Management Practices in Solution Sales—A Multilevel and Cross-Functional Framework

Abstract

Business-to-business sales has changed from being an isolated function with little cross-functional influence to becoming an integrated part of long-term customer management and from an operational practice to a strategically focused part of business strategy. This suggests a need to change the unit of analysis from the activities and attributes of the salesperson toward strategic and managerial practices. This research, involving nine multinationally operating firms, identifies management practices pertinent to solution sales, develops a multilevel and cross-functional framework for the management of solution sales, and shows that managerial and strategic practices have statistically significant hierarchical relationships with overall sales performance.