Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. XXXII, no. 1 (winter 2012), pp. 117–129.© 2012 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved.

ISSN 0885-3134 / 2012 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/PSS0885-3134320110

Although customer relationship management (CRM) has been in vogue for the past two decades and is considered a part of marketing’s new dominant logic, there has been considerable ambiguity in how CRM has been defined. Zablah, Bellenger, and Johnston (2004) identify as many as 45 definitions of CRM and attribute this abundance to the wide array of per-spectives viewing CRM as a process, strategy, technological tool, capability, or even as a philosophy. Research often views CRM as a technology component used to implement customer relationship strategy (Kumar, Sunder, and Ramaseshan 2011; Reinartz, Krafft, and Hoyer 2004; Rigby and Ledingham 2004). However, some researchers have begun to view CRM as an organization-wide strategy implemented through the use of different technologies such as sales force automation (SFA), cloud computing, intranets, and extranets (Reimenn, Schilke, and Thomas 2010). In a literature review conducted by Payne and Frow (2005), they suggest a bipolar view in that CRM is customer-centric and ranges from a very narrow and tactical technology application to a broad, wide-ranging strategy. The

work of Ernst et al. (2011) supports this point, emphasizing both the strategic as well as the process-based aspects of CRM, which we believe are both critical.

Boulding et al. (2005) and Payne and Frow (2005) define CRM as a cross-functional strategic approach concerned with creating improved shareholder value through the development of appropriate relationships with key customers and customer seg-ments. In more practical terms, CRM strategy can be viewed as a process that attempts to combine diverse (and at times seemingly unrelated) pieces of information about customers, sales, environmental factors, competitors, and developing trends (Finnegan and Currie 2010) to enable the selection and implementation of superior selling strategies.

Since previous research frequently perceived CRM as a tech-nological component, the early CRM literature documented that a large percentage of CRM initiatives failed (Rivers and Dart 1999; Thompson and Maoz 2005). Even today, industry reports (Rigby and Bilodeau 2009) suggest that CRM was the fourth most used tool (not strategy) in 2008. Thus, many prac-titioners and researchers view CRM solely as a technological application still today. However, even more disconcerting is the fact that even when CRM is studied as a strategy, CRM failures are still being reported (e.g., Finnegan and Currie 2010). As a result of these findings, there is a great deal of skepticism about the ability of CRM initiatives to generate firm value. With implementation success rates as low as 20 percent (Bush, Moore, and Rocco 2005; Everett 2002), many organizations are finding it hard to realize financial performance gains from CRM strategies. As Finnegan and Currie write:

These failures reflect that CRM is too often implemented with a focus on a software package without an in-depth understanding of the issues of integrating culture, process, people and technology within and across organizational context. (2010, p. 153)

Challenges of CRM IMpleMentatIon In BusIness-to-BusIness MaRkets:

a ContIngenCy peRspeCtIve

Michael ahearne, adam Rapp, Babu John Mariadoss, and shankar ganesan

In this paper, the authors discuss the importance of customer relationship management (CRM) systems in complex and simple selling settings and examine how CRM is implemented in both contexts. Specifically, they suggest that CRM strategies can be implemented from the top-down, originating from top management decisions, or from the bottom-up, stemming from the knowledge and experience of the frontline salespeople. After discussing the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, the authors develop a CRM continuum using bottom-up and top-down CRM strategies as end points. Finally, the authors offer concrete propositions and research initiatives for future investigation.

Michael ahearne (Ph.D., Indiana University), Professor of Market-ing, Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, mahearne@uh.edu.

adam Rapp (Ph.D., University of Connecticut), Associate Profes-sor of Marketing, Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, The University of Alabama, arapp@cba.ua.edu.

Babu John Mariadoss (Ph.D., University of Houston), Assistant Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, Washington State University, Pullman, bjohnmar@wsu.edu.

shankar ganesan (Ph.D., University of Florida), Professor of Marketing, University of Arizona, Eller College of Management, sganesan@eller.arizona.edu.

118 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Therefore, additional investigation dedicated to understand-ing CRM successes and failures is needed to determine the potential value that CRM can truly add to a firm.

With these issues in mind, this paper has several objectives. First, we offer a brief overview of the CRM literature and its role as a business-level strategy. Next, we compare CRM strate-gies presented in previous literature and explain why similar implementation strategies across different settings may not be appropriate. Specifically, we discuss the idea of top-down versus bottom-up approaches to CRM implementation, along with the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Last, we present a contingency framework that proposes a continuum of CRM strategies along with specific propositions detailing the conditions when each strategy is most effective.

Challenges wIth CRM

In order to understand the foundations of the issue at hand, we begin by elaborating on qualitative findings made during the authors’ industry interactions. All of the authors of this paper have had countless interactions at multiple levels within sales organizations ranging from customers and salespeople, all the way up through the organization with sales managers and members of top management teams. Focusing first on interactions with end users, we found that customers were often disgruntled with their respective sales representatives because they visited too much or not enough, recommended impractical solution offerings, and gave sales presentations in a predetermined or scripted manner. After identifying this as the root of a bigger problem, we began to discuss these issues with members of the sales force. Many of the sales representa-tives we interviewed stated they had lost the freedom to call on customers in the manner that they thought was best. Often, senior management instructed sales representatives on which accounts to call, when to call them, and what solutions to of-fer. When these directives were questioned, typical responses from managers included, “just do as I say,” “be a good soldier,” and “there is someone smarter than you and me that figures this stuff out.” With these insights in hand, we transitioned to interactions with senior management for further investi-gation. In order to respond to questions about “restrictive” customer account strategies, top managers relied on data and analytics from their CRM-based systems. These applications helped them identify the most profitable customers based on a recency-frequency-monetary model and call schedules were planned accordingly. Although this is one approach to implement a customer-centric strategy supported by CRM, it is not the optimal approach in all situations.

One underlying difference, largely ignored in discussions of CRM as a strategy, is the heterogeneity of phenomena occur-ring across different business settings. For example, an article written by Tsai (2009), which reviews presentations from a

prominent CRM conference, comparing business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) contexts points out that “B-to-B interactions may typically be viewed as a more straight-laced marketing environment” (2009), and outlines subtle differences between the B2B and B2C settings as well as a different set of basic steps to follow depending on the set-ting. However, we believe that the differences are much more nuanced than previously discussed. Specifically, we believe there are unique circumstances to account for in these distinct business settings that do not permit a broad, overarching strategy for effective CRM implementation.

