Competitive environment: the paradigm-shift market orientation-performance relationship

The study analyses the dominant market conditions in the world economy at the beginning of the new Millennium and comes to the conclusion that intensified competition, globalization and changes in consumer behaviour require a re-evaluation of managerial attitudes towards markets and as a consequence necessitates a change in the managerial marketing philosophy. The new marketing concept is called value-orientation by the author. What is new about value orientation, compared to marketing-orientation is, that, beside the customer-focus, competition-focus emerges as the second, equally dominant, factor in managerial thinking. The study, using the thoughts of Heiens, organizes companies into four categories according to the intensity of their customer or competition focus. These four categories are: strategically integrated enterprises, marketing warriors, customer preoccupied and strategically inept companies.