Sales Force Automation Systems Research Articles

DEVELOPING SALES FORCE AUTOMATION PROTOTYPE AT INDONESIAN FURNITURE TRADING COMPANY

Information technology plays a crucial role in enhancing company performance and driving business growth. Maintaining good customer relationships is essential, and Customer Relationship Management focuses on building customer commitment. Sales Force Automation systems automate sales processes and manage customer interactions. PT. Maju Jaya Kreasindo, a furniture company in East Jakarta, aims to automate its sales force and centralize operational information through a web-based Sales Force Automation system using Electronic Customer Relationship Management. The research adopts the "Prototyping" method, offering a shorter development duration and flexible implementation. Visual Studio Code and Xampp, along with PHP and MySQL, are utilized as development tools. The result is a Sales Force Automation system based on Electronic Customer Relationship Management that assists PT. Maju Jaya Kreasindo in automating its sales force. The design successfully automates tasks, supported by Electronic Customer Relationships and the prototyping method. The Sales Force Automation system passed the functionality evaluation, achieving high user acceptance test scores, and indicating its effectiveness in meeting user requirements.

Performance Level of Sales Force Automation System in a Logistics and Distribution Company

ogistics and distribution companies turned their interests to using sales force automation (SFA) in their business operations as technology is now a widely used tool that allows fast and efficient operations. A descriptive design was used in this study, and inventory, sales monitoring, and distribution process are the key indicators used to measure the performance of the sales force automation. The results show that the SFA system was perceived as good, with a 4.0 weighted mean. Internet connectivity was the major challenge in the utilization of SFA. Continuous system improvement is recommended to maximize the utilization of the system.

PERFORMANCE LEVEL OF SALES FORCE AUTOMATION SYSTEM IN A LOGISTICS AND DISTRIBUTION COMPANY

Logistics and distribution companies turned their interests to using sales force automation (SFA) in their business operations as technology is now a widely used tool that allows fast and efficient operations. A descriptive design was used in this study, and inventory, sales monitoring, and distribution process are the key indicators used to measure the performance of the sales force automation. The results show that the SFA system was perceived as good, with a 4.0 weighted mean. Internet connectivity was the major challenge in the utilization of SFA. Continuous system improvement is recommended to maximize the utilization of the system

Impact of Sales Force Automation System on Performance of Salesman: Pakistani Companies’ Perspective

Rapid growth in advance technologies haschanged the life of sales force. Sales Force Automation (SFA) ismarketing tool which provides the functions to sales team andmanagers to monitor sales, forecast sales and analyze employeeperformance. Acceptance of the SFA tools such as phone, pagers,wireless devices etc., in sales tasks will remain an issue for salesforce. Researcher wants to investigate the impact of SFA systemon performance of salesman from Pakistani Fast MovingConsumer Goods (FMCG) perspective. They have selected 162salespersons from Lahore based companies (who are usingautomated sales devices), and sample size and MANOVA(Multivariate Analysis of Variance) were utilized to find out therelationship between independent and dependent variables. Ithas found that SFA system has positive relationship withimprovement in performance and sales of salesforce.

Impact of Sales Force Automation System on Performance of Salesman: Pakistani Companies’ Perspective

Rapid growth in advance technologies haschanged the life of sales force. Sales Force Automation (SFA) ismarketing tool which provides the functions to sales team andmanagers to monitor sales, forecast sales and analyze employeeperformance. Acceptance of the SFA tools such as phone, pagers,wireless devices etc., in sales tasks will remain an issue for salesforce. Researcher wants to investigate the impact of SFA systemon performance of salesman from Pakistani Fast MovingConsumer Goods (FMCG) perspective. They have selected 162salespersons from Lahore based companies (who are usingautomated sales devices), and sample size and MANOVA(Multivariate Analysis of Variance) were utilized to find out therelationship between independent and dependent variables. Ithas found that SFA system has positive relationship withimprovement in performance and sales of salesforce.

Impact of Sales Force Automation System on Performance of Salesman: Pakistani Companies’ Perspective

Rapid growth in advance technologies haschanged the life of sales force. Sales Force Automation (SFA) ismarketing tool which provides the functions to sales team andmanagers to monitor sales, forecast sales and analyze employeeperformance. Acceptance of the SFA tools such as phone, pagers,wireless devices etc., in sales tasks will remain an issue for salesforce. Researcher wants to investigate the impact of SFA systemon performance of salesman from Pakistani Fast MovingConsumer Goods (FMCG) perspective. They have selected 162salespersons from Lahore based companies (who are usingautomated sales devices), and sample size and MANOVA(Multivariate Analysis of Variance) were utilized to find out therelationship between independent and dependent variables. Ithas found that SFA system has positive relationship withimprovement in performance and sales of salesforce.

Face ID: an innovative biometric approach to control sales personnel production deviance

This research aims to examine whether supervisors' perception of face ID-based SFA tool serves as determinants of his/her intention to accept in terms of system's usefulness and ease of use in order to control salespeople production deviance (i.e., skipping work and reporting fake). It also explored customer's privacy concern as moderator of the relationship between these determinants and supervisor intention to accept. Data collected from 323 pharmaceutical sales supervisors of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan revealed that both proposed determinants positively influenced supervisors' intention to accept face ID-based sales force automation (SFA) system. Furthermore, the moderating role of customers' privacy concern was found non-significant. This is the first face ID-based SFA acceptance study that extends technology acceptance model (TAM) variables into the sales profession context and the first system that will give exact information about the authenticity of sales force job activities.

Birlasoft Inc. — Sales Force Automation at Crisis: Software as a Service (SaaS) or Software as a Product (SaaP) (A) & (B)

Case (A) Birlasoft, a Global IT major, had been facing massive challenges in monitoring its sales force spread over 20 global locations. Owing to the strong client base spread all over the world and the massive sales force, the organization needed to focus on a more efficient sales tracking system. Ravi Kathuria, Senior Vice president — Global Marketing & Alliances of Birlasoft was keen to align the organization’s dispersed sales force through Sales Force Automation (SFA) system. In this context, SFA was expected to provide transparency and clear visibility of the sales pipeline. There was also an expectation that SFA would help in improving efficiency of global sales force in terms of reporting and customer analysis. At first, the organization decided to implement a home grown sales force automation system, which turned out be a failure, owing to both internal and external factors. This led Kathuria to explore other options which could meet their system requirements and could be implemented in shorter time frames with minimum budget. They evaluated multiple options and are debating on which system to opt for. This case examines the various software delivery methods in the decision on new software procurement. Several software and vendor parameters and the analytical structure and process for evaluating software vendors are included for consideration. This case underlines an innovation which has introduced a complete paradigm shift in information application acquisition, that is, instead of buying software as a product, organizations are increasingly procuring it as a service. Case (B) Following from Case A, the team in Birlasoft appraised multiple options and the majority of the team members were inclined towards SaaS-based SFA. This case discusses various processes and parameters considered by Birlasoft while deciding on a new software vendor.

Barriers to the use of mobile sales force automation systems: a salesperson’s perspective

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers associated with the adoption and use of mobile sales force automation (SFA) systems from a salesperson’s perspective.Design/methodology/approach– A qualitative investigation of two business-to-business companies was conducted. Data collected from ten semi-structured interviews with directors or sales managers were analyzed to understand the main barriers to SFA system adoption.Findings– The study confirms the existence of three barriers (customer knowledge, quality of information and the characteristics of mobile devices) to a mobile SFA system use and identifies two additional barriers: lack of time and optimization issues.Research limitations/implications– The explorative nature of the study and the qualitative method employed limit the generalizability of the results. The propositions could be further validated and tested with a wider population.Practical implications– Organizations wishing to speed the adoption of a mobile SFA system should evaluate the importance and significance of the five identified barriers to adoption, and plan how to overcome them. It is important for the providers of the mobile SFA systems to focus on developing systems that can exploit the different characteristics of each channel and, in parallel, overcome the inherent limitations of any single channel. The content of an SFA system should be customizable for each type of mobile device.Originality/value– Ever increasing mobility has led to a rise in the use of smartphones and tablet PCs (tablets) in business and the consequent growth in the use of SFA systems. Although SFA systems have been studied for roughly 30 years, little is known of the impact of newly developed mobile devices on sales management and sales personnel.

