This study provides insights into understanding social media utilization in the B2B selling process. More specifically, this research details how the different functional blocks of social media are leveraged to benefit the various stages of the selling process. This study adopts a multiple case study design, including six cases from technology-related Canadian firms. Overall, findings show that the functional blocks of social media are mostly leveraged in the prospecting and preapproach stages of the selling process. Furthermore, the marketing strategy of the seller firm seems to influence which functional blocks are leveraged in the process. At last, findings also show that social media should be complemented by analytical tools and traditional media to optimize the selling process with higher lead quality and to facilitate trust-building with potential and existing customers

Industrial selling processes are complex phenomena. The involvement of diverse persons and the prevalence of service elements in integrated sales offerings have meant that collaboration and dialogue are now essential aspects of any successful selling process. The present study is based on the premise that these essential aspects of contemporary industrial selling processes have not been sufficiently conceptualised in the extant literature and that new concepts are therefore required. In particular, relevant new concepts that are based on the personal experiences of the actors involved in the selling process are urgently needed. Grounded-theory methodology was chosen for this inductive study because this approach is especially suitable for the development of empirically based concepts derived from the real-life experiences of involved actors who are addressing their issues of concern. The substantive theory that is subsequently produced by this grounded-theory approach posits a core category of ‘business manoeuvring’ as the basic social process whereby the involved actors resolve their main concern—which is the conduct of effective business. This resolution is achieved within the core category of ‘business manoeuvring’ by the judicious management of mutually dependent and complementary activities, which are reflected in the other categories of the substantive theory—(i) ‘business standardisation’; (ii) ‘business fraternisation’; (iii) ‘personalisation’; and (iv) ‘probationary business rationalisation’. A comparison of the present study’s substantive theory with alternative models in the literature reveals that the broader scope and integration of the proposed substantive theory provides it with greater explanatory power than extant models; however, it is acknowledged that the proposed theory lacks the detailed depth of other models. The successful development of a substantive theory that grasps the main concern of the involved actors and adequately describes its continuous resolution means that this study has achieved its primary purpose of developing empirically based, actor-related concepts that provide an enhanced understanding of the theory and practice of complex selling processes in contemporary industrial markets.

The traditional issue selling process refers to strategic actions taken at a subsidiary in order to gain attention from the HQ. This study aims to broaden the theories on issue selling to also cover internal issue selling, which refers to the individual level of issue selling within a subsidiary. Further is attention and initiative taking worth investigating when studying issue selling, whereas these underlying constructs of issue selling are highlighted in the paper. For this specific study we have performed a case study with L’Oréal Sweden to investigate how the individuals are selling issues within the subsidiary. This micro-level focus of the issue selling process have the potential to contribute to an understanding of the process and the underlying constructs of issue selling on a macro perspective. The findings of this study indicate a tendency that issue selling exists on a subsidiary level. Thereby it could be argued that ideas and initiatives raised by the individuals within a subsidiary have the potential to generate in strategic and organizational improvements on a macro perspective for the MNC.

Background: The result of our interactive information society is that sales business has shifted from a tactical to a strategical focus, thus companies have had to adapt to this change. The evolution of sales shows that companies have gone from one static model to another, which is discarded by the new concept ‘insight selling’ claiming that it through insights is possible to be forceful in the, these days, rough sales climate. Purpose: The purpose of the report is to form an understanding of how insight sales affect a sales process. Research question: How does insight selling affect the B2B sales process? Methodology: Process mapping through interviews in combination with organizational documents. Findings: Insight selling affects the sales process by a clearer research mindset and a change in communication in relation to the customer.

