Chapter 1: Contemporary Developments and Challenges in Sales Organizations: Some Observations

The purpose of this chapter is to set the stage for the rest of the book. It is based on a number of interesting observations illustrating contemporary activities in regard to a broad range of sales-related topics. Among other observations are a number of developments that have followed with digitalization.

The chapter presents the core themes of the book and provides rationales for the choices. The themes are: value-based offerings, solution-oriented business, and on-going efforts of organizing to manage the multitude of issues connected to sales and marketing.

A second issue is the presentation of a framework against which to position important core issues in sales management. This includes aspects of organizational design, leadership, technology support, and more. All these are organized into four main categories. This “map” is utilized to position the coming parts and chapters.