Linking Content to Practice in the Business Marketing Course: A Reply to

Gul Butaney (1998) provides thoughtful and constructive commen-tary on our article, ‘‘Business Marketing Education: A Distinctive Role in the Undergraduate Curriculum’ ’ (Hutt and Speh 1998a). The author affirms our core position that the business marketing course provides an ideal platform for exposing students to fundamental changes that are occurring in business practice. Moreover, the com-mentary lends support to the particular trends in practice that we chose as most deserving of special coverage in the business marketing course. To this end, Butaney (1998) explores these trends in business practice by using more broadly defined labels: strategic trends in purchasing and supplier relations management; relationship market-ing; high-technology product marketing; faster, better and friendlier product development; and cross-functional integration. The commen-tary complements our article and contributes to the business marketing education literature by providing additional course content and design recommendations that respond to each of these trends. STRATEGIC TRENDS IN PURCHASING In many firms, purchasing strategy is becoming more closely tied to corporate strategy (Spekman, Stewart, and Johnston 1995). Organiza