MKTG90048 B2B Marketing
The Complete Exam Bible · Semester 2 2026MKTG90048 Overview
- University of Melbourne
- Semester 2 2026
- 11 chapters
- Marketing
MKTG90048 B2B Marketing examines how organisations create, communicate, govern and capture value in exchanges with other organisations.
- Assessed by In-class case study participation 10% · Individual assignment 10% · Group assignment including presentation 30% + 1 more
- Key terms Business market, Customer value, Value-in-use, Value proposition
- How to prepare Revise in connected passes. First, redraw the chapter figures and explain each arrow without notes.
- Most asked What is known about the final exam?
How MKTG90048 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| In-class case study participation | 10% | Individual; continuous across the teaching period |
| Individual assignment | 10% | Individual; Week 4 |
| Group assignment including presentation | 30% | Group; Week 11 |
| End of semester exam | 50% | Individual; two hours during the examination period |
What MKTG90048 covers
Follow the subject from the logic of business markets through value, relationships, procurement and innovation to channels, contracts, sales and pricing.
Business Markets and Buying Context
Organisational exchange, buying actors, relationships and networksBusiness markets involve organisations buying for operations, production, resale or public service.
- Organisational exchange and reciprocal obligations
- Buying roles, influence and authority
- Buyer-seller relationship evidence
- Network constraints and complementors
- Operational value evidence
- Implementation and post-sale coordination
Customer Value and Solutions
Value-in-use, propositions, evidence and business solutionsCustomer value is a buyer-specific balance of relevant benefits and sacrifices, not a synonym for low price, product quality or technical novelty.
- Customer benefits and sacrifices
- Value realised through use
- Evidence-backed value propositions
- Next-best alternative comparison
- Solution processes and co-production
- Value creation and value capture
Relationship Marketing and Lifecycle
Trust, commitment, development, strain and renewalRelationships create the context in which business value is exchanged, but no single label captures their health. Trust concerns confidence in competence, reliability or intentions.
- Relationship marketing objectives
- Trust in competence and intentions
- Commitment, cooperation and satisfaction
- Information-sharing benefits and exposure
- Initiation, development and strain
- Recovery, renewal and exit
Alliances, Franchising and Networks
Inter-organisational forms, hazards and working routinesAlliances, franchises, projects and networks organise cooperation beyond a simple purchase. An alliance allows independent firms to combine resources for a shared opportunity without completing a full merger.
- Complementary assets and alliance motives
- Control, commitment and reversibility
- Franchise format and local adaptation
- Temporary project coordination
- Business network dependencies
- Safeguards, routines and review points
Organisational Buying and Procurement
Buying processes, roles, buy classes and sourcing portfoliosOrganisational buying begins before quotations arrive. A buying organisation recognises a need, translates it into a specification, searches for suppliers, evaluates alternatives, places and receives an order, and reviews performance.
- Purchasing process: trace a requirement from need recognition through specification, sourcing, order, receipt and performance review. The stages are connected; an early specification decision can determine which later alternatives appear feasible.
- Straight rebuy: an established requirement is purchased through familiar routines and known criteria. The task is usually to preserve reliable execution and notice exceptions rather than recreate the entire decision.
- Modified rebuy: the organisation retains substantial experience but reconsiders selected terms such as volume, delivery, specification or supplier. Analysis should state exactly what has reopened and why.
- New task: novelty and uncertainty broaden information search, participation and learning. The seller must help the organisation understand the problem without treating education as permission to bypass procurement controls.
- Buying-centre roles: users experience the outcome, influencers shape criteria, buyers manage commercial acquisition, deciders authorise the choice and gatekeepers control access or information. One person may hold several roles.
- Purchasing portfolio: compare supply risk with profit or operating impact before choosing efficiency, competitive leverage, continuity protection or collaboration. A low-spend item can still be a bottleneck when interruption is serious.
Digital Negotiation and Marketplaces
Influence, concessions, electronic exchange and accountabilityDigital negotiation changes the environment in which influence occurs.
- Digital negotiation: account for reduced social cues, asynchronous timing and a persistent record. Use explicit wording, verify shared facts and move to a richer channel when interpretation or relationship repair requires immediate feedback.
- Interests and positions: a position states the outcome requested, while an interest explains the concern that outcome is meant to serve. Questions reveal whether another arrangement can address the underlying concern.
- Influence tactics: promises and assertive moves operate differently from information sharing and recommendation. A tactic is useful when its evidence, tone and implied relationship fit the recipient and the problem.
- Conditional concessions: connect movement to a reason and reciprocal commitment. The condition should create useful certainty or value, not disguise an unsupported threat or an invented deadline.
