Thank you for your kind reply. I will very much welcome an introduction to Professor Ravi Shanmugam. Very much appreciated – an email is tzambito@buyerology.com. And I would like to extend an open invitation to do a guest article anytime on my Buyerology Now blog as well as have further conversations. I am sure they would be fun especially with the nature of this topic!

Thanks!
Tony

I like this post alot and having once guest lectured on this beautiful campus – it evokes fond memories. I agree with the premise of your article wholeheartedly and feel also that the envelope can even be pushed further. In MBA schools today, there should be more emphasis on understanding buyer nehavior and also developing career aspirations for becoming buyer behavior analysts – a specialty I believe will turn into a growing need in the near future. My daughter is in MBA school and I am astounded by how little mention is given to this topic in MBA marketing management. As you know, I have been involved in personas since their origins and still see them as helpful. However, I believe that B2B business must extend far beyond personas into behavaioral buyergraphics that helps to not only understand buyers deeply but also allows for predictive buyer modeling of new B2B realities. This inlcudes even extending far beyond conventional notions of decision-makers, influencers, and gatekeepers into the new B2B realities associated with networks and interdependent ecosystems. Thank you Laura for highlighting a sentiment that I am sure is held by many about how MBA programs must develop more programs to prepare students for a new reality in B2B and one that places buyer behavior analysis and modeling as a key component of MBA learning.

Thanks!
Tony Zambito
Buyerology
http://www.buyerology.com

I’d agree – I’ve presented on B2B for several years as a guest speaker at a couple of different universities. With the exception of a very few forward-thinking marketing professors, most university marketing programs’ curriculum is very much a B2C approach and many students aren’t even aware of the B2B space. So bravo you for getting out and spreading the good word.

I work for an IT consulting company and we provide services to our clients. So when we go in and pitch our case, in response to RFP’s, we try to profile the individuals or the team to whom we try to pitch in but at the same time profile the company as well. I totally agree, with Laura, that Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning are good in terms of identifying the market but when it buyer behavior it all boils down to understanding the individual representing the company, in the context of the company.