The role of marketing information in the assessment of a contractor’s
4. Assessment of a negotiating partners credibility in the light of the research results
Among enterprises which conducted negotiations there were only three that admitted that they did not obtain any information and claimed that their workers possessed long-standing experience and a wide knowl-edge of the sector which were sufficient enough to conduct talks. The other respondents i.e. 264 enterprises gathered information in order to support a process of negotiation and this was mainly the information needed to verify a negotiating partners credibility (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. The range and frequency of obtaining information in the context of the assessment of a negotiating partner’s credibility Source: Own study.
The measurement of frequency of obtaining information was per-formed by the means of a 5-point grading scale where, value 1 means that information in an indicated range was never collected, value 2 – information was rarely collected, 3 – from time to time, 4 – often, whereas value 5 – information was always collected in order to sup-port a process of negotiations. The results of measurement were pre-sented by means of the arithmetic mean on an examined sample.
In light of respondents answers, the information that was collected most often was a contractor’s financial credibility. Only 1% of re-spondents did not obtain any information in this range, whereas, as much as 90% always or often needed this information. Similar results were obtained in the case of reliability and timelines of orders, as this information was gathered often or always by 87.5% of respondents, whereas the proportion of “never” answered, only amounted to 0.8%.
Likewise, high means from answers were obtained in the case of in-formation concerning the quality of services, the size of a contractor’s company and its technical base as well as the reputation it had in the sector. The last item of information was collected always or often by 70.9% of respondents, whereas only 2.7% indicated that they were never interested in this particular issue.
In the light of the research results the information that was gath-ered less often, concerned sales and the financial results achieved by a contracting party as well as their profitability. This information was not collected by 56% of respondents, however, on the other hand, nearly a half of all respondents needed it always or often.
Information about achievements (patents, certificates or granted awards), a contractor’s innovativeness, dynamics of development and business ethics is collected by one third of respondents but only from time to time. What seems really surprising is the little interest shown in a company’s history because this information was collected “often”
only by one third of respondents, whereas a similar percentage do not collect this information at all or very rarely. Similarly, one quarter of respondents seldom or never gather information about contractor’s or their regular customers’ share in a market.
While analyzing the range of presented information in terms of en-terprise features certain regularities can be observed. For example, big enterprises more frequently gathered information about a contractor’s sales and their financial results – 92% of big entities always, often or
from time to time collected this data, whereas in the group of medium enterprises only four in five were interested in this information. Like-wise, information in this range was collected by nearly 98% of all entities with mixed capital, whereas in the case of companies with solely Polish capital, the proportion was lower and amounted to 77%.
Information about a contractor’s profitability was collected by nearly 88% of the big enterprises, but by a smaller number of medium sized enterprises – amounting to three quarters. Data in this range was gathered by nine in ten entities with foreign or mixed capital and 78%
of enterprises with Polish capital. Similar results were obtained in the case of differences in frequency of obtaining data concerning the mar-ket share of a negotiating partner.
Data concerning a company’s history was collected more frequently by retailers and companies with foreign capital (nearly 84%) than wholesalers or enterprises with Polish capital (two thirds of the exam-ined entities).
A significant difference can be observed in the case of a negotiat-ing partner’s regular customers as this information was collected by nine out of ten big companies and only two thirds of medium-sized entities. More often than not, the data was collected by enterprises operating in the wholesale sector of the market (three quarters of re-spondents) compared to retailers (58%) and companies with solely foreign capital (92%).
Information about a contractor’s dynamics of development was more collected more often by manufacturers (87%) compared to com-panies operating in the service sector as in this case the proportion was 71%. Such data was collected by 93% of entities with mixed capital and three quarters of enterprises with Polish capital.
The issue of reliability was more important for wholesalers (ser-vice providers as well), and the proportion of companies operating in this sector which gathered information about timeliness and payment history amounted to nearly 100%. Enterprises operating in wholesale sector of the market more often than retailers collected information about technical base and contracting party’s manufacturing capacities.
