3Markers of B2B
3.1. Reality of the market
Buying on the market is much more of an option in B2B than in B2C. If in practice, the household can only produce a small number of products or services necessary for its consumption, the company in theory has this possibility, and it is then by choice that it calls upon the market. At the same time, by buying on the market, the company involves its service provider in an industrial sector that he or she must know and master.
3.1.1. Market option
3.1.1.1. Outsourcing, the driving force behind service companies
Daniel Cohen explained that it was by interfering in the management of the firm that, starting in the 1980s, the shareholder challenged the rules of historical industrial capitalism, in particular by limiting the firm’s activity to what is the core of its business and by calling on the market for everything else (Cohen 2018, p. 97). The firm then has a choice between making or having made. We are entering the era of subcontracting and outsourcing, which concern service activities as much as the manufacture of all or part of a product. Whether in the 1950s and 1960s, there were still cooks, guards, gardeners and switchboard operators among the staff of companies, these tasks have been long entrusted to specialized service providers. More and more jobs are being outsourced; today’s administrative staff, accountants, tomorrow’s human resources managers or financial managers. This concerns both industrial and service companies. ...