Within the CRM context, some business environments require that companies target multiple channels while inte-grating every customer touch point, thereby creating a holistic view of the customer (Payne and Frow 2005). In this setting, managers typically use technology to support data mining and analytics to make decisions on how to most effectively use their resources to maximize outputs (Krasnikoz, Jayachandran, and Kumar 2009). In other words, managers are attempting to create a single view of a group of customers. However, other environments require multichannel interactions consisting of multiple influencers and decision makers causing resources to be allocated toward a more customized offering (Merz 2008). The task within this latter setting is understandably more cumbersome, as there are many more touch points and interactions occurring before a sale can be made. This issue is important because many managers believe using knowledge transfer and behavioral change patterns similar to those being used in the first setting will be as effective in the second setting (Marchand and Meadows 2006), which may not necessarily be the case. With this in mind, it is likely that some of the more traditional models currently used in CRM research may be suboptimal because they fail to take into consideration multiple members of the buying center and the appropriate number of interactions necessary to convert the sale.

Supporting these claims, the work of Venkatesan, Kumar, and Bohling (2007) suggests that models in B2C settings may be too simplistic and that the complex decision processes in B2B settings need special consideration. Similarly, Homburg, Droll, and Totzek (2008), when discussing customer prioritiza-tion through CRM, argue that many firms and research fail to consider organizational structures, processes, and culture that may or may not support differential treatment of customers. Finally, work in the area of dynamic capabilities (Maklan and Knox 2009) indicates that the traditional CRM models that assume consumer behaviors will change by a predetermined amount based on CRM investments and usage is not correct. They argue that to deploy CRM resources effectively, firms must embrace dynamic capabilities that are grounded in the tacit knowledge of the business.

As discussed above, CRM has been shown to be unsuc-cessful in many studies, perhaps because of the researcher’s

Winter 2012 119

or organization’s lack of consideration of the selling context where CRM is being implemented. By failing to consider the environment in which the CRM strategy is likely to be used, it would seem that a critical entity is also being ignored—that is, the individual employing the strategy. Consulting agencies argue that if CRM is to be embraced it must be pervasive throughout the entire organization. While we agree that several business units and individuals may participate in developing relationships with customers, we focus on two primary groups for our framework: the sales force and the marketing unit (or other business unit with customer-contact control). Between the two groups, the sales force is typically considered the tactical unit that engages in the necessary behaviors to sup-port the strategic decisions made by the marketing unit. In simplistic settings, this may very well be the case. However, as relationships and selling decisions become more complex and move to a B2B environment, we propose that the sales force needs to assume a more prominent role in the strategic decision-making process, thus enabling them to incorporate and use customer data as they see fit.

Therefore, based on our view of the role of the sales force in more complex CRM environments, we suggest that the definition of CRM should include the role of the salesperson. We define CRM as the process of capturing customer information and developing an appropriate strategy in consultation with the salesperson in order to optimize sales performance. The process includes identification of prospects, up-selling, cross-selling with current customers, and external knowledge sharing.

Amid all the challenges mentioned above and the con-flicting positions regarding CRM’s value, there is also little guidance as to how managers should focus their CRM efforts (Zablah, Bellenger, and Johnston 2004). Similar to Boulding et al. (2005) and Ryals (2005), we argue that value creation through CRM usage may vary and is dependent on the spe-cific business circumstances under investigation. Surprisingly, although CRM literature abounds, the majority is relatively quiet about how these specific situations may interact with CRM to produce differential results (Reimann, Schilke, and Thomas 2010).

CRM stRategy IMpleMentatIon

One specific situation that warrants further investigation is the source (i.e., senior management or frontline personnel) of the CRM implementation strategy being employed. To gain a better understanding of this issue, we review two separate strategies that firms may employ to enact a CRM strategy. Specifically, we argue that strategic initiatives that originate from a top-down perspective can have a dramati-cally different effect than those that stem from a bottom-up point of view. In management and organizational research, the terms “top-down” and “bottom-up” are used to indicate

how decisions are made (Bresser Pereira, Maravall, and Przeworski 1993).

A top-down approach relies on executive- or manager-level employees charged with strategy selection and implementation responsibilities. At higher levels of the organization, strategies are chosen and then disseminated under the executive’s or manager’s authority to lower levels in the hierarchy, who are, to a greater or lesser extent, bound to comply. For example, in a sales force setting, a top-down strategy may entail the market-ing unit or senior management team determining the strategy, behaviors, and actions being controlled by mid-level sales managers by means of a behavior-based control system.

A bottom-up approach embraces more of a grassroots mentality where a larger number of people work together and make decisions jointly. Although a bottom-up strategic framework may be initiated in order to develop and present an overarching strategy to the top management, the develop-ment of the strategy and implementation occurs through the construction of very focused and narrow decisions. The final overall strategy is then based on the integration of the subsystems involved in the decision process.

The concepts of top-down and bottom-up strategies are not new and have received attention from academics across multiple disciplines. Not surprisingly, these ideas have been embraced by industry experts as well. CRM consulting groups such as Buck-Emden and Zencke (2006) from SAP, ISM (2010), and West Monroe Partners (2011) all outline the importance of the management and implementation of CRM strategies. A top-down approach determines actions down to the smallest business unit, whereas the bottom-up approach moves information upward along the organizational hierarchy for planning and sales success.

Perhaps the most detailed discussion of CRM and the top-down versus bottom-up approach can be found in an excerpt from Dyche’s (2009) book, The CRM Handbook. Framing enterprise CRM (top-down approach) versus departmental CRM (bottom-up approach), she effectively presents a case for a bottom-up approach where “the whole is worth way more than the sum of its parts” (Dyche 2009, p. 91). Although this discussion has been present in popular press for nearly ten years, it has been largely absent in contemporary CRM research.

top-Down CRM strategy

Many firms segment their customers using a CRM approach but fail to implement their strategy properly due to both ex-ternal and internal factors, often resulting in unrealized goals and initiatives (Mintzberg 1978; Peppers, Rogers, and Dorf 1999; Zablah, Bellenger, and Johnston 2004). This discon-nect may occur because of a misalignment between the actual strategy and the attempted implementation of the strategic

120 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

initiative. We contend that, and as offered by Bonoma, “it is invariably easier to think up clever marketing strategies than it is to make them work” (1984, p. 69).

As defined above, there are several positive aspects of the top-down approach. For example, this approach receives strong support from top management and achieves a high level of efficiency. Adopting this approach also allows for a holistic view of the customer (Finnegan and Currie 2010). However, although this global view provides a great deal of insight into the current situation, many of the specific details of effective process implementation are not available to man-agers. For example, top-down approaches can often overlook the differing needs of various members of the buying center, the desire for a more in-depth relationship, or the number of desired sales/service visits. Typically, finer details are added to the process design as the strategy moves forward, without the level of specificity required to accurately and effectively execute the strategy. The lack of detail may not be the fault of any particular individual, but rather the cause of constricted time resources, where a delay in strategic reaction could mean the difference between success and failure. With these constraints in mind, many firms move forward with a strategy based on an incomplete view, which may ultimately lead to failure.

