Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

I haven't heard this one in a long time. This is so academic.

A market oriented company makes its marketing decisions on the pricing of goods and services, product development and distribution heavily guided by the study of the characteristics of its market. This can be done through segmentation techniques such as demographics, lifestyle characteristics, past buying behavior. This is often instituted through surveying, polling, interviewing, focus groups, case studies, etc. An emotional connection is attempted to be established with the consumer.

A product-oriented company on the other hand tends to study the market and its own resources, attempting to create a better product offer than its competitors. Product orientated companies tend to benchmark and attempt to outperform their direct competitors on the features of the product.

Product oriented can be better described by the famous Henry Ford comment "you can get any color of car as long as it is black".
Marketing oriented basically puts your ear in the consumer desires to develop the right product (Sony earphones and small portable CD reproducers)