Few brands are more familiar these days than UPS. Everyone pictures "brown" when they hear the name, or even the truck rumbling on their streets. What most don't recognize is that most of UPS's revenues come from business customers, not residential consumers. Its business is much more than shipping packages from business to business, or businesses to homes. UPS's core business is known as logistics; it is a $54 billion company that provides a broad range of global logistics solutions. The company even brags in a tagline that "We love logistics." What that means to its business customers, is that UPS becomes a logistics partner, helping them to shape and sharpen their entire logistics strategy and operations, cutting costs and serving customers better. To grow this business, UPS had to persuade its business customers that it absolutely wanted to be their partner and that they wanted to understand the experience each company tries to create for its customers. Without that level of commitment, UPS cannot provide value to its business customers. Business customer buying decisions are made within the framework of a strategic, problem-solving partnership.

The UPS story is perfect for highlighting the unique characteristics of business markets and the differences between consumer buying behavior and business buying behavior. It also demonstrates that marketing to business customers requires a deep understanding of customer needs and customer-driven marketing strategies that create superior customer value. To succeed in its business-to-business markets, UPS must build day in, day out, year in, and year out customer partnerships based on superior products, close collaboration, and trust.

Visit the UPS website (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. to explore what UPS offer to business customers. Scroll to the UPS Solutions tab along the top. Start with "Explore" and then go to "Industries" to learn about what services UPS provide in various industries. Look for information on each that underscores the basic promise that UPS must deliver on each day: to create partnerships with business customers to help them move their goods more efficiently and reliably. Working in business markets is much more complex than in consumer markets, and closing a single sale may take years of advance work.

Answer the questions below on UPS's efforts to build relationships with B-to-B customers to handle their logistics and the impact on customer relationships.

Questions

1. What are UPS's business customers looking for when committing to work with UPS?
2. How do UPS' marketing and sales to business customers differ from working with its residential consumers? 
3. How does the UPS story relate to the major concepts of Kotler & Armstrong Chapter 6 on business buyer behavior?