Marketing Classics: What the Hell Is “Market Oriented”? (Benson P. Shapiro, 1988)

This is a great Harvard Business Review article from the late 80′s told in the form of a story surrounding the perils of a manufacturing company in Indiana. Market Oriented is a term to describe a company that is driven by a desire to completely understand the markets it operates in and the people who decide whether or not to buys its products or services.

According to Shapiro, Market Oriented companies have three key characteristics:

1. Information on all important buying influences permeates every corporate function. This goes beyond cross-functional meetings. This is like the HP engineer working at Radio Shack (OK, “The Shack”…) to understand how customers use graphing calculators.
2. Make decisions across divisions and functions. To make wise decisions that will positively affect customers, you need to open up the decision making process to ensure that no division’s contribution to the customer value equation is overlooked.
3. Commit to the decisions as a division and execute with commitment! Marketing breaks down when the rubber meets the road and execution across functions doesn’t reach the desired potential. “Poor coordination leads to misapplication of resources and failure to make the most of market opportunities.”

The most important element of market orientation is how it capitalizes on the companies core values. Shapiro put it best when he said “No, slogans and glossy programs don’t givea company a market orientation. It takes a philosophy and a culture that go deep into the organization… It’s unlikely that any company ever became market oriented with a bottom-up approach; to make it happen, you need the commitment and power of those at the top.”

Read the the entire article, “What the Hell is Market Oriented”? »