As discussed above, the lack of details required for CRM process implementation in a top-down strategy may lead to suboptimal results. Such a top-down approach may work well in situations where B2B interactions mirror the simple selling scenarios involved in B2C interactions, but in more complex environments it may be destined for failure. The top-down approach has two primary weaknesses. First, if strategic changes are perceived to be imposed “from above,” it can be difficult for subordinates to accept them (e.g., Bresser Pereira, Maravall, and Przeworski 1993), which is true regardless of the type of change involved (e.g., Dubois 2002). For example, as discussed by Foss, Stone, and Ekinci (2008), it is not uncom-mon for senior management to underestimate, undervalue, or even ignore the process of change management necessary to implement CRM systems properly. They also observe a lack of senior management engagement in CRM, and suggest that executives may initiate change without outside input, unaware of the high risks associated with an unsatisfactory outcome. This is particularly true in more complex selling environments where the frontline sales force needs transformational-type leadership rather than transactional.

Second, this approach does not incorporate the perspective of the frontline sales force. In essence, this approach eliminates valuable input and feedback of an employee group that man-ages the customer relationships. Oftentimes, CRM strategy is treated as a black box where the details of what should occur inside the box are initially unimportant and added as imple-mentation progresses. These details, which should be provided

by the sales force, are often ignored, not acted on, or acted on too late when the strategic implementation is already well under way. In simple selling situations, these details may not impede the sales process, but in more complex environments, these details may be the deciding factor between success and failure.

Let us consider an example of a CRM process from a top-down perspective. In a top-down CRM approach, firms collect customer information and attempt to tactically execute strategies based on this information. In doing so, firms will at-tempt to capture and integrate all of the customer information gathered and determine who to call, what products to detail, and how to build the overall sales plan for the salesperson. This is implemented by building scripts for the frontline sales force and determining how the sales force should allocate their effort and specific customer visits. In our view, this approach hinders the salesperson’s ability to leverage their individual skills and abilities—a major reason why many firms employ their own sales force rather than use manufacturers’ representatives. This strategy may be appropriate for simple selling environments where the sale is direct and transactional in nature, but in our view it is inappropriate for complex environments where the management optimization routine of scripting fails to lever-age the tacit knowledge of the salesperson and can ultimately leave the salesperson marooned with no backup behavior in place.

Bottom-up CRM strategy

The major component missing from a top-down strategy is the failure to involve frontline salespeople in strategy for-mulation. The lack of “people-driven” processes may cause a firm to become myopic in nature and lead to failure, which often is misattributed to the inefficacy of the CRM strategy itself. People-driven processes require that both management and operational staff work together and possess the ability to understand, manipulate, analyze, and act upon customer knowledge to better satisfy customer needs (Shang and Lin 2010). We believe that the role of salespeople and the influ-ence of CRM-related outcomes have been ignored in previous research on CRM.

In a bottom-up approach, the individual components of the implementation are specified in great detail. These components, which may be from different levels within the organization, are then combined to form the larger strategy. Lower-level strategies often resemble a base model, whereby the beginnings are small but eventually grow in complexity and completeness. The underlying strength of a bottom-up strategy lies in its ability to incorporate (1) customer strategy planning garnered from frontline personnel, (2) critical deci-sion making offered by middle and frontline management,

Winter 2012 121

(3) system improvements, and (4) customer need knowl-edge, at all levels of an organization. More specifically, the bottom-up approach allows for a greater level of flexibility and experimentation and involves all parties concerned, which provides a 360-degree view of the problem. As argued within the strategic management literature, this wider perspective allows for a more complete strategy development process and is more likely to meet a global purpose, but may also result in a convoluted mix of elements and views because ideas are de-veloped in isolation and subject to local optimization (Cooper, Edgett, and Kleinschmidt 1998). Within our research setting, this latter point should be seen as a strength of the approach, rather than a weakness.

The bottom-up approach also allows the salesperson in-creased flexibility as situations become more complex and uncertain. When faced with such circumstances, it becomes necessary for both organizations and employees to adapt at a quick pace to respond to customer needs. Accordingly, it is important that organizations have a high level of information creation occurring at all levels (Nonaka 1988) and ensure organizational members have the autonomy to act on that information. A bottom-up approach permits the salesperson to create and disseminate information and allows them to re-spond to it accordingly to achieve greater success. For example, if a marketing department were to design and suggest a new and complex sales initiative, the salespeople responsible for the initiative must take into consideration the relationships involved and the specific customer needs and demands. It is apparent that salespeople may have intricate knowledge about their customers that cannot easily be codified and dissemi-nated throughout the organization. In such contexts, enacting specific sales call protocols on the sales force may actually do more harm than good.

In this bottom-up situation, the underlying process that enables the salesperson to leverage the knowledge and in-formation provided through CRM is adaptive selling. The acquisition and use of customer information is one of the building blocks of engaging in adaptive selling behaviors (Spiro and Weitz 1990; Sujan, Weitz, and Kumar 1994; Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan 1986). Adaptive selling encompasses not only the behaviors and information communicated dur-ing the sales interaction but also the planning, effort, and activities performed outside of the interaction (Ahearne et al. 2008). Through CRM, salespeople can obtain vital customer information to plan their sales encounter and adapt during the interaction when necessary (Hunter and Perreault 2006). Customer databases and personal interaction allow salespeople to gather precise information about customers to determine appropriate plans and behaviors. Armed with this information, salespeople can prepare more effectively, anticipate customer responses, and be more effective in providing specific solu-

tions to the needs of customers (Rapp, Agnihotri, and Forbes 2008). These positive results are all but meaningless lest we forget the bottom-up strategy is what permits this process to occur. A top-down strategy does not permit this degree of adaptability to occur on the part of the salesperson and may not consider the specific needs of individual customers. To this end, recent research shows that B2B customers vary in regard to their relationship orientation and, accordingly, some may react negatively to relationship-building strategies (Palmatier et al. 2008). Taking into consideration the enforcement of specific behaviors versus providing salespeople the opportunity to determine what the customer needs, costs associated with a top-down strategy may far outweigh the benefits received.

MoDel unDeRpInnIngs

There are several theories supporting the involvement of the individual salesperson in the CRM process to ultimately influ-ence performance. As mentioned above, adaptive selling may be one of the primary processes that enable the knowledge from CRM to be assimilated and leveraged for success, but other concepts stemming from theories at the macrolevel (e.g., resource-based view) and microlevel (e.g., motivation theories) may be at work as well. These are by no means all of the available theories in which research on this topic could be grounded, and they are not completely developed here, but they provide a starting point for researchers pursuing this area.

At the firm level, the idea of the resource-based view of the firm lets us consider salespeople as a resource to gain a competitive advantage. From this perspective, the sales force is construed as a dynamic capability that permits the firm be more reactive and adaptive to specific customer needs and wants. The dynamic capabilities approach (Teece, Pisano, and Shuen 1997) would also allow the firm to become more of a learning organization where salespeople can account for multi-faceted changes occurring both within and outside the firm (Haugstad 1999) and address the complex interactions they face as boundary spanners in complex selling environments.

