Resistance of subsidiaries of multinational corporations to global coordination efforts by their headquarters is an important contemporary research subject in the field of international business studies. This case study of sales and marketing organizations in five international subsidiaries of a highly divisionalized corporation illustrates how the capabilities and the willingness to adopt and pursue global strategies is strongly influenced by local situational and organizational factors. The defining business problem was different in each country organization, ranging from product related issues such as quick innovation cycles and price competition, to economic concerns like emerging market dynamics and economic crisis, and other problems related to cultural dissimilarity. A large degree of divisionalization seems to dilute central leadership, as central managers compete for the attention and the resources of the subsidiaries and local managers behave like independent distributors, picking and choosing the most favorable offerings. In order to establish successful leadership in the absence of hierarchical control, intermediate central sales and marketing managers need to first of all internally coordinate their activities towards their local counterparts. Top management needs to establish legitimate authority of intermediate managers by clear definitions of international matrix roles and management procedures. Central sales and marketing managers need to have enough international field experience to be able to correctly assess the different local situations, advance their initiatives in a diplomatic way on all local hierarchy levels and to become overall credible and accepted partners for the local teams. Directly engaging in field activities with local customers and sales teams seems to help achieving these objectives and thus to contribute to the successful enforcement of global strategies.

Organization theory proposes that managers exert control over the behavior of salespeople and the outcomes salespeople are expected to deliver. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to examine the relationships between activity control, capability control, and outcome control and salesperson performance, as well as the moderating effects of product complexity, task complexity, and number of accounts on the control-performance relationships for business-to-business sales personnel. The framework for the study was based in the concept of organizational control. Data analysis included hierarchical regression of a convenience sample of 374 survey responses from salespeople to analyze the direct and moderating relationships between perceived sales management control and salesperson performance. Data were collected using Fluid Surveys. Although significant positive effects were identified between outcome control, activity control, and capability control on salesperson performance, as well as a significant negative effect of task complexity on salesperson performance, no moderating effects were found. Because sales management behavior impacts salesperson satisfaction, retention, and performance, identifying the positive impact of activity, capability, and outcome control, and the negative impact of task complexity on salesperson performance provides sales managers with important guidance when considering the elements of an effective approach to sales management. Finally, providing managers with specific guidance regarding management approach has implications for positive social change within organizations by improving salesperson satisfaction with their jobs, their manager, and the organization for whom they work.

This thesis consists of two central Parts. Part 1 examines the extent to which an agent s transaction-specific investments (TSIs) in a customer relationship increase his/her concerns for opportunism by his/her own co-workers. Thus, unlike prior research in marketing that examines opportunism by the recipient of TSIs, I show that agents become concerned with opportunism by non-recipients of TSIs. I then introduce novel moderators that shape the relationship between TSIs and concerns for internal opportunism. Importantly, I also show that in response to concerns for internal opportunism, agents will engage in internal safeguarding behaviors. Notably, unlike external safeguards between firms which tend to benefit firms (e.g., relational norms), I show that internal safeguarding has a deleterious effect on performance. I test the set of hypotheses with data collected from two sources: account managers and their supervisors. In Part 2, I advance the emerging view on customer solutions by simultaneously examining the networks within and between selling and buying teams involved in the development and deployment of complex customer solutions. Such a concurrent within-and-between perspective helps to bridge research on buying and selling teams, which prior research tends to examine only in isolation of each other. This research also extends the literature by showing how within-team network characteristics interact with between-team network characteristics to affect solution effectiveness. Notably, I advance the literature by moving beyond firm-level and individual-level dyads to team-level dyads and introduce a new network characteristic mirrored ties to help our understanding of the interactions between these dyads. I develop my hypotheses in the context of a sales team selling a complex customer solution to a buying team and test the hypotheses using an innovative, picture-based conjoint field experiment from 233 purchasing managers.

Para el año 2008 se contaba con 121 supermercados en el Perú y a diciembre 2012 se incrementó a 205 locales. Estas cifras muestran un pleno crecimiento de los supermercados. Es así que nace el presente estudio, analizar el retorno de la inversión en la gestión comercial de los supermercados en el Perú. Según Maximixe (2013) el Perú, a diferencia de otros países como Chile, Brasil y Ecuador presenta una participación de mercado de 15%, mientras que los otros tres países presentan en promedio 60% del mercado moderno. El estudio analizará los supermercados de categoría económicos de medianas superficies, es decir de 1.500 a 2.500 m² de superficie de venta, donde se manejan 20,000 productos aproximadamente, que son los supermercados más representativos y de mayor presencia en el Perú. La investigación tiene como propósito, analizar el retorno de la inversión en la gestión comercial de los supermercados en el Perú utilizando métricas no financieras, para ello se evaluará previamente el análisis de la inversión con métricas financieras, las que servirán de base inicial o estructura para utilizar la nueva metodología propuesta, la cual será explicada en la sección de metodología. Por este motivo es importante conocer los parámetros financieros y no financieros del crecimiento.

