Does Selective Sales Force Training Work?

Companies spend billions of dollars annually on sales force training, often carried out as off-site, multiday training events. However, the numerous challenges involved in training an entire sales group force many retailers to selectively train only a subset of their salespeople. It is crucial to know when selective training can be more effective and what composition of salespeople should be trained to benefit the entire group. This study addresses these questions using data from several stores of a retailer with different sales force training policies (full, selective, and no training [control]). The authors track the degree to which salespeople applied a customer relationship—building strategy taught in the training, along with more than 30 store- and salesperson-level covariates, and perform various analyses to correct for selection issues. They find that (1) selective training can be highly effective in stores with low performance diversity, (2) training salespeople with diverse tenures helps the spillover of training to the untrained, and (3) untrained salespeople with performance that is similar to the trained group are more likely to adopt the training-related behavior.

Sales Force Training In a Pharmaceutical Company Case Study In PT. XYZ

Penelitian ini dilakukan pada sebuah perusahaan farmasi di Indonesia PT. XYZ. Paralel dengan semakin kompetitinya dunia persaingan usaha, perusahaan mendirikan departemen commercial excellence dengan tujuan agar perusahaan dapat lebih fokus memonitor serta mengevaluasi aktifitas pemasaran dan penjualan. Salah satu bagian dari departemen itu adalah bagian pelatihan dan pengembangan. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah mengidentifikasi kesenjangan antara implementasi praktik harapan perbaikan di masa mendatang. Teknik analisis menggunakan Gap Analisis. Hasil peneliatian menunjukan bahwa bagian pelatihan dan pengembangan sudah mempunyai fondasi yang baik seperti; tujuan bagian yang sesuai dengan tujuan perusahaan, fasiltas dan modul yang baik. Tetapi, ada beberapa area yang harus diperbaiki seperti kebutuhan dan sistem evaluasi pelatihan.

Driving change: the role of “emotional connectedness” – a case study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand which change process the supplying organization should define for its customer-facing organization in order to successfully increase customer orientation and to be on the short list of their customers’ key suppliers. Design/methodology/approach Action research was used to carry out this research. Researchers were involved in the change management process of a medium-sized company that wanted to re-design their customer selection and interaction processes: one researcher was a top manager of the participating company, whereas the other researcher worked alongside the organization in a collaborative effort to introduce and roll out sales force training seminars. Findings Researchers’ main finding shows how the company’s top-management willingness to apply a “soft” approach to change leverages a concept called “emotional connectedness”. Originality/value The authors bridge a gap between the literature on change management and the “emotional connectedness” concept related to social psychology. The authors add to existing theories on change management a new perspective based on interpersonal relationships.

Sales Force Training Evaluation

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: justify; mso-pagination: none;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">An important indicator of an effective sales force training program is the evaluation of whether or not the training has directly impacted professional selling in retail organizations as defined by sales volume, sales personnel performance as well as other bottom line metrics<strong>. </strong>Despite spending thousands of dollars training their sales force every year, retail organizations often fail to follow through in evaluating the effectiveness of their training programs, thereby not allowing corrective actions for improvements to take root. This article investigates the importance of sales training evaluations and provides insights into the </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">challenges and impediments faced by retailers in conducting sales training evaluation<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">. This study essentially propose utilizing Kirkpatrick's Four-Level Training Evaluation Model (Donald Kirkpatrick, 1994) to examine the interrelationships among its four levels of training evaluation (reaction, learning, behavior change, and organizational outcomes) and how they can be applied in determining sales training effectiveness in retail organizations. Future research emphasis and implications are then discussed that may help retailers better evaluate their sales training provisions while developing effective and accountable sales training efforts that will increase overall sales force productivity.</span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span>

A Reference Model for E-Collaboration within the Dispersed Sales Force Training Process in Multinational Companies

Multinational pharmaceutical companies are facing the challenge of finding the right balance between local responsiveness and global integration. A cross-case study analysis of the sales force training process at the Swiss company Roche Pharmaceuticals identified four areas of collaboration, each of which comprises a certain number of collaborative tasks. The equivocality and complexity of these tasks should, however, be taken into account when considering information and communication technology (ICT) support. The authors developed a task-media fit matrix and used it to choose and justify the usage of certain information and communication technologies. The end result of this article is a reference model for the three layers of strategy, process, and ICT for e-collaboration within the dispersed sales force training process in multinational pharmaceutical companies. The authors also maintain that the task-media fit matrix can help both practitioners and researchers to either justify investments in e-collaboration tools or to evaluate ICT architectures in the field of e-collaboration.

A Reference Model for E-Collaboration within the Dispersed Sales Force Training Process in Multinational Companies

Multinational pharmaceutical companies are facing the challenge of finding the right balance between local responsiveness and global integration. A cross-case study analysis of the sales force training process at the Swiss company Roche Pharmaceuticals identified four areas of collaboration, each of which comprises a certain number of collaborative tasks. The equivocality and complexity of these tasks should, however, be taken into account when considering information and communication technology (ICT) support. The authors developed a task-media fit matrix and used it to choose and justify the usage of certain information and communication technologies. The end result of this article is a reference model for the three layers of strategy, process, and ICT for e-collaboration within the dispersed sales force training process in multinational pharmaceutical companies. The authors also maintain that the task-media fit matrix can help both practitioners and researchers to either justify investments in e-collaboration tools or to evaluate ICT architectures in the field of e-collaboration.