At the salesperson level, one could subscribe to one of many available motivation theories, such as psychological empowerment. Psychological empowerment has been defined as a motivational construct manifested in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact, which has been shown to have strong links to task performance gains (Spreitzer 1995). Empowerment should provide salespeople with opportunities to make their own decisions with regard to their tasks and sales interactions, which is the inherent premise of bottom-up management. Also, past research suggests that empowerment through autonomy and confidence in decision making will entice the salespeople to work at increased levels

122 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

through intrinsic satisfaction gained from the autonomy in their jobs.

CRM stRategy ContInuuM

For the purpose of our research and framework develop-ment, we use a contingency framework (Weitz 1981) that is not uncommon in sales-based research. Contingency theory suggests that there is no singular structure or strategy that is best for all organizations (Donaldson 1996). The contingency approach offers an effective way to build and develop new theory by identifying commonly recurring business settings and observing how different strategies or structures operate in each environment (Zeithaml, Varadarajan, and Zeithaml 1988).

A key challenge associated with CRM is that its success is contingent on factors anchored at different levels of the organization. Therefore, within our framework we adopt three separate levels of contingencies that must be considered when developing a CRM framework for success. Similar to the work of Reinartz, Krafft, and Hoyer (2004), we present issues that must be considered across (1) the actual function (sale), (2) the salesperson (knowledge, skills, and abilities), and (3) the organization. We believe that these three levels represent the primary levels of interaction that may influ-ence strategy selection for optimum performance. We outline these three categories below and offer propositions for future research.

One caveat to this framework is that we do not include the impact of management levels in this framework. Recognizing that different levels of management influence strategy in dif-ferent ways, Nonaka (1988) developed the term middle-up-down strategy, which suggests that middle management is best suited to enact and make decisions because of their closeness to the information and ability to eliminate noise, fluctuation, and chaos that occurs at the operational level of the organiza-tion. Although this management from the middle (Floyd and Wooldridge 2000) is compelling, we believe it is beyond the scope of our research. However, we do represent the middle management strategy in its appropriate place in Figure 1.

Finally, each proposition listed below is linked to overall effectiveness. As there are multiple ways to measure effective-ness, we believe that optimal CRM usage will lead to enhanced customer value, satisfaction, and improved product solutions, which ultimately lead to increased financial outputs (i.e., percent-to-quota, sales profits, etc). Researchers could also drill deeper and view performance as having two dimensions of effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness can be defined as the extent to which sales goals are accomplished, whereas ef-ficiency can be measured as resource expenditures as a ratio of financial returns or activity. As some past research has argued that SFA technologies are appropriate to gain efficiencies

(which then lead to effectiveness through greater financial outcomes), CRM leads to greater effectiveness through pro-viding improved product solutions (Rapp, Agnihotri, and Forbes 2008). Interestingly, this idea could be overlaid onto our framework where top-down strategies for CRM may lead to greater efficiencies (typically observed by a greater number of transactions) while bottom-up strategies lead to greater effectiveness.

knowledge, skills, and abilities and Bottom-up CRM strategy

Extant literature on knowledge management suggests that two broad categories of customer knowledge are available to salespeople. Whereas some types of knowledge pertain to structured data that is gathered from transactions (e.g., explicit knowledge), other types are generated by salespeople during their interactions with customers (e.g., tacit knowledge) (Garcia-Murrillo and Annabi 2002). We define explicit knowl-edge as the transmittable pieces of know-how in an organiza-tion that can be shared formally, and tacit knowledge as the cumulative store of a salesperson’s subjective or experiential learning (Nonaka 1994; Polanyi 1966; Rainer and Cegielski 2009). Salespeople use explicit knowledge to identify customer problems and preferences, whereas tacit knowledge, generated through interactions between salespeople and their customers, can lead to richer content and help explain why customers do what they do. Unlike salesperson explicit knowledge, which consists of structured data that stems from customer transac-tions, a salesperson’s tacit knowledge is difficult to formalize or codify. Tacit knowledge is unstructured, cannot be recorded, and may even be difficult for salespeople to put into writing as such knowledge is generally imprecise, personal, and costly to transfer (Rainer and Cegielski 2009).

As salespeople serve a critical boundary-spanning role in building relationships with customers (Singh 1998; Singh, Verbeke, and Rhoads 1996), tacit knowledge may lie at the heart of a firm’s knowledge-creating process (Nonaka 1994). In contrast, explicit knowledge can be codified or documented in a form and subsequently distributed to others or transformed by a process such as CRM (Polanyi 1966; Rainer and Cegielski 2009), making it a possible primary source of a firm’s knowl-edge-creating process. Depending on the different knowledge conversion processes used by firms to convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge (Nonaka 1994), members of the sales force will possess differing levels of explicit and tacit knowledge. When tacit knowledge residing in the salesperson is not converted into explicit knowledge, a top-down CRM approach cannot process such personal tacit knowledge and then produce effec-tive planning recommendations for salespeople. Alternatively, as explicit knowledge is highly structured, and can be codified

Winter 2012 123

effectively, firms with a high degree of salesperson explicit knowledge can use a top-down CRM approach.

Proposition 1: A bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective when salespeople in a firm hold a high level of tacit knowledge.

Transitioning from knowledge to skills, salespeople differ in the level of skills that they utilize in their day-to-day sell-ing activities. Of particular importance to CRM applications, salespeople who have a high degree of technical capabilities and technological expertise will be in a better position to synthesize information effectively, compared to technologically challenged salespeople. Firms with salespeople who possess higher levels of technical skills will be more adept at providing richer and more highly processed information to managers and executives. Thus, a technologically skilled sales force will improve the quality of information made available to decision makers during the CRM strategic decision-making process, favoring a top-down CRM model. In turn, firms that lack salespeople with technical skills will be better off depending on a more grassroots approach where salespeople rely on their idiosyncratic customer knowl-edge base, favoring a bottom-up CRM approach.

Proposition 2: A bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective when salespeople in a firm possess a lower level of technical skills.

Customer Complexity and Bottom-up CRM strategy

Past literature has characterized the B2B buying process as a complex procedure (Moriarty and Spekman 1984; Webster and Wind 1972), and we argue that this complexity constitutes an important category of factors that can influence the specific type of CRM approach a firm should use. Specifically, we contend that the decision as to what CRM approach to pursue depends on five major types of complexity: (1) product com-plexity, (2) type of sale complexity (e.g., solution-based sell-ing), (3) market complexity, (4) buying unit size complexity, and (5) sales cycle complexity. Thus, complexity, considered on a continuum ranging from low to high, can help decide which type of CRM approach firms should adopt.

