Market Orientation

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Marketing can be define as “the process of creating, distributing, promotion and pricing goods, services and ideas to facilitate satisfying exchange relationships with customers in a dynamic environment” (Pride et al. 2007). Marketing concept shows an organisation always try to provide goods and services to satisfy consumers’ needs and wants. It may help the organisation to achieve their goals. The evolution of marketing concept is from production orientation to sales orientation, continuously it becomes market orientation and societal market orientation (Pride et al. 2007). So, the purpose of this essay is to discuss what market orientation is and whether market orientation is sufficient for business success in the business world. This essay has divided into three parts, which are introduction, body and conclusion.

Market orientation is “an organisationwide commitment to researching and responding to customer needs” (Pride et al. 2007). The organisation will satisfy customers’ needs and wants by using their products, services and ideas (, 2007-2008). A market- oriented company is always focuses on customers’ needs. So, the relationship between market oriented company and customers’ will become closer and it is easier for the company to get the information from the customers (Jobber David 2007). Basically, the goal for a market-oriented company is to earn profit from the consumers’ satisfaction. They will achieve their goal by coordinated marketing and interfunctional activities (Lamb, Hair & McDaniel 2002). Market orientation can be shown as figure:

Figure 1 (Adapted from Jobber David 2007 p. 6)

Customer orientation, competitor focus, and cross-functional coordination are the three major components of market orientation. According to Kohli and Jaworski says that market orientation gives “a unifying focus for the efforts and projects of individuals, thereby leading to superior performance” after having interviews with some managers. The major component of market orientation is customer orientation. The business need to understand the value chain of customers all the time. So, the managers and employees can know that by customer calls (Slater & Narver March-April 1994). A market oriented company is always focuses and driven on customers’ needs (Casper April 1989). For example, a company has a program that encourages their employees to visit the customers once a month to receive new information from them. Besides, some company cares about the services before and after sales. All the effort is to meet the customer satisfaction (Slater & Narver March-April 1994).

Secondly, competitor is one of the market orientation components.

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