"The purpose of this study is to compare the existing selection plans for salesmen which are being used in Dallas with the selection plans which are suggested by certain of the accepted authorities in the field of sales management..Twenty-six manufacturing firms were included in the list of firms to be visited personally. Of these twenty-six firms, only six refused to give the specific data requested...Chapter I will introduce the study...Chapter II will deal with the discussion of the tools and techniques which are generally accepted as being more desirable by the authorities in the field. Chapter III discusses the procedure used and the results of the personal survey...Chapter IV will deal with the presentation and evaluation of the selection techniques now being used in Dallas. Chapter V will present the conclusions and recommendations to be made for the improvement and suggestions for eliminating the weaknesses in those selection techniques now being used in the area around Dallas, Texas "-- leaves 2,7

Bakgrund: Den pandemi som drabbade världen under 2020 tvingade många organisationer att ställa om till arbete på distans. Denna typ av plötslig omställning skapar många olika utmaningar, två av dessa är hur en säljkår skall styras samt hur själva försäljningsarbetet behöver anpassas. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att öka förståelsen för hur Covid-19 pandemin påverkade säljprocessen och säljstyrningen i B2B säljkårer samt vilka lärdomar som kan dras från detta. Metod: Studien utgår från den kritiska realismen och har ett abduktivt angreppssätt. Vidare använder studien sig av en kvalitativ metod där fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer har utförts med individer som arbetar med B2B försäljning. Studien är designad som en tvärsnittsstudie där fokus ligger på att hitta mönster och samband mellan de olika fallföretagen. Val av respondenter skedde genom ett målstyrt urval från författarnas professionella nätverk där krav utformades för att säkerställa att relevanta företag ställde upp. Slutsats: Studien mynnar ut i att hur säljkårer förändrar sig beror till stor det på vilken typ av försäljning som bedrivs samt vilka externa och interna faktorer som finns. Samtliga fallföretag genomförde någon form av förändring i styrningen, för att öka mätbarheten eller tydligheten i arbetet. Den sociala styrningen påverkades negativt och är en mycket viktig aspekt i styrningen av en säljkår som behöver hanteras när arbete sker på distans. Digitala möten fungerar bra för de flesta företag och kommer troligtvis vara något de fortsätter med i framtiden, i alla fall till en viss grad. Vid komplex försäljning fungerade digitala möten inte alltid lika bra på grund av den höga grad av tillit som krävs för sådana affärer / Background: During 2020 the world was struck by a pandemic, forcing many organizations to switch to remote work. A sudden change like this creates many different challenges, two of these are how a salesforce should be managed and how the sales-process should be adapted to this new scenario.  Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how Covid-19 affected the sales process and sales management control systems in B2B salesforces and what lessons can be drawn from this. Method: This study is based on critical-realism and has an abductive approach. Furthermore, the study uses a qualitative method for which four semi-structured interviews were executed with individuals working with B2B sales. The design of the study is cross-sectional were the focus lies on discovering patterns and connections between the different case-companies. The participants of the study were chosen from the authors professional networks where requirements were formed to make sure the participants were relevant.  Conclusion: The study shows that how salesforces change is largely dependent on what kind of sales they are performing and what internal and external factors are present. All investigated companies went through some type of change to increase the measurability or clarity of the work. Social control was affected in a negative way, it turns out that this is a very important aspect of sales management that needs to be addressed for a salesforce working remotely. Digital meetings worked well for most companies and will most likely be something they will be doing in the future, at least to some extent. However, during very complex sales, digital meetings did not work as well because of the high grade of trust required in that type of business.

