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Skip to Main Content Cold Call A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart. Subscribe on iTunes 29 Sep...
Skip to content The HBS Digital Initiative brings together perspectives across disciplines to help people understand how technology is transforming...
- February 2021
- Case
Yellow Digital Retailers, Ltd.: Providing Solar Electricity to Transform Rural Africa
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Frank V. Cespedes and Michael Norris
In 2020, Mike Heyink and Maya Stewart, co-founders of the Pay-as-you-Go Solar company Yellow were considering how to grow their startup. They had achieved some success in their first market, Malawi, and had recently entered Uganda, where business was slower. What did...
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- 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...
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Cespedes, Frank V. Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2021.
- January 2021
- Article
Sales Hiring Is Hard to Do (Don't Make It Harder)
In the aggregate, hiring in sales is more expensive than many companies’ cap-ex decisions. But it rarely gets the same attention and companies fail to deal with challenges inherent in sales hiring. Unlike many other business functions, there is no easily identified...
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Cespedes, Frank V. "Sales Hiring Is Hard to Do (Don't Make It Harder)." Top Sales Magazine (January 2021), 38–39.
- Article
How Long Can a Company Thrive Doing Just One Thing?
By: Andy Wu and Scott Duke Kominers
The news that the chat app Slack was being sold to veteran customer relationship management company Salesforce for $27.7 billion raised a lot of eyebrows. Why sell after a year of explosive growth? The deal, however, epitomizes a question facing so-called best-of-breed...
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Wu, Andy, and Scott Duke Kominers. "How Long Can a Company Thrive Doing Just One Thing?" Harvard Business Review Digital Articles (December 10, 2020).
- 2020
- Article
A Practical Approach to Sales Compensation: What Do We Know Now? What Should We Know in the Future?
By: Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim and Niladri B. Syam
Personal selling represents one of the most important elements in the marketing mix, and appropriate management of the sales force is vital to achieving the organization’s objectives. Among the various instruments of sales management, compensation plays a pivotal role...
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Keywords:
Sales Compensation;
Sales Management;
Sales Strategy;
Principal-agent Theory;
Structural Econometrics;
Field Experiments;
Machine Learning;
Artificial Intelligence;
salesforce management;
Compensation And Benefits;
Motivation And Incentives
Chung, Doug J., Byungyeon Kim, and Niladri B. Syam. "A Practical Approach to Sales Compensation: What Do We Know Now? What Should We Know in the Future?" Foundations and Trends® in Marketing 14, no. 1 (2020): 1–52.
- May 2020
- Teaching Note
Chem-Ecol
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Dahra Allen acquired Chem-Ecol, a machine oil recycling business, for C$13.3 million in December of 2012. Allen decided to hire a sales director and the case discussion largely focuses on selecting the sales director from her short-list of five candidates. During the...
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- March 2020 (Revised October 2020)
- Module Note
Sales Force Compensation
By: Doug J. Chung
The author developed this note for scholars, educators, and practitioners that are interested in sales force compensation. It is based on the author’s investigations across a variety of organizations in multiple industries and provides a conceptual framework for the...
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Keywords:
Sales Strategy;
Sales Force Management;
Sales Compensation;
Salary;
Commissions;
Bonuses;
Quota Setting/updating;
Quota Frequency;
Extrinsic Vs Intrinsic Motivation;
salesforce management;
Compensation And Benefits;
Strategy
Chung, Doug J. "Sales Force Compensation." Harvard Business School Module Note 520-084, March 2020. (Revised October 2020.)
- February 2020
- Case
Drift: The First Sales Hire
By: Mark Roberge
David Cancel and Elias Torres, the co-founders of Drift, scaled their business to thousands of users and hundreds of thousands in revenue. However, they were falling short of the annual revenue target they communicated to the board of directors. Having scaled the...
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Roberge, Mark. "Drift: The First Sales Hire." Harvard Business School Case 820-103, February 2020.
- July 2019 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
At-Bay Cyber Insurance
By: Marco Di Maggio and David Lane
At-Bay was a cyber insurance startup that offered companies coverage against a wide array of cyber risks—exposure to which the firm was able to quickly assess and price on the basis of technical expertise that traditional insurance carriers lacked. In mid-2019, At-Bay...
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Keywords:
Business Startups;
Insurance;
Disruptive Innovation;
Risk management;
Product Marketing;
Distribution Channels;
Information Technology;
salesforce management;
Insurance Industry
Di Maggio, Marco, and David Lane. "At-Bay Cyber Insurance." Harvard Business School Case 220-005, July 2019. (Revised March 2020.)
- July 9, 2019
- Article
Setting Better Sales Goals with Analytics
By: Doug J. Chung, Isabel Huber, Vinay Murthy, Varun Sunku and Marije Weber
Sales compensation is a critical lever in motivating a salesforce and driving growth in the business-to-business sector: Studies show that revising compensation in line with market trends can have a 50% greater impact on sales than advertisements have, for instance. A...
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Keywords:
Analytics;
salesforce management;
Compensation And Benefits;
Motivation And Incentives;
Goals And Objectives
Chung, Doug J., Isabel Huber, Vinay Murthy, Varun Sunku, and Marije Weber. "Setting Better Sales Goals with Analytics." Harvard Business Review (website) (July 9, 2019).
- May 2019
- Supplement
Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (C)
By: Doug J. Chung
Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated...
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Keywords:
salesforce management;
Compensation And Benefits;
Change management;
Behavior;
Electronics Industry;
Sweden
Chung, Doug J. "Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (C)." Harvard Business School Supplement 519-095, May 2019.
