part of simultaneous engineering or with key customers based on the Lead User
concept (Weiber and Jacob
2000
).
• Cooperation when developing a special market.
• The joint organization of events, fairs and exhibitions, performance
demonstrations, commercial events, etc.
These cases are also included under the term “project-based cooperation”, which
need to be designed, implemented and controlled in business-to-business marketing
and in technical selling.
An inter-company cooperation in sales management is always beneficial from
marketing perspectives, from a participating supplier’s point of view, if it helps to
establish, strengthen, develop and permanently expand competitive advantages.
This also includes the case in which a company seeks to cooperate with a stronger
company in the respective field in order to address internal competitive
disadvantages. Competitive advantages acquired by the affiliation of companies
(such as a syndicate or supplier coalition) are directly related to the individual
positioning, the reputation and the perceived competitive advantages by customers
of each of the companies involved. There is generally a correlation between the
isolated market position of the individual cooperation partners and their
356
B. Gu¨nter
performance as one of a group of companies cooperating in a project (or beyond a
single project).
2
Forms of Horizontal and Vertical Cooperation
In principle, market-related cooperation can be classified into horizontal and
vertical cooperation, depending on the type of parties involved and the value
creation levels in which they operate (Gu¨nter
1992
; Zentes et al.
2005
).
Vertical cooperation exists when companies from different value creation levels
along the supply chain within a sector cooperate, i.e. companies in the supplier level
(s) with companies in the purchaser level(s), whereby this may relate to down-
stream processors, downstream users or downstream sellers (dealers, distributors).
When marketing technical products, the service planning and definition of the
service providers (suppliers) frequently take place in coordination with the princi-
pal, the customer (“
downstream cooperation
”). In this case, the customer’s
specifications must be taken into consideration or negotiated. Joint developments
with customers are becoming increasingly common. Studies in business-to-busi-
ness marketing have shown that the “
in-supplier
” has an advantage in these kinds of
negotiations. This is the supplier who already maintains supply relationships with
this customer, rather than other competitors (“
out-supplier
”).
In addition, the customer occasionally provides goods, services, or property
rights that are required for the success of the overall delivery. The integration of
these project elements also requires a cooperation or coordination between the
customer and the supplier(s).
Another form of cooperative business relationships may be required for a
supplier upstream: with subcontractors (suppliers). In this case developing an
offer for the customer must also include the integration of deliveries (“
upstream
cooperation
”).
Besides the two forms of
vertical
cooperation mentioned above for sales
planning and implementation,
horizontal
cooperation is also possible and often
necessary on the supplier level. This refers to the cooperation with
(a) Suppliers, which provide
supplementary
deliveries and services (“
horizontal-
complementary cooperation
”)
(b) Suppliers,
which
provide
similar
services
(“
horizontal-competitive
cooperation
”)
Cooperation between suppliers in group (b) is necessary if the customer divides a
homogeneous overall order across several suppliers, e.g. in order to reduce pro-
curement risk, or if an individual supplier is not able to manage the entire order
capacity alone. Competition regulations problems must always be reviewed for this
kind of cooperation, but are only likely to arise in the latter case, if at all.
Table
1
provides an overview of the important forms of horizontal and vertical
cooperation in business-to-business marketing. It already includes the difference
Project Cooperation
357
between project-based and cross-project cooperation, which will be explained
below.
What are the main reasons for the affiliation of independent companies in one of
these forms of cooperation?
Two considerations play a particularly important role as influence factors for
horizontal and vertical cooperation in business-to-business marketing. Firstly, joint
offers, i.e. system transactions (system selling, “package offers”, major projects,
turnkey transactions) generally require the cooperation of suppliers with comple-
mentary goods and services. This is particularly the case for horizontal-
complementary cooperation in the industrial plant business and in business with
system technologies (Backhaus and Voeth
2010
; Backhaus et al.
1994
; Engelhardt
and Gu¨nter
1981
). Horizontal cooperation between competitors has also become a
key topic in recent years for a second reason. The combination of resources is
required in order to become and remain competitive in international markets in the
light of rapid technological progress. This is also at the heart of the discussion
regarding strategic alliances, which are often formed between competitors to
combine resources to pursue (potentially global) strategic objectives. Other
objectives of horizontal forms of cooperation are shown in Table
2
.