Resistance of subsidiaries of multinational corporations to global coordination efforts by their headquarters is an important contemporary research subject in the field of international business studies. This case study of sales and marketing organizations in five international subsidiaries of a highly divisionalized corporation illustrates how the capabilities and the willingness to adopt and pursue global strategies is strongly influenced by local situational and organizational factors. The defining business problem was different in each country organization, ranging from product related issues such as quick innovation cycles and price competition, to economic concerns like emerging market dynamics and economic crisis, and other problems related to cultural dissimilarity. A large degree of divisionalization seems to dilute central leadership, as central managers compete for the attention and the resources of the subsidiaries and local managers behave like independent distributors, picking and choosing the most favorable offerings. In order to establish successful leadership in the absence of hierarchical control, intermediate central sales and marketing managers need to first of all internally coordinate their activities towards their local counterparts. Top management needs to establish legitimate authority of intermediate managers by clear definitions of international matrix roles and management procedures. Central sales and marketing managers need to have enough international field experience to be able to correctly assess the different local situations, advance their initiatives in a diplomatic way on all local hierarchy levels and to become overall credible and accepted partners for the local teams. Directly engaging in field activities with local customers and sales teams seems to help achieving these objectives and thus to contribute to the successful enforcement of global strategies.

Thesis (D. Tech.(Marketing)) - Central University of Technology, Free state, 2012 / A reliable sales plan and forecast is the basis for good cash flow management and capacity planning. If the sales figures are below plan, the sales manager will increase the sales efforts in order to compensate these deviations. Usually, it can be expected that these efforts should be at least partly successful in the consumer markets. This situation is expected to be different in the industrial markets, as usually the generation of sales turnover can only be achieved by either new customers or new products sold to existing customers. It is therefore expected not to be possible to immediately compensate a loss of sales turnover within the planning period by increased sales efforts. This research project investigated whether industrial markets react differently from consumer markets by investigating the sales planning and forecasting process in the Machinery & Equipment Industry, the Automotive Supplier Tier 1 and the Automotive Supplier Tier 2 Industry. It investigated several time aspects of the sales process, displayed as customer-supplier interaction. The results of the research project showed that in fact sales processes in the investigated industry sectors have such a long duration, that it is not possible for sales managers to immediately compensate low sales figures by increased sales efforts. The sales turnover raise will come in a later period and thus simply too late for the current one. This results in the fact that the reliability of the sales forecast (for the established sales plan) is reduced, if industry characteristics and special time aspects of the sales process are not taken into consideration. These time aspects can be described best by the Market Response Time (MRT). The MRT is defined as the time lag between the start of an increase of sales efforts by the supplier (first contact) and the market response in terms of increased purchase. This is at the time when the customer starts to financially respond, with the result of a sales turnover increase at the supplier’s side. If the MRT is long, sales planning and forecasting has increased importance, because sales efforts need to be planned well in advance. For this reason response times are major elements in planning and forecasting, although it was previously not very well recognised in literature and practice. Based on a qualitative empirical study with the case study methodology, 41 case studies were undertaken within the three industry sectors. The investigated companies showed that these three industry sectors have different MRTs, such as 68 weeks in the Machinery & Equipment Industry, 138 weeks in the Automotive Supplier Tier 1, and 62 weeks in the Automotive Supplier Tier 2 Industry. These different MRTs influence the companies planning and forecasting processes in different ways. This research project qualitatively showed that if time aspects were taken into consideration in sales planning and forecasting, forecast accuracy could improve. It was furthermore indicated that an adequate sales planning approach could improve forecast accuracy as well. In a second step, it was indicated that these companies, which are aware of the time aspects, have shown a better sales performance in terms of sales force productivity, growth of productivity and market position. Concluding it can be stated that the respect of time aspects, such as MRT, may increase sales performance. The study's results have some limitations, which are the research context and the research methodology. As the project only investigated the industrial context, namely the Machinery & Equipment and the Automotive Tier 1 Supplier and Tier 2 Supplier Industry, its results can only be applicable to this context. The research methodology of this project is a qualitative one, which means that the sample size is small but deep and statistical generalisations cannot be made. Based on this, further research implications of this project are that its results may further be statistically generalised by quantitative studies. Especially the sales planning and forecasting processes in the detected clusters per industry sector should be investigated on a broad sample. Thirdly, the indicated relation between market knowledge and accuracy should be further investigated. This is because it can be estimated that the forecast accuracy is the highest if the company’s information horizon is equal to the product life cycle time of the products produced. Last of all, as there are only a few research projects done in the industrial context regarding market response models and time aspects, therefore these topics should be further investigated.