- May 2019
- Supplement
Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (D)
By: Doug J. Chung
Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company’s products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair “one-for-all” HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated...
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Keywords:
salesforce management;
Compensation And Benefits;
Motivation And Incentives;
Change management;
Behavior;
Electronics Industry;
Sweden
Chung, Doug J. "Kjell and Company: Motivating Salespeople with Incentive Compensation (D)." Harvard Business School Supplement 519-096, May 2019.
- April 2019 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Effects
By: Christopher Stanton, Richard Saouma and Olivia Hull
The importance of a good peer or coworker is widely discussed, but understanding the glue that makes coworkers valuable is less understood. This case sheds light on the importance of peers and the practices and environments that make a group greater than the sum of...
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Keywords:
Talent And Talent management;
Interactive Communication;
Experience And Expertise;
Decision Making;
Training;
Design;
Compensation And Benefits;
Knowledge Acquisition;
Knowledge Sharing;
Human Capital;
Working Conditions;
Measurement And Metrics;
Outcome Or Result;
Performance;
Performance Improvement;
Research;
Sales;
salesforce management;
Motivation And Incentives;
Telecommunications Industry;
Utah;
United States
Stanton, Christopher, Richard Saouma, and Olivia Hull. "Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Effects." Harvard Business School Case 819-072, April 2019. (Revised January 2021.)
- February 2019 (Revised July 2019)
- Case
Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac
By: Doug J. Chung and Gamze Yucaoglu
Nobel Ilac was a Turkish generic pharmaceutical company marketing more than 100 drugs in 20 countries and, as of 2017, had over 2,500 employees worldwide. Nobel had implemented a transformation strategy—more specifically, a customer segmentation plan—whereby the sales...
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Keywords:
Sales Strategy;
Compensation;
Employee Retention;
Recruiting;
Pharmaceuticals;
salesforce management;
Strategy;
Organizational Design;
Human Resources;
Compensation And Benefits;
Employees;
Retention;
Recruitment;
Pharmaceutical Industry;
Turkey
Chung, Doug J., and Gamze Yucaoglu. "Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac." Harvard Business School Case 519-067, February 2019. (Revised July 2019.)
- January 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Roush Performance: How to Design a Sales Force Compensation Plan
By: Doug J. Chung
Roush Performance manufactured and marketed factory-modified performance vehicles and high-end aftermarket automotive performance parts. Since its inception, Roush Performance had focused on building its engineering technology competency and diversifying its product...
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Keywords:
Sales Force Management;
Motivation;
Compensation;
Salary;
Commissions;
Bonuses;
Quotas;
salesforce management;
Compensation And Benefits;
Motivation And Incentives
Chung, Doug J. "Roush Performance: How to Design a Sales Force Compensation Plan." Harvard Business School Case 519-066, January 2019. (Revised February 2020.)
- June 2018
- Case
Meridian Systems
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Michael J. Roberts
The Meridian Systems case focuses on a start-up in the restaurant point of sale (POS) systems market. In early 2018, Meridian is getting ready to roll out a POS system based on a new technology—a tablet-based, Wi-Fi-enabled POS system (the "tablet" system, or...
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Keywords:
Business Startups;
Sales;
Strategy;
salesforce management;
Organizational Structure;
Technological Innovation;
Marketing Strategy
Cespedes, Frank V., and Michael J. Roberts. "Meridian Systems." Harvard Business School Brief Case 918-533, June 2018.
- June 2018
- Teaching Note
Meridian Systems (Brief Case)
By: Frank V. Cespedes and Michael J. Roberts
Teaching Note for HBS No. 918-533. The key issues discussed in the Meridian teaching note concern sales force deployment: decisions about how to focus sales efforts with respect to territories, customers, and products. The teaching note explains the strengths and...
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- June 2018
- Case
Verona Group
By: Robert L. Simons and Sarah Abbott
Are a salesperson's struggles her own fault or the result of a problematic job design? Anna George works as a salesperson at Verona Group, a company that designs and wholesales high-end women's apparel. She had spent nearly 20 years in sales with another fashion label...
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Keywords:
Jobs And Positions;
Design;
Analysis;
Performance;
Measurement And Metrics;
salesforce management;
Organizational Design
Simons, Robert L., and Sarah Abbott. "Verona Group." Harvard Business School Brief Case 918-531, June 2018.
- April 2018
- Teaching Note
Formlabs: Selling a New 3D Printer
By: Frank Cespedes
Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-001. Formlabs is a venture that manufactures and sells 3D printers used in a variety of industries and applications. As the young company prepares to ship its latest model, the head of Customer Development is tasked with developing a...
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Keywords:
3d Printing And Manufacturing;
Sales Channel Development;
Sales Strategy;
Entrepreneurial Management;
Product Engineering;
Prototype;
Prototyping;
Entrepreneurship;
Product Launch;
Hardware;
Business Startups;
Customers;
Technological Innovation;
Growth And Development Strategy;
Technology Adoption;
Marketing Channels;
Marketing Strategy;
Product Positioning;
Demand And Consumers;
Sales;
salesforce management;
Technology Industry;
Computer Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
United States;
Massachusetts;
Europe;
Asia
- April 2018
- Teaching Note
InsideSales.com (A) and (B)
By: Frank Cespedes
Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 817-018 and 817-042. InsideSales.com (ISC) has been successful selling its software to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB). But for various reasons, the founders see “the next stage of growth” as building a scalable sales and service...
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Are you looking for?
Skip to Main Content Cold Call A podcast featuring faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart. Subscribe on iTunes 29 Sep...
Skip to content The HBS Digital Initiative brings together perspectives across disciplines to help people understand how technology is transforming...