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- April 2014
- Article
The Cost of High-Powered Incentives: Employee Gaming in Enterprise Software Sales
By: Ian Larkin
This paper investigates the pricing distortions that arise from the use of a common non-linear incentive scheme at a leading enterprise software vendor. The empirical results demonstrate that salespeople are adept at gaming the timing of deal closure to take advantage... View Details
Keywords: Incentives; Motivation; Compensation; Gaming; Sales Force Management; Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Software; Compensation and Benefits; Information Technology Industry
Larkin, Ian. "The Cost of High-Powered Incentives: Employee Gaming in Enterprise Software Sales." Journal of Labor Economics 32, no. 2 (April 2014): 199–227.
- April 2006 (Revised April 2012)
- Background Note
The Company Sale Process
Lays out the steps, the timeline, and the process by which a company is sold. Focuses on the sale of companies with enterprise values greater than $100 million. These transactions are large enough to require the help of a financial adviser and attract both strategic... View Details
Fruhan, William E., Jr. "The Company Sale Process." Harvard Business School Background Note 206-108, April 2006. (Revised April 2012.)
- September–October 2016
- Article
What Senior Executives Should Know About Sales
Business is more complex, data more abundant, and more specialists are needed to stay up-to-date with functional best practices. As a senior executive, you can worry all you want about disruption, but you need a salesforce aligned with strategy to do something about... View Details
Cespedes, Frank V. "What Senior Executives Should Know About Sales." European Business Review (September–October 2016): 10–13.
- October 2014
- Article
Putting Sales at the Center of Strategy
By: Frank Cespedes
Research indicates that relatively few firms execute their strategies effectively, and, on average, companies deliver just 50% to 60% of the financial performance that their strategies promise. One reason is a disconnect between strategic goals and field implementation... View Details
Cespedes, Frank. "Putting Sales at the Center of Strategy." Harvard Business Review 92, no. 10 (October 2014): 23–25.
- 18 Nov 2002
- Research & Ideas
Enterprising Women—a History
to entrepreneurship, she said. In 1972 women owned 4 percent of all American businesses; by 1991, that figure had climbed to 38 percent. This is not a trivial accomplishment; these women-owned enterprises were responsible for $4 trillion... View Details
Keywords: by Laura Linard
- March 2000 (Revised February 2005)
- Case
Hewlett Packard--Computer Systems Organization: Selling to Enterprise Customers
By: Das Narayandas and Robert C. Dudley
In late 1996, Manuel Diaz, head of Worldwide Sales for Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Computer Systems Organization (CSO), is reviewing the results of an audit of HP's enterprise customer management approach with the objective of identifying market and organizational... View Details
Keywords: Accounting Audits; Transformation; Customer Relationship Management; Cost vs Benefits; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Computer Industry
Narayandas, Das, and Robert C. Dudley. "Hewlett Packard--Computer Systems Organization: Selling to Enterprise Customers." Harvard Business School Case 500-064, March 2000. (Revised February 2005.)
- 2021
- Book
Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing
Selling is changing, but the impact on sales of megatrends like ecommerce, big data, and AI is often misunderstood and not supported by empirical data. Managers who fail to separate fact from hype will make decisions based on bad assumptions and, in a competitive... View Details
Cespedes, Frank V. Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2021.
- December 2007 (Revised April 2008)
- Exercise
The Elcer Products Transaction: Confidential Information for RubyFibre Enterprises
In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell Elcer Products Division to one of four potential buyers (industrial, financial, U.S., German). This case contains confidential information for the RubyFibre Enterprises management role. Challenges... View Details
Keywords: Negotiation
Sebenius, James K. "The Elcer Products Transaction: Confidential Information for RubyFibre Enterprises." Harvard Business School Exercise 908-035, December 2007. (Revised April 2008.)
- 21 Nov 2016
- Research & Ideas
It Matters That Your CEO Doesn't Know Much About Sales
to any firm’s strategy and legacy capabilities. It’s leadership’s responsibility to adapt. “I’m certainly not arguing that every senior executive should be a shadow sales VP,” says Cespedes, “but all in the C-suite should truly understand... View Details
Keywords: by Michael Blanding
- September 1999
- Case
Project Dreamcast: Serious Play at Sega Enterprises Ltd. (A)
By: Stefan H. Thomke and Andrew Robertson
Focuses on the ongoing competitive battles in the global home video game market that is estimated to exceed $15 billion by 1999 in the United States and Japan alone. Describes how Sega Enterprises has redesigned its development processes to create a revolutionary... View Details
Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Competitive Strategy; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Product Development; Business Growth and Maturation; Market Entry and Exit; Sales; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Computer Industry
Thomke, Stefan H., and Andrew Robertson. "Project Dreamcast: Serious Play at Sega Enterprises Ltd. (A)." Harvard Business School Case 600-028, September 1999.
