Three essays on b2b solution selling - challenges in sales, contracting, and pricing
type: CreativeWork
description: Offering solutions impose manifold challenges on suppliers. To master these challenges, suppliers need excellent commercial capabilities. This thesis considers these challenges and opportunities in sales, contracting, and pricing of complex B2B solutions in three essays: Essay 1 addresses the increased complexity for solution salespeople, who represent an essential strategic asset in solution selling. In-depth interviews with solution sales managers in study 1 and survey data from matched sales manager-salesperson dyads in study 2, reveal nine specific equifinal configurations of key personal and procedural competencies that qualify individual salespeople in their role and thus determine their solution sales success. The focus of essay 2 lies on B2B export relationships for complex product-service combinations in an international context. A regression analysis based on a survey study with 198 responses shows several direct and indirect effects of contractual and cultural constructs. The results give insights under which cultural framework conditions contract specificity serves as a safeguarding mechanism against uncertainty and opportunism. Essay 3 examines how the bidirectional agency relationship between suppliers and customers and the performance uncertainty of a solution influence B2B customers’ acceptance of performance-based pricing (PBP). Drawing on a cross-industry survey with 196 managers of B2B firms, this study contributes to extend PBP literature by showing how bidirectional agency relationships shape customers’ acceptance of PBP. In sum, this thesis contributes to a better understanding on how to optimize commercial capabilities in the context of national and international solution selling. It thereby focuses on addressing recently identified causes that hinder B2B firms from increasing their margins through solution selling by (1) optimizing the sales force through a better understanding of important resources and capabilities for solution selling, (2)…
abstract: Offering solutions impose manifold challenges on suppliers. To master these challenges, suppliers need excellent commercial capabilities. This thesis considers these challenges and opportunities in sales, contracting, and pricing of complex B2B solutions in three essays: Essay 1 addresses the increased complexity for solution salespeople, who represent an essential strategic asset in solution selling. In-depth interviews with solution sales managers in study 1 and survey data from matched sales manager-salesperson dyads in study 2, reveal nine specific equifinal configurations of key personal and procedural competencies that qualify individual salespeople in their role and thus determine their solution sales success. The focus of essay 2 lies on B2B export relationships for complex product-service combinations in an international context. A regression analysis based on a survey study with 198 responses shows several direct and indirect effects of contractual and cultural constructs. The results give insights under which cultural framework conditions contract specificity serves as a safeguarding mechanism against uncertainty and opportunism. Essay 3 examines how the bidirectional agency relationship between suppliers and customers and the performance uncertainty of a solution influence B2B customers’ acceptance of performance-based pricing (PBP). Drawing on a cross-industry survey with 196 managers of B2B firms, this study contributes to extend PBP literature by showing how bidirectional agency relationships shape customers’ acceptance of PBP. In sum, this thesis contributes to a better understanding on how to optimize commercial capabilities in the context of national and international solution selling. It thereby focuses on addressing recently identified causes that hinder B2B firms from increasing their margins through solution selling by (1) optimizing the sales force through a better understanding of important resources and capabilities for solution selling, (2)…
author: Stoffer, Gloria
keywords: solution selling, customization, business-to-business
date published: 2023-12-20
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:45:10Z
provider: Universität Passau
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Universität Passau