Advancing social media driven sales research: Establishing conceptual foundations for B-to-B social selling

Business markets are facing major changes due to an increasing digitalization trend and consequent changes in buying behaviors. Practitioners and academics alike have started to emphasize social selling as a novel way to tackle these emerging opportunities and challenges at the sales force level. Since research in this area remains embryonic and fragmented, we adopt a discovery-oriented research approach and conceptualize social selling and its key facets based on a systematic literature review and a field study involving thought leading social selling professionals. The findings indicate a need to extend the research focus from social media usage into a concept which comprehends social selling as a broader application of digital marketing principles at the individual salesperson level. Social selling leverages social and digital channels for understanding, connecting with, and engaging influencers, prospects and existing customers at relevant customer purchasing journey touchpoints for building valuable business relationships. We relate the construct to other close selling approaches and explicate its organizational strategy components as well as performance outcomes. The findings advance current understanding of the role of sales in contemporary business markets and have implications for sales and marketing theory and practice.     

Outward-looking and future-oriented customer value potential management: The sales force value appropriation role

The management of customer relationships based on customers’ value to the selling firm has been a central topic in marketing research for decades. Yet, extant research has devoted only scant attention to the management of customer future value potential, focusing mostly on advanced statistical modeling based on firm-internal and historical data, which often lacks relevance in B-to-B settings. We employ a longitudinal intervention study, rooted in a constructive research approach, to assess the relevance of a novel customer value potential management model in business markets. The results, based on realized sales and customer portfolio dynamics, demonstrate that a firm can effectively manage customer value potential by adopting a non-statistical, sales force-driven analysis perspective. Further, the study presents evidence for the effectiveness of combinative outward-looking and future-oriented value potential criteria in value potential analysis. Finally, the findings demonstrate how a supplier can proactively manage customer portfolio dynamics in the long run by systematically enhancing its competitive position and capitalizing on customers’ organic growth at individual customer account level, through the interplay of organizational value management and sales force value appropriation efforts.     

The personal touch of business relationship: A study of the determinants and impact of business friendship

Business friendship refers to the integration of “business” dealings and personal “friendship” that permeates many markets. As relationship marketing and customer relationship management become increasingly prevalent practices, business friendship as a fundamental element embedded in business relationships needs to be better understood. This paper studies how business friendship is formed and its impact on key marketing outcomes. We propose that business friendship is driven by three factors spanning business and personal domains—congeniality, rule adherence and business reputation. Our empirical analysis is based on survey and actual sales data from 263 client firms of a leading provider of business intelligence and strategic planning services. The results show the three factors contribute significantly to business friendship. We find that business friendship between the client and the supplier significantly impacts the sales to the client, and this impact is further moderated by how the two parties share responsibilities in achieving common goals. In addition, we show that business friendship induces one party to accommodate and cooperate with the other (i.e., compliance), and to engage in positive word-of-mouth. The framework and findings shed lights on how companies may influence (and be influenced by) business friendship as they increasingly emphasize long-term business relationships.     

Selling and sales management: An introduction to the special section and recommendations on advancing the sales research agenda

Effectively managing the sales function is a prerequisite for success in business markets. Thus, practitioners are increasingly interested in improving the performance of their sales function. However, there is evidence pinpointing that academic research in the area may be experiencing a decline in its status among other subject areas in the marketing discipline. Fortunately, advances in the field of selling and sales management as reflected in the organization of specialized conferences/meetings and the development of special journal issues hold the promise of enhancing the status of sales within marketing academia. Following this stream of activities, this IMM special section on “Selling & Sales Management” aims at stimulating the level of discourse regarding how research in our field can be advanced. The present article introduces the special section; next, it summarizes the articles comprising the special section; and, finally, it concludes with some thoughts on fruitful research opportunities in the sales area.     

