Enterprise Purchasing Process

 
Write an analysis of the purchasing process conducted by a specific enterprise.
Just as consumers have a process by which they purchase products, every enterprise has a process by which it purchases products.

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

Competency 2: Analyze consumer behavior.

Describe a business that acquires, consumes, and disposes of a product.
Assess how the business acquires products or services, including the purchasing process.

Competency 3: Assess the managerial application of customer behavior concepts.

Explain difficulties of obtaining products and how the process can be improved.

 
Analyzing how consumers recognize their needs for products and evaluate their alternatives allows companies to determine how many types of products they should offer and how to advertise them. In recent years, when consumers showed a strong interest in healthier living and eating, fast food restaurants began offering alternative menu items. In some cases, such restaurants had difficulty predicting the particular ways that healthy living could be translated into their product offerings. Hamburgers without buns became a short-lived offering at some fast food restaurants. In contrast, healthy alternatives to French fries and soft drinks in kids’ meals are still offered by many establishments.

The purchasing of goods and services drives the economy, but many factors influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. The price associated with a purchase impacts whether or not a consumer will buy. Many other variables, such as how to pay for the purchase and the timing of the purchase, do as well. Many companies will use incentives such as cash-back, zero percent financing, or discounts to try to influence customers buy sooner rather than later.
Consumers have many choices in the types of goods and services they may purchase. They also have a variety of choices in the means by which to make a purchase. For example:

Retail stores remain a dominant force in the sales of goods to consumers. A great deal of consideration is involved in retail store layout, employee training, and in selecting the location of the stores.
Online shopping continues to increase and evolve, and firms such as eBay and Amazon have become permanent fixtures in the marketing landscape

 
CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR TERMINOLOGY
AIO Measures
Statements that describe the activities, interests, and opinions of consumers.
Benefit segmentation
Dividing consumers into different market segments based on the benefits they seek from purchasing and consuming products.
Brand
A product or product line, store, or service with an identifiable set of benefits, wrapped in a recognizable personality.
Brand associations
The linkages in memory between the brand and other concepts.
Brand extensions
The extension of a brand name that is well-known and respected in one product category to another product category for which it had not been known before.
Categorization process
When constructing an evaluation of a choice alternative, consumers do so based on the particular category to which the alternative is assigned.
Central process
A process of opinion formation in which opinions are formed from a thoughtful consideration of relevant information.
Consideration set
Those alternatives considered during decision making.
Consolidated metropolitan statistical area
A grouping of closely related primary metropolitan statistical areas.
Conspicuous consumption
Consumption that is motivated to some extent by the desire to show one’s successfulness to other people.
Consumer analysis
The process of understanding consumer trends, global consumer markets, models to predict purchase and consumption patterns, and communication methods to reach target markets most effectively.
Consumer behavior
Activities people undertake when obtaining, consuming, and disposing of products and services.
Also, a field of study that focuses on consumer activities.
Consumer decision process model
Also known as the CPD model, this is a road map of consumers’ minds that marketers and managers can use to help guide product mix, communication, and sales strategies.
Consumer life cycle
The series of stages that a consumer passes through during life and that change an individual’s behavior over time.
Consumer motivation
The drive to satisfy both physiological and psychological needs through product purchase and consumption.
Consumer orientation
The process of bringing product design, logistics, manufacturing, and retailing together as a customer-centric demand chain.
Consumption
Consumers’ usage of the purchased product.
Consumption analysis
The study of why and how people buy and use products.
Cost versus benefit perspective
A theory of search behavior that proposes that consumers will search for decision-relevant information when the perceived benefits of the new information are greater than the perceived costs of acquiring the information.
Cultural empathy
The ability to understand the inner logic and coherence of other ways of life and refrain from judging other value systems.
Customer lifetime value
Abbreviated CLV, this is the value to the company of a customer over the whole time the customer relates to the company.
Data mining
The creation of a database of names for developing continuous communications and relationships with the consumer.
Demographics
The size, structure, and distribution of a population.
Disposing
How consumers get rid of products and packaging.
Early adopters
Opinion leaders and role models for others, with good social skills and respect within larger social systems, who adopt new innovations before the masses do.
Economic demographics
The study of the economic characteristics of a nation’s population.
Family life cycle
The series of stages that a family passes through and that change them over time.
Impulse buying
Buying that is unplanned and occurs when consumers unexpectedly experience a sudden and powerful urge to buy something immediately.
Integrated marketing communications
Abbreviated IMC, this is a systematic, cross-organizational marketing communication process that is customer-centric, data driven, technically anchored, and branding effective.
Loyalty programs
Programs that strive to motivate repeat buying by providing rewards to customers based on how much business they do with a company.
Market aggregation
The act of an organization to market and sell the same product or service to all consumers. Also know as mass marketing.
Market segment
A group of consumers with similar needs, behavior, or other characteristics, which are identified through the market segmentation process.
Market segmentation
The process of identifying groups of people who are similar in one or more ways (based on demographic, psychographic, behavioral, cultural, and/or other characteristics), but somewhat different from other groups.
Marketing
The process of transforming or changing an organization to provide what people will buy.
Marketing concept
The process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.
Marketing era
A time when productive capacity exceeded demand, causing firms to change their orientation away from manufacturing capabilities and toward the needs of consumers, thus adopting a marketing orientation.
Marketing orientation
A focus on how an organization adapts to consumers.
Metropolitan statistical area
A free-standing metropolitan area that is surrounded by nonmetropolitan counties and that is not closely related to other metropolitan areas.
Need Recognition
A perception of difference between the desired state of affairs and the actual situation that is sufficient to arouse and activate the decision process.
Norms
Rules of behavior held by a majority or at least a consensus of a group about how individuals should behave.
Pre-purchase evaluation
The third stage of the decision making process that focuses on the manner in which choice alternatives are evaluated.
Pre-purchase search
Search motivated by an upcoming purchase decision.
Primary metropolitan statistical area
Abbreviated PMSA, this is a metropolitan area that is closely related to another city.
Product
A good or service. The total bundle of utilities obtained by consumers in the exchange process.
Product innovation
Any product recently introduced to the market or perceived to be new as compared to existing products.
Product knowledge
The information stored in consumers’ memory about products.
Psychographics
An operational technique of measurement lifestyles that can be used with the large samples needed for definition of market segments.
Purchase intentions
What consumers think they will buy.
Reference group
Any person or group of people that significantly affects or influences another individual’s behavior.
Relative price knowledge
What consumers know about one price relative to another.
Satisfaction
A positive post-consumption evaluation that occurs when the consumption experience either meets or exceeds expectations.
Value
The difference between what consumers give up for a product and the benefits they receive.

 
Write an analysis of the purchasing process conducted by a specific enterprise of your choice.
Complete the following:

Select a current or previous employer and briefly describe the organization and its main business. You do not have to have been involved in the organization’s actual purchasing process and decisions to complete the assessment.
Analyze the purchasing process of the company by answering the following:

Assess and describe what it was like to acquire products within the company for use in your job. Do not include products that were for resale.
If possible, provide examples of both smaller items—such as office supplies or items needed to complete daily tasks—as well as larger items, such as a computer.

Describe the process required to obtain the products. Include such information as:

The time it took to obtain items.
The process, or processes, involved. For example, was the process time consuming or straightforward?

Explain any difficulty in obtaining products.
Describe how the process could have been improved.

Use proper APA style and formatting