or indirectly influence buying decisions. However, the aims of a firm affect the required product types of the firm and the particular criteria through which it analyses purchases.

Moreover, informal organisational relations to various positions within a buyer organisation might influence decisions of buying. Generally, centralised organisational structures are used in family-owned companies where the family’s consent is needed for purchase decisions, which is one reason behind delaying buying decisions. Furthermore, policies similar to inventory procedures and holding such as bidding or payment is also identified to influence organisational buyers’ buying decisions (Solomon et al., 2014).

Conclusion

The obvious conclusion is that an organisational culture effectively establishes the required and essential behaviours to invoke a more significant number of buyers, which ultimately increases the sustainability of business performance and profitability. Furthermore, the elaboration of a consumer-focused business’s characteristics has reflected on the core concept of a consumer-led organisation that the main emphasis should be on consumer needs instead of the products. It has been identified that consumers come forward to fulfil their needs and not purchase a product.

Moreover, the processes involved in maintaining and creating a customer-focused business reveal that to become an utterly consumer-led organisation, specific policies and processes can be made, affecting the consumer and their employees. It is a long and complex process to transform into a consumer-centric organisation but is adequate to achieve superior business performance and increase revenues. Therefore, organisations that wish to modify their cultures should focus on consumer needs for constant improvement in organisations’ business profitability and sustainability.

References

Arnould, E.J. and Thompson, C.J., 2005. Consumer culture theory (CCT): Twenty years of research. Journal of consumer research, 31(4), pp.868-882.

CMI. 2015. Understanding Organisational Culture. [Online] Retrieved from https://www.managers.org.uk/~/media/Files/PDF/Checklists/CHK-232-Understanding-organisational-culture.pdf Retrieved on 10th of January 2019.

Colquitt, J., Lepine, J.A., Wesson, M.J. and Gellatly, I.R., 2011. Organisational behaviour: Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Customer Champions. 2019. Creating a customer-orientated culture [Online] Retrieved from http://www.customerchampions.co.uk/creating-a-customer-orientated-culture/ Retrieved on 10 January 2019.

De Mooij, M., 2015. Cross-cultural research in international marketing: clearing up some of the confusion. International Marketing Review, 32(6), pp.646-662.

Elsmore, P., 2017. Organisational Culture: Organisational Change?: Organisational Change?. Routledge.

Eric. 2018. What is Organisational Culture? – Definition & Characteristics. [Online] Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-organisational-culture-definition-characteristics.html Retrieved on 10th of January 2019.

Hanselman. 2018. characteristics of customer-focused businesses. [Online] Retrieved from https://www.management-issues.com/opinion/7075/10-characteristics-of-customer-focused-businesses/ Retrieved on 11 January 2019.

MacDonald. 2019. Centric Strategy For Your Business. [Online] Retrieved from https://www.superoffice.com/blog/how-to-create-a-customer-centric-strategy/ Retrieved on 10th of January 2019.

Moormann, J. and Grau, C., 2017. Impact of Organisational Culture on Business Process Performance: An Investigation in the Financial Services Industry.

Price. 2017. The Impact of Company Culture on Business Performance[Online] Retrieved from https://www.workxo.com/blog/post/226-company-culture-business-performance-impact Retrieved on 11 January 2019.

Solomon, M.R., Dahl, D.W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J.L. and Polegato, R., 2014. Consumer behaviour: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.