Publications

Teaching Interest

MBA Elective Curriculum Business Marketing and Sales

Business markets differ from consumer markets in important ways. Typically, the buying process is more complex, the buying units and purchase criteria differ, and marketing decisions are more closely interrelated with firm-wide strategic choices. In addition,... View Details

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

has been consistent for years: involuntary turnover in sales organizations has remained at 13 percent, since peaking at 14.6 percent in 2009, and total turnover (involuntary and voluntary—i.e., retirements,... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

November 2016
Article

Spatial Organization of Firms and Location Choices Through the Value Chain

By: Juan Alcacer and Mercedes Delgado

We explore the impact of geographically bounded, intra-firm linkages (internal agglomerations) and geographically bounded, inter-firm linkages (external agglomerations) on firms' location strategies. Using data from the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Business Database,... View Details

Keywords: Location Choices; Agglomeration Economies; Value Chain; Organization Theory; Geographic Location; Business Strategy

Find at Harvard

27 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

Want a Happy Customer? Coordinate Sales and Marketing

mid-sized account base. At the top of the customer base pyramid where the accounts are huge, marketing and sales must make joint decisions about product, price, brand, and all kinds of support. When heavyweight distributors demand private... View Details

Keywords: by Benson Shapiro

February 2018
Case

Rosslyn Resource: Monetization and Sales Strategy

By: Robert J. Dolan and Sunru Yong

Rosslyn Resource identifies exploration targets (potential mineral deposits) in the mining industry and advances them until the project can be monetized, usually through sale to a larger mining company, in return for an upfront fee and a royalty on future revenues.... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Model; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mining Industry

23 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

The Strategy-Focused Organization

illustrate how major organizations have used the Scorecard to create an entirely new performance management framework that puts strategy at the center of a company's key management processes and systems. Mobil North America Marketing and... View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

February 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Marlin & Associates and the Sale of Riverview Technologies

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Riverview Technologies was a Stockholm, Sweden-based company that had developed software hedge funds. After spending more than a year in an organized sale process, the winning bidder had become increasingly difficult to work with and the closing had been substantially... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Deal; Negotiation Offer; Negotiation Process; Business and Shareholder Relations; Financial Services Industry

22 Feb 2021
Book

Reaching Today's Omnichannel Customer Takes a New Sales Strategy

comments below. Book Excerpt Chasing Stars By Frank V. Cespedes There is no doubt that talent matters and that sales stars exist. But an overreliance on stars from outside organizations can 27 have... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

July 2017
Article

The Four Stages to Becoming an Excellent Front-Line Sales Manager

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Sales occupations account for more than 10% of the total U.S. labor force, and that official estimate is almost certainly low: In an increasingly service economy, many people who do business development for a living are not listed as “sales” for reporting purposes.... View Details

Keywords: Salesforce Management

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November 1989 (Revised February 1992)
Case

Ford Motor Co.: Dealer Sales and Service

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger

Since Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Co., Ford vehicles have been sold and serviced the same way. By the late 1980s Ford began to consider making changes in its sales and service process. Two developments forced Ford to reconsider these processes. First, Ford found... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Change Management; Distribution Channels; Customer Focus and Relationships; Service Industry; Auto Industry; Retail Industry; United States

February 2018
Case

Qualtrics (A)

By: Doug J. Chung and James M. Lattin

Qualtrics was an online survey research platform and since the beginning, the company had relied entirely on an inside sales model—sales done remotely without face-to-face contact with clients. The low-cost inside sales model, along with an emphasis on a strong sales... View Details

Keywords: Sales Strategy; Inside Sales Model; Sales; Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation

April 2019 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Effects

By: Christopher Stanton, Richard Saouma and Olivia Hull

The importance of a good peer or coworker is widely discussed, but understanding the glue that makes coworkers valuable is less understood. This case sheds light on the importance of peers and the practices and environments that make a group greater than the sum of its... View Details

November 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Summa Equity: Building Purpose-Driven Organizations

By: George Serafeim

In 2015, Reynir Indahl left top Nordic private equity firm Altor Equity Partners to found Summa Equity (Summa). After long contemplation following the financial crisis, Indahl was convinced the financial system was producing negative externalities and that the current... View Details

25 Jul 2005
Research & Ideas

An Organization Your Customers Understand

Imagine an organization made up of a variety of three-dimensional shapes. Rectangular blocks represent the functions: manufacturing, R&D, and sales and marketing. The spheres are regional offices.... View Details

Keywords: by Robert Simons

September 2002
Case

Align Technology, Inc.: Matching Manufacturing Capacity to Sales Demand

By: H. Kent Bowen and Jonathan P Groberg

Align Technology is a four-year-old medical products company that has invented a new product requiring new manufacturing processes. Demand for the new product has grown more slowly than initial forecasts predicted, and the cost structure is preventing the company from... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Product; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Demand and Consumers; Production; Health Industry

August 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Case

Oversight Systems

By: Frank V. Cespedes and Amram Migdal

The case, set in May 2016, discusses sales strategy and managing sales and service at Oversight Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia–based software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational inefficiencies. Included... View Details

Keywords: Sales; Sales Strategy; Entrepreneurial Sales; Entrepreneurial Sales And Marketing; Software Sales; Marketing; Marketing Management; Pricing; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Technology Industry; North America; United States; Atlanta; Georgia (state, US)

09 Oct 2001
Research & Ideas

Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Organizations

and Nohria examine how an organization built around the four-drive theory might look. The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's need of work. With it, life is heaven, or as near heaven... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Lawrence & Nitin Nohria

December 1992 (Revised November 1994)
Case

Becton Dickinson Division: Marketing Organization

By: Frank V. Cespedes

The marketing director for the largest division of a health care products company is reviewing the structure and staffing of the division's marketing organization. The division has authorization to hire an additional marketing manager. Hence, the immediate case... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Health Care and Treatment; Human Resources; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Managerial Roles; Product Marketing; Measurement and Metrics; Organizational Structure; Strategy; Consumer Products Industry; Health Industry

October 1988 (Revised December 1989)
Case

Siemens Electric Motor Works (B): Pricing Interdivisional Sales

Examines Siemens' policy for pricing products transferred between the manufacturing and sales divisions of their Electric Motor Works, where both are profit centers. It is unique in that the organizational linkage between the product costing system and the transfer... View Details

Keywords: Production; Price; Organizational Structure; Profit; Business Processes; Manufacturing Industry