- Electronic marketplaces: platforms change reach, search costs, transparency and the basis of comparison. Analyse what the interface makes visible, which service differences it obscures and who controls transaction data.
- AI accountability: drafting and workflow assistance can improve speed, but a salesperson must verify factual claims, protect confidential material and decide what requires human review or direct conversation.
Innovation and Commercialisation
Innovation types, evidence, pilots and market launchInnovation in business markets is broader than a new physical product.
- Innovation types: locate what changes. Products and services alter the offer, processes alter creation or delivery, components alter a part, designs alter linkages, platforms establish a base and business models alter value creation and capture.
- Incremental change: modify an established technology, offer or market without assuming that modest novelty means modest managerial work. Even an incremental change can require customer learning, workflow redesign or new selling evidence.
- Disruptive innovation: treat disruption as a competitive trajectory and market effect, not a synonym for novelty. Technical sophistication or a dramatic launch does not by itself establish that an innovation is disruptive.
- Lead users: seek users whose needs are ahead of the general market and who gain strongly from finding a solution. Their experience can reveal demanding problems and solution ideas before those needs diffuse.
- Commercialisation: connect opportunity selection and development with adoption, pricing, sales, channels, complementary capability and protection. The route must allow the firm to deliver value and capture returns.
- Pilots and evidence: define the uncertainty, comparison, observable outcome and decision rule before starting. A pilot should resolve a question, not merely display activity or generate favourable reactions.
Channel Design and Conflict
Route-to-market functions, structure, incentives and coordinationA business channel is a network of interdependent organisations that makes an offering available for use, not merely a pipe that moves a product.
- Channel functions: allocate information, promotion, contact, matching, negotiation, physical distribution, financing and risk bearing. If an organisation is removed, identify who will perform each task and bear its cost.
- Direct routes: offer control, customer learning and a close interface, while requiring the producer to build reach, fulfilment, service and account capabilities that an intermediary might otherwise provide.
- Intermediaries: can contribute access, local knowledge, inventory, financing, service and risk absorption. Their role should be evaluated by functions performed, not dismissed solely because they add a margin.
- Omnichannel design: coordinate customer movement across routes through shared information, consistent role rules, aligned incentives and a deliberate experience. Adding a digital touchpoint alone does not create integration.
- Channel conflict: diagnose disagreement over goals, roles, territory, price, customers, resources or perceptions. Functional conflict can reveal a problem; destructive conflict blocks information, wastes effort or encourages opportunism.
- Incentive alignment: reward the contribution a channel member actually makes, including lead generation, advice, fulfilment or service. Attribution rules should reduce competition created by measures that recognise only the final transaction.
Contracts and Relationship Governance
Safeguards, flexibility, opportunism and adaptive processesContracts provide a shared account of the exchange: what each party must do, what information must be supplied, how performance will be judged and what can happen after a breach. Their value is not simply legal formality.
- Contract roles: establish shared rules, responsibilities, expectations and information for a defined exchange
- Contract specificity: clarify verifiable obligations without pretending every future contingency can be predicted
- Opportunism: identify self-interested behaviour that exploits dependence, ambiguity or a partner's vulnerable investment
- Specific investment: protect resources that lose value if the focal buyer-supplier relationship ends
- Relational governance: use norms, communication and continuity to coordinate beyond written clauses
- Adaptive processes: define evidence, review points, escalation and proportionate remedies for material change
Sales Force and Value Communication
Sales-marketing coordination, account progress and value proofSales is the bridge between market design and account-level action. Marketing works across segments, value propositions and longer-term programmes, while sales works with named buyers, immediate opportunities and negotiated next steps.
- Role of sales: connect marketing knowledge, the customer relationship and account-level action
- Sales-marketing interface: exchange qualified evidence, feedback and responsibility across the internal boundary
- Sales-force direction: set targets, norms, territories, capability support and useful performance measures
- Account allocation: combine potential with fit, access, probability, learning value and opportunity cost
- Consensus selling: equip a mobiliser to align technical, operational, financial and executive stakeholders
- Value communication: prove a relevant difference after clearing the customer's order-qualifying criteria
B2B Pricing and Value Capture
Cost floors, competitive references, customer value and tacticsB2B pricing combines three reference points that answer different managerial questions. Cost-based reasoning identifies a floor for a stated time horizon. Competitive pricing locates the offer against market alternatives.
- Pricing strategy: choose the market position and customer segment before selecting a transaction tactic
- Cost-based pricing: use seller costs and a return to establish viability for a stated horizon
- Price floors: distinguish a short-run contribution threshold from full long-run cost coverage
- Competitive references: compare offers only after accounting for differences in use and operating consequences
- Value-based pricing: monetise supported differentiation against the customer's next-best alternative
- Discount tactics: exchange concessions for reciprocal value and consider future account or channel expectations
The subject begins by showing why business markets differ from consumer settings: purchases often feed another production or service process, multiple actors influence the decision, and the exchange may depend on continuing technical and commercial coordination.