SFA Adoption: Empirical Evidences from a Case Study

Understanding how technology investments create business value is a research priority in today's technology-intensive world. Drawing on a literature review as well as a qualitative study, this research suggests that sales technology can support both: externally focused tasks towards managing customer relationships and internal administrative tasks. To unleash its real potential, sales technology should be designed to enable customer relationships rather than being perceived as a cost cutting tool. Today organisations are forced to constantly invent new ways of interacting with the customer to increase customer loyalty and to decrease the possibility of commoditization. This paper will focus on Sales Force Automation (SFA) and its increasing importance. It will explore the purpose of SFA, its advantages and disadvantages, and its future impact on organisations through a qualitative research study: the authors investigated a small company operating in the business-to-business services sector to obtain practical feedback on the organisational and individual implications, the potential benefits and the problems related to adoption of an SFA system.

Salesperson competitive intelligence and performance: The role of product knowledge and sales force automation usage

This research models and tests the relationship between a salesperson's product knowledge, competitive intelligence behaviors (SCIB), and performance. Moreover, the research examines how a salesperson's use of a sales force automation (SFA) system influences the knowledge–SCIB–performance relationship. Our model and empirical evidence suggest that a salesperson's product knowledge influences performance indirectly through SCIB, and that this indirect influence is moderated by salesperson SFA use. Results show that the indirect positive influence of salesperson product knowledge on salesperson performance through SCIB is attenuated as SFA use increases, and enhanced when SFA use decreases. Theoretical and managerial implications are presented, followed by a discussion of limitations and future research.

All pain, no gain? Why adopting sales force automation tools is insufficient for performance improvement

The dawning of the 21st century brought a wave of research into the phenomenon of sales force automation (SFA)—technology tools aimed at enabling sales organizations to better practice customer relationship management. While the academic literature has offered great insight into how an organization can increase the likelihood that its sales force will adopt a new technology system, a great majority of research stops there. This is unfortunate in that companies mistakenly infer that use of an SFA system is the major hurdle and that simply motivating SFA use will be the key to unlocking improved performance. However, this is often not the case; many organizations are able to get their sales force to use an SFA system but do not see improvements in performance. As such, after briefly providing an overview of the factors affecting SFA use, this research provides insight into why use alone may not contribute to long-term improvements in a firm's sales performance. Key empirical findings and theoretical arguments from the extant literature are considered and a list of best practices is offered here to help managers bridge the gap between SFA use and improved sales effectiveness and efficiency.

Strategic and organisational determinants of sophistication in deployed sales force automation systems within three industry sectors in the UK

This paper investigates strategic and organisational context determinants of the sophistication of adopted sales force automation (SFA) systems in three UK industries: financial services, pharmaceuticals, and building/construction. Sophistication of adopted systems is associated with the organisation placing greater emphasis on information orientation, which is itself driven by an increased integration of IT and sales coupled with increased organisational slack. Increased integration of IT and sales is itself driven by increased strategic importance of sales coupled with increased use of internal communication networks. Importantly, a firm's marketing orientation, although also driven by the strategic importance of sales, has no impact on either information orientation or SFA sophistication. We discuss the implications of our findings to aid understanding of SFA implementation failure.

Retracted: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Sales Force Automation Usage: A Preliminary Study

AbstractSales force automation (SFA) came to cognition and officially gained momentum in the 1990s (Taylor, 1993). SFA provides salespeople with speedy information access, diminishing the time needed to prepare for calls and cutting down on the number of follow‐ups, particularly for urgent need of further information support (Taylor, 1993). This study attempts to look specifically at the “utilization–individual impact” link. In particular, the close link of the personality type of the sales representative to the individual performance usage of the sales forces automation systems in the pharmaceutical industry in Taiwan. This study provides insight into how the personality traits of the individual medical representatives of pharmaceutical companies in Taiwan could influence the adoption of innovative technology, the sales force automation system. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

English

This study began with an extensive literature review combined with a quantitative study and personality trait testing and involves the medical sales representatives of several multinational pharmaceutical companies which are members of the Taiwan Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management Association (TPMMA). Their sales forces range from 50 to 200 and all used automation systems in their daily sales operation. These systems were not the same for all companies, since they developed systems independently of one another; however they were very similar in function and design. The members of the sales force had different experience in using the systems and received different levels of support and training. Similarly, each sales force management group was free to develop and use sales force automation (SFA) systems based on their own business needs and financial standing. The product lines were different for each sample company as was their competitiveness in the market place.   Key words: Pharmaceutical company, personality traits, human factor, Taiwanese enterprises, sales force automation.