El contenido de este trabajo de investigación presenta a la gestión comercial como proceso estratégico el cual permitirá que los productores de cacao fino de aroma puedan incrementar sus ventas, así como evitar que devalúen su producto por malas prácticas, gestionar y cumplir los pedidos recibidos de los clientes finales lo cual permita mejorar su productividad en el sector cacaotero orgánico. Este proceso abarcará los sub procesos de: Investigación de requerimientos del cliente, búsqueda de clientes, gestión de ventas y gestión de pedidos. De acuerdo a los objetivos planeados, establece un plan estratégico que permita alcanzar los resultados esperados, así mismo, se encarga de recibir los pedidos de los clientes y gestionar todos los procedimientos necesarios, apoyándose de los otros procesos para cumplir con el pedido. Por otro lado, la gestión comercial identificará los requerimientos del cliente dentro del mercado al que se dirige para establecer estrategias con ayuda de los procesos claves y de soporte para cumplir con los requerimientos cambiantes del mercado. / The content of this research paper presents commercial management as a strategic process which will allow producers of fine aroma cocoa to increase their sales, as well as prevent them from devaluing their product due to bad practices, manage and fulfill the orders received from final customers which allows to improve their productivity in the organic cocoa sector. This process will cover the following processes: Investigation of customer requirements, customer search, sales management and order management. According to the planned objectives, it establishes a strategic plan that allows to reach the expected results, likewise, it is in charge of receiving the orders of the clients and managing all the necessary procedures, relying on the other processes to fulfill the order. On the other hand, commercial management will identify the customer's requirements within the market to which it is directed to establish strategies with the help of key processes and support to meet changing market requirements. / Tesis

Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-03T18:32:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wagner_Xavier.pdf: 1543722 bytes, checksum: 1b13c015233e32ca6816325902c0071e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-06-23 / The science advancement on last thirty years caused a dramatic growth on products based in new techonology information relationated with computation, telecommunication, automation and robotic. These technologies, in whole world, are introducing important transformations in companies atmosphere, affecting directly on formulation of their business strategy. In a interval of few decades, the technology of information transformed our culture, defining the paradigms for a new era organized around by the big media. On this scene, the System Information Management (SIM), became important tools for the management process organization, providing the necessary information for the decisions and collaborating, in this way, for the companies to keep competitives in relation of the market that they participate. Considering the kind of system and his foolscap on management of the organizations, this study had as an objective to ckeck the perception of the companies in relation of the results obtained after the introduction of the system. More specifically, the objective was relacionate the introduction of SIM with the acquisition of better results, increasing the productivity or profitability and practical results of the companies??s commercial process. Delimiting the study, the focus of the SIM analysis was concentred on the sales area, having as a sample a joint of companies that use the same management system of sales. It was expected that the result of this research could indicate the available resources and utilizated by the organizations on utilizing of the SIM, the characteristics of the system introducing and how effectively the executives realize the financial results obtained. / Os avan??os da ci??ncia intensificados nos ??ltimos 30 anos provocaram um dram??tico crescimento de produtos baseados em novas tecnologias de informa????o relacionadas com a computa????o, telecomunica????o, automa????o e rob??tica. Essas tecnologias, no mundo inteiro, est??o induzindo importantes transforma????es no ambiente organizacional das empresas, afetando diretamente na formula????o das suas estrat??gias de neg??cios. Num intervalo de poucas d??cadas, a tecnologia de informa????o transformou a nossa cultura, definindo os paradigmas para uma nova era organizada em torno dos grandes meios de comunica????o de massa. Neste cen??rio, os Sistemas de Informa????es Gerenciais (SIG) t??m se tornado ferramentas importantes para a gest??o de processos nas organiza????es, fornecendo as informa????es necess??rias para as tomadas de decis??es e colaborando, desta forma, para que as empresas se mantenham competitivas em rela????o ao mercado em que atuam. Considerando-se esse tipo de sistema e seu papel no gerenciamento das organiza????es, este estudo teve como objetivo verificar a percep????o das empresas em rela????o aos resultados obtidos ap??s a implanta????o do sistema. Mais especificamente, objetivou-se relacionar a implanta????o do SIG com a obten????o de melhores resultados, aumento de produtividade ou lucratividade e resultados pr??ticos no processo comercial das empresas. Delimitando o estudo realizado, o foco de an??lise do SIG concentrou-se na ??rea de vendas das empresas, tendo-se como amostra um conjunto de empresas usu??rias de um mesmo sistema de gest??o de vendas. Esperou-se que o resultado da pesquisa pudesse indicar os recursos dispon??veis e utilizados pelas organiza????es na utiliza????o do SIG, as caracter??sticas da implanta????o do sistema e o quanto efetivamente os executivos percebem os resultados financeiros obtidos.