Understanding the determinants of sales success and sales failure has organization wide implications, ranging from an improved salesforce to improved corporate performance. However, a paucity of research on sales failure has resulted in an under-conceptualized field largely built on assumptions. This research proposes to overcome salesforce failure attribution biases by collecting data from the industrial buyer’s perspective. Thirty five post-mortem interviews with procurement decision makers from buying organizations were collected following a failed sales proposal. The context of these failed sales proposals was for multi-year industrial service key account contracts (>$5 Million). The result of this naturalistic inquiry is a model which outlines the determinant attributes of sales failure: price, adaptability and relationship-potential. An experimental design was conducted following this exploratory research in order to test the derived drivers of sales failure and success, as well as provide a trade-off analysis of the three emergent sales proposal themes. Results indicate that a lack of adaptability has the strongest impact on the sales failure outcome variable, as well as buyer characteristics have a potentially moderating impact on the relative trade-off weights between price/adaptability and price/relationship-potential.

Understanding the determinants of sales success and sales failure has organization wide implications, ranging from an improved salesforce to improved corporate performance. However, a paucity of research on sales failure has resulted in an under-conceptualized field largely built on assumptions. This research proposes to overcome salesforce failure attribution biases by collecting data from the industrial buyer’s perspective. Thirty five post-mortem interviews with procurement decision makers from buying organizations were collected following a failed sales proposal. The context of these failed sales proposals was for multi-year industrial service key account contracts (>$5 Million). The result of this naturalistic inquiry is a model which outlines the determinant attributes of sales failure: price, adaptability and relationship-potential. An experimental design was conducted following this exploratory research in order to test the derived drivers of sales failure and success, as well as provide a trade-off analysis of the three emergent sales proposal themes. Results indicate that a lack of adaptability has the strongest impact on the sales failure outcome variable, as well as buyer characteristics have a potentially moderating impact on the relative trade-off weights between price/adaptability and price/relationship-potential.

Background: There is a knowledge gap in the B2B-businesses adoption of inbound marketing strategies. The B2B sector has a substantial economic impact on the society and their marketing activities need to adapt towards the digital era. In the Swedish market, this has not yet been sufficiently researched up until this point. Purpose: This study serves to provide insight in key issues and problems when B2B businesses incorporate inbound marketing strategies. The maturity in the Swedish B2B market aims to be investigated and implementation problems to be highlighted. This information could aid Swedish B2B businesses in the future by becoming aware of issues beforehand. Also, this can give B2B businesses beneficial insights when the sector is increasingly adopting inbound marketing in the future. Method: In order to achieve in-depth understanding on the subject, a qualitative study with an exploratory design was conducted. By judgemental sampling methods, the research incorporates insights by knowledgeable industry professionals. Empirical findings were conducted through semi-structured interviews in which participants were encouraged to discuss inbound marketing in a B2B context in both detailed and broader terms. Conclusion: This study show that digital marketing is widely adopted in a B2B context, but inbound marketing strategy maturity is difficult to measure on a scale from this type of research. Key issues to implementation are organisational issues within a business, difficulty to determine goals, lack of knowledge in management about digital channels and possibilities, in addition to changing behaviour by B2B sales representatives. The future is looking bright for inbound marketing strategies even after the GDPR takes effect in May 2018, this study has shown.

I dagens konkurrensutsatta samhälle har företag börjat mäta och redovisa vad sina kunder anser om respektive företag. Det är även något som företag inom business-to-business (B2B) gör med hjälp av att investera i och konstruera verktyg för att kunna mäta kundnöjdhet samt applicera insamlad data på den berörda enheten. Det leder till syftet med studien: att identifiera möjliga attribut som påverkar kundnöjdheten i sågverksindustrin. Studien har använt ett Case-företag inom sågverksföretag och dess existerande B2B-kunder för att kunna skapa en bättre uppfattning över de viktiga delar som påverkar den totala kundnöjdheten. I den teoretiska referensramen ingår ett antal faktorer: varumärke, produktkvalitet, servicekvalitet, värdeskapande, tillförlitlighet och företagets sociala samhällsansvar; vilka samtliga påverkar den totala kundnöjdheten hos B2B-kunder. De ovan nämnda faktorerna har valts ut från redan existerande studier som redovisat goda resultat inom mätningar av kundnöjdhet inom B2B. Resultatet av insamlad data från både Case-företaget och B2B-kunderna visar att samtliga faktorer går att specifikt utforma för att kunna mäta kundupplevelse inom sågverksindustrin. Ett förslag redovisas också på påståenden sågverksföretagen kan använda när de ska fråga sina kunder vad de anser om företaget och deras produkter. De identifierade attributen skulle sedan kunna sammanställas till ett skandinaviskt kundnöjdindex, vilket påvisar den teoretiska relevansen i denna studie då en sammansättning av de valda faktorerna tidigare inte har utförts inom B2B i sågverksindustrin.

Background: Internet, as everybody knows, has a lot of advantages and possibilities. One of these possibilities for companies is changing their business to electronic commerce (e-commerce). Almost all companies might need this type of business to sustain in future and compete with others. Most of the traditional businesses decide to change their business to e-commerce to have more profits in the future. However, this kind of commercial (e-commerce) may have its own risks and difficulties. Therefore, financial drivers can help companies to start or change previous business to e-commerce better and more easily. Purpose: The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance of financial drivers for business to business (B2B) companies when they are starting an e-commerce. Since financial drivers might motivate the companies to start with e-commerce. Design/Methodology/Approach: A qualitative method and two case studies in the plastic industry are used. There are six interviews with a company named Alpha and two with a company named Beta. The researcher chooses the semi-structured interview for this study. The data are collected from mentioned interviews and secondary data. Findings: The finding of this study is divided into two parts. A) The necessity of companies to start an e-commerce, B) The importance of the financial drivers for B2B companies. This study shows that the financial driver has a significant effect to start an e-commerce. The advantages of selling products through e-commerce are as follows: increasing sales and revenues, decreasing transaction costs, improving liquidity problems, introducing the company brand and reaching products in 24/7. Practical implications: The result of this study has several implications for B2B companies such as management motivation to start an e-commerce. This study introduces financial drivers as an important key to motivate management to start with e-commerce.