Sales Force Automation Acceptance: An Exploratory Study Of The Role Of Job Experience

<p class="MsoBlockText" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">User perceptions of new technologies may ultimately affect their acceptance of that technology. Recent research has identified a clear connection between user perceptions of Sales Force Automation and their acceptance of Sales Force Automation technologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Anecdotal evidence suggests that relative to less experienced salespeople, more experienced salespeople tend to have more negative perceptions of sales force automation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This paper examines the relationship between job experience and perceptions of a sales force automation system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The results are based on a survey of 1,657 salespeople about their perceptions of several aspects of a sales force automation system in a large sales organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>This study finds significant differences by sales experience in areas such as perceived productivity/efficiency gain, perception of sales force automation as a micromanagement tool, and user satisfaction with system functionality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Based on these results several important managerial implications for the adoption of a sales force automation system are suggested. </span></span></span></p>

Sales force automation: research agenda

Existing research on sales force automation (SFA) is primarily focusing on increasing the adoption and use of SFA by salespeople. However, the high failure rate of SFA clearly indicates that increased technology use does not always improve performance. Many companies have implemented SFA solutions in response to competitive pressures and as mechanisms to reduce costs. Adoption of an SFA tools by the sales force has been found to be a crucial factor for its successful implementation. Here, attitude of the sales force plays a critical role in SFA acceptance. We explore various individual characteristics that affect technology usage by sales persons. This research is an attempt to improve our understanding of the SFA in the context of developing countries like India. This paper explores the utilisation of SFA, the benefits derived from these systems, and user acceptance issues. Herein, we offer suggestions that will help organisations succeed in adopting SFA systems. Extensive literature review is done to raise this research agenda.

Investigating Enablers Of Sea Success: Case Study Of A Pharmaceutical Company

How does sales force’s adoption of technology happen and what organizational enablers could facilitate a successful adoption of Sales Force Automation (SFA) systems? This study of the success of a mobile information system designed to help the sales force of a medium-sized pharmaceutical company in dealing with the barriers to performance they face when operating within a mobile work setting; led to insights exploring those questions. Sales force will choose to adopt the SFA only if it believes that it is useful in helping them deal with the barriers to performance they face; and thus would have an impact on its job performance. In order to enhance the adoption of technology by the sales force, training from a work system perspective that goes beyond technical issues and guides the sales force on how the various capabilities of the technology could support their tasks and performance, is the key.

The Benefits of Sales Force Automation: A Customer’s Perspective

This paper examines the benefits of sales force automation from the customer’s perspective within a framework based on theories from the sales and information systems literature relating to the benefits of the implementation of information technology. An in-depth study using qualitative research tools is conducted among managers occupying “buyer/logistic” positions within customer organizations to identify perceived benefits of the use of sales force automation (SFA) systems by their vendors. Three content analytical techniques (thematic, lexical, and cognitive mapping) are used to uncover the benefits most valued by management in customer organizations. Results demonstrate that customers perceive benefits on four main dimensions of their interaction with salespersons—salespeople’s professionalism, customer interaction frequency, salesperson responsiveness, and salesperson–customer relationship quality. This study is the first to examine aspects of SFA from the customer perspective.

Why is my sales force automation system failing?

Sales force automation (SFA) is the use of software to automate sales tasks, including sales activities, order processing, customer management, sales forecasting and analysis, sales force management, and information sharing. An SFA system is often part of an enterprise-wide information system that connects and integrates sales activities with the organization's other operations. Therefore, SFA software is not only a tool critical to the success of today's sales force, but is also vital to the entire organization. SFA has the potential to empower companies to more efficiently manage their sales force and sales processes, to automate and standardize sales activities, and to connect the sales force with the rest of the organization. The value of these potential benefits in terms of lower costs or increased revenues has encouraged businesses to adopt SFA. Once adopted, however, SFA systems often fail to deliver anticipated benefits. The leading cause of SFA failures has been revealed as low user acceptance, which can be attributed to such factors as the disruption of established sales routines, sales force perception of the system as a micromanagement tool, differences in sales force and managerial expectations for the system, and lack of managerial support for the system as perceived by the sales force. Given these circumstances, managers who are aware of the major issues surrounding user acceptance of SFA will be more successful in implementing such systems. This article explores the utilization of SFA, the benefits derived from these systems, and user acceptance issues. Herein, we offer suggestions that will help organizations succeed in adopting SFA systems.