Page 134 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

63 INVOLVE YOUR
CUSTOMERS

In business-to-business markets it is easy to concentrate simply on
the relationship between the buyer and the salesperson. Buyers are,
after all, the ones who are responsible for making the final decision
on the purchase, and are the ones who will award the contract.

However, buyers do not operate in isolation. They are usually
working to a specific brief, and this has been handed to them by
senior managers who consider the strategic needs of the company
when deciding what to buy. This decision is made in the light of what
the company’s staff believe is necessary for the smooth running
of their own departments, as well as on factors such as strategic
direction of the firm, available budgets, and so forth.

Successful companies therefore look beyond the buyer and seek to
influence those who in turn influence the real decision-makers.

The idea

Cisco Systems is the world’s largest manufacturer and supplier of
networking equipment. The company supplies many firms in the IT
sector with equipment for creating internet, intranet, and extranet
systems, and operates globally.

The main users of the equipment are the engineers who set up and
maintain the systems in the client companies. These engineers will
encounter problems throughout the lifetime of the equipment—
new uses for the systems will be needed, systems will crash
occasionally, unforeseen circumstances will cause new problems
or new challenges on a regular basis. Cisco Systems has therefore

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