Secondary abstract: |
Based on a literature review and practical experience, the purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to present a detailed analysis of the impact of the selected market resources used by business-to-business (B2B) companies on their business performance.
According to our knowledge and reviewed literature, such survey had not been carried out by the time of producing this thesis.
The first chapter defines marketing, marketing concepts and marketing resources, focusing primarily on B2B markets. The following chapter describes the strategy of B2B marketing, the processes of strategic planning of marketing activities, characteristics of customers in B2B markets, and the specifics of marketing strategies in B2B markets. The next chapter focuses on ICT support used for marketing activities in B2B markets. First, ICT (information communication technology) is clearly defined. Subsequently, the focus is on its importance for company’s business operation, the connection of ICT and the marketing information system, and finally, what kind of support ICT can provide for companies in order to carry out their marketing activities in B2B markets. The following chapter is focused on the definition of service quality in B2B markets, the ways of how quality is perceived by customers, and the approaches used to managing and ensuring a high-quality performance of services. Next is the definition of the market orientation of companies operating in B2B markets. There is an explanation of factors influencing the market orientation, and effects of the market orientation of companies, following by the the description of the role and importance of the market orientation in B2B markets. Subsequently, the focus is on the company’s business performance and the types of business performance, the importance of measuring performance, the approaches to measuring performance and the most commonly used indicators for measuring performance.
After defining all the concepts involved in the survey, the conceptual model of the thesis was defined. This part of the thesis describes the interconnections between the individual concepts. Accordingly, we developed research hypotheses and defined control variables (the size of the company according to the number of its employees, the share of the company’s turnover acquired in the B2B market and the age of the company) to verify the model.
The empirical part describes the methodology used (the research plan and the methods used), the method and the data collection approach which is followed by the presentation of the characteristics of the research sample (taken together as well as separately for each individual country included, i.e. Slovenia, Austria, and Serbia). Afterwards, the descriptive statistics of the variables, validity and reliability of the model, and the presentation of the final version of the measurement model are presented. In the following, the focus is on verification of the structural model by way of modelling structural equations, as well as the verification of hypotheses.
The main results of the survey are as follows: a) marketing strategies in B2B markets are positiveley related with ICT support; b) marketing strategies in B2B markets are positiveley related to the market orientation of companies operating in B2B markets; c) marketing strategies used in B2B markets are positively related to the service quality on B2B markets are interrelated; d) ICT support for the implementation of marketing activities in B2B markets is positiveley related to the service quality on B2B markets ; e) market orientation of companies in B2B markets is positiveley related to the service quality on B2B markets; f) ICT support used for conducting marketing activities in B2B markets impacts the company performance and g) marketing strategies in B2B markets impact the company performance. |