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Companies and government departments, as well as non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries, are trying to adopt information and communication technology (ICT) in their daily activities. Among these companies are small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) which are also trying to get on board. However, these SMEs are faced with myriad challenges in the adoption of ICT. The purpose of this paper is to compare the challenges faced by SMEs in both Ghana and Botswana. Statistical inferences have been drawn that conclude that there are similarities in the challenges faced by these two countries, but also there are surprising differences between them.

Targeted SMEs in both Botswana and Ghana were approached with a carefully designed questionnaire. Top ranking staff, such as Directors/Managers/CEOs, were asked to fill the questionnaires. Data collected were captured and analyzed using SPSS ANOVA and 2‐t Pearson correlations.

The results indicate that both Botswana and Ghana share a number of challenges, but also surprisingly there are a number of differences in the way SMEs perceive their problems in these two developing countries. For instance, both agree that frequent power disruption is a hindrance to SMEs in their adoption of ICT, but that SMEs do not consider lack of technical know‐how to be a hindrance.

The paper seeks to bring to light the comparative challenges facing two developing countries in Africa. Most papers are on individual countries, but this one seeks to compare Ghana and Botswana.

This paper aims to investigate whether this savored relationship goal within business‐to‐business selling will survive through this century's formidable stumbling blocks. The fundamental question may very well be, if not the present sales model(s) then is it time to formulate a new sales models?

The research examines the relevant sales challenge elements and sales beneficial factors as components of a new sales return on investment (ROI) model. This has generated a series of subordinate research objectives, which attempt to rationalize the contribution and weighted value of each of the modeled elements. The use of secondary research reveals a consistent thread of relationship‐selling challenges for sales teams.

Client management and sales are key functions in most organizations, and companies are increasingly realizing the importance of preserving and developing relationships with their existing clients, in addition to developing new clients. The challenge is to manage customers strategically, by constantly expanding the scope of the offering and the strength of the impact on the customer's business performance. Achieving differentiation with strategic customers requires new buyer‐seller relationship strategies that assist customers in implementing their own strategies. The capability to manage strategic customer relationships as the most critical assets in the business remains elusive.

Effective salesperson follow‐up would logically include specific components designed to interact, connect, know, and relate with their customers: interact – the sales person acts to maximize the number of critical encounters; connect – the salesperson maintains contact with the multiple individuals in the buying; know – the salesperson coordinates and interprets the information gathered; relate – the salesperson applies relevant understanding and insight to create value‐added interactions.

The contribution of this paper have been directored towards offering sales and marketing organizations the foundational elements of a grass‐roots ROI modeling technique to apply towards their respective sales endeavors. This author believes that successful implementation of these key factors should enable sales teams and their sale management to achieve their respective institutional sales, client, and growth targets.

This paper adds to the subject knowledge of sales and sales techniques by creating new sales models, which address the twenty‐first century marketing environment challenges.

The main purpose of this paper is to review the related literature and propose a new decision‐support‐system (DSS) framework for marketing in the business‐to‐business (B2B) arena based on customer‐relationship management (CRM) and knowledge‐driven marketing to help related‐field graduate students and marketing managers.

Reviews a range of the most important works published between 1966 and 2004 in order to demonstrate both practical and theoretical aspects. The main method of this research is analytical and conceptual and the approach to this subject was to investigate the gap between marketing DSSs and analytical CRM.

Provides information about a customized marketing DSS in a B2B context, indicates related literature and frameworks and, finally, tests the ideas with a case study.

Outcomes and applications are identified for developing new activities in improving marketing decision making and marketing planning based on customer orientation and customer satisfaction.

Despite such interdependencies, the research in the fields of DSSs and CRM solutions has not adequately considered the integration of such systems. The novel contribution of this paper lies in integrating marketing DSSs and CRM with regard to knowledge‐driven marketing in B2B marketing, in both theoretical and practical aspects.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the elevation of the business-to-business (B2B) marketing field at the business school level.

The study follows a Delphi method. The authors conducted two rounds of discovery to answer: why do you think universities do not highly appreciate publications in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing or Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing? What would you suggest for improving the impact of such journals not only in the USA but around the world?

Through the analysis of the coding transcript, four categories were found to elevate the B2B marketing field at the business school level: B2B as uncommon ground, B2B researcher practices, marketing science underpinnings and B2B marketing journals management.

