Kenneth Le Meunier-Fitzhugh

Sales are the lifeblood of the business world and therefore an area of fundamental importance for scholarly research. This concise book analyses current thoughts and emerging practices in sales management research. Organisations who are looking to increase revenues and add new customers to their portfolio will find it increasingly difficult to successfully do this without being aware of and adopting the appropriate, adaptive sales processes. Emergent themes such as agile sales management, digital selling, artificial intelligence and trust will be discussed in the book that also embraces the importance of customer relationship management, and how salespeople are aligning their interactions with the marketing function. The text will review recent research to identify how to grow and organise the sales pipeline, manage hybrid sales teams, and the effects of new technologies on selling processes. These discussions will be helpful in highlighting issues and providing some solutions to practitioners who are operating in new environments. This book will be invaluable to sales researchers as it summarises current knowledge about key sales and sales management topics and indicates possible future research directions.

The definitive text that connects sales theory to the practical implications of selling in today's world Selling and Sales Management, 12th Edition, by Jobber, Lancaster and Le Meunier-FitzHugh provides an integrated and strategic approach to managing sales and customer relations in a complex, volatile and global marketplace. Fully updated with the latest case studies and practical exercises, the new edition covers leading research into the use of technology to enhance the selling process, as well as the recent thinking in customer relationship management and the interactions between sales and marketing functions. The text is well grounded for undergraduate and postgraduate students in business management or marketing degrees, as well those studying MBA or sales professionals in the field. The new edition offers: Expanded coverage of the management of sales channelsUpdated content on the role of social media and artificial intelligence in sellingA fully revised chapter on sales managementIncreased coverage of strategic selling and partneringDiscussion on the interactions between sales and marketing functionsExtended discussion on customer managementNew and updated practical illustrations, examples and cases About the authors: David Jobber is Emeritus Professor of Marketing at University of Bradford and has served on the editorial boards of numerous marketing and sales management journals. He was appointed as Special Advisor to the Research Assessment Exercise panel and has also received the Academy of Marketing Life Achievement award for distinguished services to marketing. Geoff Lancaster is Dean of Academic Studies at the London School of Commerce. He was formerly Senior Examiner and Academic Adviser to the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Chief Examiner to the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. Kenneth Le Meunier-FitzHugh is a Visiting Fellow at IMD (Switzerland), Warwick University and EIPM. He has taught at several universities in the UK including the LSE, St Andrews, Cranfield and UEA. He has also held senior sales and marketing roles in the past for several organisations, including Yamaha and HSBC.

Sales are the lifeblood of the business world and therefore an area of fundamental importance for scholarly research. This concise book analyses current thoughts and emerging practices in sales management research. Organisations who are looking to increase revenues and add new customers to their portfolio will find it increasingly difficult to successfully do this without being aware of and adopting the appropriate, adaptive sales processes. Emergent themes such as agile sales management, digital selling, artificial intelligence and trust will be discussed in the book that also embraces the importance of customer relationship management, and how salespeople are aligning their interactions with the marketing function. The text will review recent research to identify how to grow and organise the sales pipeline, manage hybrid sales teams, and the effects of new technologies on selling processes. These discussions will be helpful in highlighting issues and providing some solutions to practitioners who are operating in new environments. This book will be invaluable to sales researchers as it summarises current knowledge about key sales and sales management topics and indicates possible future research directions.

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Marketing is pivotal in today's world. Used for determining and satisfying the needs of the customer, it stands at the interface between an organisation and its environment. Marketing provides customer and competitor information to the organisation, as well as creating awareness of the company's offering. As globalization creates increasing challenges to established marketing practices, marketing efforts need to reposition and adapt continuously to maintain an organisation's ability to reach potential customers. This Very Short Introduction provides a general overview of the function and importance of marketing to modern organisations. Kenneth Le Meunier-FitzHugh discusses how marketing remains central to creating competitive advantage, and why it needs to be forward looking and constantly reinventing itself in line with new developments in the marketplace, such as the growth of social media, and the importance of ethics and responsible marketing. He shows how this has led to the role of marketing expanding beyond advertising and promotion, encompassing a broader sense of customer relationship management. He also considers how marketers need to remain able to manage the marketing mix in response to their understanding of customer's purchasing habits. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The main aim of this book is to consider how the sales function informs business strategy. Although there are a number of books available that address how to manage the sales team tactically, this text addresses how sales can help organizations to become more customer oriented. Many organizations are facing escalating costs and a growth in customer power, which makes it necessary to allocate resources more strategically. The sales function can provide critical customer and market knowledge to help inform both innovation and marketing. Sales are responsible for building customer knowledge, networking both internally and externally to help create additional customer value, as well as the more traditional role of managing customer relationships and selling. The text considers how sales organizations are responding to increasing competition, more demanding customers and a more complex selling environment. We identify many of the challenges facing organisations today and offers discussions of some of the possible solutions. This book considers the changing nature of sales and how activities can be aligned within the organization, as well as marketing sensing, creating customer focus and the role of sales leadership. The text will include illustrations (short case studies) provided by a range of successful organizations operating in a number of industries. Sales and senior management play an important role in ensuring that the sales teams' activities are aligned to business strategy and in creating an environment to allow salespeople to be more successful in developing new business opportunities and building long-term profitable business relationships. One of the objectives of this book is to consider how conventional thinking has changed in the last five years and integrate it with examples from sales practice to provide a more complete picture of the role of sales within the modern organization.

The main aim of this book is to consider how the sales function informs business strategy. Although there are a number of books available that address how to manage the sales team tactically, this text addresses how sales can help organizations to become more customer oriented. Many organizations are facing escalating costs and a growth in customer power, which makes it necessary to allocate resources more strategically. The sales function can provide critical customer and market knowledge to help inform both innovation and marketing. Sales are responsible for building customer knowledge, networking both internally and externally to help create additional customer value, as well as the more traditional role of managing customer relationships and selling. The text considers how sales organizations are responding to increasing competition, more demanding customers and a more complex selling environment. We identify many of the challenges facing organisations today and offers discussions of some of the possible solutions. This book considers the changing nature of sales and how activities can be aligned within the organization, as well as marketing sensing, creating customer focus and the role of sales leadership. The text will include illustrations (short case studies) provided by a range of successful organizations operating in a number of industries. Sales and senior management play an important role in ensuring that the sales teams' activities are aligned to business strategy and in creating an environment to allow salespeople to be more successful in developing new business opportunities and building long-term profitable business relationships. One of the objectives of this book is to consider how conventional thinking has changed in the last five years and integrate it with examples from sales practice to provide a more complete picture of the role of sales within the modern organization.

This book demonstrates how corporate sales and marketing teams should operate collaboratively in a 21st Century organization to enhance performance in the marketplace. It discusses how and why conflict and /or separation has grown between these two groups, even though to the outside world they appear to be a single group. The book considers how collaboration between sales and marketing can impact positively on a company's competitive advantage, and what the senior management role should be in creating and facilitating the smooth running of their sales and marketing functions. The book also discusses the resourcing of sales and marketing, and how innovative processes can reduce conflict and promote closeness, as well as a review of the role of communication, formal and informal, in improving collaboration. Finally, the book explores how sales and marketing can become more competitive in the face of a dynamic and borderless market, and where lead generation is less important than building long-term relationships with customers. The book has an action-oriented perspective throughout, providing the reader with checklists and diagnostics as the basis for evaluating their own companies and identifying directions for improvement. As the book develops its theme, key points will be reinforced with company examples.