20 Jun mgkt
The impact of technology on evolving roles of salespeople
Paul Christ West Chester University, West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, and
Rolph Anderson LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to bridge the glaring gap in the sales literature due to the deficiency of historical research on the adoption of technology in personal selling and the resultant impacts on sales roles.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper traces the early adoption of technology by the sales force through information obtained from an extensive review of published works covering a nearly 130-year timeframe. Where possible, efforts are made to chronicle the early use of these technologies by citing examples from historical publications of applications in selling situations.
Findings – In the exciting internet era, it is often unrecognized that adopting the latest technology in selling is a long, ongoing process which can be traced back at least to the beginning of professional personal selling in the mid-1800s when the industrial revolution enabled dramatic increases in manufactured products. A review of the literature suggests that sales forces were often early adopters of new technologies that laid the groundwork for taking on new or expanded sales roles. With each new invention and its creative adoption and adaption to selling, new sales roles have been created or ongoing ones expanded or significantly modified. Many of the roles still entrusted to today’s sales force are arguably linked to a succession of technological adoptions that occurred between the 1850s and 1980s.
Originality/value – From a historical perspective, this paper examines sales force technology development from the 1850s through the 1980s and the resultant impacts on sales force roles. To date, this historic technology-sales force role relationship has not been adequately recognized or addressed in the sale literature. The analyses presented in the present study should prove useful for academics, students, and practitioners in the sales and marketing fields as well as researchers examining business history.
Keywords History, Innovation, Information technology, Sales force, Selling methods
Paper type Research paper
Introduction Over a half century ago, Hollander (1953, p. 5) defined sales devices as “tools or methods used by the salesman to help in plying his trade”. In plying their trade, twenty-first century sales forces use an impressive array of sales devices or technological tools to carry out various important sales roles, including gathering market information, gaining prospect trust, presenting their companies’ products and services, providing customer service, and building long-term buyer-seller relationships. Their technology “sales bags” include multiple telecommunications and internet-enabled devices to readily access and provide timely information before, during, and after sales presentations and buyer-seller negotiations to more fully satisfy customers.
While sales force adoption of technology has often met initial resistance (Rapp et al., 2008; Hunter and Perreault, 2007), outlays for technology continue to increase as sales managers widely view them as investments benefiting sales force productivity and profitable buyer-seller relationships (Hollenbeck et al., 2009). Studies have found that
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1755-750X.htm
The impact of technology
on sales people
173
Journal of Historical Research in Marketing
Vol. 3 No. 2, 2011 pp. 173-193
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1755-750X
DOI 10.1108/17557501111132136
using the latest technology makes the salesperson’s job easier (Colon, 1998), decreases costs (Taylor, 1993), enhances communications (Thetgyt, 2000), reduces sales cycle time (Thetgyt, 2000), improves organizational access to information (Leifer, 1999), and is essential for a sales organization to develop sustainable advantages over competitors (Rosen, 1999; Weitz and Bradford, 1999). Adoption of the latest technology is a way to increase sales force effectiveness and efficiency in carrying out sales force activities, enhancing customer relationships, and building competitive advantages (Moutot and Bascoul, 2008). Furthermore, salespeople, as the direct link between the buying and selling firms, play the key role in influencing prospects’ perceptions of the seller’s products and services and in cultivating long-term customer loyalty for repeat buying (Biong and Selnes, 1996). This often results in buyers having greater loyalty to salespeople than to the firms the seller represents (Anderson and Robertson, 1995; Macintosh and Locksin, 1997).
Yet, perhaps due to the dearth of historical research on the adoption of technology in selling and its resultant impacts (Kowalkowski and Brehmer, 2008), few contemporary salespeople seem knowledgeable about the efforts of their sales predecessors in laying the foundation for today’s high-tech selling techniques and processes. Too often, they seem to assume that prior to the internet and its interrelated communication devices, little progress had been made in sales productivity. But there have been prior inventions going back to the mid-1800s which have been almost as dramatic in their impact on selling. These earlier inventions and their adoption for sales laid the foundation for the sophisticated roles and high-tech selling techniques of today’s professional salespeople.
The overall objective of this study is to bridge a gap in the literature by tracing sales force adoption of major new technologies and the resulting changes in sales roles from the initial movement toward professionalism of salespeople in the mid-1800s to the beginning of the micro-computer and internet age in the 1980s. It is believed that insights gained from this investigation will enable sales practitioners and scholars to more fully understand America’s personal selling evolution and to gain perspectives that will enable them to become more alert to opportunities from future inventions to advance the sales profession.
Our study is organized around the contention that technology adoption is a key driver in the sales force taking on new or expanded roles (Table I). Each of these roles continues to be a key component of today’s sales forces and these roles are still evolving in response to the latest technology. The present study sets the stage for this discussion by first providing a brief history of personal selling in the US prior to the advent of the important technological advances emerging with the industrial revolution. From this point, the study proceeds to discuss the evolution of five major sales force roles, which were manifested at different times in response to emerging technology and required sellers to learn new skills. The roles include: the Mobile Market Developer, who utilized transportation technologies to expand the geographic space in which a company did business; the Long Distance Communicator, who adopted new and improved techniques for communicating that were not bound by the need to be in a specific location; the Dynamic Presenter, who enhanced in-person sales presentations with new methods for providing information and stimulating customer interest; the Market Intelligence Gatherer, who became the organization’s eyes and ears in the market by forwarding reports back to the home office; and the Prompt Service Provider, who adopted innovations enabling the seller to respond quickly to customer inquiries and requests.
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