Question

What are the five buying center roles that individuals are likely to play when choosing products/services for an organization (user, etc.)? Explain each. What are the major differences between organizational/business purchase decisions versus individual consumer decisions?

Answer 1

Buying centers is usually a group of people, family members or an organization, responsible for making a purchase decision in order to fulfill the needs/requirements of an user.

Five buying center roles that individuals play while choosing a product/service for an organization are:-

1. USERS:- The users, the one who is going to use the product/service. It is because of their need, a purchase process starts wherein as per the requirements of users are prime concern while purchasing the product/service as they are the one who would be using the product.
   
2. INFLUENCERS:- They help users in developing the specification/requirements so that best of the product/service is procured. They also offers the alternative products/services which have same or higher specs. They play important role when the specs include advance & new technologies.
   
3. BUYERS:- Post deciding the specs & requirements, a detailed document is submitted to buying team. Buyers here select the most appropriate vendor/supplier of the product/service. They award the business to best supplier after all the discussion & negotiations needed have been done.
   
4. DECIDERS:- They are the key player who are responsible for selecting the products/services from all the possible options suggested by influencers.
   
5. GATEKEEPERS:- These basically control the information flow within an purchasing decision.

Areas	Organizational Purchase Decisions	Individual consumer decision
Groups involved	Group involves all the departments of org, such as finance, IT management, purchasing etc	Informal adhoc group with common set of agenda
Decision Dependancy	A Strategic alligned decision with keepin in vision of organization intact.	Decision making is eccentric to meeting the current requirements
Scope	Scope of organization purchase is evry wide	Scope is limited to an individual requirements
Finances	Huge amount of finances are involved	Comparatively the finances are very small
Supplier Selection	Supplier base is very large on global basics	Supplier pool is usually evry specific
Target users	generally a huge number of users is targeted.	Usually an individual user is the main focus.
Approvals	Proper set of approvals are required prior making any purchase	No such approvals are needed, just the financer needs to be convinced