Segmenting purchasers of organisational professional services: a risk‐based approach

Abstract

The high cost and importance of organisational professional services together with the often uncertain outcomes can evoke significant risk in their purchase. Using the appointment of planning consultants by a public organisation as an example, the article explores the potential of a new risk framework for measuring risk perceptions and developing risk‐based segmentation for organisational purchasers of professional services. The approach proved to be effective and identified three distinct risk segments which varied demographically and in their attitudes towards risk. It is suggested that risk‐based segmentation may be useful for purchasers and providers of other organisational professional services and other high‐risk organisational purchasing contexts.