Students

MKTG8054 – Strategic Sales Management

2021 – Session 1, Special circumstances

Notice

As part of Phase 3 of our return to campus plan, most units will now run tutorials, seminars and other small group activities on campus, and most will keep an online version available to those students unable to return or those who choose to continue their studies online.

To check the availability of face-to-face and online activities for your unit, please go to timetable viewer. To check detailed information on unit assessments visit your unit's iLearn space or consult your unit convenor.

General Information

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Unit convenor and teaching staff Unit convenor and teaching staff
Hormoz Ahmadi
Credit points Credit points
10
Prerequisites Prerequisites
Admission to MMktg
Corequisites Corequisites
Co-badged status Co-badged status
Unit description Unit description

Firms that offer multifaceted products, services and customer solutions must strategically manage their salesforce to explain and validate the value of their offerings to potential B2B and B2C customers. Strategic sales management is critical to a firm’s success because skilful sales managers guide and coach the sales force to connect with customers, align their sales goals with buyer objectives, and ethically respond to their technical/non-technical enquiries.

This unit focuses on developing students’ capacity to analyse and apply theories and concepts underpinning strategic sales management. This unit focuses on advancing students’ skill to manage long-term relationships with customers/clients through face-to-face seller-buyer communications and technology-mediated communications. This unit will develop students’ skills to design a strategic plan to manage sales activities from the opening to closing stages of the sales. This unit will equip students with the skills to evaluate and apply ethical and social issues associated with strategic sales management.

Important Academic Dates

Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  • ULO1: Analyse and apply theories and concepts underpinning strategic sales management.
  • ULO2: Assess and select sales strategies that support long-term relationships with customers through face-to-face and technology-mediated communications.
  • ULO3: Design a strategic sales management plan.
  • ULO4: Evaluate and apply ethical and social issues associated with strategic sales management.

General Assessment Information

Late assessment submissions must also be submitted through the appropriate submission link in iLearn. No extensions will be granted unless an application for Special Consideration is made and approved. There will be a deduction of 10% of the total available marks made from the total awarded mark for each 24 hour period or part thereof that the submission is late. Late submissions will not be accepted after solutions have been discussed and/or made available.

Note: Further information on submitting an Application for Special Consideration can be found at https://students.mq.edu.au/study/my-study-program/special-consideration

Assessment Tasks

Name Weighting Hurdle Due
Participatory task 20% No Week 1 - Week 13
Sales Process Role-Playing (individual) 40% No Week 7
Strategic Sales plan (individual) 40% No Week 13

Participatory task

Assessment Type 1: Participatory task
Indicative Time on Task 2: 17 hours
Due: Week 1 - Week 13
Weighting: 20%

 

Workshop activities give you the opportunities to internalise your learning. These activities also allow you to engage in discussions with your peers and share your thoughts, help you explain your points of view, and develop not only your own knowledge, but also assist your fellow classmates to gain a better understanding of the topic of discussion. Weekly in-class group activities worth 2% of overall 20% marks assigned to this assignment and will be presented to the class in form of oral or written.

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Analyse and apply theories and concepts underpinning strategic sales management.
  • Assess and select sales strategies that support long-term relationships with customers through face-to-face and technology-mediated communications.
  • Design a strategic sales management plan.
  • Evaluate and apply ethical and social issues associated with strategic sales management.

Sales Process Role-Playing (individual)

Assessment Type 1: Simulation/role play
Indicative Time on Task 2: 30 hours
Due: Week 7
Weighting: 40%

 

This assessment assesses your skills in face-to-face sales negotiation situations. It helps you to imporve your creativity and attention to details. You are required to work in a group of 2 and submit a role-play pre-recorded- video. You are further required to submit your individual script/dialogue between a seller and a buyer to the lecturer. The assessment requires two sections: (1) 1000 words individual write up of initial sales strategies to start negotiation which is worth 20 marks; (2) 15 minute role play which is worth 20 marks.

