B2B

Blurring the lines Is there a need to rethink industrial

marketing?

Group - 1

1/9/2015

Submitted to -

Prof. Joydeep Biswas

Abhishek Prabhat – 13202189

Sunil Behera – 13202177

Debi Prasan Das – 13202197

Satyam Mohanty – 13202041

Shahina Jacob – 13202225

Blurring the lines: is there a need to rethink industrial marketing?

This article by Yoram makes us reflect on what we have actually been studying for the last 1

and a half year. We have studied marketing and marketing management, we also touched a

little on advertising, but I don't think that most of us might have gives a thought to industrial

marketing as a separate subject altogether. The article begins by the author telling us that

even from previous articles and research he has seen that industrial marketing is pretty similar

to consumer marketing. He says that initially they thought that they can use the concept of

consumer marketing in term of industrial marketing as well, but then slowly industrial

marketing evolved independently and then now it is impossible to distinguish between

industrial marketing and consumer marketing due to the maturity of the fields. The questions

posed by the author in the entire article in a way comes back to the fundamental question

which he is asking, which is where is the line between consumer marketing and industrial

marketing? The article further explains how the lines have blurred between B2B and B2C

marketing due to the emergence of E-businesses and flourishing of small businesses , which

is understandable because we cannot really begin to differentiate when it comes to virtual

stores or small businesses. The author also explains how companies have managed to blur

the value chains by getting into mergers and alliances with other firms , this he has explained

with the example of Apple itunes . Now -a- days companies can have direct relationship with

customers, due to the emergence of online communities. These communities give consumers

a chance to speak their mind out and a chance to companies to understand what consumers

honestly think about their products and services. This has in a way brought companies closer

to their consumers. One very interesting thing that caught our attention was the rethinking of

mental models. It is true that everything around us has been changing since long, and now the

change has become more dynamic and quick, we cannot take our own sweet time to adapt to

the change and therefore we should start relying a little less on the old models and start

expanding our knowledge and our mental models. We feel that the article has in a way

changed our perspective and this has resulted in us looking at thing s in a different light. The

author asked the question where does consumer marketing begin and where does industrial

marketing begin? We feel that instead of separating both concepts it will be beneficial to

integrate them as we have already seen how the B2B and B2C concepts are changing. One

thing is for sure that we cannot keep sitting holding on to past knowledge and ideologies

only, it is time now to change focus and strategies, because the entire concept of involving

consumers in the research has become a huge reality which cannot be ignored. We feel it is

time to ask different questions now like, will the same marketing strategies hold true even

now? Is it really important to distinguish B2B and B2C marketing? These are the questions

which we will try to answer and which we have come to after reading this article. We feel

that this article is like a dramatic warning for us to be prepared for change.

Submitted by: Group no. 1

Section :E