Table 3.

Changes in salesforce—supporting quotes.

Source	Quote
Changes in the functions performed by salespeople
Global Business Unit Director, Specialty Chemicals	“Our field salespeople are people with a lot of experience and so [it has] become too expensive and specialized for them to be looking at prospecting and pre-approach. So, we have moved to have an inside sales force who are tasked with following up on leads from our marketing initiatives as well as do cold calling to get and prospect leads. In some instances, our inside sales reps are also responsible for doing product presentations and maybe even close deals—especially for smaller orders.”
Former Country Head and C-suite executive of three multinational OEMs	“I think that the individual responsible for prospecting should be focused on working with the customer to co-create novel ideas that will help the customers and should not even be burdened with revenue targets. Once they work on these novel ideas, they can then pass it on to a hunting team—or if it is an existing customer, a farming team.”
Global Key Account Manager, Specialty Chemicals	“In our organization, we are increasingly moving towards our marketing organization becoming more involved in demand generation and even initial qualification of the needs.”
Global Sales Manager, Financial Services	“We are increasingly using our marketing team to help us come up with targeted campaigns towards specific segments, screen these leads, and then pass it on to our salespeople.”
Outsourcing of salesforce functions
Global Sales Director, Engineering and Logistics Service	“We are increasingly working with freelancing, industry-specific consultants who we use to help either get us information about upcoming projects and then use them to get either an inside track into the prospect/customer or even get us a preliminary meeting.”
Global Sales Manager, Fashion Goods	“As we grew in our outreach, we decided to outsource all of our sales activities to keep our overheads under control and only offer commissions to external agents. This has served us well—to get a broader reach while keeping sales costs under control.”
Sales Academic, Europe	“As part of our research, we were looking at how traditional business-to-business manufacturing companies were dealing with salesforce issues as it pertained to newer product offerings—especially those with more subscription services-based model…This organization decided to spin off as a separate business unit with its own sales process, and consequently, its own salesforce.”
Country Sales Director, European Generics Manufacturer	“...[O]ur customers who complain about our competitors who have outsourced the sales force, while they value the same caring approach from our company, even though they are visited less and by newer salespeople.”