Suchergebnisse

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to develop and test a two-stage model of sales opportunity outcomes, and thus identify the factors that influence the likelihood of a salesperson pursuing and winning a sales deal.


Design/methodology/approach
– Using a longitudinal design, the authors collect data on 330 sales opportunities at two different time periods from two distinct sources and conduct data analysis using hierarchical linear modeling.


Findings
– In the first stage, the authors find that the salesperson's decision to pursue the opportunity is influenced by the strategic value of the client's business and the concreteness of the opportunity. In the second stage, the authors find that the likelihood of winning the opportunity is influenced by the extent of the salesperson's specialization, closeness to the buying center, company's competitive position and fit with the client's value orientation.


Research limitations/implications
– The authors have examined discrete sales opportunities independent of ongoing business relationships; future research should explore transactions that are embedded within customer relationships.


Practical implications
– The authors highlight the importance of evaluating sales opportunities at the beginning of the sales process and suggest some specific variables that relate to the selling context.


Originality/value
– The authors analyze factors that influence the decision of the salesperson to pursue an opportunity or not, as well as factors that influence the likelihood of winning a deal or not.

Purpose
This study aims to investigate cultural intelligence (CQ) as an antecedent of adaptive selling behavior (ASB) and cultural distance and intrinsic motivation as moderators in this relationship.


Design/methodology/approach
This research builds on a survey to 310 US-based international sales executives (ISE) and multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses.


Findings
The results show that CQ has a significant positive relationship with ASB, both as an aggregate construct and through its metacognitive, motivational and behavioral facets. Also, intrinsic motivation moderates such relationship, whereas cultural distance does not.


Research limitations/implications
The study includes only a sample of US-based international salespeople in the B2B context, which limits the generalizability of the findings to salespeople from other countries or other contexts.


Practical implications
The findings of this research suggest that supplier companies involved in international selling should consider the cultural intelligence of their salespeople for selection, training and coaching.


Originality/value
This study makes an important contribution to the literature on both ASB and CQ by expanding the knowledge on how to manage international salespeople effectively, considering the conditions under which CQ effects are expected and how these vary in this context.

Introduction to implementing key account management -- Re-engaging strategic customers -- Adopting key account management -- Building customer understanding and value planning -- Developing customer relationships -- Developing winning offerings -- Creating compelling customer value propositions -- Co-creating value with key customers -- Designing customer-centric approaches and processes -- The role of the key account manager and the kam team -- Measuring KAM performance -- Motivating, incentivizing and rewarding for KAM -- KAM and procurement: the buyer's perspective and value-based negotiation -- International key account management -- Assessing your KAM programme: a framework -- The KAM framework -- Index

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the drivers of business-to-business (B2B) sales success and the role of digitalization, in a selling and sales management landscape being disrupted by COVID-19.


Design/methodology/approach
The methodology follows a discovery-oriented grounded theory approach, which consists of a two-stage qualitative study with sales professionals in Chile, and a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).


Findings
This research shows that interfunctional coordination, agility in the selling process and business customer engagement are critical determinants of B2B sales success, whereas digitalization moderates these relationships.


Originality/value
This research responds to a call for more research on the impact of digitalization on business relationships in different contexts and perspectives. The authors study the Chilean context, through a two-stage qualitative study, and a fsQCA analysis, which constitutes a novel combination in this stream of research.

Purpose
This paper aims to investigate interfunctional coordination (IC) in a B2B context. More specifically, it explores the role of digitalization as a strategic driver for an effective IC.


Design/methodology/approach
Following a qualitative methodology, three studies have been integrated: Study 1 (focus group with 5 participants), Study 2 (31 in-depth interviews with top executives) and Study 3 (online focus group with 9 experts).


Findings
One finding is that digitalization is the main driver for IC and can be considered strategic. Other findings show that digitalization can enhance IC, but it was also found that digitalization can have negative side effects on IC.


Originality/value
This study contributes to the understanding of the importance of digitalization on IC and also contributes to the conceptualization of IC as a dynamic capability.