Abstract
D.Comm. (Business Management)
Market orientation is increasingly becoming recognized as the basis and the
starting point of effective business management. It has received extensive
publicity in recent years, indeed so much so that the notion that businesses
need to respond to markets and satisfy their customers' needs seems to be so
widely accepted now that it scarcely needs saying. As the marketplace evolves
under the converging pressures of changing demographics, economics,
technology, and social mores, so do organisations change, along with the nature
of cooperation and competition among them. As organisations change, so must
their management philosophies. To survive in the future, everybusiness will have
to be customer focused and market-driven and flexible in its ability to deliver
superior value to changing customers in the competitive marketplace.
On the grounds of poor service rendered by South African enterprises in general
and manufacturing enterprises in particular, the research problem chosen for this
study was the cloud of suspicion hanging over the market orientation and quality
of service characterising South African manufacturing enterprises.
The main emphasis was on market orientation and more particularly on
determining whether manufacturers of consumer and industrial products and the
different branches of the manufacturing industry differed to a statistically
significant extent in their market orientation.
A questionnaire was sent to respondents by mail to collect the necessary
information. Sections A, Band C of the questionnaire were subjected to factor
analyses and coefficient alpha in order to determine the validity and
dependability of the questionnaire. The statistical analyses revealed that the
questionnaire has a high degree of internal validity and dependability.
Besides determining normal descriptive statistics, such as frequencies, averages
and standard deviations, routine statistical tests, such as t-tests, Chi-squared
tests and variance analyses were performec' where necessary. A significance
level of 0,05 was used throughout. In the case of significant variance analyses
post-hoc Tukey tests were performed to determine which groups differ in their
average scores for the dimensions of market orientation.
It is concluded that South African manufacturing enterprises are not fully market
oriented yet. A difference in market orientation between manufacturers of
consumer and industrial products was found, namely that market orientation is
more pronounced among manufacturers of industrial than of consumer products,
albeit not to a statistically significant extent. It was also found that the branches
of the manufacturing industry do not differ to an statistically significant extent
regarding their market orientation.
On balance it is clear that South African manufacturing enterprises will have to
pay closer attention to the handling of complaints, to personnel focus and to
internal as well as external communication if they are to become more market
oriented.