Definition: Market orientation is a business strategy that places the customer at the center of the product development process by researching his needs to design solutions for them. It is a way to do business that uses the consumer’s need as the starting point of the business model.
What Does Market Orientation Mean?
In the past, the common practice was to develop a product first and then find a market for it. This method was very inclined to failure in itself because there was no previous research to back the fact that the product was serving an actual need. In some cases, the product could be a great idea but the market didn’t need it at all, and that caused the invention to fail.
A market orientation approach is one that first researches the consumer’s needs before it starts developing something for it. The product development process, therefore, starts by studying what the market is actually requiring at the moment and then Research and Development Departments (R&D) can work to create something that fits that need.
By creating something that actually fits a previously identified need companies can increase the chances that its new products have to succeed.
Example
Beta Corporation Co. is a company that develops web design applications to help beginners to design websites more easily. The company was founded by a Systems Engineer called Orlando Westchester, who identified that many businesses and individuals didn’t have a clue on how to design a website. After studying how to teach them to do it easily, he created a web-based application called WebPress, that facilitated the process through a viewer-friendly platform that didn’t required coding at all.
The idea was very successful and it revolutionized the way websites are designed. Now millions of people have the capacity to create tailored websites for many different purposes such as business, personal, non-profit organization and others. By employing a market orientation approach, Orlando could develop something that actually fit an existing need, instead of creating something that he thought would work.
