Chapter 9 Emerging Transformations in the Business-to-Business Global Salesforce
Business-to-Business Marketing Management: Strategies, Cases, and Solutions
ISBN: 978-1-78052-576-1, eISBN: 978-1-78052-577-8
Publication date: 16 April 2012
Abstract
Three major environmental changes are taking place regarding business-to-business salesforce. The first trend is the marketing discipline's shift from a product-focus to a service-focus. In response, firms are shifting their salesforce from a product-focus to providing integrated products and services or solutions to their customers. The second trend that is affecting salesforce is the enhanced utilization of technology, as technology is being used to handle some selling tasks (e.g., information provisioning). The third trend is globalization that is evolving to a stage where global salesforce originating from different countries is interacting with customers from different countries. This chapter suggests that these three trends are changing salesforce strategy, structure, and processes. The chapter reports on the decline in product-based salesforce, growth in customer-focused and global salesforce, globalization of salesforce, and the broader business and research implications. The shifts are dramatic and for researchers, it will be a new and fertile area of research.
Citation
Sharma, A. (2012), "Chapter 9 Emerging Transformations in the Business-to-Business Global Salesforce", Glynn, M.S. and Woodside, A.G. (Ed.) Business-to-Business Marketing Management: Strategies, Cases, and Solutions (Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 219-244. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1069-0964(2012)0000018014
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited