Topic C.3: B2B business relations

For the successful marketing of products from renewable resources, the business relationships with buyers of semi-finished products and end products, and, the related complementary services are of key importance. This could entail commercial customers (B2B - business to business and intermediaries), but also private consumers (B2C – business to consumer) whose purchase behavior differ. While the private end consumers are an anonymous market, business relationships with commercial buyers are normally long term. The B2B market is primarily about efficient structures and coordination tools (see topic C.6). Private consumers, however, are mainly interested in the acceptance of products made from renewable resources, which topic C.4 investigates. Marketing anomalies are a result of fluctuation in quality, availability, and – owing to a possible scarcity – the prices of products from renewable resources. This topic investigates the consequences for distribution structures’ design and the utilization cascade’s marketing processes in the B2B domain. The question is whether the information asymmetries between manufacturers and consumers, which refer to particular specifications or to the acceptance of products in general, cause certain distribution structures to appear advantageous. Information asymmetries could emerge from the above-mentioned fluctuations and lead to conflicts of interest. The extent to which the information asymmetries depend on the products’ properties, as well as the production processes and products’ specificity is clarified. From this emerges the demand for an optimally designed distribution system. One of the issues researched is whether market-based or hierarchical coordination forms are advantageous (see topic C.7). It is also necessary to determine whether different mechanisms are required for users and consumers, on the one hand, and for resellers on the other. In the process, the quality and availability uncertainties’ impact is specifically analyzed.

Our contributions from the distribution channels domain form the basis for this topic, transferring relevant theories on new distribution science issues (Toporowski, 2002; Toporowski, Zielke, 2006a; Toporowski, Zielke, 2006b; Lietke, Toporowski, 2008; Lietke et al., 2008). The new institutional economics and games theory, with which the specific economic subjects’ various interests are modeled and the resultant behavioral patterns are analyzed, form the theoretical basis of these contributions. The influence factors’ effects on the benefit of individual coordination forms are investigated by means of scenario techniques and simulations.