The different type of complexity factors influence the ef-fectiveness of the two CRM approaches differently, based on how the tacit or explicit knowledge is managed to cope with the complexity of the situations. Accordingly, although it is

figure 1 Customer Relationship Management strategy Continuum

124 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

true that CRM technology helps generate vast amounts of information, we assert that as the various types of complexity increase, the CRM strategic decision-making process is better managed by a bottom-up approach. Indeed, although the level of information generated by CRM technology is high, call plans and external information sharing might not be effective under highly complex environments because of the unique circumstances presented in these complex buying situations and specific needs within the buyer–seller relationship. We further contend that while the use and management of explicit knowledge under low customer complexity situations may be possible under a top-down CRM approach, the use and man-agement of tacit knowledge under high customer complexity situations will be better enabled by a bottom-up CRM ap-proach because of the inability to codify the knowledge under a top-down approach. Most importantly, although a bottom-up CRM approach is favored under situations of high complexity, the different complexity factors influence CRM effectiveness in different ways. For instance, product complexity changes the way in which product-related tacit knowledge is managed, while complexity in buying center, selling-type, and/or sales cycle will affect the management of tacit knowledge related to relationships and customer interactions. We now outline the impact of each form of complexity on the decision between a top-down or a bottom-up CRM approach.

Product

B2B selling can easily get complicated due to the complexity of the product, the high stakes involved in the sale, or the type of selling or the type of market. When a firm’s product is highly technical in nature, or is highly customized, the resulting complexity in the product can lead to greater com-plexity in a sale. Under such situations, the amount of tacit knowledge used by the salesperson will play a crucial role in managing the complexity of the sale, favoring a bottom-up CRM strategy.

Selling Type

High complexity can also arise due to the type of selling involved. For example, solution selling involves interacting with multiple customer entities within a buying unit, in which case the management of tacit knowledge becomes critical to the success of the sale, again favoring a bottom-up CRM strategy.

Market

While selling in dynamic and turbulent markets, salespeople need to make use of tacit knowledge that can help determine how buyers will react to future market changes. In contrast, while selling in relatively stable markets, salespeople can rely

on explicit knowledge that is readily available in organizational forms and training guides. Therefore, under situations of high-market complexity, a bottom-up CRM approach will better allow for the management of tacit knowledge related to customers’ reactions to future market conditions.

Buying Center

Another dimension of complexity is caused by the size of the buying unit. The importance of tacit knowledge will increase as the number of decision makers a salesperson has to interact with increases. Although a top-down CRM approach can help in managing explicit knowledge, such knowledge has little value under competitive situations where a number of decision makers are involved because competitors likely hold similar knowledge. Since the effective management of tacit knowledge may be the difference between gaining or losing a sale when dealing with a number of decision makers, a bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective under such situations.

Sales Cycle

The length of the sales cycle may also contribute to the com-plexity of a sale. Certain industries are characterized by sales cycles that are typically longer than that of the average B2B sales cycle, such as the aircraft industry. Management of tacit knowledge plays an important role when sales cycles are long because interactions with members of the buying unit are often characterized as being more informal and geared toward building relationships. In such conditions, a bottom-up CRM approach is most appropriate. Based on the above discussions, we state the following propositions:

Proposition 3: A bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective when the firm’s product is complex.

Proposition 4: A bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective when the type of sale is complex (e.g., solution selling).

Proposition 5: A bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective when the market is dynamic.

Proposition 6: A bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective when the number of the buying center decision makers is large.

Proposition 7: A bottom-up CRM approach will be more effective when the sales cycle is long.

Customer Characteristics and the top-Down CRM strategy

As a firm grows, the number of customers and transactions managed by a salesperson also increase. This will create a need to manage a vast amount of transaction-related information.

Winter 2012 125

Top-down CRM will be equipped to manage the informa-tion related to customer transactions and in turn provide the salesperson with analyses of specific customer-related sales and profitability. Such culling of customer-related information at the top management level will be of much use to salespeople, as they can then manage their call plans and customer ap-proaches using such information. Because it will be difficult during times of rapid firm growth to transfer transaction- and sales-related knowledge into tacit knowledge, a top-down approach will be best suited in such situations. Hence, we propose the following:

Proposition 8: A top-down CRM approach will become more effective as the number of customer transactions of a firm increases.

When the B2B purchasing process is one of a modified or a straight rebuy, the customer information used in a CRM process lacks the specificity of that used in an initial customer call. In new buy situations, prior information captured about the customer is not already captured in the CRM system. However, in cases of repeat sales or modified rebuys, most of the information required to plan for the sales call is already captured in the CRM system. Therefore, under such situa-tions, the salesperson can rely on the recommendations of a top-down CRM approach. Similarly, when the salesperson is in the process of selling a commodity product, specific customer information does not carry as much importance as the product’s specifications and price. Under such situations, where the benefits of product differentiation cannot help the salesperson close the sale, a top-down CRM approach can suitably provide recommendations based on macrolevel infor-mation. Such information can benefit the salesperson, as tacit knowledge is typically not beneficial to sales in commodity markets. Based on the above, we state the following:

Proposition 9: A top-down CRM approach will be effective in repeat purchases and modified rebuys.

Proposition 10: A top-down CRM approach will be effective when the firm is marketing a commodity.

level of Control and top-Down CRM strategy

The effectiveness of a specific approach may, therefore, depend on the level of control allowed by that particular approach. In this research, level of control refers to the level of hierarchy within an organization where the control of the system resides. For example, when most of the control for the execution and management of the information in a CRM system is held at a high level, the strategic goals of the CRM strategy are decided by top management and the salespeople merely act as agents that feed information into the system. In such situations, the most effective strategy is to employ a top-down CRM strategy because the day-to-day management of the system becomes

easier to handle. But when the operational and strategic control of the CRM process is held at the level of the sales department, salespeople own the decisions made by the sys-tem (in that they do most of the ground-level execution) and benefit the most from the decisions. In such situations, the most effective way to implement a CRM strategy is through a bottom-up approach. Our reasoning stems from the logic presented in the strategic alignment literature (Henderson and Venkatraman 1993), which suggests that organizations must have both strategic fit (the interrelationships between external and internal components) and functional integration (integration between business and functional domains). When the strategy employed aligns with the appropriate business-unit control, greater outcomes will be achieved. Based on the above, we state:

Proposition 11: A top-down (bottom-up) CRM approach will be most effective when the firm (sales department) holds control of the CRM strategy.

Extant literature suggests that the purpose of CRM inter-ventions range from ones that indicate a call for action (e.g., cross-selling) to ones that are more suited for relationship-ori-ented purposes (Berry 1995; Bhattacharya and Bolton 1999; McDonald 1998). Although the overall goal of a firm’s CRM strategy is to optimize each individual customer’s profitability over time (Reinartz and Kumar 2003), the specific objectives may differ based on the firm’s intended time horizon for the CRM strategy. A long-term-oriented CRM strategy is one that determines a firm’s customer-specific future marketing interventions trajectory in order to optimize customer lifetime value (Rust and Verhoef 2005), whereas a short-term-oriented CRM strategy is one that determines a firm’s customer-specific marketing interventions mix in order to maximize customer profitability in the period of investment (i.e., quarter). A CRM strategy reflecting more of a short-term orientation will focus primarily on selling, and the CRM objectives will be stated in terms of marketing and selling efficiency (Langerak and Verhoef 2008). Alternatively, a long-term-oriented CRM strategy will focus on optimizing customer relationships with customer equity–related objectives. As salespeople are short-term optimizers, and work with the focus of maximizing rev-enue objectives for current time periods, they are likely to be at odds with a firm’s CRM strategy if a long-term orientation is desired. Therefore, a bottom-up CRM approach will not be well suited to a firm’s long-term-oriented CRM strategy. Hence, we state:

Proposition 12: A top-down (bottom-up) CRM approach will be effective when the firm has long-term- (short-term-) oriented objectives for its CRM strategy.

