The Great Recession that followed the 2008 –’09 economic collapse forced many firms to reduce selling expense in the face of declining demand. As recovery dawns, some sales leaders question if their sales organizations have the capacity to fully exploit future growth opportunity. It would appear that with fewer sales...Read more
Webcast
Trends, Challenges and Best Practices in Quota Management
27 February 2010
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Quota management – the process of forecasting performance, assigning goals, and administering changes – plays a crucial role in the success of the sales compensation plan, not to mention a sales organization's overall performance management efforts. In this Sales Management Association webcast, Hewitt Associates’ Scott Sands, National Practice Leader, Sales...Read more
Webcast
Driving Sales Team Productivity through Front-Line Sales Management
5 February 2010
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Few large sales organizations can match EMC’s growth over the past ten years, during which time the global IT firm has enjoyed year-over-year growth rates in excess of 100%, and a four-fold increase in employees to 40,000 worldwide. One key to its remarkable growth record is its focus on sales...Read more
Businesses invest heavily in deploying field forces to service customers and increase revenues. Field resources may expand or decrease depending on business conditions, but the central challenge remains the same. It’s critical to ensure that these field resources find their targets, deliver their message, complete their tasks, document their activities,...Read more
Any company with a direct sales force has lots at stake in efficiently deploying its sales resources. Yet few sales organizations structure sales territories with a rigor approaching even the most routine analysis used by other “deployment” functions in the firm, such as that used by supply chain departments in...Read more
An emerging software category called “Sales Performance Management,” or SPM, is providing a new level of sales management insight for firms who’ve adopted SPM systems. Interest in these systems is surging, due in part to the value they provide sales organizations confronting reorganizations and deployment changes – an increasingly common...Read more
Research
The Impact of Contests on Salespeople’s Customer Orientation
19 December 2009
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Although experts agree on the importance of strong customer relationships, sales force management practices often result in behaviors that weaken relationships. The current use of sales contests with quantitative objectives in relation to revenue or profit margins testifies to this divergence. Sharma (1997) emphasizes the need for a better understanding...Read more
Research
Characteristics that Enhance Training Effectiveness in Implementing Technological Change in Sales Strategy
19 December 2009
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Organizations are increasingly emphasizing online sales channels over traditional offline sales channels. This research examines how training influences a salesperson's ability to manage such a technological change in the firm's sales strategy. Findings suggest that formality of training has a positive effect and voluntariness has a negative effect on the...Read more