What is market orientation? Definition and stages

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. Under the production concept, the company assumes, availability and price are the primary considerations for customers to buy. They then focus on developing distribution strategies to reach customers and increase product availability. At the same time, they also focus on production efficiency to sell products at lower prices.

Moreover, they value their relationships with customers and strive to meet their needs effectively. Your marketing efforts may not go anywhere if you gauge customer demand and then find that another company has created precisely the product that your audience has said it wants. If this occurs, you may be able to carve out a niche in the marketplace by doing further research to discover ways that your company can improve on the experience your competitors are providing. This will involve research into your competitors’ products as well as analysis of consumer inclinations to find areas for improvement. Again, market orientation companies develop products based on customer wants and needs. Businesses tend to develop new products based on either a marketing orientated approach or a product orientated approach.

Strategy vs. culture

Sales orientation focuses on sales-driven strategies while product-oriented companies focus on their product innovation while market-oriented companies are customer oriented. Hence, in a market-oriented approach, the focus is on gathering and responding to customer feedback to provide goods and services that meet their needs. Market orientation is a business philosophy where the focus is on identifying customer needs or wants and meeting them. When a company has a market orientation approach, it focuses on designing and selling goods and services that satisfy customer needs in order to be profitable. The successful market oriented company discovers and meets the desires and needs of its customers through its product mix. Marketing is the way a company interacts with current and potential customers.

In other words, a marketing-oriented company leans heavily toward a strong customer-centric business model. A market orientation is customer-centered, meaning that the company’s primary focus should be on the needs and wants of its target market. This customer focus must be achieved through market research, segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Market orientation is an approach to business that prioritizes identifying the needs and desires of consumers and creating products and services that satisfy them. Companies that have a market orientation consider the opinions and needs of their target market as a critical component of their research and development (R&D) for new products.

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A market orientation approach is one that first researches the consumer’s needs before it starts developing something for it. Apple focuses on its quality and relies on innovation to enter new markets and create demand. To get this information, the company first needs to understand its target market. Target markets are usually defined by demographics that can change the way individuals spend money on products. For example, a parent with children might purchase different products than a single person living alone.

This may seem like a no brainer and a requirement for staying in business, but it can actually backfire unless you make sure that your products and operations meet your own needs as well. Next, is product orientation, which prioritizes constantly improving a product to provide superior value. Where production orientation looks at producing goods in quantity to lower the overall price, product orientation looks at improving quality to provide the best product no matter the price. While this may sound like a good approach, it means the company is only interested in selling.

Understanding Marketing Orientation

As soon as every single employee agrees on a definition of the market, and which of its needs remain unmet, all can collaborate to develop a strategy to meet those needs. It is the mindsets, values, beliefs, norms and behaviors of companies, together with the systems, structure and control of the organization. Many marketing gurus define market orientation as a coordinated marketing campaign between a supplier and its buyers. At the very least, impractical ideas may inform long-term development strategies.

Options that are not cost effective today may become quite possible down the line due to changes in technology, science, regulation or other market conditions. By creating something that actually fits a previously identified need companies can increase the chances that its new products have to succeed. This UK skincare, cosmetics, and perfume company emphasises that it champions human, civil, and animal rights alongside environmental issues. In fact, most modern businesses will have their own approach to business that might combine ideas from each approach, or take another one altogether. There are five types of business orientation that we’ll consider in this article. Understanding each orientation can help you better decide which one best suits your business.

The two most prominent conceptualizations of market orientation are those given by Ajay Kohli and Bernie Jaworski (1990) and Narver and Slater (1990). While Kohli and Jaworski (1990) consider market orientation as the implementation of the marketing concept, Narver and Slater (1990) consider it to be an organizational culture. Market orientation is more of an approach to product design rather than promotion. It means that the priority is to analyze the target audience and determine their needs instead of undertaking any promotional or sales activity.