- September 2009
- Case
Culinarian Cookware: Pondering Price Promotion
By: John A. Quelch and Heather Beckham
In November of 2006, senior executives at Culinarian Cookware were debating the merits of price promotions for the company's premium cookware products. The VP of Marketing, Donald Janus, and Senior Sales Manager, Victoria Brown, had different views. Janus felt price... View Details
Keywords: Profitability Analysis; Consumer Marketing; Brand Equity; Pricing Policies; Sales Promotions; Small & Medium-sized Enterprises; Decisions; Goals and Objectives; Price; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Management Teams; Sales; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry
Quelch, John A., and Heather Beckham. "Culinarian Cookware: Pondering Price Promotion." Harvard Business School Brief Case 094-057, September 2009.
- June 2001
- Supplement
Privatization of Anatolia National Telekom, The: Note on Valuation of Privatizing Enterprises in Emerging Markets
Anatolia National Telekom is a multiparty negotiation simulation patterned after the Turkish government's aborted attempt to privatize its state-owned telecommunications monopoly, Turk Telekom, in late 1997. Provides participants with an opportunity to identify and... View Details
Keywords: Negotiation; Privatization; Emerging Markets; State Ownership; Telecommunications Industry; Turkey
Watkins, Michael D., Banu Ozcan, Burkhard Schrage, and Paul Vaaler. "Privatization of Anatolia National Telekom, The: Note on Valuation of Privatizing Enterprises in Emerging Markets." Harvard Business School Supplement 801-438, June 2001.
- 23 Jul 2001
- Research & Ideas
How the Giants of Enterprise Seized the Future
The distinguishing characteristic of the giants of enterprise is that they live in the future. And the future for them is not some fantasy world where trees grow in the sky. It is real—it has a concrete existence in their minds. Why?... View Details
Keywords: by Richard S. Tedlow
- January 2008 (Revised August 2012)
- Case
Retail Sales of Health Insurance: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida
By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Grady Clouse
The BCBS of Florida is contemplating whether to enter the consumer-driven health care market and if so, whether to target such groups—and individuals—and in which of its geographic markets, and how. View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment
By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas
We conduct a field experiment in which we vary the sales force compensation scheme at an Asian enterprise that sells consumer durable goods. With variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of... View Details
Keywords: Sales Force Compensation; Field Experiment; Heterogeneity; Loss Aversion; Reciprocity; Motivation and Incentives; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits
Chung, Doug J., and Das Narayandas. "Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 15-084, April 2015. (Revised November 2015.)
- August 2017
- Article
Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment
By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas
We conduct a field experiment in which we vary the sales force compensation scheme at an Asian enterprise that sells consumer durable goods. With variation generated by the experimental treatments, we model sales force performance to identify the effectiveness of... View Details
Keywords: Sales Force Compensation; Field Experiment; Heterogeneity; Loss Aversion; Reciprocity; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits
Chung, Doug J., and Das Narayandas. "Incentives versus Reciprocity: Insights from a Field Experiment." Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 54, no. 4 (August 2017): 511–524. (Lead article.)
- Forthcoming
- Article
The Effect of a System for Sharing Best Practices Within Pre-existing Peer Networks
By: Shelley Xin Li and Tatiana Sandino
Peer networks, such as enterprise social networks (ESNs), can facilitate knowledge transfer across employees. However, such systems can also lead to information overload or difficulty in finding useful information. We examine data from a natural field experiment where... View Details
- November 2016
- Case
ShotSpotter
By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah McAra
SST, Inc. offered a subscription-based gunfire detection service, ShotSpotter Flex, to cities across the United States in addition to a few abroad. Over its 20-year history, SST had mostly honed a reliable business-to-government sales model, and the company had been... View Details
Keywords: ShotSpotter; SST; Internet Of Things; IoT; Smart Cities; Public Entrepreneurship; Enterprise Sales; Scaling And Growth; Government; Public Sector; Innovation; Ralph Clark; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Innovation and Invention; Public Administration Industry; California; United States
Weiss, Mitchell, and Sarah McAra. "ShotSpotter." Harvard Business School Case 817-034, November 2016.
- July 2013 (Revised August 2017)
- Case
TaKaDu
By: Elie Ofek and Matthew Preble
In December 2012, Amir Peleg, founder and CEO of TaKaDu, reflected on how to position his young firm for the next fiscal year and beyond. The small Israeli startup had developed an innovative software system that used patented algorithms and statistical analysis to... View Details
Keywords: Innovation; Customer Selection; Business Marketing; High-tech Marketing; Enterprise Resource Planning; Water Resources; Water Management; Utilities; Product Positioning; Expansion; Resource Allocation; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Growth and Development Strategy; Utilities Industry; Australia; Israel
- March 2011 (Revised March 2012)
- Case
Arck Systems
By: Ian Larkin
The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a... View Details
Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Retention; Performance Effectiveness; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives; Software; Information Technology Industry
Larkin, Ian. "Arck Systems." Harvard Business School Case 911-056, March 2011. (Revised March 2012.)