There has been a lot of research and studies done about the positive effects of inbound marketing and previous research clearly states that engaging customers is crucial when developing a successful inbound marketing strategy. However, a gap in connecting inbound marketing to a B2B-perspective is evident. Little information can be found about this specific field of practice when using inbound marketing strategy. Therefore, the aim of this study is to increase the understanding of in what way business to business companies use inbound marketing and the reasons they have for applying this strategy. This study was constructed by a qualitative method with an abductive approach where six companies were interviewed. The interviews were then compared with each other and the collected data from the Frame of Reference in order to gain a deeper understanding of the companies work with inbound marketing. The result of the study gives an insight into how companies can implement inbound marketing in their marketing strategy and the benefits it will lead to if executed correctly. Furthermore, a model has been created to help companies implement inbound marketing and shows which inbound marketing tools that can be used in the different stages of the sales and marketing process.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:25:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Davi Lucas Arruda de Araujo.pdf: 1699493 bytes, checksum: 63798a44519395e70aaee0f7f14f541f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation has aimed to identify the influence of barriers in knowledge transfer in the sales process in franchisees of language schools in the city of São Paulo/SP. We chose to study the franchises of language schools, academic papers because the approach of using knowledge barriers remain underexplored. Furthermore, it is observed that the absence of knowledge management processes and the segment itself can generate barriers that hinder the application of knowledge from the franchisor. It is understood that the process of knowledge transfer is the appropriate communication model proposed by Shannon and Weaver (1949). Therefore, the presence of noise or barriers is inevitable. Using the model Szulanski (1996) the barriers can occur regarding: i) the content of the knowledge ii) context iii) emitting source, iv) a receptor source. Thus, these barriers was found to influence the management of the franchisees in their business units. The methodology is quantitative and type of research is exploratory and descriptive for this research was used an adapted version of the questionnaire developed by Szulanski (1996), applied to a sample of 79 schools franchised language related to Brazilian Franchising Association (ABF) whose universe reaches 299 units in the city of São Paulo. Two central hypotheses were formulated. The first was designed to test whether there were differences of means when comparing the factors and indicators of dimensions. And the second compared the factors and indicators of each dimension according to the brand franchise. Data analysis was initially used the technique of factor analysis in order to identify the factors for each dimension and to meet the specific objectives of this research were performed the Wilcoxon test to compare related samples originated from the same informant. Another test was used to test Jonckheere - Terpstra, a nonparametric test was intended to verify that mean differences between factors by comparing brands of franchised language and finally, the ANOVA was also used to check which tags were different. Through exploratory factor analysis were obtained factors and indicators for each dimension. In the dimension of content knowledge were generated two factors (explicitness and appropriateness of the team) and two indicators (bring results and contribution to revenue), the size of the emitting source resulted in a factor (technical suitability) and an indicator (omission of information) , regarding the size of the source resulted receiving three indicators (creativity, acceptance of guidelines and cooperation with the franchisee) and three factors (absorption of knowledge, competence and commitment to absorption) and the size of context resulted only one factor (relationship). The results showed that when comparing means between the four dimensions were identified several differences in means and indicators primarily on the dimensions of the emitting source and the context knowledge. And when compared to brands, were also identified schools where their averages differed by a factor determined to be high / indicator, as well as schools with factors / indicators showing averages considered low when compared with the other networks. / Com esta dissertação tem-se como objetivo identificar a influência das barreiras na transferência de conhecimento no processo de vendas em franqueados de escolas de idiomas na cidade de São Paulo/SP. Optou-se pelo estudo das franquias de escolas de idiomas, pois trabalhos acadêmicos utilizando à abordagem das barreiras do conhecimento permanecem pouco explorados. Além disso, observa-se que a ausência de conhecimento nos processos de gestão e no próprio segmento pode gerar barreiras que dificultam a aplicação dos conhecimentos oriundos do franqueador. Entende-se que o processo de transferência de conhecimento está adequado ao modelo de comunicação proposto por Shannon e Weaver (1949). Portanto, a presença de ruídos ou barreiras é inevitável. Utilizando-se o modelo de Szulanski (1996) as barreiras podem ocorrer em relação: i) ao conteúdo do conhecimento; ii) ao contexto; iii) a fonte emissora; iv) a fonte receptora. Dessa forma, foi verificado como essas barreiras influenciam o gerenciamento dos franqueados em suas unidades de negócios. A metodologia é quantitativa e o tipo de pesquisa é exploratório-descritivo e para essa investigação foi utilizada uma versão adaptada do questionário desenvolvido por Szulanski (1996), aplicado para uma amostra de 79 escolas franqueadas de idioma vinculadas à Associação Brasileira de Franquias (ABF), cujo universo atinge 299 unidades na cidade de São Paulo. Foram formuladas duas hipóteses centrais. A primeira tinha a finalidade de testar se não havia diferenças de médias ao comparar os fatores e indicadores das dimensões. E a segunda comparava os fatores e indicadores de cada dimensão de acordo com a marca da franquia. Para análise dos dados foi utilizada, inicialmente, a técnica de analise fatorial com o objetivo de identificar os fatores para cada dimensão e para atender aos objetivos específicos dessa pesquisa realizaram-se o teste de Wilcoxon para comparar amostras relacionadas oriundas do mesmo informante. Outro teste utilizado foi o teste de Jonckheere Terpstra, um teste não paramétrico que tinha por finalidade verificar diferenças de médias entre os fatores comparados por marcas das franqueadas de idiomas e por fim, a ANOVA também foi utilizada para verificar quais as marcas que eram diferentes. Por meio da análise fatorial exploratória foram obtidos alguns fatores e indicadores para cada dimensão. Na dimensão do conteúdo do conhecimento foram gerados dois fatores (explicitação e adequação da equipe) e dois indicadores (trazer resultados e contribuição para o faturamento), na dimensão da fonte emissora resultaram um fator (adequação técnica) e um indicador (omissão da informação), no que concerne a dimensão da fonte receptora resultaram três indicadores (criatividade, aceitação de orientações e cooperação com o franqueado) e três fatores (absorção do conhecimento, competência para absorção e comprometimento) e a dimensão do contexto resultou apenas um fator (relacionamento). Os resultados indicaram que ao comparar as médias entre as quatro dimensões identificaram-se várias diferenças de médias principalmente nos fatores e indicadores das dimensões da fonte emissora e do contexto do conhecimento. E quando comparados por marcas, também foram identificadas escolas nas quais suas médias diferiam por serem altas para determinado fator/indicador, como também escolas com fatores/indicadores apresentando médias consideradas baixas, quando comparadas com as outras redes.

