How sales strategy translates into performance: The role of salesperson customer orientation and value-based selling

The role of selling has become increasingly analytical and it is a central topic on senior management&#39;s agenda in business markets. Still, sales strategy remains an under-researched topic in the business-to-business marketing domain. Very little is known about how to implement it effectively or about the mechanisms of how sales strategy affects performance, despite its apparent importance for firm success. Drawing on a large-scale sample of 816 salespeople and directors from 30 sales organizations, and employing multilevel structural equation modeling, this study sheds light on the chain of effects that transforms sales strategy as an organizational variable into selling performance captured on the individual salesperson level. The findings demonstrate that a firm&#39;s sales strategy is related to market performance and affects salesperson selling performance both directly and indirectly. Further, the results show that each sales strategy dimension affects salesperson performance in a unique way. Of the three dimensions of sales strategy studied, only segmentation directly impacts salesperson selling performance. Prioritization and selling models impact salesperson performance indirectly, via their impact on customer orientation and value-based selling. These results lead to actionable implications for the effective implementation of sales strategy in business markets. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p

'It's almost like taking the sales out of selling'-Towards a conceptualization of value-based selling in business markets

While the creation of superior customer value is regarded as fundamental to a firm's long-term survival and growth, little is known about the effective implementation of a firm's value orientation at sales force level. As the sales force plays a pivotal role in implementing marketing strategies, this study adopts a discovery oriented approach and conceptualizes value-based selling as an effective sales approach in business markets. Based on in-depth interviews with sales managers in a variety of industries, we identify and portray three salient dimensions of value-based selling, namely (1) understanding the customer's business model, (2) crafting the value proposition, and (3) communicating customer value. The selling behavior entails a mutual orientation and focuses on the value-in-use potential of the offering for the customer's business profits. We argue that value-based selling is a unique concept that differs from the established selling approaches and propose a conceptual model linking value-based selling to performance outcomes. To further advance our knowledge about the effective implementation of a firm's value orientation, we identify future research avenues embracing qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Business models in servitization

This chapter sheds light on the different business models of manufacturing companies that have servitized their business operations. This chapter presents four distinctive yet simultaneously pursued business models for servitized manufacturers: (1) the product business model, (2) the service-agreement business model (3) the process-oriented business model, and (4) the performance-oriented business model. Depending on the direction taken, dedicated customer needs targeted, value propositions adopted, and services and solutions provided, a servitized manufacturer should decide which business model(s) the firm will adopt with different customers.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Customer Interaction and Innovation in Hybrid Offerings:Investigating Moderation and Mediation Effects for Goods and Services Innovation

Hybrid offerings are bundles of goods and services offerings provided by the same firm. Bundling value offerings affects how firms innovate, interact with customers, and customize their goods and services. However, it remains unclear how customer interaction might drive the innovation performance of various bundled components. Therefore, this study investigates the effects of customer interactions and service customization on both goods and services innovations in a hybrid offering context, using a unique data set of 146 information technology and manufacturing firms. Customer interaction appears beneficial to both goods and services innovation in a hybrid offerings context, but service customization has different direct effects on goods versus services innovation. As a potential mediator, customer knowledge mobilization resources exert different effects on the goods and services elements of hybrid offerings. Furthermore, for high-interaction customers, medium levels of technical modularity lead to most favorable innovation outcomes for services innovation. The results thus suggest that providers of hybrid offerings should foster customer interactions, to drive the innovation performance of the good and service components, while still making sure to implement service customization strategies. These findings have notable implications for service innovation research

E-commerce ethics and its impact on buyer repurchase intentions and loyalty: an empirical study of small and medium Egyptian businesses

The theoretical understanding of e-commerce has received much attention over the years; however, relatively little focus has been directed towards e-commerce ethics, especially the SMEs B2B e-commerce aspect. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a framework that explains the impact of SMEs B2B e-commerce ethics on buyer repurchase intentions and loyalty. Using SEM to analyse the data collected from a sample of SME e-commerce firms in Egypt, the results indicate that buyers’ perceptions of supplier ethics construct is composed of six dimensions (security, non-deception, fulfilment/reliability, service recovery, shared value, and communication) and strongly predictive of online buyer repurchase intentions and loyalty. Furthermore, our results also show that reliability/fulfilment and non-deception are the most effective relationship-building dimensions. In addition, relationship quality has a positive effect on buyer repurchase intentions and loyalty. The results offer important implications for B2B e-commerce and are likely to stimulate further research in the area of relationship marketing

Designing Value-Oriented Service Systems by Value Map

In this paper, we introduce a problem structuring method (PSM) called “Value Map”. Value Map is an extension to the Supplier Adopter Relationship Diagram in the Systemic Enterprise Architecture Method (SEAM). Value Map assists in understanding, analysis and design of value creation and capture in service systems. We illustrate the applicability of the Value Map by modeling value creation and capture in the service system of a social networking company called Webdoc. To validate the usefulness of the Value Map, we conducted an empirical study in which we also compared the Value Map to Business Model Canvas, one of the most established methods in business model design. The results of the study show that the Value Map helps business practitioners in understanding and analyzing customer value, customer value creation, and the value capture processes. We conducted an empirical study in which we assessed the usefulness of Value Map and compared it with Business Model Canvas, one of the most established methods in business model design. The results of the study show that the Value Map helps business practitioners to understand and analyze customer value, customer value creation, and the value capture processes

Customer Experience Management

Dieser Beitrag leistet einen Beitrag zur Marketingforschung, da er den jungen aber von zunehmender Relevanz geprägten Forschungsstrang zum Themenkomplex CEM grundlegend entwickelt. Zum einen zeigt das identifizierte Rahmenkonzept auf, dass CEM über einzelne unternehmerische Fähigkeiten wie dem Design von Serviceerlebnissen, das die bisherige CEM-Forschung bestimmt hat, hinausgeht. Zum anderen leistet das Konzept einen Beitrag zur Synthese fragmentierter, aber miteinander zusammenhängender Literaturströmungen in der Marketingforschung ..