A key reason for vertical cooperation between manufacturers and downstream
processors or assemblers is the intended acceleration of development projects and
product innovations. This aspect is currently particularly important for cooperation
between suppliers and their purchasers, such as cooperation in the form of
Table 1
Forms of vertical and horizontal cooperation
(examples
, based on Gu¨nter
1992
, p. 800)
Horizontal cooperation
Vertical cooperation
With competitors
With
complementary
suppliers
With companies
at supplier
level(s)
With
companies at
purchaser
level(s)
Project-
based
cooperation
• Syndicates
• Industrial consortia
• Underwriting
consortia
• Sales promotion
campaigns, e.g. fair
cooperation
• Industrial
consortia (plant
engineering)
• Sales
promotion
campaigns
• General
contractors with
subcontractors
• R&D
cooperation
• Simultaneous
engineering
• R&D
cooperation
• Development
cooperation
• Lead user
concepts
Cross-
project
cooperation
• Joint ventures
(type A)
• Export associations
• Purchasing
associations
• Joint advertising,
sector advertising
• Strategic alliances
(type A)
• Joint ventures
(type B)
• Export
associations
• Logistics
systems
• Strategic
alliances
(type B)
• Distribution
cooperations
• Just-in-time
systems
• Subcontracting/
contract
manufacturing
• Framework
contracts
• Just-in-time
systems
• Distribution
cooperations
• Multi-stage
marketing
• Framework
contracts
358
B. Gu¨nter
simultaneous engineering. In this case, the particularly intense coordination of
development planning—an important variable in the level of loyalty—is expected
to save time and prevent errors and changes (Chelsom
1989
). Ultimately, the joint
development and management of an end consumer market is an incentive for
vertical cooperation for the primary stages, which market capital goods in the
broadest sense and which is extremely important in the face of the derived demand
for raw and input materials, semi-finished products and components/parts in these
areas.
3
Project-Based and Cross-Project Cooperation
Inter-company cooperation may initially relate to a single project defined by
collaboration partners. In this case, the cooperation ends on conclusion (execution,
delivery) of the project. The intensity of the cooperation, the form of the
relationships, the involvement of departments and employees may vary during
the course of the project.
The term “supplier association” or
supplier coalition
is used to describe the
cooperation of suppliers in a horizontal cooperation, as well as a supplier network
with subcontractors, for an individual project (Gu¨nter
1977
). This kind of coopera-
tion may take different structural, organizational and contractual forms. These
kinds of coalitions are covered in Sect.
5
.
In some cases of cooperation decisions there is the option to continue an initial
cooperation beyond a single project. This cross-project cooperation involves vari-
ous benefits for the partners. For example clear interfaces, positive experiences of a
smooth cooperation, cost aspects, image factors and other reasons may prompt
repeat cooperation. In this case the project-based marketing is transformed to
relationship marketing (Bruhn
2012
).
The following section focuses on cooperation based on a single project and the
associated marketing decisions.
Table 2
Typical objectives of horizontal marketing cooperation
1. Capacity expansion, exploitation of economies of scale
2. Program extension, economies of scope
3. Access to unique selling points, know-how, etc., acquisition/strengthening of competence
4. Market access, market development (esp. national markets with governmental access barriers,
or the like)
5. Risk reduction (e.g. in connection with the distribution of project deliveries)
6. Strengthening the market position on markets
Project Cooperation
359
4
Marketing-Based Features of Project Cooperations
4.1
Customer Orientation Through Cooperation
Suppliers may cooperate for a variety of reasons and motives. From a marketing
perspective, these kinds of decisions are embedded in terms of the intended position
in
achieving
potential
competitive
advantages
(comparative
competitive
advantages). This immediately raises the question of the market and customer
orientation of cooperation strategies.
Vertical project cooperation between suppliers and customers represents an
element of customer acquisition and customer loyalty from the perspective of the
participating suppliers. Similar to vertical diversification or downstream integration
and the path to downstream processing, this cooperation aims to influence the
purchaser level and generate commitment (S
€
ollner
1993
, p. 134) in favor of the
supplier. In this case, cross-level considerations can play a significant role. For
example, this is the case if the supplier targets the downstream stages of their direct
customer in terms of multi-stage marketing and targets the development of down-
stream markets together with this customer, e.g. downstream processing or OEM
companies and end users (Gu¨nter
1997
, p. 215 et seqq.).
Horizontal cooperation between suppliers in technical selling enable the creation
and bundling of competitive advantages on sales markets based on a joint appear-
ance. Customer analysis plays a key role in this respect. The analysis of perfor-
mance requirements and the buying network (Bristor
1987
; Kl
€
oter
1997
p. 44 et
seqq.) must be used to review which competitive advantages perceived by the
customer (customer benefits; Gu¨nter
2007
) the supplier being considered has and
which benefits potential cooperation partners can add in a cooperation. This also
shows that, in addition to performance elements and conditions, soft factors, such as
the reputation of a cooperation partner perceived by customers, are important for
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