ISBM Research
Q U A RT E R LY
Spring 2011
Volume 4, Issue 1
IN THIS ISSUE . . .
In This Issue . . .
A
In This Issue ............................................ 1
SEI-ISBM Educational Resource Portal
Launch ............................................. 2
B2B Handbook Announcement ..................5
2010 Doctoral Support Winners ..................6
Gary L. Lilien
We are pleased to congratulate the five winners of the 2010 ISBM
Dissertation Support Award Competition. This is the largest
number of winners in the history of the competition and the large
number of winners attests to the quality of the research that young
BtoB Scholars is producing. The winners are: Douglas Chung of
Yale University, Jia Fan of Georgia State University, Kellilynn M.
Frias of the University of Arizona, Babak Hayati of the University of
Houston, and Johanna H. Slot of Tilburg University.
From the Membership ... Highlights from the
17th ISBM Winter Meeting: Marketing
for Organic Growth in the New B-to-B
Global Economy - Strategies, Tools, and
Cases..................................................7
MSI 50 Years: “Ideas” Challenge in
Celebration of MSI’s 50th
Anniversary . .......................................9
s we go to press, there is no longer snow on the ground here in
Happy Valley. Hooray! And with the brightening weather and
longer days, the end of the Spring term can’t be far. And what
that means is...your course syllabi for Summer and Fall are soon
due! That means cases to be taught, articles and texts to use and
the like. We all need help NOW. So we are delighted that Mike
Ahearne from the University of Houston and its Sales Excellence
Institute (SEI) has launched the SEI-ISBM BtoB Educational
Resource Portal Launch (ERP). The portal is designed to be THE
place to go, globally, to look for, communicate about and share
BtoB educational resources. Please register as soon as possible
and begin using the Portal—it is for all of us, and the more we all
participate, the more valuable it will be. Please Register Now!
Raj Grewal
Ralph Oliva’s “From the Membership” column reports on the most
recent ISBM meeting held in Dallas last month. The topic, “Marketing for Organic
Growth in the New B-to-B Global Economy” provided many challenging research
challenges for those of us who want to make our research relevant to BtoB practice in
the current and future economic and social environment.
The Spring IPSS courses-- Analytical Models in Business-to-Business Marketing offered
by Fabio Caldieraro, and Jeff Shulman and Sales Management and Personal Selling
offered by Bart Weitz—have gone very well. We will have an announcement of our Fall
2011 offerings in the next newsletter.
The final item concerns the forthcoming Handbook of Business To Business Marketing.
The Handbook is coming together very well. We expect it will be a classic and useful to
us all (if we editors say so ourselves). Seriously, the content is outstanding and we will
feature a full Table of Contents for the 37 chapters in the next issue of the newsletter.
Enjoy!
CONTACT INFORMATION
Research Director
Gary L. Lilien, ([email protected])
Associate Research Director
Rajdeep Grewal, ([email protected])
Executive Director
Ralph Oliva, ([email protected])
Institute for the Study of Business Markets
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
484 Business Building
University Park, PA 16802
USA
+1-814-863-2782 • WWW.ISBM.ORG
Gary and Raj
Gary L. Lilien
Research Director
Institute for the Study
of Business Markets
Raj Grewal
Associate Research Director
Institute for the Study
of Business Markets
As always, we hope you find this issue a valuable resource to connect with the ISBM community
(practitioners, faculty, and students) around the world. If you would like to suggest or contribute
items, please let either of us know. This issue and past issues or our newsletter can be found at
http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/researcher/isbm-research-quarterly-newsletter.
PAGE 2
SEI-ISBM Educational Resource Portal Launch
A
s Executive Director of the University of Houston’s Sales Excellence Institute (SEI), I am pleased to announce the
launch of the SEI-ISBM BtoB Educational Resource Portal (ERP). The ERP is designed to create a digital forum for
BtoB marketing educators around the globe. The portal is built on the Microsoft SharePoint system, which enables
Web-based communities of people to collaborate and share documents or information. It allows educators to share teaching
support materials such as syllabi, presentations, texts, case materials and exercises that have been useful in BtoB courses such as
industrial marketing, channels, selling, sales management and product management. Registered users can upload, search for,
and download teaching support material. Access to the ERP is available at http://sei.cob.uh.edu/.
