USING ELECTRONIC MEDIA AND INTERMEDIARIES TO DRIVE SALES
FORCE TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
BY
Yvonne Gagnon
A Final Project submitted to the faculty of Manhattanville College in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications
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Academic Dean
________________
Final Project Director
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Date
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Second Reader
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For a company to survive in today’s highly competitive and electronically-driven
environment, leaders can no longer rely on face-to-face communications to effect needed
change. Rather, a sales force must be persuaded through intermediaries and electronic
media to use new information technology throughout the sales cycle.
To make this happen, there are five areas that a strategic change communications
plan must address: the role of communications; the change desired, the new technology
itself, the role of intermediaries as change agents, including mid-level and first-line
managers, and the most effective ways to reach them. As an example of how to approach
these five areas, a global information technology company, Bigco, and its customized
sales software service unit, XYZ, are analyzed. Communications at Bigco take place in
two arenas, the traditional employee communications arena (intranet, newsletters, etc.)
and the executive internal communications arena that executives use to communicate
with peers, subordinates and superiors. Interestingly, in the XYZ unit, it is only this
second channel that can effect change because XYZ only has access to sales
representatives through it. As a result, the change communications challenge is much
more difficult.
The five disciplines are examined and customer relationship management (CRM)
is defined. Harvard Business School leadership guru, John Kotter, created an eight-stage
process of initiating and sustaining major change, and it is used throughout. The eight
stages are creating a sense of urgency, creating a guiding coalition, developing a vision
and strategy, communicating the change vision, empowering employees for broad-based
action, generating short-term wins, consolidating gains and producing more change, and
anchoring new approaches in the culture.
In the Bigco case study, the failure rate of CRM adoption is high, there is no
change management plan in place, and the communications role is restricted, making it a
challenging study. A SWOT analysis highlights the opportunities that change would
provide—improved sales, customer service and reporting and reduced costs and company
growth. The threats to the business include marginal sales growth, slow response time
creating proposals, and lost cross-selling opportunities. The strengths that would
facilitate the adoption process include core competencies to modify the CRM tools, and a
high-technology business culture very much tied to e-mail and other electronic means of
communications. Weaknesses that are barriers include new sales tools that are not
perceived as user-friendly or as productivity enhancers and the absence of a change
coalition of executives needed to spearhead technology adoption.
Many of the recommendations that are part of the action plan apply to any global
company struggling with the same sales force technology adoption issues. For example,
companies are urged to create a sense of urgency, get input for technology changes from
users, create measuring systems to track adoption, etc. Even if XYZ’s IT adoption
challenge is not met, this analysis will help communicators and leaders formulate sales
force transformation plans in this rapidly changing world.
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INTRODUCTION
Rapid change, brought on by developments in information technology,
inexpensive telecommunications and powerful global competition, requires that
companies drive behavior change within their organizations to survive. Many people
believe that behavior change, especially technology adoption, cannot happen without
face-to-face communications. However, in today’s global fast-paced workplace,
opportunities for face-to-face interaction can be limited or non-existent, and e-mail and
other electronic tools are widely used to inform and engage employees. Companies must
use every means at their disposal to drive behavioral change, whether it is engaging
employees to adapt to new processes brought on by mergers or acquisitions or persuading
their employees to use new technology. Because sales force competitiveness and ability
to generate revenue is so central to a company’s health, the focus of the following
discussion is on sales force technology adoption. For a company to survive in today’s
highly competitive and fast-paced environment, leaders can no longer rely on face-to-face
communications to effect needed change. Rather, a sales force must be persuaded through
intermediaries and electronic media to use new information technology processes and
tools throughout the sales cycle.
In order to do this, there are five areas that a strategic communications plan must
address: the sales force technology to be adopted; the change process; the role of
communications; audience reach; and the role of intermediaries as change agents. The
big-picture dynamics as well as the everyday aspects of the desired change begin with an
understanding of what changes need to be made and why. For sales technology adoption,
sales force processes and tools are usually referred to as CRM (customer relationship
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management). CRM is a sales strategy that uses technology and comprehensive customer
data to provide a holistic view of the customer to sales and marketing people to help them
increase revenue and influence customer loyalty (“What” 2).