In this doctoral study I conceptualise shared values in order to explore a management problem from my work place environment. I observe that business-to-business (B2B) relationships between project managers and self-employed consulting engineers terminate; project managers switching to other vendors and self-employed consulting engineers losing their contract. The findings from the doctoral study show major influence of the shared values in managing project based professional relationships. Specifically, the elements of B2B professional relationships “commitment” and “trust” embedded in relationship performance show managerial implications. Furthermore, the literature review revealed a lack of qualitative knowledge in the research domain of B2B relationships. Hence, the findings from the doctoral study fill this gap and contribute to the academic knowledge by providing practise based qualitative evidence. This doctoral study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, building on previous research articles, six elements of B2B professional relationships were refined and tested through qualitative interviews in order to explore their relevance in the B2B professional relationship between the project managers and self-employed consulting engineers. As a result from the first phase, a conceptual model of shared values was developed. In the second phase, the conceptual model of the shared values developed from the first phase was explored and validated through the experience of the project managers and self-employed consulting engineers.

Kundlojalitet är ett mål för många företag som medför såväl utmaningar som potentiella konkurrensfördelar. I syfte att förbättra kundrelationer och därigenom öka kundlojaliteten har konceptet CRM (Customer Relationship Management) vuxit fram. Denna uppsats undersöker hur digitalt insamlad kundinformation används och integreras i CRM-strategier och CRM-system samt det eventuella sambandet mellan mängden kundinformation och graden av kundlojalitet. Undersökningen genomfördes genom intervjuer med två företag som är verksamma inom B2B-försäljning. Utöver företagens ledare och säljare intervjuades en CRM-systemleverantör, en leverantör av programvara för insamling av kundinformation samt tre av företagens kunder i syfte att bidra med fler perspektiv på de undersökta koncepten. Avsikten var att genom en kvalitativ ansats undersöka hur digitala verktyg för kundinformation kan integreras med CRM samt huruvida det i de studerade företagens fall går att se samband mellan användningen av denna kundinformation och graden av kundlojalitet. Studien finner att det inte finns ett rakt, positivt samband mellan mängden kundinformation och graden av kundlojalitet, men att en väl utformad och implementerad CRM-strategi i kombination med ett väl fungerande CRM-system ger förutsättningar för att ett sådant samband ska kunna etableras.

Many small/medium-sized businesses to business companies today struggle withdeciding what marketing strategy to adopt since they do not have the same resources aslarger companies have. Large businesses have certain inherent advantages over smallercompanies. They are usually more established on the market, they have moreestablished customers and they have greater amounts of funds and resources in terms offor example, personnel. Yet, SMEs play a crucial role in the European economy wherethey represent an overwhelming majority of 99.8% of enterprises active within EU ́snon-financial business economy. The research that has been made regarding the socialmedia marketing usage and adoption also points to that there is lack of research withinthe B2B sector comparing to the B2C sector. Yet, the research that has been madeindicates that there are several potential benefits of utilizing social media, it has thepotential to generate higher brand awareness, exposure, increased traffic and higherpurchase intentions than what, for example, traditional marketing has and it is alsoknown to be more cost effective. Still, many businesses have still not fully understoodthe potential benefits of utilizing social media as a marketing communication tool,especially SMEs within the B2B sector. Something that they do seem to adopt isrelationship marketing which is not a new phenomenon, it has been one of the majorparadigms in the marketing literature the last decades and is also known to be costeffective and beneficial in many areas. Therefore, the authors in this study chose tomake a comparison between relationship marketing and digital marketing, to see whatstrategy is the most effective one in terms of awareness, purchase intentions and returnof investment. So, the authors carried out a qualitative and multiple case study withseven SMEs in the B2B sector in Sweden. The result show that for creating awarenessdigital marketing seems to be more effective and for creating purchase intentions.Regarding ROI, it was challenging for the authors to draw any connections or to makean overall conclusion about it. It was also found that the companies utilize social mediamarketing mostly for relationship marketing purposes and not as sales channels and thatmost of the companies lack resources both in terms of personnel, time and funding’swhen it comes to social media marketing.

The thesis deals with marketing possibilities of an office building owner in order to address customer segment of SME companies. Offices are part of our everyday life and also big part of economic reality. The thesis clarifies characteristics of marketing activities in this specific environment and also explores SME segment as a potential target market. The main theoretical frameworks are B2B marketing and marketing of services. Decision processes together with customer preferences are described using both qualitative and quantitative research. In the final part obtained data are analysed and applicable recommendations for effective realisation of marketing activities are made.

This thesis is focused on CRM systems for small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the B2B market. The main goal was to identify the needs and possibilities of the use of CRM systems in small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the B2B market and propose the appropriate CRM systems for this target group. Needs of small and medium-sized enterprises were explored by qualitative research by individual structured interviews. In the next part of the thesis I selected 33 CRM systems which I analyzed for the required functionality. In the last part of the thesis I evaluated the selected CRM systems for small and medium-sized enterprise according to criterions: price, customer service and user-friendliness.