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The aim of this paper is to examine when it is appropriate to provide dedicated support for a sales activity, and in cases where support is desirable, to explore the choice between core team support and external support.

Sales transactions typically require a diverse range of sales activities, including customer contact, scheduling appointments, internal meetings, processing orders, and preparing financing applications. This research develops a framework for understanding how to structure sales support for specific sales activities.

Each sales activity has four dimensions, i.e. workload, customization, complexity, and prequalification risk. Support structure (self‐support, core team support, and external support) moderates the influence of the four sales activity dimensions on sales activity performance and salesperson role stress. These, in turn, impact overall sales performance.

This research presents a broad conceptual model of sales support structure. Further research should test this framework using empirical data.

Normative recommendations are made for managers about how to allocate sales activities to sales support.

This research proposes four relevant dimensions of sales activities that should be considered when allocating sales activities to members of the selling center. The framework will help managers, academicians, and business students understand how sales support structure impacts sales performance.

This study aims to focus on creating sales capability as part of new product development (NPD). The aim is to define generic requirements for building sales capability as a part of NPD and to propose a necessary process by defining key activities for sales readiness.

An inductive and qualitative research method was used to construct a sales capability creation process based on a current state analysis in seven companies.

The results indicate that the status of companies’ sales-related planning varies during the NPD, and the related activities are not systematically managed. Considering sales early is necessary to enable a smooth and cost-efficient start of sales, and to avoid unnecessary delays and problems in other functions. At the same time, the companies recognise the need for improvement.

This paper presents a potential process including systematic activities for creating sales capability in conjunction with product development, which is novel to the literature. The proposed process is applicable in aligning industrial company needs.

The effective management of sales organizations is important to managers of international marketing operations spanning multiple countries, but also to managers of local operations who may question the validity of many of the prescriptions of US‐based research. Studies sales management control in companies in Austria and the UK to contribute a European perspective on behaviour‐based control compared to outcome‐based control. Focuses on the pivotal role of the field sales manager compared to prior research at the salesperson and chief sales executive levels. Confirms the robustness of the behaviour‐based control in these international contexts, and also contributes a number of new insights to the general sales management control research literature. Identifies a number of important research directions in this important area, as well as implications for managers of international selling organizations.

Reports a study of sales management in UK companies, which explores the relationship between behaviour‐based control systems and outcome‐based control systems. Although conventional theory has suggested that behaviour performance and outcome performance result from different stimuli, we find that behaviour‐based control is positively associated with both behaviour performance and outcome performance. We find also that organizational commitment and sales territory design are significantly related to salesforce performance. This suggests a number of important avenues for improving salesforce performance. These findings and the growing emphasis on building long‐term, collaborative buyer‐seller relationships favour the use of behaviour‐based control systems in many sales management situations, and suggest a new agenda for management attention in improving salesforce effectiveness.

The significance of the search for sales organization effectiveness is underlined by the major costs represented by the field salesforce for many organizations, and it is heightened by the pressures of global competition and new challenges to develop long‐term customer relationships as the foundation for competitive and sustainable marketing strategies. A study of sales management in British companies adds to an emerging research stream by identifying certain characteristics of superior performance and effectiveness in the business‐to‐business sales organization. We find that conventional measures of salesforce size, call‐rates, costs and productivity reveal relatively little about the differences between more effective and less effective sales organizations and may be dangerously misleading. The hallmarks of effective sales organizations we found to be: balanced compensation strategy; successful salesperson characteristics, in terms of motivation, customer orientation, team orientation, and sales support orientation; high performance in the drivers of sales effectiveness, i.e. sales presentation, technical knowledge, but most particularly adaptiveness, teamwork, sales planning, and sales support; the use of behaviour‐based control approaches involving effective monitoring, directing, evaluating and rewarding activities by sales managers; and, sound organizational structures. The research findings contribute benchmarks to a powerful management agenda to be addressed by executives in pursuing sales organization effectiveness.

This paper aims to propose a conceptual model that will guide development of mobile applications to support value-added business-to-business (B2B) sales activities.

The paper reviews the concepts of context-aware applications and context-marketing, then examines B2B selling and the creation of value, utilizing Terho’s model of value-based selling, and presenting the potential role of context-aware B2B selling in creating value. Terho’s model is then combined with a taxonomy of context modeling to produce step-by-step a conceptual model for developing context-aware B2B sales applications (CABS).

