Complexity of sales situation and sales lead performance: An empirical study in business-to-business company |
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| Institution: | 1. Aalto University School of Science, P.O. Box 11000, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland;2. University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 62, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland;3. University of West Georgia, 1601 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118, USA;4. University of Eastern Finland, Business School, Kuopio Campus, Kuopio, Finland;1. University of Helsinki, Faculty of Pharmacy, Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, Viikinkaari 5E, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland;2. Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, Turku School of Economics, Department of Marketing, FI-20014 University of Turku, Finland;3. Tunturikatu 17 B 21, FI-00100 Helsinki, Finland;4. University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 62, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland;1. Department of Marketing, CERS — Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management, Hanken School of Economics, PO Box 479, FIN-00101 Helsinki, Finland;2. Department of Marketing, Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Roslagsvägen 101, Building 7, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden;1. Anglia Ruskin University, Lord Ashcroft International Business School, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, United Kingdom;2. University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Marketing, Sir William Dunkan Building, 130 Rottenrow, Glasgow G4 0GE, United Kingdom;1. Marist College, United States;2. Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand |
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| Abstract: | Close collaboration in business-to-business relationships has been an interest of both researchers and managers; however, companies are often struggling to obtain the benefits of close collaboration with their customers. Our study examines the complexity of the sales situation from three perspectives 1) relational complexity, 2) complexity of internal sales tasks, and 3) vendor's cross-business unit collaboration, and its effect on the sales lead performance in a business-to-business context. We adopted a mixed methods approach; our data consists of interviews with sales personnel and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system data of 4000 sales leads from a large IT company that sells integrated solutions. Sales leads are classified into three categories: win, lost, and canceled. Based on multinomial logistic regression analysis, the results show that close collaboration with customers increases the probability of sales leads to be canceled. Our findings suggest that the selling approach focusing on close collaboration with the customers may not be a method to increase hit rates, due to possible high amount of canceled sales leads. This should be considered when salespeople's performance is measured in highly collaborative business-to-business environment. We conclude our paper with managerial and theoretical implications, and avenues for the further research. |
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