Searching for strategy in sales

Abstract

This issue of the journal contains seven separate contributions to the debate regarding the emergence and characteristics of the strategic sales organization. The papers published here move the strategic sales issue from the generalized prescription of a more strategic approach to sales, to more specific analyses of critical topics: the strategic realignment needed for effective organizational change; the need to capture key account performance as a basis for making strategic choices; the impact of the leaning of operations and lean enterprises spanning value chains on buyer–seller relationships; the need to locate sales ethics in an enterprise-wide ethics system that represents a company's key values and its undertakings to stakeholders; the importance of accommodating marketing/sales interface issues in the transformation process; and, focusing on the processes of strategizing the traditional sales organization for the new type of role it is expected to play.

Keywords:

• strategy
• realignment
• key accounts
• lean value chains
• ethics
• marketing/sales interface