The impact of sales performance measurement in day-to-day sales work

Abstract: The subject of this degree thesis was to investigate how sales people perceived their day-to-day sales work and their stance on sales performance measurement tools. Based on that, the research questions were focused on how sales people perceived successful sales, how they adapted to the sales environment they were working in and how useful they perceived sales performance measurement tools to be. This work was limited by the size of the test group, and the one-sidedness of the approach as it was exclusively from the point of view of the sales persons and did not include data from company or management views. The research was performed as an empirical survey, through qualitative interviews with sales persons from one company in B2B industrial sales. As basis for these interviews two main theories where used, Verbeke, Dietz, Verwaal (2011) and Zallocco, Bollman Pullins, Mallin (2009) The results confirm the findings of established theoretic literature in that sales performance measurement tools that were not understood by sales persons were not used and sales per-sons felt no ownership or investment in the measures. Sales person measurable traits were also identified in the survey and they were also in line with the existing theory. The recommendation is that companies involve sales persons in designing measurements to be able to involve them more in the use, and that specific trait of sales persons should be taken in to considerations when planning sales development.The subject of this degree thesis was to investigate how sales people perceived their day-to-day sales work and their stance on sales performance measurement tools. Based on that, the research questions were focused on how sales people perceived successful sales, how they adapted to the sales environment they were working in and how useful they perceived sales performance measurement tools to be. This work was limited by the size of the test group, and the one-sidedness of the approach as it was exclusively from the point of view of the sales persons and did not include data from company or management views. The research was performed as an empirical survey, through qualitative interviews with sales persons from one company in B2B industrial sales. As basis for these interviews two main theories where used, Verbeke, Dietz, Verwaal (2011) and Zallocco, Bollman Pullins, Mallin (2009) The results confirm the findings of established theoretic literature in that sales performance measurement tools that were not understood by sales persons were not used and sales per-sons felt no ownership or investment in the measures. Sales person measurable traits were also identified in the survey and they were also in line with the existing theory. The recommendation is that companies involve sales persons in designing measurements to be able to involve them more in the use, and that specific trait of sales persons should be taken in to considerations when planning sales development