It then builds a connected toolkit for value propositions, relationship marketing, alliances and networks, organisational buying, digital negotiation, innovation, channels, contracts, sales and pricing.
The teaching design is case-led. The subject guide says cases connect theory with practice, while the examination draws in part on those case materials and discussions.
Effective revision therefore means more than memorising definitions. A strong response identifies the actor and decision, uses a precise framework to explain evidence, tests an alternative or boundary and ends with a qualified action.
This guide uses entirely original practice situations to rehearse that reasoning without reproducing university case questions.
Assessment consists of individual in-class case participation worth 10%, an individual assignment worth 10%, a group assignment including presentation worth 30%, and an individual two-hour end-of-semester examination worth 50%.
The published materials do not state the exam sections, question types, mark allocation or course-specific permitted materials, so students should use the current LMS examination notice for those operational details. The general marking criteria emphasise understanding of theory, analysis, research, and clear writing and referencing.
Worked example · free
Turn a product claim into a B2B value case
- 1Name the buyer process and the present operational problem.
- 1Trace the service feature to a measurable consequence in use.
- 1Compare the consequence with the next-best alternative and include implementation cost.
- 1State the evidence and condition that would revise the recommendation.
Key terms
- Business market
- A market in which organisations exchange offerings used in operations, production, resale or public service.
- Customer value
- The buyer’s assessment of relevant benefits relative to monetary and non-monetary sacrifices.
- Value-in-use
- Value realised through the customer’s actual process of adopting and using an offering.
- Value proposition
- A supported claim explaining why a buyer should prefer an offer to its next-best alternative.
- Relationship marketing
- Activities directed towards establishing, developing and maintaining successful exchanges.
- Buying centre
- The set of organisational actors who use, influence, approve, buy or control access to a purchase.
- Modified rebuy
- A purchase situation in which an organisation reopens selected terms while retaining prior knowledge.
- Channel function
- A task such as information, matching, negotiation, logistics, financing or risk bearing performed in a route to market.
- Opportunism
- Self-interested behaviour that exploits ambiguity, dependence or incomplete safeguards.
- Relational governance
- Coordination through shared norms, information exchange and expectations of continuity.
- Differential value
- The additional customer value an offer provides relative to the next-best alternative.
- Cost floor
- A time-dependent price boundary derived from the costs that a sale must cover.
MKTG90048 FAQ
How is B2B Marketing assessed?
The published assessment has four components: in-class case study participation worth 10%, an individual assignment worth 10%, a group assignment including presentation worth 30%, and an individual two-hour end-of-semester exam worth 50%. The numeric weights add to 100%.
What is known about the final exam?
The official subject guide states that the exam is individual, lasts two hours, occurs during the examination period and is worth 50%. It also says the exam draws in part on case materials and class discussions. The captured files do not publish sections or question types.
How should I revise the weekly cases?
Reconstruct the decision rather than memorising the narrative. Identify the actor, objective, evidence, theory, alternative explanation and boundary that changes the recommendation. Then practise on a new situation so you can transfer the framework rather than reproduce a remembered answer.
What makes a strong customer value proposition?
It connects an offering to a consequence in the buyer’s process, compares that consequence with a next-best alternative, includes implementation costs and risk, and uses evidence the buyer can audit. It also states assumptions that would reduce or reverse the claimed value.
How are relationships and contracts connected?
Relationships support adaptation, information exchange and cooperation, while contracts allocate rights, duties and safeguards. They often complement each other. The appropriate balance depends on uncertainty, dependence, specific investment, verifiability and the cost of changing arrangements later.
What is the key procurement distinction?
Separate the purchasing process from the buying situation and the buying centre. A straight rebuy, modified rebuy or new task changes information needs, while users, influencers, buyers, deciders and gatekeepers can apply different criteria at each stage.
How does value-based pricing differ from cost-plus pricing?
Cost-plus begins with the seller’s cost and adds a margin. Value-based pricing begins with the customer’s next-best alternative and supported differential value. A disciplined decision still checks the cost floor, competitor references, implementation burden and the evidence behind the customer outcome.
Questions students ask in each MKTG90048 chapter
- Why are business markets different?
- Purchases often serve another organisational process, involve several decision roles and continue through implementation, support or renewal. The marketer must connect an offering to operational consequences, provide evidence for actors with different concerns and coordinate what follows the signature. These features make the buying context broader than a single consumer preference or isolated transaction. Chapter 01 · Business Markets and Buying Context
- Is value the same as low price?