In order to assess any change management situation, a SWOT (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of a company is useful. The results of the
assessment highlight the opportunities that change would provide, threats to a company if
it doesn’t change, strengths that may help the change adoption process and weaknesses
that may be barriers to change. In addition, a change management paradigm also
provides a useful framework to assess a company’s change progress. John Kotter,
Harvard Business School professor and leading expert on business leadership, provides
such a paradigm with his eight-step outline for change, and this structure will be used in
assessing the change process in a case study of a large information technology company
(Kotter 21), and in discussing the role of communications. Other experts also contribute
to the discussion of the role of intermediaries and first-line managers in driving adoption.
DRIVING SALES TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
Sales Force Technology
Sales force adoption of technology is essential because it is widely believed to
directly affect customer loyalty and satisfaction, the two primary drivers of sales, the “top
line” of a company’s income statement. Sales force information technology--customer
relationship management (CRM) software--can help companies provide better customer
service, build stronger relationships, provide better reporting, and provide specific and
customized customer information to more effectively meet the client’s needs (Keillor and
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Bashaw 209). The following definition of CRM, courtesy of the editors of CRM.com,
provides insight into the importance of CRM to any business:
Customer relationship management is a company-wide business strategy
designed to reduce costs and increase profitability by solidifying customer
loyalty. True CRM brings together information from all data sources
within an organization (and where appropriate, from outside the
organization) to give one, holistic view of each customer in real time.
This allows customer facing employees in such areas as sales, customer
support, and marketing to make quick yet informed decisions on
everything from cross-selling and upselling opportunities to target
marketing strategies to competitive positioning tactics. (“What” 1)
But these benefits don’t come without pain. Although sales people already
integrate some technology into their daily routine—to file reports, look up leads, access
informational databases, get customer presentations on line—they must do more to meet
the customer’s needs and to increase revenue. They have to change the way they go
about the business of selling. For example, to help identify opportunities within an
account, a sales representative for computer hardware would be required to input vital
information on his/her client into a central database so that other company representatives
of software or services could also sell to the client. To realize this as a “cross-selling”
opportunity, the sales representative would provide the database with an evaluation of the
opportunity and alert colleagues in other divisions to the opportunity. Access to this
information would help other divisions’ sales representatives and business partners find
the information they needed to quickly mobilize and take full advantage of the
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opportunity. All business contact would be coordinated through the original sales
representative, making the sales process unified, integrated and customer-centric. But
adopting new technology in the sales process takes a commitment to a vision, a
willingness to change and an incentive system that encourages this behavior.
How to get that commitment and subsequent behavior change is the challenge that
consumes the change management leader, especially since sales force technology
adoption failure rates have been high. According to Gartner Group, CRM adoption
failure rates were 55 percent (Rigby, Reichheld and Schefter 18). A Sales and Marketing
Management magazine survey reported that 60 percent of sales technology
implementations are failures (Widmier, Rosenbaum and Jackson, Jr. 1). This high rate of
failure means that the communicator must be aware of what the sales force is being asked
to do, understand the system’s limitations, and zero in on the sales representatives’
perception of the technology tool’s usefulness to them. Knowing the audience and
assessing the situation are essential elements of the strategic communications planning
process. An emotionally intelligent leader (or communicator) can then use this
information to see the situation from the sales representative’s standpoint, empathize, and
find a way to fix the problem, or at least apologize for it, to diminish any anger or
negative emotions relating to the change situation (Goleman 280).
Change Leadership
The second aspect of sales technology transformation is the change process itself,
which requires true leadership--critical to successful transformations. Kotter’s “EightStage Process of Creating Major Change” provides the structure that leaders can use to
drive needed change. Comparing a company’s situation against these guidelines is
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helpful in identifying the change dynamics in place and the work that still needs to be
done to drive change. The eight stages are “establishing a sense of urgency, creating a
guiding coalition, developing a vision and strategy, communicating the change vision,
empowering employees for broad-based action, generating short-term wins, consolidating
gains and producing more change, and anchoring new approaches in the culture” ( 21).
