Business to Business Marketing,Book Review by Johnson Thomas

Title: Business to Business Marketing
Authors: Ross Brenan, Louise Canning, Raymond MacDowell.
ISBN: 978-1-4129-1970-8
Sage Publications www.sagepub.co.uk
Paperback Edition, 359 pages, Price:


The expression business to business marketing is synonymous with ‘business marketing’. It is therefore important not to suppose that business to business marketing is synonymous with marketing goods and services to the manufacturing industries. Over the period 1978-2003 there has been a prominent trend away from manufacturing employment and towards service sector employment. So this book certainly seems opportune at a time when B2B employment seems to have to become the most return-heavy form of employment for the young and fresh out of college wannabes.
Modern economies are becoming increasingly service orientated. In fact the service industries account for close to 75% employment in such countries as Australia, Canada, UK and USA in 2000 and the trend is towards even higher levels of service sector employment.
This book under review acknowledges that Business to business marketing involves both the processes of marketing mix management and of relationship/network management. The chapters inside have interesting case studies and theory that provide some essential background definitions, addresses the question of buying and selling processes in organizational markets, useful information about organizational buyers and buying teams, examining the interaction between buyers and sellers in a business relationship, discuss the importance of customer value and look at the ways in which marketers seek to organize te strategic effort to enhance the value that they deliver to customers, importance of marketing ethics, key analytical processes in business to business marketing, business to business marketing management, integrated marketing communications in B2B marketing management, marketing communications methods deployed at the level of the inter-firm relationship, communications within inter-firm relationships, how to manage a firm’s portfolio of customer relationships and management of routes in markets.
'Business-to-Business Marketing’ will help students examine views that argue for or against B2B marketing being simply a variant of consumer marketing or only concerned with inter-organizational relationship management. Written from an European perspective and recognizing that organizational markets can be very different, the ideas and examples used in this book are as claimed by the authors, based on the latest research and scholarship and hence of great import to all connected with or belonging to the B2B industry.

Johnson Thomas.