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  • January 2019 (Revised October 2019)
  • Case
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Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft

By: Doug J. Chung
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:24
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Abstract

Industry leaders should adapt to changes in the business context and consider different ways to grow. Advances in technology had shifted software demand to the cloud. As a result, Microsoft announced a strategic shift in direction from its existing ‘Windows first’ strategy to an ‘AI/cloud first’ strategy to capture the increasing demand for digital transformation solutions. In line with this change in the overall firm strategy, Microsoft had to come up with a viable go-to-market plan that would align its new commercial strategy with sales, partners, products, services, and customers in order to drive long-term growth without hurting current revenue or profits. The case outlines the challenges involved in transforming the sales strategy of a well-established firm to better serve customers.
The main teaching themes of the case are as follows:
• The challenges of implementing a strategic sales transformation at a large sales organization
• The pros and cons of deploying an inside/digital sales function within a sales organization
• How to define the right measure of success
• How to align the sales management/strategy with the overall firm strategy
• How to change the sales management instruments to successfully transform from selling on-premises software to selling cloud-based solutions

Keywords

Sales; Strategy; Transformation

Citation

Chung, Doug J. "Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft." Harvard Business School Case 519-054, January 2019. (Revised October 2019.)
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Related Work

    • January 2020 (Revised March 2020)
    • Faculty Research

    Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft

    By: Doug J. Chung
    • January 2019 (Revised October 2019)
    • Faculty Research

    Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft

    By: Doug J. Chung
Related Work
  • Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft By: Doug J. Chung
  • Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft By: Doug J. Chung
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