Market orientation and performance of oil companies in a free market economy

Achieve better market orientation, to revamp its business processes, to improve quality of their services; to carry out frequent market survey, conduct relationship marketing training, to formulate effective communication system and develop more appropriate marketing programmes. Market orientation is very important for marketers in planning and managing business in the ever- changing competitive environment. Market orientation always has a positive effect on business performance since it creates “entrepreneurial attitudes” throughout the organisation. These congruent behaviours are directed at the continuous creation of superior value for customers that lead to superior business performance. BP Tanzania Ltd. is among the largest oil companies in the country once commanding the biggest market share in the oil business. After introduction of trade liberalisation Policy it has been observing a negative sales trend. Despite introducing new marketing strategies their sales continued to drop. Currently the company has been overtaken by GAPCO as the market leader. This study aimed at investigating whether the sales decline trend for BP Company after trade liberalisation was due to the lack of a market orientation and assesses general performance of oil companies in a free market economy. Five hypotheses were formulated. Out of them four were confirmed and one was rejected. The overall results show the company lacks market orientation and hence could be a major cause for BP’s poor performance in this competitive environment. It was recommended that BP Company need to integrate its departments to become more market oriented, to integrate its departments, to revamp its business processes, to carry out frequent market survey and formulate effective communication system.