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New B2B Textbooks Two new B2B marketing textbooks have just been published by Academy of Marketing scholars, so we thought it would be useful to let you as SIG members know a little bit more about each of them in order to help decide whether they could be incorporated into your teaching. Below we present the publishers’ ‘blurb’ in support of the launch of each text, as well as a few thoughts from the lead authors on what makes their book distinctive.  Ross Brennan , Louise Canning & Raymond McDowell (2010), “Business-to-Business Marketing”, Second Edition, London: Sage Publications Ltd, ISBN 9781849201568, 408 pages, £29.99First, we have the 2nd edition of what the publishers describe as a “bestselling B2B marketing textbook” which “offers the same accessible clarity of insight, combined with updated and engaging examples. Each chapter contains a detailed case study to further engage the reader with the topics examined. Drawing on their substantial experience of business-to-business marketing as practitioners, researchers and educators, the authors make this exciting and challenging area accessible to advanced undergraduate and to postgraduate students of marketing, management and business studies”. The new edition incorporates: “updated case studies and a range of new examples; additional coverage of B2B branding and the B2B strategic marketing process, and issues of sustainability; extended coverage of Key Account Management; and online lecturer support including PowerPoint slides and key web links. Ross Brennan is Reader in Marketing at Middlesex University. He says, “Organisational markets are very diverse. A business customer may be a single-person enterprise or a global corporation. The products and services sold to business customers may be technologically very simple (a sweeping broom) or hugely complex (a turnkey manufacturing plant, or a strategy for the takeover of a key competitive rival). Consequently, a debate has raged in the literature about whether business-to-business marketing is essentially the same as consumer marketing, or is a substantially different practice. Where there are many, small customers and the technology is simple, marketing communications and distribution tends to follow similar patterns to those found in consumer markets. However, where there are few, large customers, and particularly where technology is complex and fast changing, the emphasis shifts from an impersonal marketing management process to the management of inter-firm relationships. Impersonal marketing communications and indirect distribution channels are inappropriate under these circumstances; personal relationship management (Key Account Management), direct distribution, and adapting to the needs of individual customer organisations become the dominant strategy. In the practice of business-to-business marketing management, it is not as simple as this, however. Many firms will have a few large customers for whom a relational marketing strategy is appropriate, and many smaller customers for whom it probably is not. Key strategic decisions surround the treatment of individual customers. Marketing resources must be invested wisely; time spent building a relationship with a customer who turns out to be unprofitable is money wasted, while handling a potentially important customer with insufficient care may lead to the loss of profitable business.” Ross concludes: “In our book we are aiming to achieve a balance between the view that B2B marketing is a simple variant of consumer marketing involving the manipulation of the marketing mix, and the view that B2B marketing is wholly concerned with inter-organisational relationship management. Both are important.”  Ellis, Nick (2011), “Business-to-Business Marketing: Relationships, Networks & Strategies”, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 97801995516821, 384 pages, £35.99Second, we have what the publishers call an “exciting new title” which “introduces students to the main theoretical and managerial issues of B2B marketing. Examining issues such as e-commerce in B2B markets, key account management, and supply chain ethics, and employing a range of pedagogical features to aid understanding, the text raises readers' awareness of the significance of B2B marketing in modern economies”. This text is accompanied by an Online Resource Centre containing useful web links, extra cases, and further suggested readings, as well as lecture slides. Key features of the book include how it “integrates cases and examples of companies operating in varied markets to provide a culturally diverse text that considers B2B marketing in the global context; includes 'voices' boxes to provide insight into real-world B2B marketing challenges; addresses 'hot' B2B-related topics such as fair trade, retailer power, overseas sourcing, and 'green' marketing to capture students' imagination”. Nick Ellis is Senior Lecturer in Critical Marketing at the University of Leicester. He says, “In making my book attractive and accessible to students, I have tried to stress that for every consumer (or end-user) market there are typically several upstream organizations which must deal with each other before anything is ultimately consumed. I want to show that B2B marketing is about trying to manage the complex network of buying and selling relationships between these organizations. This is captured in the book’s striking cover design: the links in the chain depicted can be seen as a metaphor for inter-organizational relationships, relationships that have a positive side in bonding organizations together for mutual benefit and strength, yet that also have a negative side in tying firms into networks where they can never be fully in control of their own destiny.” Nick adds, “One of my aims was to make students aware of some of the tensions encountered by B2B marketing and purchasing managers as they go about their daily tasks. I hope to have achieved this by weaving together clearly-explained, relevant theoretical discussions and a large number of case study examples. The conceptual material is drawn from marketing scholarship in European and US contexts, as well as some contributions from further afield, illustrated by empirical material that is global in scope. The contextual focus of many B2B texts continues to be rather biased towards the US and, whilst some fine UK/European-based books have emerged recently, such as the one by Ross Brennan and his colleagues, I don’t think any B2B text has adequately catered for the high proportion of international students that typically make up university business courses. My book intends to plug that gap.” |
