Understanding sales force automation outcomes: A managerial perspective

Despite the growing importance and potential of sales force automation (SFA), failure rates for SFA implementations have been reported to be as high as 55-80%. Given the growth of SFA programs, the potential effectiveness and efficiency SFA can bring to the sales force, and the magnitude of SFA failures, it is surprising that relatively few studies have addressed this important and timely topic. Many of the early studies have focused on the adoption and diffusion/infusion of SFA programs from an information technology perspective. The results of these studies have been inconclusive in explaining SFA implementation failures. The purpose of this study is to add to our understanding of SFA failures by investigating a broader set of implementation factors than those typically included in acceptance of technology studies. We conducted in-depth personal interviews with executives from three global organizations who were responsible for SFA initiatives in their firm. Results from the in-depth analyses yield recommendations and a proposed model to assist managers in the implementation of their SFA as well as getting their salespeople to “buy-in” to the SFA, and ultimately reduce SFA failures.     

An empirical investigation of technology acceptance in a field sales force setting

Gaining technology acceptance by salespeople is critical in modern organizations. Sales technology is an integral tool for enhancing customer-related information management and knowledge development. Knowledgeable salespeople are able to use the information and knowledge to practice adaptive selling, improve performance, and enhance their firm's competitive advantage in the marketplace. This study proposes and tests a model linking technology acceptance to adaptive selling and job performance of field salespeople. The results provide evidence that behavioral intentions to use technology positively affect salesperson performance through enhanced propensity to practice adaptive selling. Implications of the study for managers and researchers are discussed.     

B2B sales force productivity: applications of revenue management strategies to sales management

Firms should be able to apply the time-based philosophy of revenue management to their sales forces. To do so requires a revision in the way most sales divisions traditionally have viewed salesperson time. Hence, a different type of proposed measure, revenue per available salesperson hour, is proposed to better integrate the value of the salesperson's time as a factor in sales potential and revenue calculation. This article seeks to (1) foster a positive perception of revenue management as a viable sales approach, (2) establish a framework for such a strategy, and (3) set a useful road map for facilitating execution.     

The difficulties of evaluating sales training

Practitioners and researchers acknowledge the importance of sales training; however, limited attention is devoted to empirical sales training evaluation practices. This article addresses four major sources of sales training evaluation difficulties: (1) managerial perceptions; (2) evaluation restrictions; (3) methodological problems; and (4) lack of empirical evidence. After discussing each area, managers are provided with suggestions that can be implemented to minimize sales training evaluation problems.     

Marketing channel management and the sales manager

For years, the channel manager remained an organizational position found mainly in textbooks and the literature and seldom on company organization charts. Recently, however, persuasive evidence has revealed that marketing channel management comes chiefly under the purview of the sales manager. Accepting this new reality, sales management training will need to be dramatically expanded to include these new channel management responsibilities. But, are all levels of sales managers involved or equally involved in channel management? If not, channel manager training must be tailored for specific levels of sales management in order to achieve desired channel effectiveness and efficiency. To date, no published research has explored whether channel management involvement varies at different levels in the sales manager hierarchy. In this age of channel dynamism, successful companies must determine the specific involvement of each sales management level in channel management so that appropriate training and support can be provided to optimize performance in this critical area of market competition. To address the foregoing issues, data were drawn from a random national sample of sales managers. Results indicate that sales managers at all hierarchical levels participate in administering various aspects of marketing channel management. The degree of involvement, however, varies significantly by sales manager level. Sales management implications are discussed, and areas for future research are suggested.     

Exploratory navigation and salesperson performance: Investigating selected antecedents and boundary conditions in high-technology and financial services contexts

Salesperson behavior aimed at improving internal company response to customer requests has received little attention in the industrial marketing literature in comparison to external, customer-directed behaviors. In this study, the phenomenon of “salesperson navigation” (SpN) is developed within the context of a research model of selected antecedents and boundary-conditions that influence a primary form of navigational behavior, or “exploratory navigation”. The research model's utility in predicting sales performance is tested empirically with data from two Fortune 500 sales forces. The findings show that the traits of competitiveness and expert power significantly enhance the salesperson's propensity to engage in exploratory navigation behavior. Exploratory navigation, in turn, is found to have a significant and positive association with salesperson job performance, contingent upon specific boundary conditions within the salesperson's own organization (i.e., sales management support and internal competitive climate). The article concludes by offering sales researchers and industrial marketing managers implications derived from the study as well as directions for further work.     

Probabilistic forecasting of heterogeneous consumer transaction–sales time series

We present new Bayesian methodology for consumer sales forecasting. Focusing on the multi-step-ahead forecasting of daily sales of many supermarket items, we adapt dynamic count mixture models for forecasting individual customer transactions, and introduce novel dynamic binary cascade models for predicting counts of items per transaction. These transaction–sales models can incorporate time-varying trends, seasonality, price, promotion, random effects and other outlet-specific predictors for individual items. Sequential Bayesian analysis involves fast, parallel filtering on sets of decoupled items, and is adaptable across items that may exhibit widely-varying characteristics. A multi-scale approach enables information to be shared across items with related patterns over time in order to improve prediction, while maintaining the scalability to many items. A motivating case study in many-item, multi-period, multi-step-ahead supermarket sales forecasting provides examples that demonstrate an improved forecast accuracy on multiple metrics, and illustrates the benefits of full probabilistic models for forecast accuracy evaluation and comparison.     

我国企业绿色产品营销难点浅析

文章就我国企业在绿色产品营销上的消费市场分析、产品定价策略、分销渠道选择、产品促销等方面的难点进行了分析探讨。     

Tying the pieces together: A normative framework for integrating sales and project operations

Synchronizing sales efforts with project operations, such that (1) there is a steady flow of work that can be completed in a non-chaotic project environment, (2) resources maintain high utilization, and (3) desired deliverables reach customers within the promised lead-time, is extremely difficult. This paper proposes a normative approach to uniting the sales process with project operations capacity by coordinating movement of potential customers through the sales funnel with the company's internal project capacity. It also addresses contingencies with respect to company throughput as a result of changes in managing the market, the sales funnel, and project operations, while taking into consideration variation in scheduling as well as in managing project task and duration uncertainty.     

Contribution of sales control in salespeople’s creative selling: Work engagement as a mediator

This study investigated the effects of outcome-based control (OBCS) and behavior-based control (BBCS) on creative selling, by exploring their mediating effects on creative selling through work engagement. We also explored the joint effect of the two sales control systems on work engagement, which can eventually increase creative selling. We collected data from salespeople working at an insurance company in South Korea; 270 of the 303 participants were included in the analysis. Our results revealed that OBCS and BBCS increase creative selling. In addition, work engagement was found to mediate the relationship between OBCS and creative selling but not the relationship between BBCS and creative selling. The joint effect of OBCS and BBCS on work engagement was found to function as a hierarchical combination, meaning that work engagement is enhanced when OBCS is high and BBCS is low. These findings suggest that OBCS and BBCS function through different mechanisms to creative selling when they function separately, and the former acts as a primary control and the latter as a supplement to work engagement when they perform jointly.