The main disadvantage with a market orientation approach is lack of innovation. If you spend all your time satisfying customer needs, you may lose sight of what potential technical breakthroughs there might be. Product oriented companies, on the other hand, tend to be more technically or scientifically innovative, but lose out because they have less knowledge about what the consumer wants. This allows a company to focus its product development efforts on the characteristics that are most in-demand. With an increasingly global economy and the proliferation of choices for consumers, companies that adapt to a market orientation may benefit from a competitive advantage over other companies.

What is the meaning of marketing orientation?

To explain this, I will discuss four orientations in marketing management, covering production, product, market, and holistic marketing orientations. The framework of market orientation profitability includes both non-financial and financial measures. This will allow entities to maintain a balance between long and short-term profitability and the health of the company. Organizations must remain on their toes if they want to achieve desired success in consumer markets. They develop strategies and deploy them via advertisements and promotional campaigns as products that the consumer needs today.

Companies may also employ additional data analysis to reveal trends and consumer desires that are not specifically expressed. A knowledge of these trends ideally can help product developers meet or even anticipate consumer needs. They may even inspire improvements that the consumer was not aware of as being an option. The way they choose to approach these decisions can profoundly impact strategic development, business outlook, and—ultimately—sales. Marketing orientation refers to the way a company operates and how it determines its main goals.

It has realized that the path to success is easy f you take care of the specific customer needs in a diligent manner. A market-oriented company ensures that there is a continuous demand for its products and services. Instead of convincing customers to try something new, the companies are changing their product portfolio to suit consumer requirements.

You can think of it as the communication arm of a business – gathering information from and sending out messages to customers. Marketing-oriented companies are vibrant, communicative businesses that actively seek ways to understand what their customers want and create products specifically designed for those customers. Ensuring there is a demand for their products and services is one of the most vital elements of a marketing-oriented company. The amount of effort that goes into marketing can be the difference between a successful and a failed company. An interfunctional orientation doesn’t just focus on customers, sales promotions and competitors. It also incorporates internal company dynamics such as production schedules and communication between different departments.

What Is Market Orientation?

Product differentiation often goes hand-in-hand with a product orientation approach. With this approach, the company employs an advertising strategy that aims at clearly identifying the attributes that distinguish a brand from its competitors. market oriented meaning When businesses take this approach, their goals are product innovation and improvement. They might create high-quality new products to solve existing customer problems, or regularly survey customers to identify improvement areas.

A sales-oriented company may not have a use for R&D and might decrease the budget to put more money toward making successful sales. A market-oriented organization gives emphasis on surveys and research about the particular needs and wants of its target customers. They want to know the opinion of their consumers so that they can determine what the customer is looking for in products and services. An example of market orientation could be seen in a company that offers quality customer services.

Although we can consider Coca Cola as a company that merges approaches, their market orientation is a key factor in their success. This approach prioritises identifying consumers’ needs and delivering products and services to satisfy them. The main advantage of sales orientation is that it leads to immediate, short-term sales. On the other hand, disadvantages include a loss of customer confidence, high costs, and the fact it’s not always sustainable in the long run. This approach can be lucrative in insurance, lifestyle products, or automotive industries, commonly implemented.

• The benefits of Coca-Cola’s market orientation have included increased profits and market share, higher levels of customer satisfaction, and increased brand loyalty from its customers.
• Once the product becomes available, marketing resources can be directed primarily toward getting the word out.
• By understanding the different orientations, companies can develop a strategy that is tailored to their specific needs and goals.
• A market-oriented economy is one where the marketplace itself dictates which companies perform well and which may fail.
• Channel Orientation helps you find the best way to get those products into people’s hands – like finding shortcuts through traffic jams when driving home from work.

However, your success will ultimately depend on an effective interfunctional approach that balances customer needs with internal logistics. Competitor orientation can be a sound strategy because it allows you to analyze the field of competition in conjunction with the marketing research data you have collected. It can take you a step beyond a straightforward market orientation, fleshing out your understanding of the market by looking at competitors as well as customers. In contrast, a market-oriented strategy starts with the customer, does extensive research about taste and demand and then develops products that cater to those needs. This process may be cumbersome, but much of the marketing work is front loaded because the company has already ascertained that demand exists before launching the product. Once the product becomes available, marketing resources can be directed primarily toward getting the word out.