The Joint Effects of Customer and Competitor Orientation on Marketing Performance: A Case of an Industry Leading Firm in Turkey

Abstract

The study was conducted in an industry leading company to examine the two dimensions of market orientation (customer orientation and competitor orientation) from the perspective of its sales employees and customers and to explain their relationship with marketing performance. The research data were collected from company’s sales group field employees on the firm side and company’s sales dealer employees on the consumer side. With the research, it was aimed to measure the differences, changes and relations between regions, years, and parties (employee-customer) based on three-year measurements carried out in 7 geographical regions (18 provinces) throughout the country at the scale of an industry-leading company. The first finding points to the significant relationship between marketing performance and customer orientation. The second finding reveals that the firm tends towards customer-oriented behaviors in macroeconomic growth periods and towards competitor-oriented behaviors in recession periods. Another important finding is that the analysis at the level of geographical regions indicates that there are significant differences between regions, but it is understood that this difference is caused by a small number of provinces. In this context, it is possible to say that the country market reflects similar orientation trends in general.

Keywords

• Market orientation
• Customer orientation
• Competitor orientation
• Interfunctional coordination
• Marketing performance

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