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Analyse and apply theories and concepts underpinning strategic sales management.
  • Assess and select sales strategies that support long-term relationships with customers through face-to-face and technology-mediated communications.
  • Evaluate and apply ethical and social issues associated with strategic sales management.

Strategic Sales plan (individual)

Assessment Type 1: Report
Indicative Time on Task 2: 30 hours
Due: Week 13
Weighting: 40%

 

This assessment will assess your aptitude to apply your knowledge of strategic sales management theories, concepts, and models and apply them to a real-world situation. You have to develop and formulate an appropriate strategic sales plan to manage the selling effort for a B2B situation in a written format. You have to provide a 2000 words ±10% written report.

 


On successful completion you will be able to:
  • Analyse and apply theories and concepts underpinning strategic sales management.
  • Assess and select sales strategies that support long-term relationships with customers through face-to-face and technology-mediated communications.
  • Design a strategic sales management plan.
  • Evaluate and apply ethical and social issues associated with strategic sales management.

1 If you need help with your assignment, please contact:

  • the academic teaching staff in your unit for guidance in understanding or completing this type of assessment
  • the Writing Centre for academic skills support.

2 Indicative time-on-task is an estimate of the time required for completion of the assessment task and is subject to individual variation

Delivery and Resources

Mode of Delivery:

 

3hr workshop ( 1hr pre-recorded seminar + 2 hr ONLINE Workshop practices, activities, and exercises)

 

Prescribed Textbooks:

Ingram, T.N., LaForge, R.W., Avila, R.A., Schwepker Jr, C.H. & Williams, M.R., (2019), Sales Management: Analysis and Decision Making, 10th Edition,   Routledge: ISBN –   9780367252748

OR

Ingram, T.N., LaForge, R.W., Avila, R.A., Schwepker Jr, C.H. & Williams, M.R., (2015), Sales Management: Analysis and Decision Making, 9th  Edition,   Routledge: ISBN – 9780765644510

Recommended Resources:

Johnston, M.W. & Marshall, G.W. (2016) Contemporary selling: building relationships, creating value, 5th Edition, Routledge:   ISBN – 9781315668345.

Jobber, D., Lancaster, G., & Le Meunier-FitzHugh, K. (2019) Selling and sales management,

Pearson UK: ISBN - 9781292205021

Cummins, S., Peltier, J.W. and Dixon, A., 2016. Omni-channel research framework in the context  of personal selling and sales management: A review and research extensions. Journal of  Research in Interactive Marketing, 10(1),  pp.2-16.

Johnston, M.W. and Marshall, G.W., 2016. Introduction to Sales Management in the Twenty-First Century. In Sales Force  Management (pp. 29-54). Routledge.

Schrock, W.A., Zhao, Y., Richards, K.A., Hughes, D.E. and Amin, M.S., 2018. On the nature of international sales and sales management research: a social network–analytic perspective.

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 38(1), pp.56-77.

Rodriguez, M., Peterson, R.M. and Ajjan, H., 2015. CRM/social media technology: impact on customer orientation process and organizational sales performance. In Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old (pp. 636-638). Springer, Cham.

Itani, O.S., Goad, E.A. and Jaramillo, F., 2019. Building customer relationships while achieving sales performance results: Is listening the holy grail of sales?. Journal of Business Research, 102, pp.120-130.

Lu, Q.S. and Miller, R., 2019. How Social Media Communications Combine with Customer Loyalty Management to Boost Green Retail Sales. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 46, pp.87-100.

Itani, O.S., Jaramillo, F. and Chonko, L., 2019. Achieving top performance while building collegiality in sales: It all starts with ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 156(2), pp.417-438.

Harindranath, R.M., Sivakumaran, B. and Jacob, J., 2019. The moderating role of sales experience in adaptive selling, customer orientation and job satisfaction in a unionized setting. Journal of Business & Industrial  Marketing.

Du, M., Gao, H. and Zhang, J., 2019. Toward a guanxi-bases view of structural holes in sales gatekeeping: A qualitative study of sales practices in China. Industrial Marketing Management, 76, pp.109-122.

