A Critical Analysis of Internal Buying Behaviour of George Weston Food

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the internal buying behaviour of George Weston Food Ltd, an Australian food manufacturing company. It identifies the key players in the company's buying center, including initiators, users, influencers, and deciders, and examines the various factors that influence their purchase decisions, such as economic conditions, technological advancements, political and legal factors, social responsibility, and the company's objectives, policies, and structure. The essay also outlines the eight stages of the organizational buying decision-making process, from problem recognition to performance review, and compares and contrasts the company's purchasing decisions with those of individual consumers, highlighting the greater complexity and formality of organizational buying processes. The study concludes that while both organizational and individual buying processes share some similarities, the complexity of purchase decisions in a firm is much greater, involving more parties and departments.

Running head: INTERNAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF GEORGE WESTON FOOD
Internal Buying Behaviour of George Weston Food
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1INTERNAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF GEORGE WESTON FOOD
According to Turka and Sasan (2015) organisational buyers are the people who take the
business decisions related to internal purchase of products or raw materials used for further
production, resale or distribution. Internal buying processes are more complex than the normal
buying behaviour of individuals and require the involvement of several internal departments
(Pettigrew 2014). This report aims to explore the buying behaviour of organisations by critically
analysing the purchase decision making of the Australian company George Weston Food, people
involved in the process, factor that influence the purchase decision of the company and lastly it
evaluates the differences and similarities between organisational buying and individual buying
process and decision making.
George Weston Food Ltd (GWF) is one of the largest food manufacturing companies on
Australia and New Zealand having more than 6000 employees across its 58 sites (Gwf.com.au
2017). The buying centre of the company includes the groups and individuals who participate in
the purchase decision-making process and takes the risks associated with the process. It includes
initiators who identify the need or requirement for a product and initiates the decision making
process of organisational buying. Users in George Weston Food include the people of the
Research and Development department who uses the product may involve in buying decision.
The purchase decision-making process of organisational buying of GWF involves the initiative
taken by the buyers of the products who play an important role in selecting vendors for procuring
products. Influencers of the company includes experts, consultants, technical personnel and
qualified engineers who influence the decision making process of organisational buying and take
the major decisions. Influencers also include the top management personnel of the George
Weston Foods. Deciders play a significant role in the process of purchase decision of the
organisation who decides on product specifications, requirements and suppliers.

2INTERNAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF GEORGE WESTON FOOD
The factors that influence the organisational buying purchase decision of George Weston
Food are economic factors, political and legal factors, technological factors and social
responsibility, objectives of the organisation, policies and structure of the organisation.
Economic factors include economics conditions of GWF and the level of organisational demand
for a product. Technological factors include the technological pace and level of technology used
by the company. Decisions are also influenced by legal factors, which include political situation,
political system and government regulation prevailing in Australia. Product purchase decision of
GSF also gets influenced by responsibility of the company towards the society since the raw
materials used in manufacturing or products that are procured for resale greatly affect the society
as a whole. Buying objectives that influence the decision making process of organisational
buying is determined according to the goals set GSF. The stated that goods should be procured
according to the goals of the company. While deciding on the purchases, the organisational
buyers of George Weston Foods consider the policies of inter purchasing. Structure of the
organisation hugely affects the buying decisions of organisational buyers. It defines the authority
and the relations. The goods used for internal used if the company are purchased by the purchase
department.
According to Kaplan and Orlikowski (2013) the organisational buying decision making
process includes eight stages: problem recognition, need description, product specification,
supplier search, solicitation of proposal, selection of suppliers, order-routine specification and
performance review. In problem recognition stage the purchase decision makers of George
Weston Foods tries to identify the need for products that are used for manufacturing breads,
tortillas, rolls, cakes, donuts and many more. This is usually done by exploring the internal
operations of the company. Once the need for the products is recognised, the company attempts

3INTERNAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF GEORGE WESTON FOOD
to describe it thoroughly and ensure that everyone understands the need and the nature of
solution that is expected. In George Weston Foods, the technical specification is the next in the
process of decision-making. Several alternatives are designed by engineers with detailed
specification about the requirements if the company. In the next step, the buyer tries to identify
the most appropriate vendor for their product. Organisational buyers identify the buyers who will
provide the product that is need by the company. In the proposal, sanction step that the company
takes is to invite qualified suppliers to submit proposals. For proposal development extensive
research, good writing and presentation skill is required. The next step is to screen the suppliers
and select the most appropriate one by evaluating the vendors. In order-routine specification, the
task of organisational buyer is to write the final order with the chosen the supplier listing the
quantity needed, technical specifications and the warranty. In the last stage, the organisational
buyers of the company review the suppliers and feedback is provided by them.
While I compare the purchase decision of the company with my own purchase decision, I
find that the steps involved in the buying decision of the company are more than that of mine.
When I decided to purchase a laptop, I went through the steps of problem recognition,
information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase behaviour.
The number of persons involved in buying decision of the company is higher. Whereas, only I
was involved in the task of decision making while purchasing the laptop.
Hence, from the discussion it can be concluded that there is a huge difference between
individual buying process and organisational buying process. In spite the differences, there exists
some similarities in both the process as well. In my opinion, the complexity of purchase decision
of a firm is much than that of an individual and it involves a lot of parties and departments.
Organisational buying process is much more formal than the individual buying process (Maity

4INTERNAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF GEORGE WESTON FOOD
and Dass 2014). The buying decision process of organisations and individuals follow the same
process to some extent. In case of both the decisions of buying, problem or need have to
recognized first and the next steps need to followed.

5INTERNAL BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF GEORGE WESTON FOOD
References
Gwf.com.au. (2017). Welcome to George Weston Foods. [online] Available at: http://www.gwf.com.au/.
Kaplan, S. and Orlikowski, W.J., 2013. Temporal work in strategy making. Organization
science, 24(4), pp.965-995.
Maity, M. and Dass, M., 2014. Consumer decision-making across modern and traditional
channels: E-commerce, m-commerce, in-store. Decision Support Systems, 61, pp.34-46.
Pettigrew, A.M., 2014. The politics of organizational decision-making. Routledge.
Turka, D. and Sasan, S., 2015. Organisational buying behaviour. International Journal of
Applied Research, 1(11), pp.391-393.
Wind, Y., Thomas, R.J. and Sheth, J.N., 2014. Organizational buying behavior. SAGE
Publications.