CRM can be seen as a tool that can provide intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as empowerment, for sales-people. Viewed as an extrinsic motivational tool, CRM helps

126 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

sales people realize their personal financial goals; viewed as an intrinsic motivational tool, CRM helps make salespeople’s work life more efficient such that customer satisfaction is maximized. Since a top-down CRM approach is geared to deliver results in terms of revenue as well as customer relation-ships, such an approach can serve as a motivational tool for salespeople. At the same time, a bottom-up CRM approach provides more control at the level of the salesperson, thereby allowing salespeople to determine what they require, and design the information collection process based on what is required in the field. Providing such autonomy can have a powerful effect on salespeople’s feelings of empowerment (Wang and Netemeyer 2002). Hence, a bottom-up CRM approach is proposed to result in greater empowerment of the sales force, since under this condition they participate more in decisions that affect the firm at a strategic level. Based on the discussion above, we state:

Proposition 13: A top-down (bottom-up) CRM ap-proach will be positively related to salesperson motivation (empowerment).

Next, we discuss the pitfalls of following a top-down CRM approach, when actually the bottom-up CRM approach would have been the most appropriate course of action. The strategic management literature argues that strategy effectiveness is contingent on the fit between the strategy implemented and the internal processes that are in place (e.g., Galbraith and Kazanjian 1986; Miles and Snow 1984; Slater and Olson 2000). For example, business units that pursue a prospec-tor strategy (i.e., seeking and exploiting new opportunities; Miles and Snow 1984) will benefit from processes that enable decision-making autonomy at the operational level (Walker and Ruekert 1987) in order to respond quickly and inno-vatively to the opportunities and threats to their immediate environment (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967; Mintzberg 1979; Thompson 1969). More recent research in the salesperson context makes a similar argument that the need for respon-siveness by prospectors will require “flexibility, decentralized decision making, and rapid communication” at the salesperson level (Slater and Olson 2000, p. 816), and also suggests that the salesperson be given the autonomy to determine his or her most appropriate behaviors.

We apply Miles and Snow’s (1984) idea of the importance of fit between strategy selection and strategy execution to one such organizational process in the sales area, sales call plan-ning. Accordingly, in situations where a salesperson is in his or her prospecting stage of the sales call, a situation analogous to the prospector strategy, a top-down CRM approach that provides information to salespeople and directs them how to conduct their initial sales calls will result in little autonomy and flexibility to the salesperson handling the account. Based on extant research (e.g., Slater and Olson 2000), we view this

situation as one of low fit between CRM strategy and strategy execution to the detriment of the effectiveness of the strategy (Galbraith and Kazanjian 1986; Miles and Snow 1984). As top management are likely unaware of the ground realities in an initial sales call situation, the predictions provided by a top-down CRM approach will likely generate an out-of-range prediction. Furthermore, salespeople often have to adapt their sales calls using an adaptive selling style to cope with the vicis-situdes of customer expectations and requirements. Because the top-down model does not account for the idiosyncrasies of the customer, a salesperson’s strict adherence to the call plan recommendations provided by a CRM strategy driven by the top-down model will bear the risk of upsetting the customer. As such, the top-down CRM approach cannot elicit the tacit knowledge possessed by the salesperson to manage such situations, and even if it does, it will lead to a lag in reaction beyond that of an individual salesperson’s capabilities. With that said, however, in a bottom-up approach, the salesperson has the luxury of reacting immediately to a customer who has idiosyncratic requirements or is upset due to a service failure–related issue. Therefore, we state the following:

Proposition 14: A top-down CRM approach in initial sales calls can lead to out-of-range predictions.

Proposition 15: A top-down CRM approach will not permit salespeople to adapt to customer needs thereby leading to customer resentment.

futuRe ReseaRCh

Past research on CRM has either considered the concept as a technology solution that extends separate databases and SFA tools to improve targeting efforts (Chen and Popovich 2003) or as a tool designed for one-to-one customer communica-tions (Peppers and Rogers 1999). Similar to several research scholars in the CRM area, we take the position that CRM is not merely a technology application for marketing, sales, and services, but a technology-integrated process management strategy that maximizes relationships and encompasses the entire organization (Goldenberg 2000). A CRM strategy can leverage marketing, operations, sales, customer service, human resources, research and development, and finance, along with information technology and the Internet to maximize profit-ability of customer interactions (Chen and Popovich 2003).

In this paper, we argued that CRM, as a B2B strategy, can be effective when implemented using a top-down or bottom-up approach. We also identified several critical factors that are likely to influence which approach is most appropriate. Taking this lead, we expect that future research in this research stream will test the propositions we have forwarded in B2B environments. Future research should consider testing models using outcome variables such as customer retention, sale-close

Winter 2012 127

rates, and the value addition of the CRM tool for salespeople. Moreover, as the independent variables may have aggregate effects at the levels of the salesperson, customer, or the firm, we suggest that data collection efforts should include the three outcome levels: salesperson, customer, and firm. Our proposi-tions present CRM researchers the opportunity to investigate these outcomes and potential moderators.

Another potential area for future CRM research is the space between CRM and SFA. While SFA can be seen as a tactical tool that bridges sales and marketing functions (Chen and Popovich 2003), more research is needed to explore the factors that make one tool more tactical and the other more strategic. A related research void that exists in this stream is that of the strategies to ensure alignment between the CRM and SFA systems for optimal success. Finally, future CRM research should address the question of whether managers should balance the intensity of a CRM approach with the level of information gathered to create greater performance for the firm. Overall, it is evident that the particular CRM approach adopted must be tailored to the situation within which it is operating (i.e., B2B or B2C). However, this also points to an opportunity and need to create a hybrid model that utilizes aspects of both the top-down and bottom-up approaches. The real challenge that managers and researchers alike need to address is how an optimal CRM solution can be developed under complex B2B buying situations.

ConClusIon

Firms operating in today’s competitive environment have started to view CRM as a strategic tool that can be leveraged to satisfy and retain their customers, rather than as a mere information technology investment. Since B2B salespeople are the bedrock of customer knowledge in industrial selling environments, our research is an attempt to develop a strate-gically embedded CRM model using the B2B selling context as our basic framework. We strongly argue that the top-down approach for CRM strategy may work effectively for most simple selling environments, but is inappropriate for many complex selling situations where a multitude of factors need to be considered before choosing the right approach. While we put forth a bottom-up CRM approach as an alternative, we also suggest a contingency approach to choosing the most effective CRM approach for a firm.

