Organizational buying is defined in this chapter as; "the decision-making process by which formal organizations establish the need for purchased products and services, and identify, evaluate, and choose among alternative brands and suppliers."
Kotler goes on to say; "no two companies buy in the same way, yet the seller hopes to identify enough uniformities in organizational buying behaviour to improve the task of marketing strategy planning."
As we know, the b2b market is very different to the b2c market, in terms of buyer behaviour. The buying decision is often not made by one person but in many cases, a committee of people - making it very complex for the marketer to understand the target and how best to market to them.
The time line for decision making is also very much longer and there are often many steps in the process - all of which need to be understood and appropriate marketing strategy put in place.
A third difference can be geography, buyers in the b2b sector can be located in a different country from where the product & services will be used.
This complexity must be fully understood if today's marketer is to be successful in the b2b sector - again, we have a chapter from Kotler, that understood this and the relevance today is even more so - with digital marketing becoming an important part of the marketers tool kit, this makes the process of marketing in this sector even more complex and therefore it's even more important for the marketer to put the customer at the centre of their business.
