Sales Force Automation Research Articles

The Benefits of Sales Force Automation Explored

Sales force automation (SFA) technologies are increasingly used to support customer relationship management (CRM) strategies. However, the popular press reports mixed results among companies incorporating SF A. technologies and the previous studies have less interested in relationship quality between sales person and customer as an outcome of SF A. Actually the improved quality of the salesperson-customer relationship may be the most important outcome of SF A usage. This outcome is especially meaningful in today`s marketplace given the increasing focus placed on customer retention and other customer related performance such as customer lifetime value. Therefore, this study seeks to further examine the impact of SF A usage within two different firms using SF A technologies to examine the impact of SF A usage on both customer relationship quality and sales performance. Additionally, the moderating roles of perceived managerial support and sales-person experience on the outcomes of SF A usage are examined. The results shows that direct effect of SF A usage on performance was not significant but highlight the mediating role of customer relationship quality in the SFA usage-sales performance relationship. Also, this research examines a number of moderating effects of both management supports for SF A and salesperson`s sales work experience. The results indicate that management support has a sig-nificant direct influence on relationship quality and salesperson performance, but not a significant moderating effect on the relationship between SF A usage and the outcomes (relationship quality and performance). Thus moderating effects were not supported but find significant main effects. First of all, finding of this study suggest that a formula for successful SFA implementation must be one that highlights a SFA usage →relationship quality→ sales performance sequence. This means when sales person use SF A they must build relationship with customer first then will return some long term performance. Second, the implications of not considering the introduction of big technology ini-tiatives in terms of fit within the company`s culture, strategy, structure, and environment may in many cases be quite noteworthy. Therefore, the launching of a new technology in the fimr, such as SF A. may have a nonlinear impact upon overall firm performance, depending on the presence of other complimentary resources and capabilities. Finally the authors offer a number of implications for research and practice, and suggest directions for future SF A research that may further improve our understanding of this increasingly relevant topic.

Study on Salespersons’ Task-related Performance Benefits Perceptions and Satisfaction with Sales Force Automation

The study empirically extracts the dimensions of perceived sales performance benefits of sales force automation (SFA) tools as perceived by sales professionals in India and empirically tests the antecedent relationship of salespersons’ perceptions with their overall satisfaction with SFA tools. Benefits of SFA tools as perceived by sales professionals were found to be a three-dimensional construct consisting of the factors (dimensions) of ‘selling effectiveness’, ‘cost of selling’ and ‘customer relationships’. All the three factors were found to be significant antecedents of overall satisfaction of sales professionals with SFA tools. The study was conducted with sales professionals of two large companies in India engaged in B2B selling. The study measures empirically determine the effect of sales professionals’ perceptions of benefits of SFA tools with their overall satisfaction and provide partial empirical support for the theoretical framework of cognitive evaluations leading to emotional appraisal, which is an attitudinal construct in the context of SFA tools adoption.

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 Review of Methodology

AbstractIn recent decades, pharmaceutical companies have been facing increasing difficulties in sustaining sales growth due to tight market competition (off‐patents, pricing erosion, and generics substitution). Pharmaceutical companies are desperately seeking ways to sustain and optimize their sales coverage and sales volume in the middle and long term. In such unpromising circumstances, one of the few options that comes to mind is customer relationship management (CRM). This study specifically looks at the “utilization‐individual impact” link. In particular, this study aims to identify the personality type of sales representative most closely linked with individual usage of sales forces automation systems in the pharmaceutical industry in Taiwan. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Automação do Processo de Vendas no Contexto do Gerenciamento de Clientes por CRM

In the management of customers’ relationships or Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the Sales Force Automation (SFA), or automation of the sellers, evoke a significant impact in technological as in relational side. Trough a Case Study in the relationship between a developer company and other company as user of CRM, results indicate that, contrary to the theory, the automation not always is noticed by the personnel of sales as a threat, but as a supporting tool. It is supposed that the technological readiness of the organizations exercises impact to obtaining contrary results in front of the general theoretical propositions.

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.

A Review of Social Media and Implications for the Sales Process

Technology-based research has a long, storied history in the sales discipline. Beginning with the role of computers to laptops, moving to the influence of the Internet, onward to customer relationship management and sales force automation applications, and now to the role of social media, sales research is being shuttled into a new technological paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to review the role of social media in the sales force and the sales process. We begin the paper by providing definitions of social media and reviewing the role and importance of social media in business. An analogy between the rise of Internet usage in the sales force and the advent of social media is presented and discussed. Next, we discuss the challenges of social media in the sales and marketing interface and review four different business strategies to determine who “owns” social media within an organization. We continue with a discussion of the different stages in the sales process and offer ways in which social media influences each individual step, thereby outlining future research opportunities.

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.

Erratum

Kirmani, A. (2011). Mobile Sales Force Automation: Efficiency in Design. Ergonomics in Design, 19(2), 14–18. (Original 10.1177/1064804611408019)

A New Attraction Model For Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Selling Effort

Deployment analysis evaluates the allocation of selling effort directed towards achieving the firms sales objectives. While recent improvements in salesforce automation have resulted in more optimal levels of sales call effort, managerial judgments are still crucial to effectively deploy a salesforce. Moreover, the availability of large databases of target profiles, especially in consumer markets and some business markets like pharmaceuticals, has led to better targeting of accounts. Nevertheless, a robust model is still needed to post-hoc analyze the effectiveness of all these efforts. An analytical framework, based on the user-friendly Portfolio Model, has been found to provide more accurate diagnostic insights when the ideal perfect-knowledge benchmark is used as a comparison. The difference in this approach, which this paper calls the Attraction Model, is in the treatment of the variables. They have been operationalized to take advantage of perfect-knowledge in market shares, growth rates and account usage patterns obtained from a large random sample. In this way the frequency of sales calls, as a measure of the sales deployment efforts, can be scrutinized and the level of success evaluated when compared to the ideal effort. Strategic corrections can then be made for the next promotional period.

