The contingent effects of innovative digital sales technologies on B2B firms’ financial performance

Business-to-business (B2B) firms make large investments to implement innovative digital sales technology (IDST) in the hope of increasing firm performance. While marketing research generally indicates that these investments should pay off, recent experiences from managerial practice suggest that such beneficial payoffs may not necessarily arise. To examine the effects of implementing IDSTs on B2B firm performance, we differentiate between customer-sensing and customer-linking IDSTs: while customer-sensing IDST has the primary purpose of identifying new sales opportunities (e.g., predictive analytics) early within the B2B sales funnel, the purpose of customer-linking IDST (e.g., augmented reality application) is to close sales opportunities. The results of a multi-data study involving 314 B2B firms confirm that implementing customer-sensing and customer-linking IDST can exhibit a complementary, positive effect on firm profit, but this effect strongly varies with the sales task environment in terms of firms’ offering and demand complexity. In unfavorable conditions, extensive digitalization in B2B sales can even harm firm profit. These findings contribute to sales technology research and the literature on marketing capabilities and guide managers on how to ensure successful sales digitalization.