The marketing concept and strategy development for e-commerce The marketing concept with its central idea of market orientation stresses customer focus, but what emphasis can be placed on this when dealing with a new phenomenon? There was plenty of evidence in the case studies of the widespread use of customer and competitor feedback and research in general. This was made up of both feedback through sales contacts and also the use of a whole range of more formal market research methods. Indeed in the area of competitor research there was often far too much information and the problem for managers was in dealing with it all. However there was little evidence that market intelligence from customers had a significant influence in making the big strategic decisions that needed to be made to mobilise the e-commerce projects in these organisations. While undoubtedly the managers in the case study organisations would like to have a clearer vision of the future provided by customers, the reality is that they have to rely on what they already know and gut feeling. The Buildsoc technology manager sums up the situation in making strategic decisions:
Nobody knows or even has a well-founded view that will turn out to be the truth . . . the organisational impact is unknown, the ground rules are different . . . It's almost like how did gas companies react, when electricity was competitive? What is it we know about what we've been doing previously which will help us. That to me I see as the biggest challenge.
In taking this approach thinking has to be flexible, as plans may need to alter. The Interbank marketing manager warns against being too prescriptive: Within Interbank I think we have a very clear strategy, but not a very time detailed one, because you don't know what's going to happen three months down the line. Often there's the danger of being too strategic and saying right in three years time we will be doing this, this, this and this.
This challenge of the need to anticipate the future in dealing with innovation is not really encompassed in the market orientation models. Kohli and Jaworski (1990) acknowledge that intelligence generation involves anticipating customers' future needs, but do not develop this thought. Indeed in a later paper Jaworski and Kohli (1996) argue that innovation is an outcome of market orientation. The relationship between market orientation and innovation is not clear. On the one hand there is an argument (Hayes and Abernathy, 1980) that a market-oriented focus could be detrimental to innovation, based on the idea that market orientation seduces the business to being narrowly interested in short-term customer needs. On the other hand it is proposed that models of market orientation should focus more on innovation (Hurley and Hult, 1998). They suggest that, if market orientation requires the adoption of new behaviours (innovation), the construct of innovation should be included in the existing models of market orientation. Other studies of market orientation (Narver and Slater, 1990; Slater and Narver, 1994) took the position that the existence of a customer and competitor orientation in creating customer value will be sufficient to give a business a competitive advantage in all circumstances. Latterly Slater and Narver (1998) seem to have modified this view by adding that a market-oriented organisation develops long-term thinking and tries to satisfy latent customer needs. However the mechanics of market sensing in this way still seems to be very vague and it is not clear how it fits into the original market orientation models. Slater and Narver (1999) admit that the understanding of market orientation continues to evolve and much is still unknown.
The experience of the managers in the case studies appears to be that although an enormous amount of research and intelligence was gathered and used within the companies it was of only limited applicability in developing strategy. This is because of uncertainty about the future and the difficulty in researching theoretical propositions with customers.
Nobody knows or even has a well-founded view that will turn out to be the truth . . . the organisational impact is unknown, the ground rules are different . . . It's almost like how did gas companies react, when electricity was competitive? What is it we know about what we've been doing previously which will help us. That to me I see as the biggest challenge.
In taking this approach thinking has to be flexible, as plans may need to alter. The Interbank marketing manager warns against being too prescriptive: Within Interbank I think we have a very clear strategy, but not a very time detailed one, because you don't know what's going to happen three months down the line. Often there's the danger of being too strategic and saying right in three years time we will be doing this, this, this and this.
This challenge of the need to anticipate the future in dealing with innovation is not really encompassed in the market orientation models. Kohli and Jaworski (1990) acknowledge that intelligence generation involves anticipating customers' future needs, but do not develop this thought. Indeed in a later paper Jaworski and Kohli (1996) argue that innovation is an outcome of market orientation. The relationship between market orientation and innovation is not clear. On the one hand there is an argument (Hayes and Abernathy, 1980) that a market-oriented focus could be detrimental to innovation, based on the idea that market orientation seduces the business to being narrowly interested in short-term customer needs. On the other hand it is proposed that models of market orientation should focus more on innovation (Hurley and Hult, 1998). They suggest that, if market orientation requires the adoption of new behaviours (innovation), the construct of innovation should be included in the existing models of market orientation. Other studies of market orientation (Narver and Slater, 1990; Slater and Narver, 1994) took the position that the existence of a customer and competitor orientation in creating customer value will be sufficient to give a business a competitive advantage in all circumstances. Latterly Slater and Narver (1998) seem to have modified this view by adding that a market-oriented organisation develops long-term thinking and tries to satisfy latent customer needs. However the mechanics of market sensing in this way still seems to be very vague and it is not clear how it fits into the original market orientation models. Slater and Narver (1999) admit that the understanding of market orientation continues to evolve and much is still unknown.
The experience of the managers in the case studies appears to be that although an enormous amount of research and intelligence was gathered and used within the companies it was of only limited applicability in developing strategy. This is because of uncertainty about the future and the difficulty in researching theoretical propositions with customers.
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