Applying multi-stage marketing in industrial markets: Exploratory insights on its successful implementation, management and adaptation in dynamic markets

Abstract

Multi-stage marketing (MSM), a market-driving strategy applicable in multi-stage industrial markets to shape customer preferences, is still an underresearched field. While the strategic and operational dimensions of MSM have already been recognized and researched, MSM's processual dimension, i.e. its implementation, management and adaptation, has so far gone unnoticed. Based on a comprehensive case study of a German component and consumables manufacturer, this paper will derive in an exploratory research approach first insights on the determinants of a successful implementation and management of MSM, as well as the impact of market dynamics on the design of a firm's salesforce. The results indicate that a supplier applying MSM has to have unique resources and capabilities at its disposal, which are performance-relevant for the downstream market stages and allow for continuous organizational adaptation. Moreover, firms need to complement their traditional salesforce with additional indirect customers/stakeholder-oriented sales units for enabling MSM at the other market stages.