Michael Ahearne
The ERP’s full functionalities (including search, upload and download of teaching material) are available to registered users
only. All marketing educators at universities (Professors, Lecturers, and PhD Students) are eligible to register and use the portal
free of charge.
The registration process is simple:
Just click on the “Register” link located on the left-hand side, and fill out a short registration form (see Figure 1). After reviewing and verifying your
registration information, your login details will be sent to you. This process will typically be completed within one business day.
Figure 1: The Registration Form
A snapshot of the portal’s landing page (after signing in as a registered user) is depicted in Figure 2. ERP has four major sections that are displayed in
the horizontal navigation menu from left to right: Contribute Content, Search Content, FAQs and Contact. The vertical navigation list on the left
side of the screen shows the subject areas into which the educational materials are categorized. The 26 subject areas are listed in alphabetical order
continued on page 3
PAGE 3
SEI-ISBM Educational Resource Portal Launch
continued from page 2
including areas such as Advertising, Business-to-Business Marketing, International Marketing, Personal Selling, Pricing, Purchasing/Procurement and
Services Marketing. To help illustrate the capabilities of ERP, let’s take a closer look at the content search and contribution functions.
Figure 2: The Landing Page
The “Search Content” Function: How can I search for and download content?
There are multiple ways to find educational content. One is to select a specific subject area from the list on the left-hand side (e.g., “Customer
Relationship Management”). This will open a list of all the documents available in that particular subject area. Moving your mouse over your
selection will highlight the document, and allow you to “Check” the box on the left. Check the box for any documents you want to download, and
then click on the “Download a Copy” link on the top navigation bar. Figure 3 shows the results list for the subject area of “Customer Relationship
Management”.
Figure 3: Results List in the CRM Subject Area
For a more refined way of searching for content, select “Search Content” from the main navigation menu. This will take you to the Search Center
illustrated in Figure 4. Here you can enter search terms in the available fields and conduct a variety of combined keyword searches. You can also
narrow down your search results by selecting different document types such as PowerPoint, Word documents, etc. The search function is very
powerful, as it browses all the original documents uploaded in addition to the title and keyword information provided by the contributor.
continued on page 4
PAGE 4
SEI-ISBM Educational Resource Portal Launch
continued from page 3
Figure 4: The Search Center
The “Contribute Content” Function: How can I upload new content to the site?
To upload content, you need to be logged in as a registered user and select “Contribute Content” from the navigation menu. This brings you to
the Contribution Center. Select the subject area for your contribution from the list on the left hand side (e.g., “Pricing”), and follow the on-screen
instructions. You can upload files containing educational content (e.g., Word or PowerPoint), and/or post links to Web sites with educational content.
Figure 5 shows the interface window that appears after uploading a file in the Contribution Center. Contributors simply need to fill in a title for their
material. In addition, they can enter keywords, author information and Web links to the material. The usefulness of the uploaded material can be
rated on a five-star rating scale both by contributors as well as users of the materials.
Figure 5: The Upload Interface in the Contribution Center
continued on page 5
PAGE 5
SEI-ISBM Educational Resource Portal Launch
continued from page 4
A Look Ahead: Finding and Contributing Content are Two Sides of the Same Coin
I hope that many of you will visit the ERP and find it to be helpful in enhancing your own courses with the teaching materials that you find. As
part of the SEI-ISBM partnership, this portal is a common initiative in our strategy towards excellence in BtoB marketing and sales education.
This alliance connects ISBM and SEI to create a partnership between one of the worldwide leaders in BTOB marketing, with one of the top global
institutions in sales research and education.
Our long-term goal is to establish the SEI-ISBM BtoB Educational Resource Portal as the premier site for BtoB marketing educators around the globe
to share and search for syllabi, presentation slides, case studies, audio and video files, and other teaching materials.
To achieve this end, it is important that enough useful and up-to-date content is shared by the community of marketing educators. The portal is
clearly built on the idea of reciprocity. In this way, finding and contributing useful content are two sides of the same coin. Hence, I would be glad
if many of you would like to share your own course materials with other users. If you have useful documents or links to teaching materials that you
would be willing to share, please visit the portal at http://sei.cob.uh.edu/, register, and contribute right away. For more information, please also see the
FAQ section of the site.