Communicators have a role in all the stages. The first stage, “establishing a sense
of urgency,” needs to be conveyed from executives to mid-level managers to first-line
managers to the sales force, and the communicator’s role in this is essential. The
professional communicator understands the communications dynamics involved in the
situation itself, the audience, the messaging, the communications tactics, the
measurement, and the specific communication dynamic from the sender to receiver of
messages. This will be discussed in more detail below.
Kotter notes that in order to get cooperation to drive the change, a sense of
urgency needs to be felt by all stakeholders affected by the change (36). However, there
is a force field that stands in the way of change--complacency. Kotter advises change
leaders to “never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that reinforce complacency
and that help maintain the status quo” (42). Creating a sense of urgency helps people buy
into the inevitability of the change, resulting in less resistance. (See Appendix A: “Ways
to Raise the Urgency Level.”)
Kotter’s second stage is creating the guiding coalition--putting together a team
powerful enough to lead the change--that works together on a shared objective in a spirit
of shared purpose, trust and cooperation (21). This step is crucial for providing direction,
resources or management support for the desired change. It is in this stage that the
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management buy-in to the change really occurs where the communicator provides
information on the audience attitudes, values and openness to change by using evaluative
tools such as surveys, interviews, etc., to take the pulse of the target group.
The third stage is developing a vision and strategy. Kotter states, “Vision refers
to a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people
should strive to create that future” (68). (Kotter’s list, “Characteristics of an Effective
Vision,” can be found in Appendix B.) Communicators facilitate this process by helping
to craft the vision statement with its emphasis on the future desired and the steps needed
to take the sales force there.
Communicating the change vision is Kotter’s fourth stage, and he recommends
using multiple forums--e-mail, “town-hall” meetings, blogs, intranets, videoconferences,
net meetings, etc.--and advocates simplicity, the use of metaphors and repetition,
leadership by example, the explanation of seeming inconsistencies and give-and-take
(90). This is the stage where the communicator is usually brought in by management. As
noted above, the communicator has to be involved in the entire eight-stage process. (See
Appendix C: “Key Elements in the Effective Communication of Vision”)
Kotter’s fifth stage is empowering broad-based action. The purpose of stage five
is “to empower a broad base of people to take action by removing as many barriers to the
implementation of the change vision as possible at this point in the process” (102). If the
sense of urgency, the creation of the guiding coalition, the vision and strategy
development and the change communications have been properly implemented, then the
task of empowering employees to take broad-based action, such as driving required
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structural and cultural changes, becomes easier. Messages at this stage communicate
empowerment concepts and personal responsibility for implementing the vision.
Kotter’s sixth stage is generating short-term wins, stage seven is consolidating
gains and producing more change, and stage eight is anchoring new approaches in the
culture. Communications has a role in these stages as well. The communicator can assist
in identifying the most appropriate change group for the communications of short-term
wins. For example, when a client sales manager indicates interest in increasing his
team’s sales with a specific cross-selling tool, a concerted effort, including specific
incentives, would be made by management to drive adoption. As soon as an increase in
sales could be measured, it would be highlighted in web articles and the team would be
publicly recognized by management. In consolidating gains and producing more change,
the repetition, communication of successes and reinforcing the momentum generated is
part of the communicator’s job. And the communicator has a role in anchoring the
change adoption in the culture as communicators are among the most important conduits
of culture within the organization.
Communications Role
Once the communicator’s role has been delineated in terms of the eight change
stages, he/she must develop a strategic change communications plan. The first step is
information gathering that involves research on the company’s opportunities and threats,
strengths and weaknesses, and assessing the company’s place in the change process.
