Emirates Airline’s core objective as a business entity is to provide quality service and cater the needs and wants of the consumers on a global level consistently, with the competition intense and dynamic, the success factors that led Emirates Airlines to be one of the leading airlines is heavily influenced by the role of the buying centre concept and its effects on the buying behaviours of the consumers.
The concept is based on the purchasing behaviour in a complex corporate environment that consists of large scale sales, like an environment like an airline and consequently, focuses on the producers, government units, institutions and reseller’s behaviour that eventually affects the consumer buying behaviour.
The buying centre is a group of people, which starts with the users, who will actually use the products, such as the pilots, staff and on ground team members at the Emirates, the users also, do the product evaluation based on the specifications (Proven Models, 2016).
The influencers, at Emirates are the technical personnel, i.e. engineers, they assist at the Emirates in evaluating the product specification and their role is vital in terms of systematic innovation and bringing something new to the fleet with regards to system and flight capabilities.
The buyers are the people, who negotiate with vendors, once the specification is finalized, the selection of vendors at Emirates is influenced by other members and for repeat buy the buyer will influence the vendor selection.
Since, Emirates, buying centre decisions involve a huge amount of investment, it is the deciders who eventually make the final decision, that includes the management of the Emirates, every section have their own management teams, however they are centrally led by the head of Emirates.
The gatekeepers are the final members of the buying centre, and their role is to keep the tabs on the information flow, thus all communication that will be done for a buying decision at the Emirates will be routed through the gatekeepers.
The 4 factors that influence Emirates business buying decisions are environmental such as competitive forces e.g. Etihad Airways activities. Organizational factors of Emirates in relation to the mission, and quality policies. Interpersonal factor of Emirates relates to the communication of the people involved in the process and Individual factor of Emirates refers to the positions, age, education level and personality of the people involved in the process.
Buyer Behaviour:
The primary motivation of the buying centre process is to create services and promote it to be able to service the customers on a constant basis and importantly to be able to sustain the business model, the customer service phenomena are most central for Emirates with the process starting from ticket booking and ending at the airlines’ luggage belt and the customers eventual exit from the airport.
The segmentation at Emirates is done in relation to the services provided i.e. economy class, business class and first class, the concept of service at Emirates is to maintain high standards at all time and this includes the crew and the personnel’s connecting the customer from the booking of the ticket (Emirates, 2016).
The decision making in terms of buying can be explained by understating the factors, starting with the culture that includes the impact on the attitudes and beliefs, by family, friends, opinion leaders and marketing (Learn Marketing, 2016).
The social status explains the behavioural pattern with regards to the environment and mostly depends on the pay scale.
Maslow hierarchy of needs aptly explains the behavioural patterns in terms of buying needs that move from step by step, i.e. physiological, safety, self esteem, and self actualisation behavioural needs.
The consumers’ behavioural pattern will in essence be affected due to the cultural impact, social status and the satisfaction level of the service utilized.
References:
Emirates (2016). Our Partners. Available at http://www.emirates.com/english/skywards/about/partners/our-partners.aspx# [Accessed 28 March. 2016].
Learn Marketing (2015). Factors influencing buying behaviour. Available at http://www.learnmarketing.net/Factors%20influencing%20consumer%20buying%20behaviour.html [Accessed 28 March. 2016].
Proven Models (2016). Six Buying Roles. Available at http://www.provenmodels.com/550/six-buying-roles/frederick-e.-webster--yoram-wind [Accessed 28 March. 2016].
