ABSTRACT
The availability of resources is vital when rapid changes and updated medical information in the provision of care are needed, such as in the fight against COVID-19, which is not a conventional disease. Continuing medical education plays an essential role in preparing for and responding to such emergencies. Workflow has improved based on the virtual meetings, online trainings, and remote detailing conducted by medical representatives in order to deliver educational content instantly through digital tools, such as salesforce automation (SFA), webinars, etc. In terms of its regulatory barriers, the pharmaceutical industry mainly targets healthcare professionals, unlike most businesses that reach end users directly. Medical representatives are equipped with an SFA to enhance customer relationship management (CRM) and closed loop marketing (CLM) capabilities in pharmaceutical companies. This study aimed to fill a gap in the literature by investigating the use of SFA in work patterns, such as health professionals' loyalty and involvement in their medical knowledge in Turkey, and how it allows for differentiating training from marketing. This study intended to compare the data on internists and medical products gathered from a well-known pharmaceutical company's SFA. The data covered the first three months of the year 2020, when medical representatives had a normal daily routine, and that of 2021, when Turkey experienced the most powerful surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis was based on simple correspondence analysis (SCA) and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) for 11 variables. Monitoring product, physician's segment, and medical representatives' behaviors with SFA had a significant influence on the pharma-physician relationship strategy, as expected. The findings supported the view that SFA technologies can be deployed to advance the medical knowledge of physicians, in addition to managing and designing superior CRM and CLM capabilities.
ABSTRACT
Covid-19 has made an impact on almost all aspects of our daily lives and organizations are no different. As their revenues got reduced, there has been a strong imperative to look for additional sources of new businesses, while still catering to the existing customers. The approaches for both these are vastly different and the pandemic situation accentuated this complexity. Among all the functions within an organization, the sales department has had to bear the maximum brunt during the crisis event of Covid-19. They were affected at several levels- employees lost their jobs as the revenues of organizations declined;almost all of them had to significantly strengthen their digital skills and had to cope with the new working arrangements. Facing customers with new and not very pleasant information daily led to lot of stress on sales people. Staying constantly wired internally with other departments, in terms of product modifications or revised terms and conditions for the business, was another reality. Though sales has changed from an operationally focused practice toward a strategically focused part of business strategy (Ingram et al., 2002;Jones et al., 2005;Leigh & Marshall, 2001;Storbacka et al., 2009;Williams & Plouffe, 2007), the Covid situation demanded high levels of both. This qualitative study investigates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic (waves 1 and 2) on sales management by conducting in-depth interviews of product and service personnel across three countries—namely, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and India. We draw on the sales effectiveness framework (Zoltners et al., 2008) and other well-established sales literature to analyze our findings. During Covid-19, the sales function played a crucial role and served as the "eyes, ears, and hands” of businesses: sales personnel rallied 24/7 to ensure customer referrals, customer loyalty, and customer delight. The sales process was significantly digitized and all the selling steps underwent modification. Overall, organizations became more innovative, agile, productive, and profitable during the pandemic. We recommend the use of a theoretical conceptual framework modified for sales management during Covid-19;we also list a set of 22 sub propositions derived from five major propositions, for future validation. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
PurposeAs empirical insights into when salespeople should integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into their sales tasks are limited, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of salespeople's ICT orientation on role stress by considering the interplay of individual salesperson characteristics and the complexity of the selling environment, differentiating between customer and supplier complexity.Design/methodology/approachThe authors develop an empirical framework based on the Job Demands-Resources model and previous research in the area of technology in sales. They test their hypotheses by means of a survey of 255 business-to-business salespeople which is analyzed using ordinary least squares regressions.FindingsThe results of this study show that ICT orientation generally helps salespeople to reduce role ambiguity. However, the benefits salespeople derive from ICT orientation to reduce role conflict depend on an interplay of both their job tenure and the average relationship duration with customers as well as the complexity of the selling environment.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research on the impact of technology use on salespeople by enhancing the understanding of contexts that make ICT valuable for them. In particular, the findings of this study demonstrate that the impact of ICT orientation on salespeople's role stress depends on an interplay of individual salesperson characteristics, that is, resources, and environmental complexity characteristics, that is, demands.
ABSTRACT
Salespeople's responses to change have been extensively examined in the context of sales literature, sales force automation (SFA), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and other sales technologies. The majority of sales technology changes were typically organization driven. In contrast, during the COVID-19 pandemic, salespeople faced changing sales processes that were increasingly customer-driven. We seek a deeper understanding of salespeople's acceptance of customer-driven change and interview 38 sales professionals to enhance our understanding of salespeople's perceptions and behaviors. Our findings show an increase in the use of technology, increased marketing-sales integration, and shifts in sales processes and organizations. We identify three profiles of salespeople: those that resist change, accept change, and lead change. We find differences in salespeople driven by their perceptions of customer environments and their capabilities, sales management function, and organization factors relevant in defining attitude toward change. We consequently derive implications for theory and practice.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>This study aims to investigate moderators affecting the impact of salesperson acquisition-retention (AR) ambidexterity on sales performance based on the motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) framework.Design/methodology/approach>The authors collected triadic data through 391 questionnaires from salespeople, 50 questionnaires from sales managers and archival data about each salesperson’s performance. Hierarchical linear modeling was applied to test the hypotheses.Findings>The results indicate that salesperson AR ambidexterity positively affects sales performance. The positive effect is strengthened by capability control but weakened by outcome control and activity control. The authors also find that sales experience and market attractiveness hurt the effectiveness of salesperson AR ambidexterity.Research limitations/implications>First, this study does not examine the mediating mechanism underlying the effect of salesperson AR ambidexterity. Second, sales-service ambidexterity is another ambidextrous variable for salespeople. Future research can consider AR and sales-service ambidexterity together.Practical implications>First, managers should be cautious when encouraging experienced salespeople to conduct AR ambidexterity. Second, managers need to use capability control to motivate salespeople with AR ambidextrous behaviors. Third, AR ambidexterity could be not required in a market with many opportunities.Originality/value>Although some studies have examined the effectiveness of salesperson AR ambidexterity, they reveal inconsistent findings, which suggest contingent conditions on the effectiveness of salesperson AR ambidexterity. However, the attention on the contingent conditions is limited. Therefore, this paper systematically investigates the contingent conditions from the MOA framework. The findings provide some insights into when salesperson AR ambidexterity is effective.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the article is to systematize the knowledge on sales strategy and answer the question of whether current socio-economic conditions in the form of progressive digitalization and evolution of the sales function induce to update the definition of sales strategy. Furthermore, the study aims to verify whether the COVID-19 pandemic forces companies to reformulate their sales strategy. A non-systematic literature review supplemented by qualitative research was used as the research method. The first part of the paper presents the theoretical backgrounds of the analysis based on the literature review. The second part presents the results of the own research, enriched by the data from existing studies. Then, the results of the conducted discussion are presented. The final part of the paper contains a summary and the author's definition of sales management, focusing on sales strategy and a potential direction for future research. According to the analysis, the greatest challenge in implementing the assumed sales strategy is currently the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly affects consumer behavior and limits market activities. However, with widespread access to advanced technologies and a flexible approach to strategy, most of the surveyed companies can meet their financial targets despite the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. When defining a sales strategy, it is necessary to consider the aspect of progressing digitalization and the evolution of the sales function, closely integrated with the marketing function.