Rahman, A.U., Shah, F.A. and Jan, S., 2019. The Moderating Role of Supervisory Support in the Relationship of Emotional Intelligence and Job Performance of Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives. Review of Economics and Development Studies, 5(1), pp.11-22.

Chatterji, A.K., Cunningham, C.M. and Joseph, J.E., 2019. The limits of relational governance: Sales force strategies in the US medical device industry. Strategic Management Journal, 40(1), pp.55-78.

Geiger, S., Guenzi, P., Storbacka, K., Ryals, L., Davies, I.A. and Nenonen, S., 2009. The  changing role of sales: Viewing sales as a strategic, cross-functional process. European Journal of marketing.

Malshe, A., Friend, S.B., Al-Khatib, J., Al-Habib, M.I. and Al-Torkistani, H.M., 2017. Strategic and operational alignment of sales-marketing interfaces: Dual paths within an SME configuration. Industrial Marketing Management,  66, pp.145-158.

Anderson, R.E., Cohen, A.H., Christ, P.F., Mehta, R. and Dubinsky, A.J., 2019. Provenance, evolution, and transition of personal selling and sales management to strategic marketing channel management. Journal of Marketing  Channels, pp.1-15.

Viio, P. and Grönroos, C., 2016. How buyer–seller relationship orientation affects adaptation of sales processes to the buying process. Industrial Marketing Management, 52, pp.37-46.

Gopalakrishna, S., Garrett, J., Mantrala, M.K. and Sridhar, S., 2016. Assessing sales contest effectiveness: the role of salesperson and sales district characteristics. Marketing Letters, 27(3), pp.589-602.

Bilginer, Ö. and Erhun, F., 2015. Production and sales planning in capacitated new product introductions. Production and  operations management, 24(1), pp.42-53.

Alavi, S., Habel, J., Schmitz, C., Richter, B. and Wieseke, J., 2018. The risky side of inspirational appeals in personal selling: when do customers infer ulterior salesperson motives?. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 38(3),  pp.323-343.

Brown, S.P., Leigh, T.W. and Rhi-Perez, P., 2015. Dimensions of Working Hard in Personal Selling: Effects of Time Commitment and Work Intensity on Sales Performance and Job Satisfaction. In Global Perspectives in Marketing for the 21st Century (pp. 457-461). Springer, Cham.

Lee, J.Y., Sridhar, S. and Palmatier, R.W., 2017. The effect of firms' structural designs on advertising and personal selling returns. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 34(1), pp.173-193.

Paesbrugghe, B., Sharma, A., Rangarajan, D. and Syam, N., 2018. Personal selling and the purchasing function: where do we go from here?. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management,  38(1), pp.123-143.

Sharma, A., 2016. What personal selling and sales management recommendations from developed markets are relevant in emerging markets?. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management,  36(2), pp.89-104.

Singh, R., Kumar, N. and Puri, S., 2017. Thought self-leadership strategies and sales performance: integrating selling skills and adaptive selling behavior as missing links. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 32(5),  pp.652-663.

Agnihotri, R., Gabler, C.B., Itani, O.S., Jaramillo, F. and Krush, M.T., 2017. Salesperson ambidexterity and customer satisfaction: Examining the role of customer demandingness, adaptive selling, and role conflict. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 37(1), pp.27-41.

Arli, D., Bauer, C. and Palmatier, R.W., 2018. Relational selling: Past, present and future. Industrial Marketing Management,  69, pp.169-184.

Recommended Journals (Further  Reading):

  • Journal of Business Research
  • Marketing letters
  • Journal of Personal Selling & Sales  Management
  • European Journal of Marketing
  • Journal of Business & Industrial  Marketing
  • International Journal of Research in  Marketing
  • Production and  operations management
  • Industrial  Marketing Management
  • Journal of Interactive Marketing
  • Journal of Business Ethics
  • Journal of Personal Selling  & Sales Management

Unit Schedule

Please refer to iLearn 

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Unit information based on version 2021.02 of the Handbook