Companies as Consumers

This entry focuses on companies as buyers involving purchasing and related activities impacting on the supply side of firms. Purchasing and other activities influencing the supply side of companies are important in two respects. First, purchasing involves the operations necessary to supply a firm with its input in terms of materials, products, equipment, services, and so on. Efficiency and effectiveness in these processes are critical to the performance of the buying firm. Second, knowledge about the buying processes of a company is important to its suppliers. Such information supports ambitions of selling firms to influence potential buyers. Thus, the understanding of organizational buying behavior is a significant issue in the marketing literature. In this entry, attention is directed to the perspective of buying firms.

What corporations ...