Background: The sales representatives in B2B companies are experiencing several changes in their environment, which have already altered their performed activities. In order to meet the new customer needs, Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides an effective usage of the large amount of complex data that is available, defined as Big Data. AI is developing intelligence that is human-like and is expected to impact occupational roles while threating to automate tasks typically performed by humans. Previous technologies have already impacted sales representatives in the performance of their sales activities; however, it is still uncertain how AI will impact and benefit them. Previous empirical findings and the lack of studies centered on the individual impact of AI confirm the need for more academic reports. Purpose: The aim of this research is to explore how the implementation of Artificial Intelligence and usage of Big Data in Business-to-Business selling processes are impacting sales representatives, in term of performed activities. Further, the aim is also to explore the management of individuals during the implementation of AI. Methodology: This qualitative study is based on a realistic perspective with an inductive research approach. The empirical data has been collected through semi structured interviews with six AI-providers and two consulting firms that have proven experiences in working with AI and sales in B2B companies. Conclusion: AI is characterized by its adapting capability as well as its ability to process and combine a large amount of real-time, online and historical data. As a result, the selling process is constantly provided with more accurate, faster and original insights. Through the analytical capacity of AI, the sales representatives are gaining extensive knowledge about the customer and the external world. Also, AI simplifies the creation and maintenance of long- lasting customer relationships by providing specific and valuable content. Administrative tasks and non-sales activities can also become automated through the usage of AI, which enables sales representatives to focus on their core tasks, for instance relationship building and value-adding activities. The threat of automation and elimination of jobs should be redefined into the possibility to augment human capabilities. By adopting this approach, the importance of the human-machine collaboration is strongly emphasized. In order to increase the willingness for changing working procedures at individual levels, the communication during the process of change should be centered on creating a positive perception and understanding of AI. It is also important to create trust for AI and promote a data-driven culture in order to ensure the systematic usage of the system.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjama individualizuoto asmeninio pardavimo telemarketingo įmonėje, tema. Tiriamą problemą apibūdina klausimas: Ar individualizuotas asmeninis pardavimas turi įtakos pardavimo rezultatams? Šis darbas susideda iš įvado, dviejų pagrindinių dalių, išvadų, asmeninio pardavimo gerinimo rekomendacijų, literatūros sąrašo ir priedų. / Master's thesis analyzes the theme of individualized marketing in Telemarketing Company. The relevant issue describes the question: Can an individualized personal sales influence sales results? This work consists of an introduction, two major parts, conclusions, recommendations for a personal marketing improvement, references and appendices.