Preparing industrial suppliers for customer integration

In real world markets and business markets in particular, the idea of customized products and services receives increasing attention. A management tool called customer integration has been developed as an approach to master the challenges originating from customization for a supplier. Customer integration competence is the organizational quality that results from this tool after being implemented. Putting this together, we can hypothesize a causal relation between customer integration competence and market success. In order to confirm this hypothesis, the paper presents a conceptualization of customer integration competence. To accomplish this, references are made to competence models from psychology, success factor research and organizational science. The concept was validated through a survey with 78 industry experts from business markets responding. Customer integration competence measured in this way was then contrasted to a second measure capturing market success. Regression analysis supports our hypothesis strongly. Finally, implications for marketing research as well as marketing practice are presented.     

Market-driving versus market-driven: Divergent roles of market orientation in business relationships

This study focuses on market orientation (MO) and customer intimacy (CI) in business-to-business marketing. These are generally regarded as key success factors in marketing. The authors argue, however, that the relationship between MO and customer relationship has not been properly examined, nor has its dependence on a firm's strategic market posture been understood. A contingency framework is proposed to test the postulated relationships between the key constructs. Our results indicate a strong positive association between MO and CI. Furthermore, this linkage is clearly influenced by the market focus and business logic adopted. In managerial terms, business executives must carefully match the strategic posture of the firm, its MO, and customer relationship management (CRM). Our findings strongly support a contingency modeling approach in studying the factors underlying marketing performance in business markets.     

Value champions in business markets: Four role configurations

Customer value management has become a key priority in business markets, but many firms struggle to implement it. While the prior literature has considered this primarily as sales responsibility, emerging research suggests that best practice firms employ dedicated value champions to implement customer value management. However, at present, we know little about the characteristics, and the tradeoffs between different value championing approaches in business markets. Based on a discovery-oriented field research and interviews with 59 managers in 11 firms, this study illustrates four alternative role configurations firms use to employ value champions, and unpacks the characteristics and implications of each approach. Collectively, this study advances industrial marketing theory by shedding light on an emergent and contemporary management practice, and offering practical insights into how firms can employ value champions in business markets.     

‘It's almost like taking the sales out of selling’—Towards a conceptualization of value-based selling in business markets

While the creation of superior customer value is regarded as fundamental to a firm's long-term survival and growth, little is known about the effective implementation of a firm's value orientation at sales force level. As the sales force plays a pivotal role in implementing marketing strategies, this study adopts a discovery oriented approach and conceptualizes value-based selling as an effective sales approach in business markets. Based on in-depth interviews with sales managers in a variety of industries, we identify and portray three salient dimensions of value-based selling, namely (1) understanding the customer's business model, (2) crafting the value proposition, and (3) communicating customer value. The selling behavior entails a mutual orientation and focuses on the value-in-use potential of the offering for the customer's business profits. We argue that value-based selling is a unique concept that differs from the established selling approaches and propose a conceptual model linking value-based selling to performance outcomes. To further advance our knowledge about the effective implementation of a firm's value orientation, we identify future research avenues embracing qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.     

Practices and functions of customer reference marketing — Leveraging customer references as marketing assets

This multiple-case study focuses on the practices and functions of customer reference marketing and on the ways through which customer references can be deployed as marketing assets. Analysis of 38 interviews with managers in four case companies suggests that customer references can be leveraged externally as marketing assets to (1) gain status-transfer effects from reputable customers, (2) signal passing a selection process, (3) concretize and demonstrate complex solutions, and (4) provide indirect evidence of experience, previous performance, technological functionality, and delivered customer value. Customer references can also be leveraged internally to (1) facilitate organizational learning, (2) advance offering development, (3) motivate personnel, and (4) develop understanding of customer needs, internal competencies, and delivered customer value. By identifying the practices and functions related to customer reference marketing, the paper deepens understanding of this highly relevant but relatively under-researched phenomenon and contributes to the literature on customer-based marketing assets.     

CRM systems and organizational learning: An exploration of the relationship between CRM effectiveness and the customer information orientation of the firm in industrial markets

The firm's customer relationship management (CRM) system is frequently a central element of the knowledge management function of the firm. It integrates information from internal and external sources to guide managers and field personnel in the development and presentation of the firm's value proposition. But despite the widespread adoption of CRM systems by firms operating in business-to-business markets, there is continued management skepticism concerning the effectiveness of these systems and their association with the firm's overall “customer information orientation.” The present study seeks to shed light on these topics by evaluating the relationship between the customer relationship orientation of the firm and its use of CRM, as well as the association of CRM use with overall firm performance in B-to-B settings across a range of traditional business performance measures. The authors employ a multi-method approach to determine the key variables, including: database currency, internal database utilization, database accuracy and performance based reward systems utilized to operationalize the construct “the firm's customer information orientation” in order to develop statistical measures of the relationships of selected variables. The results of the study provide support for the finding that customer information orientation is indeed associated with CRM system implementation and that CRM use is associated with firm performance in B-to-B markets.     

Selling Value in Business Markets: Individual and Organizational Factors for Turning the Idea into Action

Modern business-to-business firms focus increasingly on understanding and selling value, as a strategic priority and to achieve marketing and sales excellence. Yet many companies struggle to implement their value orientation, without sufficient knowledge of how to translate it into sales practice. This study therefore examines value-based selling (VBS) as an implementation of value-based marketing at the sales force level. The proposed motivation–opportunity–ability framework integrates individual- and organizational-level antecedents, outcomes, and moderators in an attempt to explain the adoption and performance outcomes of VBS in business markets. Multilevel path modeling with cross-sectional survey data from 944 salespeople and managers in 43 sales organizations confirms the prediction that VBS enhances salespeople's performance, beyond that achieved with established selling approaches. However, firms need specific types of salespeople and dedicated organizational support for effective VBS implementation. A salesperson's learning orientation and networking competencies emerge as critical antecedents. Organizational value assessment tools can compensate for individual salespeople's lack of learning orientation; reference marketing efforts also strengthen the performance outcomes of VBS. Finally, VBS is most effective in organizational settings where perceived customers value demandingness is lower, enabling salespeople to use VBS as a proactive selling approach.     

Basking in reflected glory: Using customer reference relationships to build reputation in industrial markets

Corporate reputation is an important intangible asset that enables firms to establish customer relationships. Customer relationships, specifically customer reference relationships, can in turn be utilized to build supplier reputation in industrial markets. The aim of this conceptual article is to analyze the combination of these two concepts. It lays the foundation for further investigations into the effectiveness of reference customer relationships in enhancing supplier reputation. By developing propositions on the determinants impacting effectiveness of reputation transfer between customer and supplier firm, implications for practice and research in business marketing and corporate reputation management are derived.     

Flexibility in marketing & sales interfacing processes

Preliminary insights in the marketing literature indicate that flexibility is important in marketing and sales processes and interaction. However, to date, marketing and sales management literature lacks an understanding of what flexibility in marketing-sales interfaces looks like, its potential organizational consequences, and potential boundary conditions. Using data from interviews with marketing and sales managers, this study explores the nature, outcomes and facilitators of flexibility at the marketing-sales interface. This study conceptualizes marketing-sales interface flexibility (MSIF) as a process of flexible cross-functional resource exchange and finds that MSIF has positive organizational outcomes (both in terms of performance and relationship quality), that MSIF is essential for firms when dealing with exigencies in turbulent environments, and that the utility of MSIF is conditioned by the speed with which MSIF is implemented. The research contribution is twofold. At a theoretical level, the study defines the construct for the first time, revealing MSIF's conceptual composition for examination, and develops theory regarding MSIF's direct relationships with key business outcomes, as well as likely contingencies that shape its importance. At a practical level, the study's framework offers a tool that managers can use to help build organizational success through enhanced flexibility in their marketing-sales interfaces.     

How psychological resourcefulness increases salesperson's sales performance and the satisfaction of their customers: Exploring the mediating role of customer-oriented behaviors

This research examines the relationships among psychological resourcefulness, customer-oriented behaviors, sales performance, and customer satisfaction. Drawing from positive organizational behavior and broaden-and-build theory, the authors propose that (1) psychological resourcefulness positively influences customer-oriented behaviors and (2) customer-oriented behaviors mediate the influence of psychological resourcefulness on sales performance and customer satisfaction. The authors test, and provide support for, these hypotheses using a unique data set consisting of objective sales performance data and survey data collected from 175 salesperson-customer dyads from various industries within a business-to-business setting. The broader contribution of the article is that psychological resourcefulness may be central to salesperson performance and customer relationship effectiveness. Implications of the findings for theoreticians and practitioners are discussed.     

Effective implementation of relationship orientation in new product launches

The critical role of relationships in business performance is widely recognized in the business marketing literature. However, to date, the prevailing new product launch research has concentrated on firms' general customer and competitor focus on predicting launch performance, and mainly applied a product centered or marketing mix perspective on considering effective strategic and tactical launch activities. Consequently, there is only scant knowledge on the relevance of a relational perspective when launching new products. The study contributes to this gap by examining the impact of firms' relationship orientation on launch performance and the key activities through which it is transformed into performance in the new product launch context. A set of hypotheses is developed and tested with data collected from 109 new product launches in pharmaceutical companies. The results show that sales force management and relationship leveraging mediate relationship orientation's impact on launch performance through complexly intertwined relationships. From a theoretical perspective, this study highlights the role of the relational perspective in new product launch and fosters our understanding on how relationship-focused culture is effectively implemented in practice. From a managerial perspective, the results offer insights on how firms can effectively enhance the successful commercialization of new products through relationship-oriented sales and marketing activities.     

Challenges of servitization: A systematic literature review

The challenges of servitization have gained significant attention from both academics and practitioners, as more firms in the industrial sector are seeking marketing opportunities leading to business growth through the adoption of a service strategy. Although existing research has explored its challenges from multiple perspectives, this is largely fragmented and the studies offer little understanding of the impacts of the challenges on the realisation of servitization benefits and improvements in business performance. This study, therefore, aims to create a formal construct of the challenges and develop a set of hypotheses through a systematic review of the servitization literature to build a theoretical model explaining the underlying relationships. Five challenges are identified: organisational structure, business model, development process, customer management, and risk management. The indicators of each challenge are discussed to support the establishment of hypotheses. This study contributes to the current body of knowledge by reaching a clear conclusion from the fragmented literature and brings together five challenges to explore their impacts on the overall business.     

Fostering B2B sales with customer big data analytics

This study focuses on the use of big data analytics in managing B2B customer relationships and examines the effects of big data analytics on customer relationship performance and sales growth using a multi-industry dataset from 417 B2B firms. The study also examines whether analytics culture within a firm moderates these effects. The study finds that the use of customer big data significantly fosters sales growth (i.e. monetary performance outcomes) and enhances the customer relationship performance (non-monetary performance outcomes). However, the latter effect is stronger for firms which have an analytics culture which supports marketing analytics, whereas the former effect remains unchanged regardless of the analytics culture. The study empirically confirms that customer big data analytics improves customer relationship performance and sales growth in B2B firms.     

Linking account portfolio management to customer information: Using customer satisfaction metrics for portfolio analysis

When appropriate variables are used, account portfolio analyses engender a convenient framework for the relationship composition of companies and allow management to reconsider which customers and relationship dimensions need attention. Based on an industrial company's key account relationships, the portfolio approach considered in this study employs Customer Satisfaction (CS) metrics as a portfolio dimension and suggests a new and more customer oriented approach to account portfolio analysis. Proposed portfolio matrices provide insights into the strength and stability of customer relationships. Furthermore, the matrices force managers to adopt a future perspective on customer relationships by evaluating the business potential of customers along with CS information and allow prioritization with respect to resource allocation. The study attempts to put forward customer heterogeneity in industrial markets and offers a managerial guideline embracing customer specific marketing actions. In addition, the paper proposes a new use for CS information in strategic decision making.