Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

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CHAPTER 14 STRATEGIC CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT AND THE STRATEGIC SALES ORGANISATION
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Infrastructure – developing the structure and processes needed to manage sales and 
account management organisations to match customer relationship requirements and 
to build competitive advantage.
14.3.1 Involvement in strategic decision making
As customer demands for superior seller relationships continue to evolve and escalate, then 
a distinct new role is becoming critical in selling organisations – the strategic management 
of the relationship with the customer. While harsh economic conditions and the search for 
a competitive edge mandate cost reductions to increase margins, sales revenues and profits 
are derived not only from finding new customers and sales channels, but from growing rela-
tionships with existing customers and sales channels. However, conventionally, sales organi-
sations manage customers for short-term revenues, which in highly competitive markets 
often results in declining margins and commoditisation (Lombardi, 2005). Underpinning a 
strategic response to radical market change is the challenge of repositioning sales as a core 
part of the company’s competitiveness, where the sales organisation is closely integrated 
into marketing strategy (Stephens, 2003).
In calling on companies to put sales at the centre of strategy, Frank Cespedes (2014) 
suggests that too often management embarks on a strategy without considering the reali-
ties facing the people who must execute the strategy with paying customers, and notes that 
‘strategists, years removed from customer contact, often have an obsolete vision of the 
company–customer interface’ (p. 24). He concludes that, logically, the sales organisation 
should be part of every conversation about strategy.
Involvement of the sales organisation in strategy has two aspects. The first strategic sales 
issue is concerned with developing a perspective on the sales organisation that does not 
focus simply on the tactical management of transactional sales processes, but examines the 
relationships formed with different types of customers as the basis for long-term business