By analyzing and monitoring current trends in the marketplace, Contemporary Sales Force Management helps sales managers align resources and strategic efforts to gain an edge over competitors. You will develop an understanding of where current and prospective sales opportunities exist in order to fully utilize automation, how to update crisis management policies to reflect changing industry dynamics, and how to raise your level of sales efficiency through the use of customer advisory groups and sales technological tools, such as video conferencing, database management, and up-to-date industry software. Through the book's important discussions on lowering mutual costs, building long-term customer relationships, improving sales skills, and developing core process skills, you will also learn to think and act with a strategic perspective that successfully steers the sales process.Grounded in practical applications, Contemporary Sales Force Management unites theoretical principles with applied examples and case studies gathered from research with major firms in dynamic markets such as Beijing and Shanghai in China, the European Union, and the United States. From these case studies demonstrating how top players achieve success, you gain critical information on:

• the role of the sales force manager in organizations
• strategic issues for an international sales effort
• gaining functional expertise in sales and marketing along with industry knowledge
• globalization and its impact on sales management
• strategies for applying Total Quality Management to sales
• electronic commerce and cultivating customers on the Web
• the consequences of having a poorly motivated sales force with low morale
• developing an environment that fosters and rewards the management of crisis
• understanding your biases and stereotypical assumptions about others and how these affect decisionmaking
• dealing with the legal and regulatory environment and ethical issues that arise in the course of managing the sales forceContemporary Sales Force Management is the book managers, entrepreneurs, business people, and faculty and students of executive business education programs have long awaited. Its sample sales plan, specific strategies, and hands-on advice will prove indispensable as you maneuver away from the coattails of your competitors into a leading position in the marketplace.