Salesperson adoption and usage of mobile sales configuration tools

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine salespersons’ adoption and usage of mobile sales configuration tools (MSCT) and to identify areas for further development in this realm. Another objective is to offer a conceptualization of MSCT adoption.

Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, a qualitative case study approach was selected as the research method to better understand acceptance of a mobile configuration tool used by business-to-business (B2B) salespersons. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews, which included a series of open-ended questions to gain more detailed and contextual data.

Findings The results obtained from the interviews indicated several important determinants of adoption of sales configuration tools, and three different personal innovativeness types were identified.

Research limitations/implications The current study has certain limitations that should be considered in future studies. First, the results of this study cannot be generalized in other contexts because of small number of participants (nine salespersons) included. Second, social desirability might have affected the results in a way that caused the salespersons to have been tempted to talk positively about MSCT.

Practical implications Based on the findings several suggestions for managers and software developers are made such as further technical development of MSCT, development of common sales routine for all salespersons, mentoring new salespersons and establishing social media channels for salesperson to interact with each, share experience/knowledge.

Originality/value Current paper can serve as pathway toward understanding of MSCT adoption and usage as it opens new avenues as a source of hypotheses for a quantitative analysis of certain phenomena such as the correlation between MSCT usage and sales performance.