Finally, the portal’s user friendliness is also very important for its successful adoption and diffusion. Therefore any feedback is more than welcome! If
you have additional questions or suggestions about the portal, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].
Michael Ahearne
Executive Director, Sales Excellence Institute
Professor of Marketing
C.T. Bauer College of Business
University of Houston
[email protected]
Coming Soon: Handbook of Business to Business
Marketing
C
elebrating the ISBM’s 25th Anniversary several years ago got us thinking about what progress had been made in B-to-B
Marketing since our founding in 1983. We believe we came up with an appropriate way to answer that question.
As we go to press, we are delighted to announce that a joint initiative between Edward Elgar Press and the ISBM is producing the
Handbook of Business to Business Marketing. We will have more to say about the Handbook in the next newsletter (yes, this is a
tease), but here is the blurb we sent the publisher:
Handbook of Business to Business Marketing
Eds. Gary L. Lilien and Rajdeep Grewal Penn State
Targeted primarily at marketing academics and graduate students who want a complete overview of the academic
state of the BtoB marketing domain. Also useful for forward thinking BtoB practitioners who want to be aware
of the current state of knowledge in their domains. Each chapter provides (1) Perspectives of the problem area both
from an academic and a managerial perspective (state of theory and state of practice) (2) A concise state-of-art review
summarizing what we know about the area and (3) A research agenda for the domain. Co-published by Penn State’s
Institute for the Study of Business Markets. 37 Chapters
Translation—the latest thinking from the leading academic minds in BtoB marketing. Great for you and must reading for your
PhD students. To be published early in 2012 (before the ISBM turns 30!). Updates and more details will be available in the next
Newsletter.
Gary L. Lilien
Research Director
Institute for the Study
of Business Markets
Raj Grewal
Associate Research Director
Institute for the Study
of Business Markets
PAGE 6
2010 ISBM Doctoral Support Awards Competition
Winners Announced
T
he Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) is pleased to announce three winning entries in its 2010 Dissertation
Support Award Competition, selected from a total of thirty-five entries. Each are named ISBM Business Marketing Doctoral
Fellows:
• Douglas Chung, Yale University
“The Design of Incentive Contracts and Its Effect on Worker Behavior”
PhD Advisor: K. Sudhir
Douglas Chung
• Jia Fan, Georgia State University
“Maximizing Dynamic CLV by Incorporating the Intensity of B2B Customer
Relationship”
PhD Advisor: V. Kumar
Jia Fan
• Kellilynn M. Frias, The University of Arizona
“Product Form Choice: A Multi-Method Investigation in Complex Business-to-Business Markets”
PhD Advisor: Mrinal Ghosh
Dissertation Co-Chair: Robert F. Lusch
Kellilynn M. Frias
• Babak Hayati, The University of Houston
“Performance Impacts of a Key Account Team’s Social Capital: A Social Network Perspective”
PhD Advisor: Michael Ahearne
• Johanna H. Slot, Tilburg University
“Customer Involvement in External New Product Development: When Is May Go Wrong”
PhD Advisors: Stefan H.K. Wuyts and Inge Geyskens
Babak Hayati
Johana Slot
Dissertation competition entries are judged on the rigor of the proposed work and the relevance of that work to B-to-B marketing
practice. Each winner will each receive grants of $7500 to support their research.
This ISBM award has supported outstanding B-to-B dissertation work since its inception in 1991. For information about the
competition or to see a list of past winners see http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/researcher/award
Congratulations to all!
PAGE 7
From the Membership . . . Highlights from the 17th
ISBM Winter Meeting: Marketing for Organic Growth in
the New B-to-B Global Economy - Strategies, Tools and
Cases
A
Ralph Oliva
s we rapidly move through 2011 and on
into the decade, ISBM members find
themselves in a fundamentally better
place than they were a couple of years ago,
but still navigating an uncertain few years
ahead. At our ISBM Members Meeting,
March 1-3 in Dallas, TX, we began with
a panel who attempted to provide insight
on the “B-to-B market playing field” that
we’ll be navigating over the next few years.
Just what is -- or can there be – a “New
Normal?”
