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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major sales strategy and process changes as many interactions migrated from face-to-face to virtual environments. The nature of the interactions changed, and sales firms, the sales function and salespeople created new processes to excel in virtual environments. As sales processes evolve further, this paper aims to focus on understanding the enduring shifts in sales strategy and processes. In addition, this study seeks to understand the characteristics of enduring shifts and how they are distinct from temporary shifts.

This qualitative analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the sales organizations and salespeople over the period from the start of the pandemic to early 2022. The authors interviewed 66 sales professionals from different countries and industries to better understand the temporary and enduring shifts in sales strategy and processes, adopting ad inductive and narrative approach.

There are four major findings. First, four key themes emerged: increased digitalization, resistance to digitalization, sales process changes and sales organization transformation. Second, changes are classified as temporary, permanent and accelerated changes. Third, some proposed changes were not supported. Finally, five findings were found that were not discussed in previous literature.

This paper finds distinctive findings that offer additional valuable insights that connect to and extend existing literature. These include emerging themes, classification shifts, unsupported proposed changes and unique findings.

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 purpose of this paper is to understand marketing–sales–service (M-S-S) interface from the point of how social media marketing (SMM) platforms are prioritized and associated business-to-business (B2B) sales process influence. This study also seeks to understand whether effective triadic alignment is achieved between marketing, sales and service.

This study combines literature review and the analytical hierarchy process model. In total, 30 M-S-S managers of a multinational electronics firm situated in Africa and the Middle East participated in this study. The authors collected data from M-S-S managers during training sessions on marketing, sales, service alignment and SMM role in sales process.

In their drive for customer orientation and improved organizational performance, marketing, sales and service managers view understanding the customer as the most important sales process attribute. Considered second most significant sales process attribute is needs discovery, whereas approaching the customer is ranked the least important. From the ratings of sales process attributes evaluation and rankings of SMM platform alternatives, the results show a significant hierarchical influence of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter on sales process. The results also show an enabling influence of SMM activity on M-S-S interface alignment.

This study has a twofold limitation. First, it explored only one major B2B firm in the electronics industry. Second, only the African and Middle East settings are considered in this study. These limitations could be addressed in future research.

This paper provides practical insights into how M-S-S managers may leverage social media to enhance customer orientation and boost organizational performance. The use of SMM can help M-S-S managers of the focal firm to predict purchase behavior of customers more accurately and as a result effectively manage and improve sales performance. In that drive of using SMM-based competitive intelligence to deliver superior customer experience and enhance sales performance, B2B marketing-oriented firms can also leverage the interdependence (information sharing and involvement) in the M-S-S interface during the SMM activity to enhance triadic alignment.

This study contributes to the literature by developing a framework for modeling SMM influence on M-S-S and B2B sales process to deliver superior customer experience and drive business performance.

The majority of business-to-business companies are working on their digital transformation in sales. Despite enormous transformation efforts, the expected productivity gains are often missing in most companies. Based on empirical research, this paper aims to develop a new market-oriented transformation model. Management implications as well as future research directions are derived for a more focused digital transformation process in sales.

Within the exploratory research study, 90 key informants were interviewed to provide better insights in the context of digital transformation in sales. The accuracy of the research results was safeguarded by triangulation.

As this research paper will show, the reasons for the missing productivity gains caused by a limited knowledge about the main success factors of digital transformation as well as a lack of understanding of digital transformation as an evolving process.

Based on the empirical research, a new market-oriented transformation model is developed and management implications as well as future research directions are derived for a more focused digital transformation process in sales.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of social media (SM) adoption in upgrading and innovating selling processes by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) facing complex and rapidly changing market scenarios.

To achieve this goal, the paper undertakes an exploratory case study of Gamma, a mechanical company, by actively using SM to start and open a new market. The case-study is analyzed through the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) approach, which emphasizes the role of interaction and the interdependencies of resources.

The adoption of SM resources helped Gamma to tap into new markets and thus survive and face the downturn of its original market. SM displayed its effects in combination with other resources: a simple and not expensive machinery, capable human resources, effective production and logistical resources. SM represented a strategic resource to implement an effective business networking effort.

This paper provides novel empirical evidence and conceptual development over the role of SM as a resource in SMEs’ sales processes, using the IMP perspective on combination and development of resources.

The purpose of this study is to provide a contextualized understanding of how business-to-business (B2B) firms use the sales development function for efficient and effective lead funnel management.