The value of current research is based on its explorative nature and application of grounded theory to provide a framework to analyze how to elevate the B2B marketing field at the business school level.

This study aims to introduce the special issue on digital marketing and business-to-business (B2B) relationships. In general, only modest attention has been devoted to the study of digitalization in the B2B sector and even less on the importance of the perils and promises of digitalization for B2B relationships. This study’s goal is to help focus scholarly attention on the implications of digitalization on B2B relationships.

In this conceptual paper, the authors’ approach is to carefully review relevant literature, and to lay out the field of digital marketing and B2B relationships, conceptualizing it for future research.

The authors find that the following areas are critically important to understanding future trends in digital marketing and B2B relationships: coopetition, value co-creation, B2B branding, servitization, innovation networks, relationship dynamics and power and trust.

The intersection of digitalization and B2B relationships is an under-researched topic. With this paper and the accompanying special issues papers, the authors hope to begin to fill this critical gap.

E‐commerce technologies provide effective and efficient ways in which corporate buyers can gather information rapidly about available P/S (products and services), evaluate and negotiate with suppliers, implement order fulfillment over communications links, and access post‐sales services. From the supplier side, marketing, sales, and service information is also readily gathered from customers. Building and maintaining customer relationships is the key to success in e‐commerce and, unless service is maintained, customer loss may result, more than offsetting any cost efficiencies due to introducing e‐commerce technology. Since the core of e‐commerce is information and communications, support for managing customer relationships is available to those who know how to use it. Discusses how technology can be used to encourage and facilitate customer‐business relationships. Shows through a customer relationship life cycle model how the management of related procurement functions in customer companies can adjust to take advantage of these relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the interaction of two topics: supply chain management (SCM) and the internet. Merging these two fields is a key area of concern for contemporary managers and researchers. They have realised that the internet can enhance SCM by making real time information available and enabling collaboration between trading partners.

A literature review in prestigious academic journals in Operations Management and Logistics has been conducted for the period 1995‐2005. The objective is to collect, organise and synthesise existing knowledge relating to SCM and the internet.

The paper describes the impact that the internet has on the different processes that SCM embrace. The literature review undertaken on the topic has shown that e‐SCM has been acknowledged as an outstanding topic in the supply chain literature in the most prestigious operations management and logistics journals, especially after year 2000. The main topics have been e‐procurement, e‐fulfilment and information flows.

The value of this paper is to define e‐SCM, to analyse how research in this area has evolved during the period 1995‐2005 and to identify some lines of further research.

The aim of this study is to study the implementation of G2B initiatives for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Hong Kong, focusing on the underlying importance, benefits and challenges.

The context of this study was initially established based on comparisons with B2B initiatives. However, it is also learned from the literature that the transformational aspect of e-Government development has not been materialized, whereas the extended web assessment method (EWAM), the three-ring model and DeLone and McLean’s IS success model were therefore identified to derive and build the theoretical G2B success model, thereby developing the online survey instrument of this study. Specifically, a positivist paradigm was adopted to investigate the impact of each G2B success factor on the overall satisfaction with using the G2B systems under examination from the perspective of SMEs, rather than simply placing emphasis on the number of electronic services provided and the investments spent.

The research findings were compiled based on both the multiple regression analysis and EWAM analysis results, thus making the necessary improvements in the appropriate service aspects of the G2B systems concerned.

The main study concluded that prevalent G2B initiatives in Hong Kong have been largely connected to pursuing conservative paradigms in public service provision. The new e-Government strategic agenda is therefore laid out for increasing the overall transparency of new public management based on the provision of resilient-based public services, thereby advancing the democratic empowerment of all the G2B stakeholders involved and also maximizing the multifold effects of value creations.

Much of the hype associated with the impact of electronic business is associated with the business to business (B2B) model. Analysts believe that enormous cost savings and efficiencies can be achieved through the utilisation of e‐procurement, a component of the B2B model. The role of procurement and the emerging use of large information systems to conduct e‐procurement is analysed and presented with the results of a survey of 38 major Australian organisations. The current direct and indirect procurement practices of the sample organisations will be analysed together with an analysis of the eprocurement drivers and barriers. The main results show that direct procurement is heavily dependant upon traditional practices whilst indirect procurement is more likely to use “e” practices. Small‐medium organisations are more nimble at adopting e‐procurement practices. Technical issues dominate e‐procurement barriers, with cost factors dominating e‐procurement drivers.