This information was also gathered by nearly 100% companies with foreign capital.
In the light of the presented results it can be noted that there are certain types of information that is collected by a significant majority
of respondents with a comparable intensity, regardless of a type of enterprise (e.g. contractor’s financial credibility, the quality of pro-vided services, reputation and company size). It can be observed that some kinds of information were collected more seldom than others and in this case it was easier to spot certain differences in the fre-quency of gathering data, resulting (as it seems) from the features of enterprise and the character of business activity.
In order to collect presented information resources respondents used a number of sources. Among the most frequently used were:
– Internet, previous respondent’s contractors and a negotiating partner – on average 98% of all respondents used this source of information and three quarters assessed it as very useful.
– Negotiating partner’s customers – they were a source of infor-mation in the opinion of 96% of respondents and two third as-sessed collected information as very useful.
– Trade exhibitions, conferences and fairs, as well as professional literature, trade and professional papers as well as newspapers and information services – were used by 90% of respondents, but only every third or every fourth of them assessed this source of information as very useful.
– Consultants and specialists from a given sector, information bulletins and prospectuses were a source of information for 86% of respondents, however, only one quarter of them as-sessed them as very useful.
– Institutions such as the Polish Chamber of Commerce, the Sta-tistical Office and other archives and public registers were a source of information for 80% of enterprises and a fifth of them as-sessed the Polish Chamber of Commerce as a very useful source whereas the other institutions received such a high grade only from 1215% of respondents.
On average three out of four enterprises used information sources such as: national and international databases, credit information agen-cies, organization rankings, Economic Information Bureaus and Insti-tute of Market or Consumption and Business Cycle Research. Data-bases and organization rankings were evaluated as very useful by one fifth of respondents who used these information sources, whereas in the remaining cases a proportion of such positive evaluations was definitely lower (1117%).
In light of received opinions certain sources were definitely used less frequently (by half of respondents) and they included: the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, European Information Centers, trade units of foreign embassies in Poland and the commer-cial counselor’s office of Polish embassies in other countries as well as the Polish-foreign Chambers of Commerce. However, it must be observed that these sources are devoted to gather information for ne-gotiations with foreign partners. In the research sample, the enter-prises which confirmed that they conduct international negotiations (i.e. established business contacts with partners abroad, was connected with an international range of their market) or operate in a domestic market but have foreign contractors (providers) – amounted to 67%.
Figure 2. Fulfillment of the information needs and the verification of a contractor’s credibility
Source: Own study.
It must be noted that the respondents who gathered information for assessing a contracting party’s credibility definitely valued more the primary sources rather than the secondary ones and used them more often. The proportion of respondents who confirmed to obtaining pri-mary information ranged between 86% and 98% and this information was collected during the market research by one third of the entities
surveyed. The most frequent method was the observational method (three quarters of respondents conducted research by means of this technique) and personal interview (70% of responses). What might be considered surprising is that only one out of five enterprises that con-ducted market research in order to explore primary sources of infor-mation used the questionnaire method – it is generally considered the most popular among survey measurement methods.
While assessing the usefulness of the collected information, the majority of respondents (four out of five enterprises) admitted that it was useful in the context of verification of a contractor’s credibility.
However, not all of the respondents were equally satisfied with the data range. Three quarters described the obtained information as „satisfac-tory,” whereas only one fifth assessed it as „fully sufficient” (Fig. 2).
5. Conclusion
In light of the presented discussion it can be observed that the enter-prises involved in this study definitely value the role of information in business, realizing that business decisions require reliable support. It can be proved by the responses of those who in a significant propor-tion, obtained a wide spectrum of information to support the negotia-tion processes and very often, it was the informanegotia-tion that might help to verify the credibility of negotiating partners. While building resources of knowledge the companies used numerous sources of information, both secondary and primary ones. Although entrepreneurs are not fully satisfied with the information they gathered, especially when assess-ing its usefulness in the context of the verification of a business part-ners’ credibility, it must be emphasized that this information definitely enriches the decision-making resources of negotiators.
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