Engaging a product-focused sales force in solution selling: interplay of individual- and organizational-level conditions

Anna Salonen,Eva Böhm,Ari Virtanen,Harri Terho,Risto Rajala

doi:10.1007/s11747-020-00729-z

Abstract

This study explains how manufacturers tackle the critical managerial challenge of transforming a product-focused sales force to undertake solution selling. Through an application of configurational theory, the authors explain how individual and organizational conditions combine to determine salespeople’s engagement in solution selling. Multilevel, multisource data from the sales organization of a global supplier of building solutions represent input from salespeople (N = 184), solution champions (N = 23), and sales managers (N = 26). A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis reveals no single, optimal way to overcome transformation challenges. Rather, consistent with prior research, solution selling requires certain types of salespeople, because value-based selling is a necessary condition for successful engagement. Beyond this foundational condition, a heterogeneous sales force can be engaged, as long as the organization provides appropriate support that is tailored to individual salespersons’ needs. The findings affirm that this viable support can come from either sales managers or solution champions.

Highlights

The imperative to go “downstream” in the value chain is obvious for business-to-business (B2B) companies (Wise and Baumgartner 1999), which widely and frequently adopt a solution-based business approach to do so (Panagopoulos et al 2017)
We identified 26 studies that pertain to a sales force transformation and 4 studies discussing more general transformations within the selling discipline, as listed in Appendix Table 10. (Sales force transformation articles that focus on solution selling are discussed .) The summary review in Appendix Table 10 serves two purposes
We use fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (Ragin 2008) to investigate the combinations of conditions that might facilitate solution selling engagement among a heterogeneous sales force. fsQCA “bridges quantitative and qualitative approaches” (Ragin 2008, p. 82) and is most suited to identify combinations of multiple conditions that lead to a desired outcome (Kraus et al 2018)

Summary

Introduction

The imperative to go “downstream” in the value chain is obvious for business-to-business (B2B) companies (Wise and Baumgartner 1999), which widely and frequently adopt a solution-based business approach to do so (Panagopoulos et al 2017). University of Turku, Turku, Finland 2 TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany 3 Aalto University, Espoo, Finland selling (Ulaga and Reinartz 2011), leading some authors to speculate that companies might need to replace large portions of their sales forces to achieve their transformation, even though doing so is costly and would disrupt existing business and sales routines (Reinartz and Ulaga 2008; Ulaga and Loveland 2014) In many cases, it is not even viable, such as when solution sales complement rather than replace product sales (Storbacka 2011). Prior academic literature offers limited guidance for how to encourage productoriented salespeople to engage with solution selling

Methods

Results

Conclusion