Dr. Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist for Gallup set the stage. He
shared insights from Gallup research that indicated that spending
and saving will be more conservative, credit and borrowing will
be tighter – and used more sparingly with stronger underpinnings
-- monetary policy will be more conservative, government
intervention in business will increase, and global uncertainty
will continue to reign as we move forward through the decade.
Dr. Jacobe suggests that business-to-business marketers accept
and anticipate this “new normal” and find ways -- through closer
customer connection -- to capitalize on it.
Discussion of “the New Normal” continued with insights from
Deloitte that further highlighted recession- driven changes
in the playing field. They pointed to accelerated market
commoditization, reduced loyalty, increased trade-off behavior,
and relaxed product specifications. Jim Manocchi and Rob
Underwood from Deloitte especially advised careful moves toward
solution sales, but with special focus. Only offer services customer
value, only to the customers who value them. They caution being
especially careful of “overshooting” customer’s needs. Many
customers have learned to accept “good enough at a low price” as
opposed to “the next best brand new thing”.
What does the current level of market turbulence and the
emergence of “The New Normal” mean for researchers in
business-to-business marketing? In my view it points to a need
to create a much better linking between behavioral economists
and business marketers. The whole business of marketing strategy
being driven by a more fundamental understanding of market,
environmental, and governmental trends is going to become more
important than ever.
We then heard from Matt Morris of RGL Forensics who
discussed the most important metrics to focus on when you’re
driving growth. He made the case for “free cash flow” as being
a critical dimension and for focused inclusion on the growth of
brand value as well. His discussion lead to some important and
potentially researchable questions: What are the best metrics to
focus on when driving organic growth? Which better mobilize
the organization, avoid sub-optimization, balance short and longterm thinking, and reward the right behaviors?
“Organic growth through innovation” was another area of
inquiry at our meeting. John Jacko, Chief Marketing Officer
at Kennametal, outlined their evolving two-“process pathway”
approach. Kennametal utilizes a more traditional “stage-gate”
process for what they term “core” product innovation. He also
pointed to a separate process, one that is better suited to emergent
strategy, and requires more pattern-based analysis of totally-new
offerings where “stages and gates” simply doesn’t work as well. His
presentation raised the research question: how can/should firms
best manage an NPD process that provides a steady stream of
good, but incremental new products and game changers as well.
What is the right process or mix of processes?
Many firms are looking to grow by “infusing services” into
their product offerings. Stephen Brown, Executive Director of
the Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University
provided insight on the spectrum of “let’s add services” approaches
that he has been tracking. Approaches he has seen include basic
“business process outsourcing”, to “value added supplementary
services”, to “managed service platforms”, to “integrated product/
service solutions.” He also identified significant barriers to
implementation of all of these for historically product-driven
firms. He discussed the need for focused change in company
with readiness and culture, and particularly sales force readiness to
implement integrated product/service solutions. His presentation
lead to a discussion of the need for research initiatives to better
understand just what sales force changes are necessary to move
from a product focus to a service oriented sell.
Kevin Clancy of Copernicus Consulting discussed Segmentation
for Growth. He outlined a disciplined and innovation-based
approach to segmentation. His presentation highlights the
continued need for research on what are the real antecedents to an
excellent and implementable segmentation.
Mukundh Thirumalai of Cisco discussed how to the firm is
building a culture to capture both today’s and tomorrow’s growth,
another take on the approach at Kennametal. The questions he
raised: How you maintain both a current and future balance and
whether such a dual approach be infused through the existing
organization, or does it require a separate organization with a
longer-term focus are important research questions.
John Gleason of Ryder shared his approach to the “art and
science” of mobilizing the sales force to drive growth. He posits
that at Ryder it is a mix of art and science: hiring the right
people, building the right channel structure design, compensating
continued on page 8
PAGE 8
From the Membership . . . Highlights from the 17th
ISBM Winter Meeting: Marketing for Organic Growth in
the New B-to-B Global Economy - Strategies, Tools and
Cases continued from page 7
correctly. His talk highlighted another key research area: What
are the tools and techniques for best alignment of sales and
marketing to drive growth?
