In contemporary business markets, buyers are demanding higher levels of service and product quality from fewer suppliers. To compete in this complex and turbulent environment, companies are looking for partners to help gain an advantage over their competitors.

In this learning unit we explore the role of salespeople in moving from a transactional selling approach to building relationships in the partnering area.

The buying process of companies and organizations is formal, extensive, complex and varies across industries and companies. In order to be most effective in his selling approach, the sales person must identify the steps and procedures through which the industrial customer makes his decision, implements it and follows it up. Furthermore, the buying decision is made by several people who collectively comprise the decision making unit. Effective selling in business markets requires that salespersons gain a deep knowledge of who participates in the buying decision process. This is so because different people from different functional areas of the buying organization have different needs, motivations and beliefs that affect the buying decision making process.

Not all customers are created equally. Some customers require significant marketing spending, which may exceed their profit contribution and may limit their lifetime value. An effective selling strategy requires the estimation of the lifetime value for each of the salesperson’s customers as well as deep knowledge about the customer’s business. Therefore, this learning unit will help salespeople to evaluate the long-term value of their customers and understand their business needs and opportunities. 

One of the most important tasks in ensuring the development of a Unique Sales Proposition that can differentiate the company’s offering from its competition is the development of a clear positioning strategy.“Positioning” is how customers conceive the company’s offering vis-à-vis what competitors offer.

In developing a positioning strategy the salesman should have a clear understanding of customer’s needs and purchasing criteria, what is the customer’s “ideal” offering and how can the company’s offering better match customer’s requirements while differentiating from competition

In business -to- business markets, companies are highly dependent to specific customers in order to achieve their strategic goals.Such customers of strategic importance require to be treated with caution and many companies adopt the principles and practices of “Key Account Management”.

The main objective in doing so is to ensure the strengthening of their relationship with these customers while ensuring the profitability of the company as a whole.

If corporate culture is quite present in the messages and the practices of the companies, it is sometimes quite difficult to identify and to understand because it is invisible or imperceptible. Illustrated through signs, words, symbols or acts, it deserves all the attention of the actors in the field of sale and customer relationship.

This learning unit has the aim of providing the essential references on this topic of the culture of company which also appears under the term of organisational culture or corporate culture.

We will initially approach the origins, the definitions and the objectives which hide behind corporate culture. We will then try to develop a better understanding of the ways to diagnose and to identify a culture of company.

Then, we will see that if corporate culture has essential functions, it can also become an instrument of management as useful as frightening! For the actors of the business/sales function, the development of knowledge and competences around the filed of corporate culture constitutes an essential dimension of their action and will contribute to their success.