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Qualtrics was an online survey research platform and since the beginning, the company had relied entirely on an inside sales model-sales done remotely without face-to-face contact with clients. The low-cost inside sales model, along with an emphasis on a strong sales culture, had helped Qualtrics to grow rapidly. However, it needed to prepare for the next phase of its growth. The company decided to diversify its product portfolio and target different types of customers (enterprise clients). In accordance with this change, it recognized the need to revise the inside-sales-only model by adding a field sales component to better serve these customers. Many organizations often go through a turning point in their strategy to explore ways for growth. The case series outlines the best practices of scaling an inside sales model and the challenges involved in changing an organization's sales management and strategy to initiate future growth.

In 2017, Jay Desai, the CEO of Boston-based health care technology company PatientPing, had to consider a number of interrelated pricing challenges. Founded in late 2013, PatientPing sold a software platform that allowed health care providers to receive real-time notifications ("Pings") when one of their patients was admitted to or discharged from a health care facility. Pings allowed providers to coordinate with one another to reduce costs and ensure that patients were receiving the highest quality of care. PatientPing sold its platform to a range of customers, from small skilled nursing facilities to large health systems, and management had to figure out how to optimally price the platform for the company's various customer segments. Students must consider whether PatientPing's pricing, sales team, and sales process are optimal based on the unique challenges of the health care industry. Additionally, students are asked to respond to three specific sales and marketing scenarios faced by Desai in mid-2017.

The case raises issues around sales force deployment and management issues in the SaaS industry. Specifically, VTS sells a software product to the real estate industry, and has designed a Go_to_Market strategy for what the founders perceive to be the unique characteristics of that industry, and the way in which those factors contribute to the importance of referrals to VTS's sales. In the case, the founders are considering changing some aspects of their strategy including: sales force compensation, where a change from a team-based incentive comp system to a ore individualistic system is under consideration; sales force specialization where specialization by account size or stage of the selling / buying process is under consideration; and, sales management roles & responsibilities, where a change in the role of senior management from quota-carrying sales rep AND sales team leader to simply team leader, with no quota, is being considered.

Companies worry about employee attrition, but it's especially costly in one function: sales. Estimates of annual turnover among U.S. salespeople run as high as 27%. A new study can help managers identify good salespeople who are at risk of quitting and take steps to retain them. Researchers examined more than two years' worth of data from a telecommunications company and created a quantitative model--the first of its kind--to predict which salespeople were likely to quit. They found, as expected, that those with high ratings in historical performance and customer satisfaction were less likely to leave than average and low performers. But when it came to quota attainment, both high and low performers were less likely than average performers to quit. And the biggest surprise concerned peer effects, which proved the strongest predictor of quitting. Employees at companies with little variation in performance had a greater tendency to leave (they had little incentive to work harder or smarter, the researchers theorized). Also at risk: salespeople in settings with high turnover, whether voluntary or not, suggesting that turnover can be contagious. Drawing on these results, the researchers say, managers can use big data to identify variables that predict turnover in their own ranks and decide which members of the high-risk group warrant interventions to help them stay put.

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain founded in 1988 by brothers Marcus, Mikael and Fredrik Dahnelius. The company operated 84 stores, all company-owned, located mainly in the metropolitan areas of Sweden's most popular cities: Stockholm, Gothemburg and Malmö. The company's products consisted of home electronics, accessories for home electronics and cellular phones (e.g., networking accessories, headsets and phone cases), and parts for consumer electronics and appliances (e.g., semiconductors and switches). The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair "one-for-all" HR policy. The company had a direct sales force of about 350 in-store salespeople. The salespeople historically had been compensated by a fixed salary and a variable commission conditional on meeting a monthly sales quota. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the monthly-quota compensation scheme might have demotivated some salespeople toward the end of the month, as those who fell short early in a month simply gave up because they had no chance of meeting quota. Thus, to mitigate this problem, management proposed a shorter temporal horizon daily-quota scheme. The (A) case focuses on the decision faced by the CEO, Thomas Keifer, on whether to change the sales force compensation plan to a temporally shorter daily-quota scheme and, if so, how to implement the change-that is, whether to run a pilot study with the new plan (implementing it at a few selected stores) or to launch the plan at all stores simultaneously. The (B), (C), and (D) cases show the results of various metrics across different types of salespeople after the change in the compensation plan was implemented. The case series explores different ways to analyze data for inference about salespeople's behavior caused by a change in the compensation plan. Also, the case series shows ways to experiment with the compensation plan for causal inference.

