The new article in the top-tier publication Industrial Marketing Management – IMM by Dr. Paul Viio and Professor Christian Grönroos – the Legend of Marketing – on value-based sales process adaptation in a B2B context is now available.
Highlights of the study:
- This study focuses on understanding how business firms adapt their sales processes.
- The findings reveal how different modes of adaptation are contingent upon the type of product or service being purchased.
- In order for sellers to strategically adapt, more in-depth focus on the purchasing portfolio is recommended.
Abstract
In business relationships, the seller is often expected to adapt to the buyer. The main purpose of this study is to understand how business firms adapt their sales processes to the buyer. The resulting framework, which reveals how different modes of adaptation are contingent upon the type of product being purchased, includes three layers: sales process adaptation, seller–buyer relationship orientation, and the purchasing portfolio. The study is a qualitative one and utilizes a retrospective case study, where the main sources of information are in-depth semi-structured interviews with key informants representing the seller and buyer counterparts in the ICT industry. Our study adds to the understanding of how different modes of adaptation are contingent upon the type of item being sold and purchased. Managerial implications include that to strategically adapt, the seller could focus on the purchasing portfolio. Although previous research has recognized adaptation as a central aspect in relationships, how the sales process could be adapted to the buyer has received little attention. This study focuses on the adaptation of sales to strategically match it to the buyer’s situation.
Keywords: Strategic adaptation; Sales process; Portfolio model; Relationship orientation; Business-to-business
Publication details and access link:
Viio, P. and Grönroos, C. (2014), Value-based sales process adaptation in business relationships, Industrial Marketing Management, 43(6), 1085-95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2014.05.022
