Left to their own devices? Antecedents and contingent effects of workplace anxiety in the WFH selling environment

Purpose The main purpose of this research is to understand how the sudden shift to work from home (WFH) after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has caught several sales organizations underprepared and ill-equipped to combat emergent challenges. In this research, the authors provide initial evidence into how the WFH arrangement impacts salespeople and sales organizations. Specifically, this research is guided by two objectives: to understand how the shift to WFH environment is affecting salespeople, and to explore how organizations can mitigate dysfunctional effects of the shift to WFH practices and enhance salespeople’s commitment toward this new reality. Design/methodology/approach The authors did preliminary in-depth interviews with 13 executives operating in the business-to-business (B2B) space to identify themes that reflected the reality faced by B2B sales organizations when transitioning to WFH. The authors then conducted a quantitative study involving a survey with 130 B2B salespeople. Findings The findings from the qualitative research suggested that the WFH situation is quite different from the more traditional remote selling situations that B2B salespeople are used to. More specifically, salespeople experienced more anxiety because of the WFH situations. This finding was supported in the empirical study done by the authors where stress associated with WFH and job insecurity had a significant impact on salesperson anxiety. Research limitations/implications The study primarily used subjective responses of salespeople with no objective measures. Furthermore, this study is cross-sectional in nature. Future research should build on the present work to understand the long-term consequences of WFH and factor in customer responses to the same. The impact of increased use of technology in the sales process will need further attention, including the sales management implication for the same. Originality/value Given the unforeseen nature of the COVID pandemic and how unprepared salespeople and sales organizations were to deal with it, this study is one of the first studies that documents the impact of WFH situations on salespeople.

DESIGN OF SALES PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD BASED ON SALES FUNNEL & SALES FORCE AUTOMATION THEORIES: A CASE OF AN INDONESIAN ISLAMIC BANK

One of the bank management concerns related to sales performance is ensuring sales people perform the sales process correctly. Unfortunately, most sales people have problems in the sales process, which causes their low performance. Islamic banks in Indonesia also experienced this situation, so a strategy needs to overcome this problem. For instance, using surveillance tools such as Sales Force Automation (SFA) with sales funnel theory. An SFA tool is a sales system connected to computers and internet networks. It monitors sales processes and results, manages contacts, forecasts sales, and analyzes sales performance daily and monthly. Additionally, it helps sales forces to measure the ability to achieve targets, plan sales strategies and customer approaches, and increase work motivation. Also, raise awareness of developing skills, and provide up-to-date information to supervisors about sales force performance to determine the proper training. Therefore, the use of SFA tools is expected to increase the productivity of sales people in optimizing the fulfillment of deposit targets in Islamic banking. This paper reports the SFA design in the form of a dashboard model with a visual sales to funnel that shows the function of the salesperson in conducting the sales process ends with the results.

Sales complexity and value appropriation: a taxonomy of sales situations

Purpose The increasingly complex business-to-business (B2B) sales process necessitates that sales managers strike the right balance between appropriate resource allocation, while also maintaining the profitability of the organization. While previous research has mainly focused on how changes in the business environment pose distinct challenges to salespeople, very little research has focused on how sales managers should react to these complex situations. Drawing upon the extant sales research, this paper aims to point to a gap in the literature of how sales managers deal with the complexity associated with the sales process and deal with the same. Design/methodology/approach Methods from the grounded theory research approach were used to conduct 18 in-depth interviews with B2B sales managers. Purposive sampling was used to identify the participants. Findings A taxonomy of sales situations that reflects the changing complexity of the sales function and how sales managers need to orchestrate their resource allocation decisions to ensure appropriate value capture from B2B relationships emerged within the themes. This paper highlights four fundamental tenets of sales situations that account for both the complexity of the sales process and the value appropriation challenge that sales managers face. Practical implications The taxonomy will help sales managers have a better understanding of the changing complexity in the B2B sales process and help them with decisions making. Sales managers can orchestrate their resource allocation to achieve value appropriation. Originality/value This paper develops a new taxonomy of the sales situation. It unravels the changing complexity of the B2B sales process and discusses how value appropriation can be achieved by sales managers.

Impact of E-Commerce in Industry

E-Commerce is a buying and selling activity, where the activities of sellers and buyers are carried out through the internet. This study aims to illustrate the impact of using E-Commerce, especially for the benefits of E-Commerce for business strategies. There are several ways to develop business both manually and computers. But in this era of the global economy, not only is the work process computerized, but the sales process also utilizes these facilities. The goal is to use e-commerce to attract more consumers because it can reach wider consumers. This research uses descriptive qualitative method and literature study based on previous research. So is it enough to make E-Commerce an industry that will experience an increase in sales results? Of course not, but the more quality E-Commerce that is created will further increase profits for the company

A Six-Sigma DMAIC Approach to Improve the Sales Process of a Technology Start-Up

Despite the adoption of Six-Sigma in different service sectors, its application in the Sales function of a Technology-based Start-up has not been explored. This paper deploys an action research-based study methodology and conducts a thorough analysis of a Technology Start-up company in Indonesia, using Six-Sigma principles and the Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control (DMAIC) approach. Statistical validation of the causes of problems helped to formulate a strategy that may have otherwise not been possible. The results of the study and proposed solutions confirm the potential benefits of adopting Six-Sigma in the Sales function of technology start-ups to reduce, particularly, customer waiting time. The novelty of this research lies in the fact that it applies Six-Sigma in a transactional process such as sales, which earlier studies have not explored in depth. This paper can be employed as a reference for organisations to undertake and guide specific process improvement projects similar to the one presented.

