Selling complex products

Christa von Waldthausen

2007

This paper examines the optimal sales organization for companies that sell complex products, or products that require explanation, directly to customers with a broad range of needs. The analysis aims to achieve a better qualitative and quantitative understanding of the challenges and conditions that should be considered in the context of personal sales, and to clarify the business effects of this organization model. The paper also assesses the generic statements of organizational theory based on a model. To this end, a closed, prescriptive model is developed that enables a formal assessment of organizational theory statements. This model can also support management in decisions related to sales force allocation with regard to customers and products, thus enabling a suitable set-up for personal sales to be developed. The model will not include all of the potential factors that could arise in reality. Rather, it will comprise the most relevant parameters to identify and analyze important interrelations.

The work helps formally map and generalize well-known interrelations in a systematic and complexity-reducing manner on the way personal sales are structured. What's more, it helps formally validate qualitative organizational theory statements.