Market Orientation, Customer Value, and Superior Performance

delivering superior value to buyers and building competencies and resource strengths in performing value chain activities that rivals cannot readily match.

Thompson, A. A., Peteraf, M. A., Gamble, J. E., & Strickland III, A. (2012). Crafting and executing strategy the quest for competitive advantage concepts

Marketing principles made a fast swift from the conventional methods to the modern marketing. From the literature, we can marked the shift from product centric view to customer centric view .i.e. from” inside-out to outside-in”. This made an outstanding shift from Mc Carty’s 4p concept to value based marketing. Emphasising this shift the Piercy(2009)imprint that marketing is a set of management activities that define ,create and deliver value to the customers.

In order to achieve a competitive advantage, an organization must have resources, competencies, and capabilities. Resources are what an organization utilizes to create value in the organization. Resources are imperative to the organizations value and are tangible and intangible. Tangible resources are financial, physical, and labor. “Robert Kaplan and David Norton point out that unlike financial and physical resources, intangible resources are hard for competitors to imitate, making them a powerful source of sustainable competitive advantage.” (Ginter, Duncan and Swayne 138) Competitive advantage comes from the organizations resources. The competitive advantage the organization has is its ability to provide quality services than services

Adapted with the permission of Michael E. Porter from Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior

The market-driven approach is a business perspective that puts the customers as a starting point in all its strategies and operations in order to deliver the superior customer value and gain a competitive advantage (Day, 1994). This approach totally contradicts with the one of the previous years of the industrial age, which the prominent scholar Drucker (1954) defined that the main purpose of the organization is to generate profit. But nowadays, it appears clear that for the future prosperity of the company, the building of the loyal customer base is necessary condition to be profitable. The support of the latest argument comes from Webster, et al. (1994) where it is concluded that the profit becomes as remuneration for a satisfied and retained customer. There are few capabilities that the company should be aware of in order to be oriented on the market (Cravens and Shipp, 1991). There is the marketing strategic process which describes the development and implementation

As marketers we need to gather information, respond to information well, deliver it and how you close it.

The Business Dictionary defines organizational culture as values and behaviors based on “shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been developed over time” (“Organizational Culture”, 2017). Simply put, organizational culture is how people learn, think and act on a daily basis within an organization. But if organizational culture is only unique social and psychological environments within a business, then how is it possible that it can be just as influential as business strategy? Research suggests that a strong organizational culture is a key competitive advantage of business because it can be the driving force behind innovation and alignment of goals, help motivate and engage employees, and generate fierce customer loyalty.

Based on the case study, Endothon practices a market culture of organizational culture. The company is result-based, and it emphasizes on finishing the work and getting things done. Its leader type is being a competitor, producer and a hard driver. For instance, the company’s theory of effectiveness is aggressively competing by producing goods as well as customer focus being effective. Consequently, the culture employs a quality improvement strategy that measures the customers’ preferences, improves productivity and also creates external partnerships. The expected outcomes of Endothon

Barney, J. (1986) ‘Organizational Culture: Can it be a source of sustained competitive advantage’? Academy of Management 11(3), pp. 656-665.

However, company’s still need to be responsive to customer needs due to volatile markets. Overall increases of a company’s orientation, resulting from effective customer satisfaction, will then lead to greater performances (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). The relationship between performance and marketing orientation is analysed negatively to strategic marketing. Sin (2005) considers the ‘external environmental aspects’ of marketing orientation, emphasising the importance of linking performance and marketing orientation in order to meet the needs of customers. Sin believes that if companies developed their approaches towards linking these two factors, a more in depth examination of customers needs could be undertaken, which would lead to higher performances within the company. Sin agrees with Sharp’s views, by describing the inclusion of customer needs as well as company aims and objectives. A strategic way of thinking is described by Sharp, where marketing orientation is described as being the most relevant, as it focuses on company, and not just market characteristics.

The concept of Customer Loyalty can be seen in the work of Deming in his TQM model but the modern more detailed definition was derived from the work of Storbacka, Strandvik, and Gronroos (1994) in the area of service quality models. Relationship marketing places great emphasis on customer lifetime value. The conventional wisdom suggest that loyal customers are the most profitable but recent work by Heiner Evanschitsky and John Glanfield, both now at Aston Business School suggests that this may not always be the case. To what extent do you believe customer loyalty should influence marketing strategy?

Competitive advantage leads to superior profitability. At the most basic level, a company’s profitability depends on three factors: the value customers place on the company’s products, the price that a company charges for its products, and the costs of creating those products. The value placed on a product by customers reflects the utility they get from a product, or the happiness or satisfaction gained from consuming or owning the product. Value must be distinguished from price. Value is something that customers receive from a product. It is a function of the attributes of the product, such as its performance, design, quality etc.

In such a dynamic setting, the business players come to devise and put into practice numerous means by which to appeal to the customers, to attract them, and to retain them. In other words, the role of marketing in today's society is increasing at an exponential rate. At a generic level, marketing is understood as the totality of measures implemented by the economic agent in an effort to attract customers and support the sale of their products. In a more pragmatic formulation, marketing is defined as follows:

In contemporary society, due to the seller economic model is transforming to the buyer economic model gradually in the market which has resulted from social progress as well as technological development, marketing plays a prominent role in an enterprise’s development and success. According to American Marketing Association (AMA):