Many entrepreneurs pursue the IT-industry, which is characterized by opportunities and international growth. However, due to failures in sales, marketing and operations, many IT-startups never reach profitability and sustainable performance.  On behalf of the IT-startup Realbridge, the authors have been asked to investigate how their sales process can be made more efficient. By identifying elements in the sales process, the authors can provide suggestions supported by theories and qualitative data on how Realbridge and similar companies can redesign and improve their sales process. The study further investigates the role of sales in the business model and how a changed sales process impact value delivery and innovate the business model. Consequently, the thesis aims to answer the following research questions: How does a firm’s sales process impact value delivery in the business model? How can small IT-companies similar to Realbridge and their product improve their sales process efficiency? This degree project has several purposes. Firstly, it aims to further investigate the role of sales in value delivery in the business model. This will extend knowledge and research on value delivery and sales, and will further investigate the relationship between components of the business model. Secondly, it will serve as a guide for managers in IT-firms on how they can improve the sales process. Thirdly, it will create an understanding of how IT-firms similar to Realbridge can develop or innovate their business model in terms of changed value delivery, key activities and sales process. As the aim of this study is to extend knowledge in the business model and sales literature, as well as analyze Realbridge’s sales process and culminate in recommendations on how IT-startups can increase their sales efficiency, this degree project takes form as a qualitative case study. Interviews have been conducted with interviewees in four different organizations with three different perspectives: Realbridge’s perspective, customer in the car dealership industry’s perspective and non-customer in the car dealership industry’s perspective. The data has been processed in accordance to thematic analysis. The analysis has led the authors to the conclusion that a changed sales process impact value delivery and consequently innovate the business model. It is also found that the sales process impact value creation and capture. Moreover, in order to effectively design a sales process, Realbridge and similar companies must effectively segment the market, focus on fewer segments initially and target them according to their expected financial contribution. They should state and communicate a specific value proposition related to the approached segment’s main needs. Furthermore, customer preferences have to be accounted for in terms of sales channels and type of relationships, and it can be seen as a financial risk to maximize value creation and value delivery for all customers.

Consumers of digital contents are empowered with numerous technologies allowing them to produce perfect copies of these contents and distribute them around the world with little or no cost. To prevent illegal copying and distribution, a technology called Digital Rights Management (DRM) is developed. With this technology, consumers are allowed to access digital contents only if they have purchased the corresponding licenses from license issuers. The problem, however, is that those consumers are not allowed to resell their own licenses- a restriction that goes against the first-sale doctrine. Enabling a consumer to buy a digital license directly from another consumer and allowing the two consumers to fairly exchange the license for a payment are still an open issue in DRM research area. This thesis investigates existing security solutions for achieving digital license reselling and analyses their strengths and weaknesses. The thesis then proposes a novel Reselling Deal Signing (RDS) protocol to achieve fairness in a license reselling. The idea of the protocol is to integrate the features of the concurrent signature scheme with functionalities of a License Issuer (LI). The security properties of this protocol is informally analysed and then formally verified using ATL logic and the model checker MOCHA. To assess its performance, a prototype of the RDS protocol has been developed and a comparison with related protocols has been conducted. The thesis also introduces two novel digital tokens a Reselling Permission (RP) token and a Multiple Reselling Permission (MRP) token. The RP and MRP tokens are used to show whether a given license is single and multiple resalable, respectively. Moreover, the thesis proposes two novel methods supporting fair and secure digital license reselling. The first method is the Reselling Deal (RD) method which allows a license to be resold once. This method makes use of the existing distribution infrastructure, RP, License Revocation List (LRL), and three protocols: RDS protocol RD Activation (RDA) protocol, and RD Completion (RDC) protocol. The second method is a Multiple License Reselling (MLR) method enabling one license to be resold N times by N consumers. The thesis presents two variants of the MLR method: RRP-MR (Repeated RP-based Multi-Reselling) and HC-MR (Hash Chain-based Multi-Reselling). The RRP-MR method is designed such that a buyer can choose to either continue or stop a multi-reselling of a license. Like the RD method, the RRP-MR method makes use of RP, LI, LRL, and the RDS, RDA, and RDC protocols to achieve fair and secure reselling. The HC-MR method allows multiple resellings while keeping the overhead on LI at a minimum level and enable a buyer to check how many times a license can be further resold. To do so, the HC-MR utilises MRP and the hash chain cryptographic primitive along with LRL, LI and the RDS, RDA and RDC protocols. The analysis and the evaluation of these three methods have been conducted. While supporting the license reselling, the two methods are designed to prevent a reseller from (1) continuing using a resold license, (2) reselling a non-resalable license, and (3) reselling one license a unauthorised number of times. In addition, they enable content owners of resold contents to trace a buyer who has violated any of the usage rights of a license bought from a reseller. Moreover, the methods enable a buyer to verify whether a license he is about to buy is legitimate for re-sale. Furthermore, the two methods support market power where a reseller can maximise his profit and a buyer can minimise his cost in a reselling process. In comparison with related works, our solution does not make use of any trusted hardware device, thus it is more cost-effective, while satisfying the interests of both resellers and buyers, and protecting the content owner's rights.