The Marketing Challenge for Industrial Companies

This book discusses the differences between consumer marketing and industrial marketing, as well as the challenges faced when putting each into practice. It identifies important distinctions in terms of product functionality, market research concepts and techniques, market segmentation, pricing, sales force and product launch. Furthermore, it reviews significant variations concerning other issues such as branding, distribution, product development and the organizational structure of the commercial department. Each chapter features both authoritative, novel concepts suited for global application and hands-on protocols. By presenting these concepts and their implementation, this book is the first of its kind in the field to help practitioners avoid using consumer-marketing techniques that could in fact be inappropriate for and detrimental to an industrial company strategy.

Chapter 1 The Fight Against Corporate Autism In Industrial Companies.- Chapter 2 Misinterpreting Customer Orientation.- Chapter 3 A Conceptual Framework For Understanding Technical Products.- Chapter 4 Exploring Industrial Markets.- Chapter 5 Industrial Market Segmentation.- Chapter 6 Industrial Product Design And Development.- Chapter 7 Organizing An Industrial Company's Marketing And Sales Department.- Chapter 8 The Industrial Sales Force.- Chapter 9 The Distribution Of Technical Products.- Chapter 10 Industrial Branding.- Chapter 11 Pricing Technical Products.- Chapter 12 Introducing New Technical Products Into The Market.