RefeRenCes

Ahearne, Michael, Eli Jones, Adam Rapp, and John Mathieu (2008), “High Touch Through High Tech: The Impact of Salesperson Technology Usage on Customer Satisfac-tion and Sales Performance,” Management Science, 54 (4), 671–685.

Berry, Leonard L. (1995), “Relationship Marketing in Services: Growing Interest, Emerging Perspectives,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 23 (4) 236–245.

Bhattacharya, C.B., and Ruth Bolton (1999), “Relationship Marketing in Mass Markets,” in Handbook of Relationship Marketing, Jagdish N. Sheth and Atul Parvatiyar, eds., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 327–354.

Bonoma, Thomas V. (1984), “Making Your Strategy Work,” Harvard Business Review, 62 (2), 69–76.

Boulding, William, Richard Staelin, Michael Ehret, and Wesley J. Johnston (2005), “A Customer Relationship Management Roadmap: What Is Known, Potential Pitfalls and Where to Go,” Journal of Marketing, 69 (4), 155–166.

Bresser Pereira, Luiz Carlos, Jose Maria Maravall, and Adam Przeworski (1993), Economic Reforms in New Democracies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Buck-Emden, Ruediger, and Peter Zencke (2006), SAP CRM: Sales Strategy with SAP CRM 4.0, Dedham, MA: SAP Press.

Bush, Alan J., Jarvis B. Moore, and Rich Rocco (2005), “Under-standing Sales Force Automation Outcomes: A Managerial Perspective,” Industrial Marketing Management, 34 (4), 369–377.

Chen, Injazz J., and Karen Popovich (2003), “Understanding Customer Relationship Management (CRM): People, Pro-cess and Technology,” Business Process Management Journal, 9 (5), 672–688.

Cooper, Robert G., Scott J. Edgett, and Elko J. Kleinschmidt (1998), Portfolio Management for New Products, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Donaldson, Lex (1996), “The Normal Science of Structural Contingency Theory,” Handbook of Organization Studies, London: Sage.

Dubois, Hans F.W. (2002), “Harmonization of the European Vaccination Policy and the Role TQM and Reengineering Could Play,” Quality Management in Health Care, 10 (2), 47–57.

Dyche, Jill (2009), The CRM Handbook: A Business Guide to Customer Relationship Management, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Ernst, Holger, Wayne D. Hoyer, Manfred Krafft, and Katrin Krieger (2011), “Customer Relationship Management and Company Performance—The Mediating Role of New Product Performance,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39 (2), 290–306.

Everett, Cath (2002), “The Slings and Arrows of CRM,” Com-puting, 18 (July), 25−35.

Finnegan, David J., and Wendy L. Currie (2010), “A Multi-Layered Approach to CRM Implementation: An Integra-tion Perspective,” European Management Journal, 28 (2), 153–167.

Floyd, Steven W., and Bill Wooldridge (2000), Building Strategy from the Middle, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Foss, Bryan, Merlin Stone, and Yuksel Ekinci (2008), “What Makes for CRM System Success—Or Failure?” Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management, 15 (2), 68–78.

128 Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Galbraith, Jay R., and Robert K. Kazanjian (1986), Strategy Implementation: Structure, Systems, and Process, St. Paul, MN: West.

Garcia-Murillo, Martha, and H. Annabi (2002), “Customer Knowledge Management,” Journal of Operational Research Society, 53 (8), 875–884.

Goldenberg, Barton (2000), “What Is CRM? What Is an E-Cus-tomer? Why You Need Them Now,” paper presented at the DCI Customer Relationship Management Conference, Boston, June 27–29.

Haugstad, Bjørn (1999), “Strategy Theory—A Short Review of the Literature,” White paper, SINTEF Living Knowledge Strategic Institute Program, Trondheim, Norway.

Henderson, J.C., and N. Venkatraman (1993). “Strategic Align-ment—Leveraging Information Technology for Transforming Organizations,” IBM Systems Journal, 32 (1), 4–16.

Homburg, Christian, Mathias Droll, and Dirk Totzek (2008), “Customer Prioritization: Does It Pay Off, and How Should It Be Implemented?” Journal of Marketing, 72 (2), 110–130.

Hunter, Gary K., and William Perreault (2006), “Sales Technology Orientation Information Effectiveness, and Sales Perfor-mance,” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 26, 2 (Spring), 95–113.

ISM (2010), “CRM Strategy & Implementation Roadmap,” Bethesda, MD (available at http://ismguide.com/crm-strategy/).

Krasnikov, Alexander, Satish Jayachandran, and V. Kumar (2009), “The Impact of Customer Relationship Management Imple-mentation on Cost and Profit Efficiencies: Evidence from the US Commercial Banking Industry,” Journal of Marketing, 73 (3), 61–76.

Kumar, V., Sarang Sunder, and B. Ramaseshan (2011), “Analyzing the Diffusion of Global Customer Relationship Manage-ment: A Cross-Regional Modeling Framework,” Journal of International Marketing, 19 (1), 23–39.

Langerak, Fred, and Peter C. Verhoef (2008), “Strategically Embed-ding CRM,” Business Strategy Review, 14 (4), 73–80.

Lawrence, Paul R., and Jay W. Lorsch (1967), “Differentiation and Integration in Complex Organizations,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 12 (1), 1–30.

Maklan, Stan, and Simon Knox (2009), “Dynamic Capabilities: The Missing Link in CRM Investments,” European Journal of Marketing, 43 (11–12), 1392–1410.

Marchand, Don, and Rebecca Meadows (2006), “Customer Relationship Management Challenging the Myth: Focus on People, Not the Technology,” IMD Perspectives for Manag-ers, no. 131, February (available at www.imd.org/research/ publications/upload/PFM131-LR_Marchand-Meadows .pdf).

McDonald, William (1998), Direct Marketing: An Integrated Ap-proach, Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.

Merz, Russ (2008), “Customer-Focused Strategies in the Multi-Channel Marketplace,” White paper, CFI Group, Ann Arbor, MI.

Miles, Raymond E., and Charles C. Snow (1984), “Fit, Failure and the Hall of Fame,” California Management Review, 26 (3), 10–28.

Mintzberg, Henry (1978), “Patterns in Strategy Formation,” Management Science, 24 (9), 934–948.

——— (1979), The Structuring of Organizations, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Moriarty, Rowland T., Jr., and Robert E. Spekman (1984), “An Empirical Investigation of the Information Sources Used During the Industrial Buying Process,” Journal of Marketing Research, 21 (2), 137–47.

Nonaka, Ikujiro (1988), “Toward Middle-Up-Down Manage-ment: Accelerating Information Creation,” Sloan Manage-ment Review, 29 (3), 9–18.

