Transformational Sales: Making a Difference with Strategic Customers

By Philip Kotler, Marian Dingena and Waldemar Pfoertsch

​Inspired by a new, transformative era in human and business relations, this book provides a unique perspective on the business transformation that results from the collaboration between suppliers and their strategic customers. It is all about guiding organizational change and business transformation, starting with sales itself. Companies choosing this approach can make a significant and meaningful difference with strategic customers, moving beyond the competition. By challenging existing business assumptions and creating new perspectives on the marketplace, organizations can increase value across traditional company borders, making the (business) world a better place in the process. Both thought-provoking and practical, this management book integrates academic insights, real life examples and best practices of business transformation. It is a must-read for business leaders aiming to make a difference.

"Integrating with your strategic customers beyond a transactional sales relationship is key for shaping new markets, developing your brand, and leveraging your strategic relationships. If sales and profitability with strategic accounts are to grow beyond the average, a change in mindset from seeing sales as an “outside” to an “inside” job is required to truly create a win-win relationship. Kotler/Dingena/Pfoertsch’s “Transformational Sales” provides hands-on insights and tools needed for companies who truly want to achieve this transformation."

 Marc Hantscher, CEO and President Asia-Pacific, BSH Home Appliances Pte. Ltd. Singapore

"The more profoundly and systematically B2B companies familiarize themselves with and accommodate their customers’ functional, emotional and strategic needs, the more powerful they are on the market. Top brands are professionally and passionately tuned in to their customers. Sales, Project Management, Marketing, R&D, Production and Purchasing work in concert to drive customersuccess, always with an eye to the future. This book presents illustrative cases, highlighting how champions have scaled up their business."

 Achim Kuehn, CMO Herrenknecht AG, Schwanau, Germany

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Sep 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9783319206066

Philip Kotler

Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management in Chicago. He is hailed by Management Centre Europe as "the world's foremost expert on the strategic practice of marketing." Dr. Kotler is currently one of Kotler Marketing Group's several consultants. He is known to many as the author of what is widely recognized as the most authoritative textbook on marketing: Marketing Management, now in its 13th edition. He has also authored or co-authored dozens of leading books on marketing: Principles of Marketing; Marketing Models; Strategic Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations; The New Competition; High Visibility; Social Marketing; Marketing Places; Marketing for Congregations; Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism; and The Marketing of Nations. Dr. Kotler presents continuing seminars on leading marketing concepts and developments to companies and organizations in the U.S., Europe and Asia. He participates in KMG client projects and has consulted to many major U.S. and foreign companies--including IBM, Michelin, Bank of America, Merck, General Electric, Honeywell, and Motorola--in the areas of marketing strategy and planning, marketing organization, and international marketing.

Book preview

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

P. Kotler et al.Transformational Saleshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20606-6_1

1. Introduction

Philip Kotler¹  , Marian Dingena²   and Waldemar Pfoertsch³  

(1)

Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston; IL, Illinois, USA

(2)

MPCN, Action Learning & Business Coaching/Rotterdam School of Management, The Hague, The Netherlands

(3)

Business School Pforzheim, Pforzheim University, Pforzheim, Germany

Philip Kotler

Email: [e-mail]

Marian Dingena

Email: [e-mail]

When giants transform themselves from impersonal machines into human communities, they can transform the world

Moss Kanter (2008, p. 44)

Keywords

Competitive PrioritySales FunctionCustomer ManagementInternal TransformationCustomer Organization

In a globalizing and connected business world, sales has become more strategic than ever before. Successful companies such as ABB , IBM, Bombardier, GE , HP , P&G , SAP , and Vodafone have proven that the value of the customer base is a strong indicator for company value. In this respect several authors have argued that strategic customers should be managed as assets and therefore time and money spent should be regarded as investments rather than expenses (e. g. Ingram et al. 2002; Gupta and Lehman 2005; Tarasi et al. 2011; Senn et al. 2013). We believe that joining forces with strategic customers can be a driving engine to realize change and sustainable market advantage. It is a power and inspiration for challenging existing business assumptions and creating new perspectives on the marketplace, by rethinking the market and business to realize joint value innovation and increase value across traditional company borders.

We are entering a new, transformative era in human and business relations. As argued by Pine and Gilmore (2014) we are moving towards a ‘promising frontier in the dynamic experience economy ’ by creating ‘life‐changing or company‐altering – transformative experiences’. From a marketing angle this transformational era is referred to as ‘Marketing 3.0 ’ by Kotler et al. (2010). With Marketing 3.0 Philip Kotler initiated a paradigm shift: whereas the focus of traditional marketing (1.0) was on the bare product, marketing 2.0 has increasingly taken into account the perspective of the customer. Kotler refined this rather one‐dimensional model into a holistic approach , and understands the customer as what he/she is, after all: human! People are multi‐dimensional, people have different needs and people take every day a large number of different roles in different groups. Marketing 3.0 was born, and the need for companies to adapt to it.

Piercy (2010, p. 350) suggests in his description of the evolution of the strategic sales organization, that a ‘radical transformation ’ in the traditional role of sales is taking place in many companies, ‘putting sales back on the boardroom agenda ’. Indications of a radical change of the sales role have been visible for some time already, referring for instance to Ingram et al. (2002, p. 559) who declare that ‘the sales function is in the midst of a renaissance – a genuine rebirth and revival. Progressive firms are becoming more strategic in their approaches to sales’. In this line of reasoning, in the ‘Challenger Sale ’, Dixon and Adamson (2011) advocate the transformation of sales conversations to move beyond solution selling towards insight selling.

Within this book we provide a perspective upon the possible business transformation that may result from transformative collaboration between suppliers and their strategic customers . Transformational sales is about guiding change and enabling business transformation within this new area, or as Adamson et al. (2013) phrase it, about ‘disrupting the customer’s thinking and assumptions about its business’. We would like to add that in practice this requires disrupting the supplier’s thinking and assumptions about its business as well. In essence transformational sales will transform both the seller and buyer businesses. Transformational Sales is all about guiding organizational change and business transformation, starting with sales itself. Companies using this approach can make a meaningful difference, moving beyond the competition .

Prerequisite to building transformative relations is the selection of a limited number of true strategic customers (see also Cordón and Vollmann 2008). This requires separating strategic customers from other large or ‘major’ customers (e. g. Rackham and De Vincentis 1999; Yip and Bink 2007a; Piercy and Lane 2009). Besides being important in terms of current value and potential growth, strategic customers make us change and are at the same time willing and committed to change with us. They are the ones with whom we will drive business transformation