Decision-Making Unit (DMU)

The Decision Making Unit (DMU) is a collection or team of individuals who participate in a buyer decision process. Generally DMU relates to business or organisational buying decisions rather than to those of a family for example. There are a number of key players in this process namely the initiators, the gatekeepers, the buyers, the deciders, the users and the influencers. Let’s consider these individually prior to applying the decision making unit to an example of organisational buying. More >>

Buyer Decision Process (New Lesson)

The buyer decision process represents a number of stages that the purchaser will go through before actually making the final purchase decision. The consumer buyer decision process and the business/organisational buyer decision process are similar to each other. Obviously core to this process is the fact that the purchase is generally of value in monetary terms and that the consumer/business will take time to actually assess alternatives.More >>

Services Marketing Mix (New Lesson)

As we discussed in the lesson on services, there are a series of fundamental characteristics such as intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability which are unique to a service. The traditional marketing mix which includes product, place, price and promotion could be stretched to compensate for these factors. Full lesson >>

Services Marketing (New Lesson)

A service is the action of doing something for someone or something. It is largely intangible (i.e. not material). You cannot touch it. You cannot see it. You cannot taste it. You cannot hear it. You cannot feel it. So a service context creates its own series of challenges for the marketing manager since he or she must communicate the benefits of a service by drawing parallels with imagery and ideas that are more tangible. Full lesson >>