B2B customers are deeply uncertain and stressed. With virtually infinite information available on any solution, a swelling raft of stakeholders involved in each purchase, and an ever-expanding array of options, customers are increasingly overwhelmed and often more paralyzed than empowered. The authors' solution, developed through work with hundreds of sales organizations globally, is a proactive, take-charge prescriptive approach that sweeps away obstacles and guides customers through decision making. Companies that have mastered prescriptive selling share a set of practices: They work to understand customers' purchase journeys; identify significant customer challenges at each buying stage; arm their sellers with tools to help overcome each challenge; and track customers' purchase progress so that they can intervene to keep the process on track.

Atlassian: Sales examines the company's unique, no-touch sales model for enterprise products that help teams track projects, collaborate, and build products. The case explores how the company developed and sold its first product, JIRA, and how early lessons helped shape the company's no-touch sales model for all subsequent products. It then discusses the organizational effects of a low-price, volume-based model, and how the advocacy team and channel partners serve as keys to success for the approach.

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company's products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair "one-for-all" HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated by a fixed salary and a variable commission conditional on meeting a monthly sales quota. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the monthly-quota compensation scheme might have demotivated some salespeople toward the end of the month, as those who fell short early in a month simply gave up because they had no chance of meeting quota. Thus, to mitigate this problem, management proposed a shorter-temporal-horizon daily-quota scheme. The (A) case focuses on the decision faced by the CEO on whether to change the sales force compensation plan to a temporally shorter scheme and, if so, how to implement the change. The (B), (C), and (D) cases show the results of various metrics across different types of salespeople after the change in the compensation plan was implemented. The case series explores different ways to analyze data for inference about salespeople's behavior caused by a change in the compensation structure. Also, the case series shows ways to experiment with the compensation plan for causal inference.

This background note explains the structure of incentive-based sales compensation systems.

The case presents the dilemma of Vivek Gupta, director Sanmarg pvt limited as he contemplates the road ahead for the 70 year old Hindi daily-Sanmarg. Headquartered in Kolkata and catering to the Hindi literate of west Bengal, Sanmarg also came out with state level editions from Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand. The 16 page daily newspaper had stayed constant in its offering and only lately had come out with an on-line version. Was this consistency a strength or did the customer seek variety? Was it time to reinvent the newspaper? Or would it be easier to tap the untapped potential of neighboring states? Digital new age media and English dailies eying the language market demanded quick action. Makeover or market expansion, what was the right path for Sanmarg?

Sewells Group, India, a leading provider of retail solutions to auto original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their dealers in the Indian market, developed an innovative engagement model for its clients. The model offered solutions based on the performance management of franchised automotive dealers using measurement, analysis, education and development. The first client for whom Sewells Group developed the dealer sales and service system was a late entrant into the Indian market and had about 100 dealerships across the country. It wanted to ensure that the brand promise communicated through its innovative and expensive marketing campaigns was supported at its dealerships when customers arrived to explore the cars. The client sought a comprehensive model of dealer management that did not suffer from the limitations of traditional models that were heavily focused on training and process compliance. In response, Sewells Group developed a novel 5-step dealer management model that applied principles of retail process efficacy to deliver three key outcomes: customer experience, productivity and profitability across all the departments of a dealership. As Jayesh Jagasia, CEO at Sewells Group, India, reviewed the impressive quarterly results of the model's implementation, he mulled over questions related to the sustainability, replicability and extendibility of this initial model to other firms in the automotive sector. What were the learnings from the first implementation of the model? Was it possible to effectively overcome the challenges that they had faced? Would the model work across the industry? Under what circumstances and for what brands or dealerships would the model work? What sort of consulting resources would the company need? Could some parts of the solution be automated? How would the IT departments of auto manufacturers respond to the automation of solutions?

Headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, Formlabs manufactures 3D printers used to print everything from prototypes and models to jewelry, dental, and sculpture molds. As Formlabs prepares to ship its latest model, the Form 2, Head of Customer Development and Services Luke Winston wonders which strategy will double sales. Should he focus on direct sales or add more channel partners?

DataXu served marketers by buying digital advertising for brands using its demand-side platform. It sought a way to build a more predictable revenue stream in the very transactional media marketplace, and hoped that two new marketing analytics products would give it a more predictable revenue stream. But sales were behind forecast. DataXu's large brand and advertising agency clients found the new products interesting, but evidence suggested that their buying processes might be incompatible with the recurring sales model DataXu wanted to implement. Will DataXu need to change its sales organization, pricing approach, or hiring criteria to sell the new products?

Student spreadsheet for case 817041.

Amara Kaggwa leads the small but rapidly expanding sales team at ZenRecruit, a recruiting software application used by small businesses. Armed with six months of sales performance metrics, Kaggwa is preparing for her monthly performance conversations with two under-performing sales people. This case concerns a metrics-driven sales organization, challenges the students to combine quantitative and qualitative observations to craft productive sales coaching plans, and provides students with the opportunity to role play these difficult yet important performance-review discussions. It is suitable for Sales, Marketing, Organizational Behavior, and Entrepreneurial Management courses.

The case, set in May 2016, discusses sales strategy and managing sales and service at Oversight Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia-based software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational inefficiencies. Included is an overview of Oversight's founding and the evolution of its offering from customized software analytics to pre-packaged software-as-a-service (SaaS) bundles, called Insights on Demand (IOD). Oversight adapted its sales and service approach to better suit IOD by standardizing its prices, packaging, and product delivery, as well as its approach to sales, including the sales team's composition, compensation, and incentive structure. Over time, Oversight had engaged in a variety of channel partnerships, and some were more successful than others. The case examines the decision of whether to engage in a channel partnership with a major credit card company.

Social merchants are small business owners and entrepreneurs who adopt social shopping as a new sales channel. They employ social shopping intermediaries, such as Groupon and LivingSocial, to promote their products or services to price-sensitive customers at large discounts. The success of social merchants depends in part on the reputation they gain at merchant review sites (e.g., Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angie's List), via which consumers post online product and merchant reviews. An analysis of social shopping provides insight regarding how social shopping works and what merchants must be aware of if they utilize social shopping intermediaries. This article shares these insights in the context of a set of health and wellness merchants that were studied for five years. Specifically, this article discusses how their Groupon daily deals affect merchant reviews, and how surviving vs. failed social merchants differ in terms of their review scores and number of reviews. Finally, this article provides recommendations about merchant review management to health and wellness merchants.

One of the biggest challenges for brick-and-mortar retailers is competing with online-only sellers such as Amazon. The conventional "omnichannel" strategy is to encourage consumers to shop across channels. But few retailers have closely examined the profitability of such efforts, and they typically pay little attention to how far a customer lives from the store. New research led by Temple University's Xueming Luo shows that distance is a crucial variable. Working with a Chinese department store on its coupon strategy, the researchers found that the most profitable promotions coaxed distant online shoppers (ones who lived more than five kilometers away) into physical stores, where they were more likely to make impulse purchases and to buy "experiential" goods such as apparel and makeup. Luring distant in-store shoppers online was actually counterproductive--profits from those customers fell. (Coupons made no significant difference when customers lived close to a store.) Retailers should also consider giving online customers incentives (such as free shipping) to have orders sent to a local store for pickup rather than delivered to their homes, the researchers say. And they should reduce the real or perceived costs of traveling to a store--for example, by locating stores near public transit or ensuring ample parking.

This case study is comprised of two vignettes about startup companies considering whether and how to change their sales compensation plans. ElMenus.com is a restaurant app venture in Egypt seeking to lower customer churn while confronting new competition. BigBelly is a "smart" waste receptacle venture that is changing its business model. The case allows for the comparison and contrast of the roles of sales compensation in different ventures with different sales funnel activities. The case also allows for an overview of all the core components of sales compensation.

New research reveals that when people don't examine the ethical practices of the companies making the products they buy, they feel hostile toward consumers who do.