The presence and realized strategies of third parties in innovation adoption networks may require the
development of new concepts for understanding and explaining network behaviour. For example, the concept of network champion (Woodside and Wilson, 1994) is helpful for explaining the behav- iour of the enterprise serving as a catalyst to build new linkages among multiple firms that have pre- viously not communicated with one another. Creating the new linkages is necessary in assisting a manufacturing firm in the process of replacing its existing manufacturing technology with an ET manufacturing process.
The concept of network champions extends the work on the product champion concept (Schön, 1967; Maidique, 1980; Burgelman, 1983) and the organizational champion concept (Burgelman, 1983; Hutt et al., 1988). The product champion is the member of an organization who creates, defines or adopts an idea for a technological innovation and is willing to assume significant risk (e.g. in terms of position or prestige) to make possible the success- ful implementation of the innovation (Maidique, 1980); the presence and nurturing activities of prod- uct champions is found for almost all successful innovations (Peters and Waterman, 1982). An organ-
izational champion is a decision maker who provides
sponsorship or impetus for a project within the man- agement structure of an enterprise (Burgelman, 1983). In a detailed case study, Hutt et al. (1988) document the existence and roles organizational champions play; for example, one marketing man- ager in the firm they studied nurtured the market- ing–R&D interface. Similarly, network champions are likely to serve, in part, as marriage brokers and deal makers to bring about new relationships among enterprises at multiple levels who must interact for the adoption of new ETs in manufacturing processes. The present section describes processes of how new networks of relationships emerge among multiple firms during processes of adop- tions of new, proven, ET manufacturing processes. The following discussion reports details of how emerging networks are created within US industrial manufacturing firms in one industry. An analogy to the biological research on anatomies is used for mapping who is involved in such networks (i.e. the nodes of the networks) and the communication links among these parties.
Uncovering networks of vertical and diag- onal marketing relationships is analogous to the study of anatomy. Anatomy is the art of separating the parts (e.g. of an animal) in order to learn their position, relations, structure and function. Mar- keting anatomy is the detailed examination of what is actually occurring in the marketing–buying
process, including who is doing what, when and with what outcomes. The research objectives include replicating and expanding the research reported by Biemans (1989, 1990, 1991); Biemans’s work is based on research on network anatomies in marketing–purchasing of innovations in the Dutch medical equipment industry. Here we exam- ine the B2B networks related to adoption processes of a new, proven ET manufacturing process, electric motor drives (EMDs). The worldwide paradigm
shift to EMDs from mechanical motor drives repre- sents a large-scale industrial application of the new, ET manufacturing processes. In 1994 EMDs achieved a small market share penetration (less than 20 per cent) in the USA compared with the old technologies, which they are replacing.
Figure 7.6 is a composite marketing anatomy of the principal participants in the industrial adop- tion process of the new ETs and the key relation- ships among these participants. Figure 7.6 is a
Business-to-business marketing: organizational buying behaviour, relationships and networks 135
Technology Lead users VP marketing Divisional manager Major account manager Technical sales engineer Account manager Distribution engineer Environmental agency CE GC SC Public service regulating commission Customer’s competitors Alternative energy competitors Government
Electric power company
Field sales force (Manufacturing agents)
Plant manager VP-Production
Business customer, manufacturer
Plant engineer Marketing
Plant manager VP-Production
Customer’s customer
Plant engineer Marketing
SM Customer technology Electro-technology manufacturer Marketing 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 2 Key: CE Consulting engineer GC General contractor SC Subcontractor
Figure 7.6. Key participants in the diffusion and adoption of a new ET
composite in that this illustration is not intended to describe one particular network involved in cus- tomer acceptance of one new ET. The composite is a summary of the principal parties often found to be involved in many such networks. For many spe- cific customer adoptions of one of the new ETs not all the participants shown in Figure 7.6 will be found. Thus the marketing anatomy Figure 7.6 summarizes is a composite of the structure often found in many, but not all, customer adoptions of one of the new ETs.
Lead users are shown in box 1 of Figure 7.6.
Lead users are the first 1–2 per cent of customers
who apply the new technology commercially in a new application in a defined market (see von Hippel, 1986), for example, the very early adopters of ozone generators in water treatment plants in 1982 in the USA and the use of radio-frequency technology for processing infectious medical wastes in 1991 (Woodside and Wilson, 1994). Lead users tend to be leading experts in the technology and in applying the technologies; thus this strong link between lead users and technology is depicted by the double-arrow line in Figure 7.6. Lead users are a very special category of business customers (shown in boxes 6 and 11). Lead users work closely with a manufacturer of the new technology (box 3) who is committed to developing new uses for it. Thus, manufacturers committed to applying the new ET to lead users’ manufacturing requirements need to find one another and work closely together to field-test the technology.
After several field applications of the new ET are completed successfully (5–10 years of test- ing being required), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or other government agencies (box 8) may set new industry regulations that can be met only by the large group of industrial cus- tomers (box 6), by applying the new ET in their manufacturing/process/fabricating operations.
Meanwhile, other manufacturers of the new ET (box 3) are developing a field sales force (box 4) and marketing strategies to reach the decision mak- ers (boxes 12, 13 and 6) on buying and installing (box 14) the new ET. Also, customers’ demand (box 11) for higher delivered-product quality that can only be achieved by including the new ET in vend- ors’ manufacturing operations. Five to ten years after the early, successful applications of the new ET, a new stage of rapid installation growth – which includes the first-time use of the new ET by up to 10 per cent of customers – for the new ET occurs, for example, infrared heating and curing applications in the late 1980s.
Between 10 and 20 years after its early com- mercial application, the successful adoption of the new ET by competitors of the business cus- tomer (box 5) is an additional force helping to ini- tiate adoption among 20–40 per cent of customers (box 6). Thus, several forces create increasing influ- ence for the widespread adoption of the proven new ET: competitive pressures (box 5), continued tighter customer quality requirements (box 11), government regulations (box 8), the marketing efforts of the new ET manufacturers (boxes 3 and 4) and the marketing efforts of electric power companies to assist business customers in adopt- ing the new ET (box 7).
Often the electric power company needs to gain approval from a public service regulating commission (box 9) to implement marketing tools to assist business customers in adopting the new ET. Alternative energy competitors (box 10) seek to prevent the use of marketing tools by the elec- tric power company and to slow the rate of cus- tomers’ conversions to the new ET. Four persons are included within each customer firm (boxes 6 and 11) to emphasize that the adoption and con- version process of the new ET requires several persons in several functional areas to be made aware of the new ET and become convinced that their company should convert to the new ET. Such a marketing and buying process takes time – many delays and roadblocks usually occur.