Competitor Orientation The Customer Orientation Marketing Essay

Marketing orientation is a marketing concept that how an organizations implemented it. Being customers led are less than being marketing orientated. Actually, being marketing orientated needs the full support and encourage to be fully implemented in the short term, long term and indeed, may need a complete change in an organization’s culture. A marketing orientated approach means a business reacts to what customers want. The decisions taken are based around information about customers’ needs and wants, rather than what the business thinks is right for the customer (Kohli & Jawarorski, 1990) and (Mohammed Abdulai Mahmoud, 2011). According to Sanjeev Agarwal (2003) the marketing orientation concept is holds that the key to achieving organizational goals such as market share and profitability. Narver & Slater (1990) has stated in the Journal of Marketing, defined the market orientation as “the organization culture that most effectively creates the necessary behaviours for the creation of superior value for the buyers and thus, continuous superior performance for the business.

Aviv Shohmam, Gregory M.Rose, and Fredric Kropp (2005) defined that performance has been operationalized in many ways including market share, profitability, return on assets or in investment, new product success and composite of these variables. The performance mainly depends on two dimensional construct. First, objectives performance which involves financial and market based measures. Second is judgmental performance which involves customer and employee based measure in term of service quality and customers and employees satisfaction.

Is it the marketing orientation and firm performances are co-related within their self in an organization? Why a firm is totally depending on how a firm choose and implement their marketing towards their organization? Is it only depends on the marketing orientation? If yes, how it is possible?

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2.0 Theoretical Backrgound

Through this framework we can clear understood the flow the market orientation that affect the firm performances. According to Ambler (2000), this framework enhances the theory of market orientation by providing a clear picture of the market orientation-firm performance relationship. Hence, researching how each of the market orientation’s core behavioural components such as customer orientation, competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination affect the firm performance.

2.1 Customer Orientation

Customer orientation is the most importance that needs to be considered as first as competitor focus and interfunctional coordination as it is the most fundamental aspect of the corporate culture (Slater and Narver 1990; Webster 1993; Lawton and Parasuraman 1980). Marketing concept highly focus on customer satisfaction, which promotes the target customers interest being considered first. By placing the highest priority on continuously finding ways to provide best consumer value, it will indirectly increase the commitment towards excel in creating and maintaining relationship with customers and therefore obtain a positive financial outcomes. This will ensure the firm focus on total customer satisfaction, thereby, will lead to focus on creativity and innovation. Felton (1959) mentioned that a customer focused culture facilitating organizational innovativeness in both administrative and technical department is stable with the marketing concept’s long term orientation. Both types of innovation are more likely to encounter a greater capacity to innovate in a customer oriented culture and most probably the firm will seek for goal and profit at a same time. Therefore, firm should be customer orientated and well manage with the marketing concepts capability to effectively increase the level of marketing activities and to maintaining customer satisfaction towards products and services which may result in firm performance.

2.2 Competitor Orientation

Besides the customer orientation is a key part to create superior customer value, competitor orientation is an effective strategy often exist in business are competitive advantage. Deshpande, Farley, and Webster (1993) stated that, an unbalanced focus towards the competitors is not desirable since exclusive attention on the competition can lead to the neglect for the difficultly of its customers. According to Narver and Slater (1990), competitor orientation focused on understanding the strength and weaknesses of existing and potential competitors as well as on discovering their attitude to convert into better ideas to meet the customer satisfaction. To maintaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace, Wensley (1998) proposed a balances mix of customer and competitor orientation.

Basically, competitor orientation surrounded by questions: (a) who the competitors are? (b) What types of technologies do they offer? (c) Whether they represent an attractive alternative from perspective of the target customers (Slater and Narver, 1994); (d) what marketing tools they used to promote their products and services? Day and Wensley, (1998), mentioned that by identified the following question, competitor orientation to make something necessary to gathering information and intelligence on these question, where the core methodology typically consists of measuring itself directly against its target competitors. A minimum level of customer orientation in Grinstein (2008), meta analysis has discussed that market orientation component positively affect new product process and the effect of competitor orientation to new product success depends on how a critical part of marketing mix capability is used.

On the other hand, a firm should understand the altered market needs and adapt the market dynamics caused by competitor orientation, hence better firm performance because the objective of competitor centered approach is to remain ahead of competitors. Besides, competitor orientation helps a firm to arrange or planned their resources to provide customers satisfaction and value towards their products and services by doing research and investigating competitive, differentiated and distinctive. All of this, the main specification is competitive pricing strategy and unique marketing channel can be better advantage by high level of organizational competitor orientation in firm performance.