A First Summary of Previous Posts

Gummesson (1987) and Grönroos (1990;1992;1994;1995) among others criticize the pre-existing model of Marketing Mix, proposing a shift in Marketing towards Relationship Marketing.

Kotler (2003, pp. 151-154) says about: “Relationship Marketing (RM) marks a significant paradigm shift in marketing, a movement from thinking solely in terms of competition and conflict toward thinking in terms of mutual interdependence and cooperation”.

We live in the era of change. Markets change (globalisation, information diffusion, financial crisis), competitors change (new appear from “exotic” destinations, new products features or characteristics, prices continuously reduced), customers change (leaving the passive role and undertaking an interactive role in the sale), products and services more and more become as look-alike and perceived by the customers as commodities.

Marketing commodity products in business-to-business environments becomes tougher as the low cost strategies lead in a continuous and disastrous price competition, the so called “commodity trap”.

To avoid the commodity trap suppliers need to differentiate their offerings – to decommoditize them – in order to gain the customer for the long term and also to gain a price premium.

Clarke-Hill, Robinson and Clarkson (1999, p. 2 of 20) summarize these as: “In an era of strong competition, over capacity in many sectors and extreme price sensitivity, chemical companies are attempting to break out of the commodity trap. Companies that are operating in mature markets with commodity type products and with large investments in production capacity and the need to produce at or near optimum efficiency have begun to consider alternative marketing strategies for their products and have started to get nearer to their customers”.

Effective Use of Relationship Marketing as a Differentiation tool with B2B has been examined in order to create a sustainable Competitive Advantage for Commodity Businesses.

According to Peppers and Rogers (2001) companies identify their potential customers, differentiate in their approach, interact with the customer gathering information and learning his needs, customize then their offering to satisfy these needs, achieving an advantage towards the competition and aim to sustain this adapting themselves in the dynamic changes of these needs, adding this way value to their customers and profiting also themselves from customers loyalty (IDIC Model).

Morgan and Hunt (1994, p. 22) define their “KMV model” (key mediating variable) of Relationship Marketing, which focuses on one party in the relational exchange and that party’s relational commitment and trust” and they hypothesize “that relationship commitment and trust are key constructs, we position them as mediating variables between five important antecedents (i.e. relationship termination costs, relationship benefits, shared values, communication, and opportunistic behaviour) and five outcomes (i.e. acquiescence, propensity to leave, cooperation, functional conflict, and decision making uncertainty)”