Market Orientation & Innovation
The mission of agriculture and the food industry is to feed the world in a sustainable way. This is possible only when food and agribusiness offers good prospects for the brightest and most ambitious employees and entrepreneurs. However, the share of food and agribusiness in economies is constantly declining. Consequently it is hard for some parts of the food and agribusiness complex to be profitable, attract resources (including employees) and invest in sustainability.
Market orientation holds that “the key to achieving organizational goals is being more effective than competitors in creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value to your target markets” However, appropriating value also is crucial, because it is the incentive to invest.
Key concepts are market-oriented and entrepreneurial decision-making, including product innovation and branding. Recent research has applied advanced theories in psychology and consumer behaviour (e.g. construal level theory) to understand strategic marketing behaviour of micro firms. Recent research projects have investigated how market orientation increases the proficiency of marketing channel functions and thus the final customers’ satisfaction.
CORMEC specialist Dr Verhees is eager to share what he has learned over the years with stakeholders in food and agribusiness, including farmers and horticultural growers. Moreover, he believes that marketing scientists firms in food and agriculture should work together to make marketing theory and methods more relevant for food and agribusiness.
Here you can find some video’s detailing some of the aforementioned concepts: