Rethink Strategy or Perish

Not long ago, the telecommunications industry was a dusty strategic backwater of little interest, primarily concerned with proprietary technologies and enjoying a protected status. Not any more; the application of silicon and software to telecom has obliterated entry barriers, forced open the market, and, according to Mariann Jelinek, created a whole new strategic situation. Telecom is now a highly competitive, innovative, high-technology industry, with a worldwide market. Professor Jelinek suggests that the key to understanding the shift lies in comprehending the new technologies being applied and understanding their impact on the traditional markets and missions of the firms that use them. The lessons of these changes are important for all managers, especially those in mature industries, since microelectronics and software applications seem to know no industry boundaries. They are invading our lives on all sides.     

Effective selling approaches to buyers' objections

Approaches for responding to an industrial buyer's indecision and price objections were uncovered. When an industrial buyer refuses to make a purchase decision or objects to price, an effective salesperson will seek understanding of the buyer's indecision, consciously look for common underlying objections, address the buyer's specific concern, and establish a decision deadline for the buyer.     

Evaluate the sales force as a business

High interest rates are posing serious problems for all business organizations and impact more heavily on those in the industrial sector. Cash flow difficulties result directly from high interest rates, which in turn produce pressure on the sales force: credit terms are tightened; customers are pushed to pay their bills more promptly; and, shipments are delayed because of reduced inventories. This set of difficult circumstances, however, provides an opportunity for management to achieve a long desired objective—making the efforts of the sales force more congruent with the profit and ROI goals of the enterprise.This article outlines the structure of a training program, consisting of seven sessions, that introduces business performance criteria to sales territory management.     

Effective advertising in industrial supplier directories

This article discusses the relative effectiveness of various advertisement characteristics in industrial supplier directories. Correlations and regressions on ad characteristics and response data indicate that ad space (size and/or number) and logos have a positive impact while the impact of pictures can be negative.     

Increasing the role of direct mail marketing in industrial marketing strategy

Direct marketing has long been a dominant factor in the distribution strategy of industrial goods and services. Yet frameworks for strategy formulation in this area are nearly nonexistent in the literature. Much that has been written focuses on successful techniques, such as how to use a specific type of sales letter to improve results. This article outlines a set of key perspectives that industrial marketers may use to evaluate the potential effectiveness of direct marketing strategies.     

Marketing cost controls: A survey of industry practices

The use of marketing control systems is examined across a variety of industries. Survey results indicate that, for those companies that attempt to identify problem areas, few actually proceed to determine specific causes of the problem.     

A flexible approach to determining financial terms of sale

With high inflation and interest rates the financial or credit terms of a sale are an increasingly important source of foods for buyers and an expensive cost for sellers. This article proposes some guidelines for setting terms of sale policies which may benefit both buyers and sellers. A method for determining the best terms alternative from the buyers perspective is also described.     

Recruiting college students for the salesforce

Recruiting college students is a problem because of their negativism towards selling. To overcome student negativism towards selling as a career, recruiters—in their recruitment messages—could present selling in a favorable light by indicating to students that a sales job can satisfy their vocational needs. The article provides several suggestions for improving sales recruitment programs directed at male and female college students.     

Measuring the industrial firm's image

This article addresses the auditing of the firm's current marketing position. The corporate image of a medium-sized industrial manufacturing company is analyzed to determine how the company is perceived in the market by its own management and by its existing and potential customers relative to competition.     

Salesforce selection that meets federal regulation and management needs

A key problem for industrial marketing management is to develop a selection process that is both legally valid and managerially useful. By applying a selection approach which incorporates both a sequential selection process and a validation procedure, industrial marketers should be able to make better hiring decisions as well as comply with existing governmental regulations.     

Gross margin sales compensation plans

The notion that gross margin commission plans lead to optimum wages for salespeople and maximum profits for the firm was tested using data from 108 medical supply wholesalers. Results suggest that although gross margin plans may increase wages, they do not improve the contribution profits of the firm.     

Improving mail survey responses from industrial organizations

A considerable amount of evidence has shown that some of the techniques that enhance response in mail surveys of industrial respondents differ from those that increase response rates in mail surveys of the general public. In this article a number of suggestions are offered for obtaining, on a consistent basis, a 50% to 70% response within two to five weeks in mail surveys of industrial respondents.     

Estimating Market Growth for New Products: An Analogical Diffusion Model Approach

There has been a lot of interest in diffusion models as a basis for prelaunch estimates of the sales of new products, and indeed there have been several models developed that have achieved fairly good acceptance by new product managers. One of the limitations of such models, however, has been the requirement that a sales history for the new product, even a short one from a test market, for example, be available to derive the parameters of the model. For some types of products—consumer durables, services, industrial products, for example—a sales history isn't available. In this article, Professor Robert Thomas suggests some steps toward the development of models that incorporate the attractive features of diffusion models. His approach is to use, in a systematic way, the sales histories of products that can be considered to have analogous features from a buyer's point of view. He illustrates the approach by forecasting the sales of a new service.     

Managing the cost-service relationship through backorder control

The backorder holds considerable promise as a supplementary measure of distribution system performance. The backorder can be viewed as the “fine-tuning” mechanism, linking distribution costs and services.     

Pricing strategies that adjust to inflation

Recently, the inflation rate has moved to significantly higher levels than most firms anticipated. The firms' errors in projecting the inflation rate proved costly to many—especially those with long-term contracts to deliver at a fixed price. This experience has led many firms to consider alternatives to fixed price contracts. This article addresses alternative contractural forms and develops the economic principle to be employed in designing the optimal contractual arrangement.     

Product vs. customer focused industrial selling

Successfully introducing sophisticated new product innovation in industrial marketing requires a high degree of customer empathy on the part of the salesforce. This article describes a group-oriented exercise designed to improve the performance of the salesforce by their analyzing a specific new product's relative advantages, compatability, divisibility, complexity, and risk as perceived by its customers. A follow-up survey of the salesforce indicated that, as a result of this exercise, greater effectiveness and efficiency in achieving marketing objectives were realized.     

Evaluating the newer salesperson

This article reports the results of an experiment examining the effect pattern of performance and information format have on sales managers performance appraisal.     

Purchasing's role in computer buying: A comparative study

The sale of Electronic Data Processing (EDP) equipment represents a large and growing market both in number of dollars and products. This article analyzes the purchaser's perceived role in the EDP acquisition process from both public and private sector perspectives. Major public and private sector purchasing differences are discussed in terms of their implications for improving EDP marketing success. Differences discussed include: purchaser influence in the EDP decision process, necessity of seller-buyer interface, method of purchase, and purchasing's organization structure for buying EDP equipment.     

Telemarketing in distribution channels

This article identifies the use of telemarketing in channels of distribution. Specific telemarketing applications for sales leads, marginal accounts, new products, customer inquiries and complaints, and advertising effectiveness are discussed.     

A framework for strategic industrial pricing

A model for pricing decision making in an industrial setting is described. Written from the perspective of a price setter, the model starts with an evaluation of the relative strengths and weaknesses of both buyer and seller. These evaluations are then input into a strategic framework, which integrates tactical considerations with several environmental concerns. The article concludes with a set of strategic pricing alternatives, in a matrix form, to be used by price negotiators and pricing executives of industrial companies.