By mapping the context-aware application development taxonomy against each stage of Terho’s “value-based selling” model, the CABS model is proposed. This model provides a platform for the B2B salesforce, their customers and information technology (IT) staff to work together in developing requirements and prototypes for mobile B2B context-aware applications.

The CABS model would require empirical testing to assess its viability and suitability. This would initially be done via focus groups in targeted sales organizations.

The CABS model could utilized by sales staff and their customers to develop requirements for mobile context-aware applications to support B2B activity. In addition, the CABS model could be utilized in joint application design processes to enable sales and IT staff to work together in developing prototype mobile applications.

While context-aware applications are beginning to transform business-to-sale (B2C) sales activities, it is clear that B2B sales could also benefit from these types of applications, but little progress has been made in understanding or developing their potential. The CABS model enables B2B sales staff and their customers to recognize these benefits and facilitate working with IT staff in defining requirements and developing prototypes.

This chapter starts with the phenomenon of CRM systems being sometimes more considered as a burden than a support by salespeople. The main argument is that CRM tools do barely fit the needs of salespeople as their functions, most of all, are administrative, which leads to a resistance for using them.

The author shows how this kind of shortcomings are manifested in “real-life” operations and finds out that much of the problems seem to be due to the very architecture of extant CRM systems. Indeed, creative offerings and business development imply advanced cognitive processes for which there are no functions in traditional CRM tools.

Therefore, the core part of the chapter leads to a discussion on how genuine supportive CRM systems architecture should be designed. The sales process is made of three phases beyond the administration one, namely, a sense-making, a sense-giving, and a sense-acting phase. An adequate architectural design would take into consideration functions that support the whole process, which also includes informative links and a much more visual design to process information instantly.

Examines the impact of manager and salesforce antecedents on sales organization effectiveness, using a sample of 146 Australian sales units. Indicates that sales manager monitoring, directing, evaluating and rewarding activities distinguish between high and low sales unit profitability and managers’ satisfaction with their units. Suggests that sales territory design displays significant differences between high and low sales/market share and unit satisfaction. Discovers that several salesperson characteristics and performance were significantly different between high and low customer satisfaction effectiveness and managers’ satisfaction with sales units. Highlights significant antecedent roles for sales manager and salesforce antecedents of sales organization effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the actual use and market performance effects of information and communication technologies (ICT) with regard to international business‐to‐business marketing activities of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).

The analysis is based on survey data from 635 Danish and Norwegian SMEs with international marketing activities. The two primary research questions regarding actual use and performance effects are addressed by descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling, respectively.

Findings suggest that, contrary to expectation, Norwegian and Danish international SMEs are not heavy users of ICT. Rather, ICT is predominantly used for market information search and to develop long‐term customer relationships. In both those areas the use of ICT is positively associated with the firm's satisfaction with its development of new market knowledge. The use of ICT for sales purposes is limited and apparently negatively associated with the firm's satisfaction with its development of new market knowledge. There is no significant association between the use of ICT and the firm's satisfaction with its international performance.

This study contributes with new knowledge regarding the potential and limitations of the use of ICT in international business‐to‐business marketing. Heavy usage of ICT seems to be primarily directed towards information search and relationship development. The study also supports that ICT usage have positive impact on the accumulation of new market knowledge (and indirectly on international performance). Use of ICT for sales activities seems to be quite limited, and perhaps not even advisable. The reason for this may be that media richness associated with face‐to‐face interaction is beneficial for establishment of commitment and trust.

This paper makes an original contribution to the field of knowledge regarding the potential (and limitations) of ICT in international business‐to‐business marketing.

Evaluates which information included in Marketing Information Systems (MkIS) has been important in providing support for the marketing management process. Also analyses what improvements in marketing and sales have been realized by implementing MkIS to support the marketing management process. Furthermore, investigates, in more detail, what operational MkIS sub‐systems have contributed to improved effectiveness for implementing and controlling marketing efforts. The results of a survey of 50 Finnish wholesale companies showed that MkIS have supported marketing management in all complementary steps of the marketing management process. Information that is perceived to be useful for the different steps of this process, however, varies. The perceived improvements of studied MkIS usage were higher in marketing than sales tasks. These findings indicated that instead of one MkIS, organizations would be better advised to develop MkIS sub‐systems to support the different steps in the marketing management process and also sub‐systems to support sales activities directly, although still allowing technical and functional integration when needed. According to marketing managers surveyed, those who invested in more sophisticated MkIS sub‐systems such as direct mailing and telemarketing systems, have achieved good results in implementing and controlling their marketing efforts. Later discusses the opportunities for these types of operational MkIS sub‐systems.