by 
Enrique Vidal
Marketing in industrial companies is still developing, according to the conclusions of a study by the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M), which highlights the fallacies of stereotypes surrounding this discipline, which is underestimated despite being a tool for creating value.
One of the most common fallacies is thinking that marketing consists of advertising, public relations, and, in general, everything related to a company’s external image, when in reality these elements are only a small part of this discipline.
«It’s not even the most important part,» notes one of the authors of the research, Pedro José García, a professor at UC3M, who indicates some of the keys to why this deficiency exists: «The abundance of engineers in management positions and their lack of familiarity with Marketing contributes to this,» he comments, «as does the traditional excessive orientation of industrial companies towards their resources and capabilities, towards themselves and not outwards, to the detriment of an adequate balance with market orientation.»
Another factor that contributes to the lesser development of «industrial marketing» compared to «consumer marketing» is the type of customer, especially when some authors conceive marketing as the entirety of a company’s business, viewed from the customer’s perspective. «Consumer purchasing behavior is individual, more impulsive, and sensitive to the attractive elements of the product and its brand; while industrial customer purchasing behavior, more rational and collegial, is more aseptic and places greater emphasis on objective aspects, particularly technical ones,» explains Pedro José García, from the Department of Business Economics at UC3M.
VALUE GENERATION
The role of Marketing, when properly implemented, can contribute to improving the financial results and net worth of an industrial company through various mechanisms, such as slot deposit pulsa brand creation, identifying market needs, or leading the development of new products, according to Pedro José García, who asserts that «Marketing must act as an interpreter of market demands and ensure the alignment of efforts between the different departments involved, especially R&D and Production.»
The solution to overcoming this marked lack of marketing development in industrial companies, according to researchers, lies in overcoming stereotypes and generating a market-oriented culture in industrial companies.
But there is usually complete resistance to change from management when things are going reasonably well in the company.
«Rather than trying to ‘evangelize’ current managers about this new market-oriented culture, it would be much more effective for those who will reach these positions in the future to arrive with this new mentality already internalized,» says García, who proposes introducing a marketing subject into engineering curricula to try to initiate this cultural shift, which requires overcoming a long historical inertia that globally affects industrial companies.
The study, «Marketing as an Instrument for Creating Value in Industrial Companies,» by Pedro José García Pardo and Julio Cerviño Fernández, professors at UC3M, was published in issue 5 of 2008 of DYNA magazine, the official organ of the Federation of Industrial Engineering Associations of Spain and the only Spanish-language journal of Thompson Scientific’s multidisciplinary engineering publications.
Source: Theslogan magazine
