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Increasing resilience by creating an adaptive salesforce

Author

Listed:
  • Arun Sharma
  • Deva Rangarajan
  • Bert Paesbrugghe

    (LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

During disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the resilience of any commercial organization becomes a critical characteristic. This paper examines the flexibility of the sales process—that is, adaptive selling—as an analog to resiliency, and recommends that firms create an adaptive salesforce to increase resilience. By examining the extant research and conducting interviews with sales leaders, the findings of this paper suggest that an adaptive salesforce should focus on three areas of change within team structures. The first is an increase in flexibility and adaptiveness for the functions that the salesforce performs. The second area is an improvement of the adaptiveness of scale in which sales functions can be rapidly insourced or outsourced. The final area is technology adaptiveness, in which the salesforce adopts the use of technologies that are most relevant to customers. Implications for the firm, sales function, and individual salespeople are also derived.

Suggested Citation

  • Arun Sharma & Deva Rangarajan & Bert Paesbrugghe, 2020. "Increasing resilience by creating an adaptive salesforce," Post-Print hal-03136152, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03136152
    DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.05.023
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Wenchuan Huang & Shouming Chen & Luu Thi Nguyen, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Resilience to COVID-19 Crisis: An Empirical Study of Chinese Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-19, October.
    2. Yuan, Ruizhi & Luo, Jun & Liu, Martin J. & Yu, Jiang, 2022. "Understanding organizational resilience in a platform-based sharing business: The role of absorptive capacity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 85-99.
    3. Oh, Joon-Hee & Johnston, Wesley J., 2023. "New evaluation metric for measuring sales training effectiveness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    4. Rangarajan, Deva & Sharma, Arun & Lyngdoh, Teidorlang & Paesbrugghe, Bert, 2021. "Business-to-business selling in the post-COVID-19 era: Developing an adaptive sales force," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 647-658.
    5. Marc Lim, Weng, 2023. "Transformative marketing in the new normal: A novel practice-scholarly integrative review of business-to-business marketing mix challenges, opportunities, and solutions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    6. Ramos, Carla & Claro, Danny P. & Germiniano, Renato, 2023. "The effect of inside sales and hybrid sales structures on customer value creation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

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