Realizing Investments In Salesforce Technology

Realizing Investments In Salesforce Technology

Companies are racing to arm their salesforces with information technology such as salesforce automation systems and customer relationship management systems to provide every advantage against the competition, but new research by an assistant professor in Penn State's Smeal College of Business notes that salespeople are among the most technophobic and resistant of all white-collar workers to technology.

"By the year 2002, over $24 billion will be spent annually on salesforce automation and customer relationship management software, but even with all these resources being spent on systems to make the salesforce more efficient, companies still are struggling to get sales reps to use this new technology," says Michael J. Ahearne, assistant professor of marketing in Penn State's Smeal College of Business and director of the Center for Sales and Customer Research in Smeal College.

"In fact, industry reports suggest implementation failure rates of sales technology as high as 75%. Companies are indicating that a major reason may be that salespeople are among the most technophobic and resistant of all white-collar workers," says Ahearne. He recently completed a study, "The Acceptance of Information Technology in the Sales Force."

For the study, the researchers examined the issues of technology acceptance among 257 sales representative and their sales managers in more than 50 companies representing a broad range of industries (e.g. manufacturing, services, trade, finance and information).

"Taking the perspective of the end-users of sales automation, namely the field salesperson, our objectives were to shed light on how salespeople view their company's sales automation initiatives and assess the major factors that drive salespeople to adopt sales technology," says Ahearne.

Among the study's findings and recommendations for companies to take when introducing new technology to the sales force:

• Usefulness of the System . "Convince your sales force that your system improves their effectiveness. Increase acceptance by introducing applications that directly serve the salesperson. Salespeople will only embrace technology if they believe that the technology improves their job performance and productivity," says Ahearne. "This finding may not be surprising considering the fact that salespeople are probably the most performance oriented of all white-collar workers."

• Personal Innovativeness . Personal innovativeness was defined as the attitude towards adopting new IT.
  

"The failure to consider this individual characteristic during the implementation process may be one of the reasons why so many sales automation initiatives have in the field," says Ahearne. Technology suppliers and companies implementing sales technology, could use the innovativeness variable for several purposes throughout the implementation process: e.g. during pilot and usability tests, to segment the sales organization and target innovative salespeople during roll out first.

"In addition, innovative salespeople are important advocates and will spur the intra-firm adoption process of the sales technology among their peers, making the implementation a success," says Ahearne.

• Supervisors as Change Agents . Supervisors have an important signaling function. They can convince their reps of the system's benefits and can make their subordinates comply with their persuasions. Thus, sales field managers as advocates of the SA system are extremely important if the new SA system is to be accepted by the salespeople in the field. Companies need to inspire multiple layers of the sales organization during the SA implementation process. In other words, organizations and technology suppliers do not need to focus their efforts on end-users alone, but also on sales field management.

• Easy to Use Systems . Although the study's analyses showed that "ease of use" was a secondary determinant, the importance for the acceptance process is twofold. First of all, systems that require a lot of mental effort will hamper usage, even if the system is perceived useful. Secondly, easy to use systems enhance salespeople's perception that the system improves their productivity, and thus indirectly the adoption of technology.
  

"Our analyses further showed that companies can make their systems easier to use by improving their organizational efforts in terms of user training, technical support, top management commitment and internal marketing campaigns," says Ahearne.

• The Use of SA-technology by Peers . The degree to which a sales rep's colleagues use the SA-system has also shown to be of some importance for acceptance. The acceptance of the technology by others spurs adoption in two ways: (1) it clearly signals the benefits of the system to others and (2) creates a form of social pressure within the sales organization for the others to comply.

• Competitive Pressure . The feeling that competing sales reps were also equipped with and relied on state of the art sales technology, directly impacted a sales rep's decision to adopt their own SA system. However, this factor was less important than expected.

• Customer Influence . The perceived pressure from customers for salespeople to use information technology was found to be of less importance. Such buyer influences only affected the sales rep's perceptions about the usefulness of the SA-system.
  

Ahearne co-authored the study with Niels Schillewaert of the Vlerick Leuven Ghent Management School in Belgium, Ruud T. Frambach of the Free University of Amsterdam, Rudy K. Moenaert of Ghent University.