Sosialisasi Strategi Menarik Minat Konsumen Untuk Membeli Produk Hasil UMKM

This activity aims to provide knowledge about the importance of understanding consumers in this new era because in the sales process in the era and the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer behavior will definitely change. Therefore, the activity with the theme "Strategy to attract consumers to buy UMKM products" is expected to be a solution for UMKM in which the material presented includes the characteristics of consumers and also how to techniques to make consumers feel like buying products produced by UMKM. it is still difficult to be able to market the products they produce and this affects the income level of UMKM actors. At the end of these community service activities, we evaluate by giving questionnaires with respondents to see the percentage of participants' satisfaction levels during community service activities and to measure quantitatively the percentage of influence and impact after completing the implementation of service activities Some of the strategies shared in this socialization are new methods that UMKM actors can use to adapt in the marketing era n new. And it is hoped that it can change the mindset of UMKM actors in making the right marketing strategy in order to increase sales.

Rancang Bangun Sistem Informasi Penjualan Obat di Apotek Era Medika Berbasis Website

Handling data by doing this manually has a number of obstacles at the Era Medika Pharmacy, including causing errors in checking drug stock once a week, inaccurate recording of incoming or outgoing drug stocks so that there is a mistake in recording the final stock, as well as the results of sales reports use paper. To overcome this problem the drug sales information system is a solution to the drug sales process, and uses the Click to Chat API Whatsapp to facilitate sending messages to drug suppliers. To obtain the data needed during the study, the author uses several method including: interviews, observation, and literature studies. The data obtained then analyzes using the Waterfall method. The results of this study conducted on testing sales applications that have been designed can help to facilitate managers in the sales process that can be accessed online so that it can work effectively and efficiently. With the Click to Chat feature Whatsapp can facilitate messages to drug suppliers according to the contact you want to reach. The results of this study are expected to be useful in the future.

Sales Effort Management Under All-or-Nothing Constraint

We consider a sales effort management problem under an all-or-nothing constraint. The seller will receive no bonus/revenue if the sales volume fails to reach a predetermined target at the end of the sales horizon. Throughout the sales horizon, the sales process can be moderated by the seller through costly effort. We show that the optimal sales rate is nonmonotonic with respect to the remaining time or the outstanding sales volume required to reach the target. Generally, it has a watershed structure, such that for any needed sales volume, there exists a cutoff point on the remaining time above which the optimal sales rate decreases in the remaining time and below which it increases in the remaining time. We then study easy-to-compute heuristics that can be implemented efficiently. We start with a static heuristic derived from the deterministic analog of the stochastic problem. With an all-or-nothing constraint, we show that the performance of the static heuristic hinges on how the profit-maximizing rate fares against the target rate, which is defined as the sales target divided by the length of the sales horizon. When the profit-maximizing rate is higher than the target rate, the static heuristic adopting the optimal deterministic rate is asymptotically optimal with negligible loss. On the other hand, when the profit-maximizing rate is lower than the target rate, the performance loss of any asymptotically optimal static heuristic is of an order greater than the square root of the scale parameter. To address the poor performance of the static heuristic in the latter case, we propose a modified resolving heuristic and show that it is asymptotically optimal and achieves a logarithmic performance loss. This paper was accepted by Gabriel Weintraub, revenue management and market analytics.

Marketing relacional, un estudio sobre customer engagement, customer experience y customer success

El marketing relacional o también llamado marketing de relaciones, juega un papel importante en la fidelización, el relacionamiento y la retención de los clientes con una marca. Los tres tipos o vertientes de esta rama de mercadotecnia analizadas, fueron el customer engagement o compromiso del consumidor, customer experience o experiencia del consumidor y el customer success o éxito del consumidor. El objetivo del estudio fue analizar las vertientes del marketing enfocados, principalmente, al tema relacional en donde a partir de sus características, dimensiones y, sobre todo, actividades se empató con el proceso de venta o comercial de las organizaciones y se planteó la Pirámide de las vertientes del marketing relacional como herramienta para la consecución de objetivos relacionales, teniendo como base el customer engagement y el customer experience. Este estudio respondió a una revisión bibliográfica exhaustiva – teórico descriptivo, en la que se analizaron publicaciones científicas de carácter empíricas, teóricas, analíticas y críticas, de aquellos autores que han estudiado sobre el tema. Se concluyó que el tipo de marketing relacional con mayor cantidad de actividades relacionadas con el proceso comercial es el customer experience, ya que su objetivo principal es brindar y mantener una experiencia positiva, de inicio a fin, durante todo el proceso de compra de un consumidor. La Pirámide de las vertientes del marketing relacional tomó una forma diferente teniendo como base el customer engagement y el customer success. Palabras clave: customer engagement, customer experience, customer success, fidelización, marketing relacional, proceso de venta. AbstractRelationship marketing also called relational marketing, plays an important role in customer loyalty, relationships, and retention with a brand. The three types or so-called aspects of this part of the marketing, which were analyzed in this study are: customer engagement or consumer commitment, customer experience or consumer experience and customer success or consumer success. The objective of this study was to analyze the types of marketing, based on the relational aspect, which includes characteristics, dimensions and especially activities. This analysis come together with the sales or the commercial process of organizations. For this, the Relationship Marketing Pyramid was proposed as a tool to achieve relational objectives using customer engagement and customer experience. This study was carried out under an exhaustive literature review scheme and a descriptive theory, in which empirical, theoretical, analytical, and critical scientific publications were analyzed. After the analysis, it was concluded that the type of relationship marketing with the greatest number of activities related to the commercial process is the customer experience, since its main objective is to provide and maintain a positive experience from the beginning to the end of the process of a consumer’s purchase. The Relationship Marketing Pyramid took a different form based on customer engagement and customer success.Keywords: customer engagement, customer experience, customer success, loyalty, relationship marketing, sales process