Steve French, Director of the Natural Marketing Institute
discussed the connections he has with firms and their work to
incorporate sustainability in their business. We have seen a great
deal of focus in the business press on sustainability, but it is an
area that has yet to see substantial academic work in the B-to-B
domain. That is a challenge we at the ISBM would like to see
taken up by the academic community. For example, Elisabeth
Comere of Tetra Pak showed how Tetra Pak is building brand
equity at both the carton and the Tetra Pak brand level as they
move to a fundamental “sustainability without sacrifice” strategy,
raising the question about how the impact of “sustainability” and
“all things green” can play up the value chain.
Finally, George Brown, of Blue Canyon Partners, one of our long
term affiliates, addressed what he termed “Co-Destiny:” that to
drive organic growth firms need to help their customers overcome
their growth challenges. He noted that there are three ways to
do this: Help your customer gain volume; Help your customer
get to a higher price point; or Help your customer to take costs
out. He focused on the need to better understand your customers
and their customers’ needs, highlighting the need for research on
customer needs down the value chain.
As we consider the turmoil in the Middle East and the disaster
in Japan, BtoB marketers, strategists, and researchers, might ask:
What really are the antecedents and consequences of a strategy
that’s flexible enough, and grounded enough to withstand the
next “Earthquake”?
Respectfully submitted,
Ralph A. Oliva
Executive Director
Institute for the Study
of Business Markets
Professor of Marketing
[email protected]
PAGE 9
MSI 50 Years: “Ideas” Challenge in Celebration of
MSI’s 50th Anniversary
T
ime and again during the past 50 years, the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) has championed
ideas that broke new ground in marketing. Often it did so by funding research, but sometimes it
did so by supporting ventures that developed the ideas. For example, MSI brokered the multicompany PIMS (Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies) database, assembled teams to shape policy at
the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, conceived of and nurtured
a Research Priorities process, and sponsored the Consumer Odyssey, a summer-long road trip that was foundational to the rise of
qualitative consumer research.
The goal of the “Ideas” competition is to spark a new generation of fresh ideas, and a new wave of ventures, sourced across the
whole community of marketing scholars and thinkers. We are not looking for research proposals, but for proposals to fund activities
that precede and enable scholarly output. Since the emphasis is on out-of-the-ordinary activities, criteria for evaluation will be few.
Preference will, however, be given to activities that:
•
Are novel, catch the imagination, and show promise of invigorating scholarship
•
Are interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary
•
Facilitate interaction among scholars or among scholars and practitioners, either directly (in which case the participants
should be named) or by creation of a platform for future interaction
•
Are likely to lead, though not necessarily immediately, to high quality published research
•
Draw on MSI’s distinctive strengths and capabilities for implementation
Please refer to MSI’s website for the complete details http://www.msi.org/news/index.cfm?id=303.
Submissions must be received by August 1, 2011. Additional information may be requested of finalists. The Marketing Science
Institute has allocated substantial funds to this competition. There is no specific limit to the amount that can be requested. The
number of awards is not pre-determined. The amounts awarded will vary across the proposals, depending on the merit and the
requirements of the proposed venture. Winners will be announced by November 15, 2011.
The form of submission of the idea will depend on the idea, but might comprise:
•
A 3-7 page description of the idea and how it would be executed.
•
A one-page statement of the expected contribution to the idea to the field of marketing, including a list of the questions
that the ideas will help either sharpen or resolve.
•
A timetable with milestones and completion dates.
•
Names of collaborators or potential collaborators.
•
Funding needs including, if appropriate, any funding that will or has been obtained from other sources.
•
Contact information and vita(e) for the primary collaborators on the proposal.
Feel free to append any supplementary materials that might be helpful to the team
evaluating your submission.
Email submissions by August 1st to Ross Rizley, Research Director, Marketing
Science Institute, at [email protected]. Please indicate that your submission is in
response to the MSI “Ideas” Competition.
Ruth N. Bolton
Executive Director
Marketing Science Institute
[email protected]
Ross Rizley
Research Director
Marketing Science Institute
[email protected]
COMMENTS... IDEAS...
We would love to hear from you. If you wish
to comment on any of the articles (or have
thoughts for future articles), please pass them
on. Your suggestions will make the newsletter
better and more responsive to your needs.
Please email your correspondence to:
Newsletter Editor
Lori Nicolini ([email protected])
Institute for the Study of Business Markets
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
484 Business Building
University Park, PA 16802
USA
+1-814-863-2782 • WWW.ISBM.ORG