It must live and act in de short term and in the long term. Conner therefore points out that a company is most successful when it selects wisely the balance between now and the future rather than choose one or the other. .
The theory of market orientation was developed by Kohli and Jaworski (1990), who outline a framework that deals with information management protocol and includes generation and dissemination of and responsiveness to market intelligence, so that the benefits derived from the information can be enhanced when sharing among the functions in an organization (Kim, Han et al, 1998). Kohli and Jaworski define market intelligence as having broader focus than customers and competitors and suggest that it involves consideration of (1) exogenous market factors ( e.g. competition, regulation) that affect customer needs and preferences and (2) current as well as future needs of customers. This framework is supported by the definition of three behavioral components : .
1. Customer orientation: advocates a continuous, proactive disposition toward meeting customers" exigencies.
2. Competitor orientation: identify own strengths and weaknesses and keep pace with or stay ahead of the rest of the field.
3. Interfunctional coordination: integrating all other functions of business with those of marketing. .
All three of them are engaged in intelligence generation, dissemination and responsiveness to the collected information. They posit that the three behavioral components are equally important in their informational value. Deshpande, Farley and Webster (1993) note that the conceptual distinction made by Narver and Slater between a customer and a market orientation in not entirely consistent with the Kohli and Jaworski definition. Deshpande, Farley and Webster see customer and market orientation as being synonymous and hence distinguishable from a competitor orientation. They do agree with Day and Wensley (1988), who conclude that effective marketing strategy requires a balanced mix of customer and competitor analyses.