- No. Price is one sacrifice, while value also includes operating benefits, implementation work, uncertainty, switching burden and the buyer’s next-best alternative. A lower-priced offer can destroy value through poor performance, and a higher-priced offer can be preferable when supported consequences exceed its additional burdens. The comparison must remain buyer-specific. Chapter 02 · Customer Value and Solutions
- Does a long relationship mean a good relationship?
- No. Duration can reflect valuable routines, accumulated knowledge and reliable performance, but it can also result from dependence or difficult switching. Diagnose present benefits, observable behaviour and unresolved strain. A long tie deserves neither automatic renewal nor automatic termination; its future should be judged against repair costs, alternatives and remaining joint value. Chapter 03 · Relationship Marketing and Lifecycle
- Why do firms form alliances?
- Firms may seek complementary technology, market access, learning, scale or shared risk without completing a full merger or acquisition. This form is attractive when joint activity matters but permanent integration would be excessive. The case still needs a fit argument linking specific resources and interdependence to the proposed scope and governance. Chapter 04 · Alliances, Franchising and Networks
- What changes across buy classes?
- Novelty, uncertainty, search effort and participation generally increase as a purchase moves from straight rebuy towards new task. The useful diagnosis is not the label alone. Identify which elements are familiar, which have reopened and what new evidence is needed. A familiar component purchased at a sharply different volume may be a modified rebuy because capacity or delivery terms require reconsideration, not a completely new task. Chapter 05 · Organisational Buying and Procurement
- What makes email negotiation difficult?
- Reduced social cues, asynchronous pace and durable records can increase ambiguity, premature positions and tone errors even while improving speed and traceability. A recipient cannot easily see hesitation or repair a misreading in real time. The response is deliberate clarity: separate issues, use checkable facts, ask a precise question and choose a richer channel when nuance or relationship repair is central. Chapter 06 · Digital Negotiation and Marketplaces
- Is every new technology disruptive?
- No. Disruption describes a competitive path and market effect, not merely novelty or technical impressiveness, so it requires evidence beyond the product being new. First identify the object and degree of change. Then examine whom the innovation initially serves, how its performance and value proposition develop, and what happens to established competitors and markets over time. Chapter 07 · Innovation and Commercialisation
- Why use an intermediary?
- Intermediaries can provide reach, local knowledge, inventory, finance, service or risk bearing that would be costly for a producer or customer to absorb. Evaluate the function, its cost and the customer value it creates. A margin is not evidence of waste when the intermediary performs necessary work more effectively; equally, historical presence does not prove that every existing task remains useful. Chapter 08 · Channel Design and Conflict
- Why make a contract more specific?
- Precision can identify obligations, provide verification evidence and constrain opportunistic renegotiation. It is especially valuable when one party must commit a relationship-specific asset before the other party performs. A strong answer names the exposed investment and the behaviour being constrained, then explains why the proposed term makes that behaviour easier to detect or less attractive. Chapter 09 · Contracts and Relationship Governance
- Why do sales and marketing conflict?
- They often work with different time horizons, information and measures. Marketing may focus on segments and longer-run positioning, while sales faces named opportunities and immediate revenue. The difference can improve judgement when each side contributes distinct evidence, but it becomes destructive when lead definitions, customer priorities, handoffs or incentives remain incompatible. Chapter 10 · Sales Force and Value Communication
- What does cost-based pricing establish?
- It provides a floor or viability check for a stated horizon. A long-run calculation needs direct and indirect cost plus a return, while a short-run threshold may focus on direct cost and contribution. Cost does not by itself show competitive position, customer willingness to pay or whether expected volume will change when the price changes. Chapter 11 · B2B Pricing and Value Capture
How to study for the exam
Revise in connected passes. First, redraw the chapter figures and explain each arrow without notes. Second, build a case ledger for every topic: actor, objective, evidence, mechanism, decision and reversal condition. Third, work the original practice prompts under time pressure and compare your reasoning with the model. Allocate frameworks distinct roles instead of listing them.
Value explains the customer consequence; buying theory identifies actors and process; relationship, alliance, channel and contract concepts allocate coordination and safeguards; sales and pricing turn the value claim into action and capture. Use the supplied marking criteria as a final checklist: accurate theory, genuine analysis, relevant research and clear expression.
For the exam’s operational format, rely on the current LMS notice because the captured materials establish only the two-hour duration, 50% weight and case connection.
Your AI Marketing tutor for MKTG90048
Stuck on a hard MKTG90048 question? Sia is AskSia’s AI Marketing tutor — ask any MKTG90048 B2B Marketing question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how the course is actually taught and assessed. Read this whole study guide free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