The authors adopted a qualitative field-study approach and interviewed 13 people from eight firms. While software as a service (SaaS) firms are the most prevalent application context for the sales development function, the authors also included respondents from non-SaaS firms to develop an in-depth understanding of the contextualized nature of the sales development process.

Sales development processes can be applied in outbound prospect-focused, outbound account-based, inbound prospect-focused and inbound account-based lead management contexts. The sales development processes of lead research, engagement and handover vary depending on the nature of the lead management context. These processes are supported by the appropriate design of organizational, technological and people platforms.

The authors explain how sales development as a form of inside sales can support effective lead funnel management in B2B firms through technology-enabled lead research and nurture processes designed to prepare customers for meaningful conversations with field sales.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus purely on the sales development function as a form of inside sales. They explain how the sales development processes relating to lead research, engagement and handover are conducted in four distinct application contexts to qualify leads for the outside salesforce.

Involvement in the effective design and use of computer‐based information systems is essential for the manager of the 1990s. To be most effective, systems must be designed for the requirements of the manager‐user. Too often there is a communication gap between managers who are too busy, uninterested or unwilling to become directly involved, on the one hand, and on the other, the consultant who is more usually engrossed in the special nature of the system. The author aims to provide an up‐to‐date and integrated treatment of organisation and management, as well as to emphasise the utilisation of management information systems to improve the art of managing.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze price decision-making through a practice-based approach. The paper investigates the micro-level practices used to arrive at sales price decisions.

In this study, a qualitative study approach is used to develop findings abductively. The data are gathered through an in-depth case study at two firms: semi-structured interviews, meeting observations, shadowing and pricing documents.

This paper finds that pricing is a collective decision-making process involving multiple actors across the organization. The case firms work on solving information, coordination and control problems to arrive at sales prices by enacting interlinked practices. Pricing is therefore neither a structure nor a single decision but a process consisting of multiple micro-level practices that enable firms to make pricing decisions.

This paper develops a practice-based approach to pricing that conceptualize the micro-level practices used to to make pricing decisions in the face of information, coordination and control problems. The paper is interdisciplinary and adds to the accounting literature and the market literature, which have tended to study pricing as a decision made by one decision maker, and not as an organizational process where multiple actors share, evaluate, interpret and coordinate information and decisions.

Although there is substantial practitioner evidence for changes in the role and functioning of sales in the twenty‐first century, there is little academic research charting new directions for the sales function in a business‐to‐business context. This paper aims to report on four case studies that illustrate how sales is changing.

The case studies involve large global companies who were changing their existing sales process to adapt to changing circumstances. The organizations comprised four global industries: construction, power solutions, building technology, and electronics and software.

The results demonstrate that sales is changing in three interrelated aspects: from a function to a process; from an isolated activity to an integrated one; and is becoming strategic rather than operational.

The results suggest that changes in the role of sales will affect sales processes and the way that the sales function liaises with other departments.

The purpose of this study is to develop a sales process framework to facilitate business-to-business (B2B) customer reacquisition. A comprehensive CRM process needs to include reacquisition strategies. Yet, very few firms have formal procedures to guide reacquisition efforts. This gap in the sales process reflects the relatively sparse literature on B2B customer reacquisition models. The present research intends to fill this gap and creates a sales process model to guide salespeople to regain B2B lost customers.

Using critical incident technique (CIT), this study conducted in-depth interviews with 54 B2B salespeople. Each salesperson reported one successful and one unsuccessful reacquisition incidents. A total of 108 critical incidents were collected for analysis.

A four-step sales process model to regain B2B customers was developed and empirically supported, including: Segment lost customers; Assess reasons for loss; Develop reacquisition activities; and Implement reacquisition strategies.

This study is qualitative and exploratory in nature; future research should develop dyadic surveys to validate the results.

This four-step reacquisition process allows sales firms to identify essential elements and establish protocols/policies to train and motivate salespeople. The framework can facilitate salespeople develop problem-focused solutions to correctly diagnose the situation and effectively re-negotiate with defected customers. Thus, this process may help reduce inefficiency in the reacquisition process and increase reacquisition ratios.

By considering justice/fairness from customer’s perspective, sales firm may properly recover lost business relationship, and do so in ways that are considered both just and ethical.

This is one of the first studies to examine the reacquisition of lost B2B customers. It expands on the traditional sales process to include four steps that enable a sales reacquisition process.