——— (1994), “A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowl-edge Creation,” Organization Science, 5 (1), 14–37.

Palmatier, Robert W., Lisa K. Scheer, Kenneth R. Evans, K., and Todd J. Arnold (2008), “Achieving Relationship Marketing Effectiveness in Business-to-Business Exchanges,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36, 174–199.

Payne, Adrian, and Pennie Frow (2005), “A Strategic Framework for Customer Relationship Management,” Journal of Market-ing, 69 (4), 167–176.

Peppers, Don, and Martha Rogers (1999), The One to One Man-ager: Real-World Lessons in Customer Relationship Manage-ment, New York: Doubleday.

———, ———, and Bob Dorf (1999), “Is Your Company Ready for One-to-One Marketing?” Harvard Business Review, 77 (1), 151–160.

Polanyi, Michael (1966), The Tacit Dimension, London: Rout-ledge & Kegan Paul.

Rainer, R. Kelly, and Casey G. Cegielski (2009), Introduction to Information Systems: Enabling and Transforming Business, 3d ed., Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Rapp, Adam, Raj Agnihotri, and Lukas P. Forbes (2008), “The Sales Force Technology–Performance Chain: The Role of Adaptive Selling and Effort,” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 28, 4 (Fall), 335–350.

Reimann, Martin, Oliver Schilke, and Jacquelyn S. Thomas (2010), “Customer Relationship Management and Firm Per-formance: The Mediating Role of Business Strategy,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 38 (3), 326–346.

Reinartz, Werner J., and V. Kumar (2003), “The Impact of Cus-tomer Relationship Characteristics on Profitable Lifetime Duration,” Journal of Marketing, 67 (1), 77–99.

———, Manfred Krafft, and Wayne D. Hoyer (2004), “The Customer Relationship Management Process: Its Measure-ment and Impact on Performance,” Journal of Marketing Research, 41 (3) 293–305.

Rigby, Darrell K., and Barbara Bilodeau (2009), Management Tools and Trends, Boston: Bain & Company.

———, and Dianne Ledingham (2004), “CRM Done Right,” Harvard Business Review, 82 (11), 118–129.

Rivers, L. Mark, and Jack Dart (1999), “The Acquisitions and Use of Sales Force Automation by Mid-Sized Manufactur-ers,” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 19, 2 (Spring), 59–73.

Rust, Roland T., and Peter C. Verhoef (2005), “Optimizing the Marketing Interventions Mix in Intermediate-Term CRM,” Marketing Science, 24 (3), 477–489.

Winter 2012 129

Ryals, Lynette (2005), “Making Customer Relationship Manage-ment Work: The Measurement and Profitable Management of Customer Relationships,” Journal of Marketing, 69 (4), 252–261.

Shang, Shari S.C., and Shu Fang Lin (2010), “People-Driven Processes in Customer Relationship Management,” Service Industries Journal, 30 (14), 2441–2456.

Singh, Jagdip (1998), “Striking a Balance in Boundary Span-ning Positions: An Investigation of Some Unconventional Influences of Role Stressors and Job Characteristics on Job Outcomes of Salespeople,” Journal of Marketing, 62 (3), 69–86.

———, Willem Verbeke, and Gary Rhoads (1996), “Do Or-ganizational Practices Matter in Role Stress Processes? A Study of Direct and Moderating Effects for Marketing- Oriented Boundary Spanners,” Journal of Marketing, 60 (July), 69–86.

Slater, Stanley F., and Eric M. Olson (2000), “Strategy Type and Performance: The Influence of Sales Force Management,” Strategic Management Journal, 21 (8), 813–829.

Spiro, Rosann L., and Barton A. Weitz (1990), “Adaptive Selling: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Nomological Valid-ity,” Journal of Marketing Research, 27 (1), 61–69.

Spreitzer, Gretchen M. (1995), “Psychological Empowerment in the Workplace: Dimensions, Measurement, and Validation,” Academy of Management Journal, 38 (5), 1442–1460.

Sujan, Harish, Barton A. Weitz, and Nirmalya Kumar (1994), “Learning Orientation, Working Smart, and Effective Sell-ing,” Journal of Marketing, 58 (3), 39–48.

Teece, David J., Gary Pisano, and Amy Shuen (1997), “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management,” Strategic Manage-ment Journal, 18 (7), 509–533.

Thompson, Ed, and Michael Maoz (2005), “What Is Hot in the World of CRM Applications,” Report no. G00124558, Gartner Group, Stamford, CT.

Thompson, Victor Alexander (1969), Bureaucracy and Innova-tion, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Tsai, Jessica (2009), “What B2B Marketers Can Learn from B2C,” destinationCRM.com, August 29 (available at www

.destinationcrm.com/Articles/CRM-News/Daily-News/What-B2B-Marketers-Can-Learn-from-B2C-55763 .aspx).

Venkatesan, Rajkumar, V. Kumar, and Timothy Bohling (2007), “Optimal Customer Relationship Management Using Bayesian Decision Theory: An Application for Customer Se-lection,” Journal of Marketing Research, 44 (4), 579–594.

Walker, Orville C., and Robert W. Ruekert (1987), “Market-ing’s Role in the Implementation of Business Strategies: A Critical Review and Conceptual Framework,” Journal of Marketing, 51 (3), 15–33.

Wang, Guanping, and Richard W. Netemeyer (2002), “The Ef-fects of Job Autonomy, Customer Demandingness, and Trait Competitiveness on Salesperson Learning, Self-Efficacy, and Performance,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 30 (3), 217–228.

Webster, Frederick E., Jr., and Yoram Wind (1972), “A General Model for Understanding Organizational Buying Behavior,” Journal of Marketing, 36 (2), 12–19.

Weitz, Barton A. (1981), “Effectiveness in Sales Interactions: A Contingency Framework,” Journal of Marketing, 45 (4), 85–103.

———, Harish Sujan, and Mita Sujan (1986), “Knowledge, Motivation, and Adaptive Behavior: A Framework for Improving Selling Effectiveness,” Journal of Marketing, 50 (4), 174–191.

West Monroe Partners (2011), “Customer Relationship Man-agement Strategy,” Chicago (available at www.westmonroe partners.com/~/media/Files/Solution%20Briefs/SS% 20Customer%20CRM%20Strategy.ashx).

Zablah, Alex R., Danny N. Bellenger, and Wesley J. Johnston (2004), “An Evaluation of Divergent Perspectives on Cus-tomer Relationship Management: Towards a Common Understanding of an Emerging Phenomenon,” Industrial Marketing Management, 33 (6), 475–489.

Zeithaml, Valarie A., P. “Rajan” Varadarjan, and Carl P. Zeithaml (1988), “The Contingency Approach: Its Foundations and Relevance to Theory Building and Research in Marketing,” European Journal of Marketing, 22 (7), 37–64.