Factors Underpinning the Sales Effectiveness by Grounded Theory: The Case of Food Industry

Abstract

Today, companies are well aware of the significance of sales and attempt to stabilize and/or improve their status in the competitive climate of the markets by increasing their sales. Since there are different strategies and methods in this regard and many components are involved in the sales of companies, we tried to identify the factors affecting sales effectiveness by presenting a model. The present qualitative research aims to enumerate the factors influencing sales effectiveness using grounded theory to identify the categories underpinning the sales effectiveness of companies. The data were collected from 10 experts in the food industry in Guilan province, Iran. The collected data were analyzed by coding in the MAXQDA software. Results show that 287 concepts (in terms of repetition) were extracted from the interviews at the first step (open coding). By considering the relationship of the concepts at the axial coding level (the second step), they were narrowed to 26 categories, and finally, six themes were identified at the third step (selective coding). These themes, i.e., the factors underpinning organizational sales effectiveness, include the firms' strategic orientations, marketing capabilities, sales control management, salesforce performance, and environmental factors. As well, sales effectiveness was decomposed into the categories of investment, profitability, market share, and customer satisfaction.