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.

Value drivers for technology enabled sales force automation

A growing trend in sales management is the shift toward enhancing customer relationships and productivity through the use of sales force automation (SFA) tools. Although there is a growing significance and potential of SFA, success rates for SFA implementations have been found to be quite low. Adoption of an SFA tools by the sales force has been found to be a critical factor for its successful implementation. If the sales force considers SFA as a tool to increase productivity, or efficiency then the system is more likely to be accepted. We explore various individual characteristics that moderate the relationship between technology and sales performance. In this paper, we identify the value drivers and critical success factors for successful implementation of technology enabled SFA. This paper presents the understanding of the SFA in the context of developing economies. Using extensive literature review, the value drivers for technology enabled SFA are identified.

Secure mobile sales force automation: the case of independent sales agencies

Sales agents depend on mobile support systems for their daily work. Independent sales agencies, however, are not able to facilitate this kind of mobile support on their own due to their small size and lack of the necessary funds. Since their processes correlate with confidential information and include the initiation and alteration of legally binding transactions they have a high need for security. In this contribution we first analyze the target domain using qualitative and quantitative methods and propose an IT-artifact that supports independent sales agencies. It is build as a service platform that supports multi-vendor sales processes. Afterwards, we examine use cases of sales representatives of independent sales agencies using this system and derive their security requirements. Using these, we propose a security extension to the IT-artifact and evaluate this extension by comparing it to existing solutions. Our results show that the proposed artifact extension provides a more convenient and secure solution than already existing approaches.

Characteristics that Enhance Training Effectiveness in Implementing Technological Change in Sales Strategy: A Field-Based Exploratory Study

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 perceived effectiveness of training in a change implementation context. Older salespeople and those likely to be favorably affected by the change respond more positively to timely training and a less formal training format. Training effectiveness in turn has a positive influence on the salesperson’s perceived ability to manage the change, with learning orientation of the salesperson weakening the effect. Implications for the design of sales force automation and change implementation training programs are discussed.

The Impact of Learning Context on Intent to Use Marketing and Sales Technology: A Comparison of Scenario-Based and Task-Based Approaches

With firms focused on increasing efficiency and effectiveness in today’s marketing and sales environment, it is crucial that salesforce training methods facilitate greater adoption of salesforce automation technology. Given the growth in sales education at colleges and universities, firms are looking to recruit their frontline marketing and sales personnel direct from college. Thus, there is an opportunity for marketing educators to influence these future marketing and sales professionals’ attitudes toward technology via course instruction. This study combines technology-mediated learning and technology acceptance theories in the marketing sales education domain to show how two different contextual learning modes affected marketing and sales students’ perceptions of technology. A total of 252 marketing/sales students from an Account and Territory Management class were taught to use a salesforce automation tool using two different contextual learning approaches. Findings showed that when students were taught using an approach involving a realistic sales scenario, their perceptions of technology usefulness were greater than if the course instruction was delivered using a systematic task-based learning approach. This supports the view that the learning context of technology training matters. For students of marketing and sales, the implication is the development of perceptions that make them more willing to use technology in the workplace.

The impact of management commitment alignment on salespersons' adoption of sales force automation technologies: An empirical investigation

Marketing and information systems scholars have explored several factors that affect sales force automation (SFA) technology adoption. In this study, we introduce a new antecedent to the SFA adoption model, management commitment alignment (MCA). We show that alignment between top management and immediate supervisors' commitment to the SFA technology is an important factor in influencing SFA adoption. Results show that while commitment from both leadership levels (perfect alignment) is the most conducive to SFA adoption, misaligned commitment conditions have differential effects on adoption. Specifically, even when supervisors are committed to sales technology, lack of top management commitment can hurt SFA adoption. Managerial implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

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.

How does sales force automation influence relationship quality and performance? The mediating roles of learning and selling behaviors

Sales force automation (SFA) technologies are increasingly used to support customer relationship management strategies. However, previous studies have reported mixed results about the performances of SFA technologies. Therefore, this study seeks to further examine the impact of SFA usage on both customer relationship quality and sales performance. Additionally, the mediating roles of learning and adaptive selling behaviors on the outcomes of SFA usage are investigated. The results highlight the mediating role of salesperson learning and adaptive selling behaviors in the SFA usage and sales performance relationship. Especially noteworthy is the impact of learning through adaptive selling on those outcome variables. Implications for SFA research and practice that may further improve our understanding of this increasingly relevant topic are also offered.

Social influence on salespeople’s adoption of sales technology: a multilevel analysis

The implementation of sales force automation applications (SFA) often fails owing to the lack of adoption by salespeople. Previous studies investigating drivers of salespeople’s SFA adoption have mainly scrutinized predictors on the level of salespeople (within-level analysis). Hence, these studies have mostly neglected the social influence of coworkers’ and superiors’ SFA adoption on salespeople’s SFA adoption. We introduce a new perspective using a multilevel framework of SFA adoption at several hierarchical levels. The findings demonstrate that coworkers’ and superiors’ SFA adoption has a positive effect on subordinates’ SFA adoption which goes beyond the commonly tested determinants. Also, results reveal differences among predictors of the Technology Acceptance Model (within-level effects) examined at three different hierarchical levels.