ORIENTASI PELANGGAN PADA PEMASARAN PELAYARAN NIAGA (Study Empirik terhadap Perilaku Chaterer pada Pasar Kapal Tramper dan Liner)

Abstract

Marketing of shipping companies is not only concerned with the development and implementation of
successful strategies. For marketing to be successful there needs to be a marketing orientation throughout the
company which fosters the marketing concept and demonstrates a marketing approach to all internal and external
activities. The concept of customer orientation in business markets has attracted attention from both
academics and managers and it has been widely used in the marketing discipline. The term customer oriented
firms is used to describe how knowledgeable the firm is about the clients’ needs and how responsive the firm is to
them in terms of the continuous value creation and delivery. Despite the increasing literature being focused on
customer orientation and business relationships in general, there is a lack of literature explaining the marketing
orientation in shipping companies. Shipping marketing can be described by means of all practical aspects within
a marketing program, such as market analysis, segmentation, planning, differentiation, positioning, promotion
and transport service production. A marketing orientation is based around a philosophy, which places the charterer
and shipper first, and it recognizes that every action taken by the shipping company ultimately affects the
customer relationship. Therefore, a necessary precondition of an effective shipping marketing is the understanding
of the different needs the charterers and shippers have within the different market segments. The weakness of
understanding the needs the client groups have, leads to the weakness of correct marketing planning and to the
failure of providing the desired transport services. The article begins with a brief discussion and definitions for
the marketing of shipping companies. Then, the framework of customer orientation in shipping companies is
analyzed. The paper is based on an empirical research, which concerns the buying behavior in the tramp and
liner market. Consequently, the psychology and buying behavior of a shipping company’s clients are examined,
as well as the charterers’ and shippers’ transportation needs, decision processes and the factors influencing them.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings in terms of the implications for both theory and shipping
practice.
Keywords : Marketing of shipping companies; customer orientation; marketing discipline; tramp and liner
market.