Once this is determined, audiences can be targeted, messages created, and delivery
channels and tactics selected. The communicator explores what the change means in the
context of the industry and company, what specific behaviors need to change, and who is
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involved. S/he then identifies the opportunities that are opened up by changing and uses
this information in the message plan. For example, the message might be that using a
more targeted sales technology tool to capture customer interests and challenges
enhances customer loyalty, increases commissions and company revenue. Identifying
threats also provides inputs into the message plan as it relates to “sense of urgency.” For
example, a sense of urgency can be created by providing information to the sales force on
the company’s weaknesses in relation to the competition, demonstrating how it has
resulted in lost sales and missed opportunities, and extrapolating what the effect is or
could be on the overall business and viability of the company.
A look at a company’s strengths is also important as these provide the basis on
which the change is implemented. By knowing what they are, the communicator can also
highlight the strengths in messaging to the sales force. The company’s innovative
solutions, for example, would provide a competitive advantage in the technology
marketplace and would be part of the overall message plan. In addition, by identifying
weaknesses, the communicator can address them and create responses to questions that
will be asked of executives spearheading the change in two-way discussions.
Audience Reach
Professional communicators in global companies generally communicate with
their internal audiences on behalf of management through the employee communications
channel--the company’s intranet, internal webcasts, e-mail newsletters, and other forms
of electronic media as well as at internal company events. However, when executives
need to communicate with their peers, subordinates or superiors, another channel is
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needed--the executive internal communications channel. Although the tactics are
different, the two channels complement each other to a great degree.
Especially in a change situation, the executive communications channel involves
a communications dynamic beginning with the executive source and flowing to the
intermediaries down to first-line managers, and, in this case, to the sales force. This
dynamic involves person-to-person communications--if not face-to-face--and at its core is
a communication between two people who have a relationship, that of supervisor and
subordinate, peer to peer or subordinate to supervisor. This dynamic is integral to the
change communications process and provides one of the most important ways to
communicate with the sales force. Nonetheless, there are several challenges inherent in
this channel: effectively reaching first-line sales supervisors; use of intermediaries to
convey desired messages; contact restrictions with the sales force; electronic
communications saturation; and measuring message effectiveness.
First-Line Manager as Change Agent
In order to effect change, change agents are needed who quickly adapt to and are
champions for change. First-line managers are especially important in this role.
According to Kotter, “The key players will be those middle or lower-level managers who
are in charge” of a work unit, and they will need to “reduce complacency and increase
urgency” (46). He also believes that mid-level managers must create trust and teamwork
which “helps enormously in creating a shared objective” (61, 65).
Employees, in general, most trust communications relating to change from their
direct supervisors. This is so because employees have the most contact with their
supervisors, who are more accessible to them (Richards 34), and may even have face-to-
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face contact with them. It is at this point in the communication chain where the
technology transfer most likely occurs since the manager is not only the conduit of the IT
adoption request, s/he also evaluates the sales representatives’ performance and is in a
unique situation to drive change in the transformational target group.
But change agents must be persuaded of the need for change so they can be
persuaders or “initiative champions.” The first-line and mid-level managers are,
therefore, crucial to technology adoption. “Of the factors investigated, only the presence
of an initiative champion had a significant positive impact on the productivity of the SFA
[sales force automation] initiative” (Widmier, Rosenbaum and Jackson, Jr.1).
Ronald Sims, a human resources and change guru, believes the role of the midlevel manager is to ensure that employees have the needed skills for the change they are
asked to make. “Every change process that succeeds in the new economy must be
sustained and spread with the active involvement by middle managers who are key to
getting the support and maximum involvement of all other employees” (Sims 93).
The first-line manager’s role as a change agent is even more crucial when
management restricts contact with sales representatives. This is often the case in large
companies when leaders want to protect the sales force from internal company
disruptions so that sales representatives can spend more time with customers. This often
means that communications intended for this group must go through intermediaries to the
first-line manager. For example, to communicate with independent sales agents at New
York Life, communicators and executives alike must go through designated
intermediaries to send messages to them (Dembofsky).
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Understanding the first-line managers’ perspective is key to communicating
effectively with them and persuading them to act as change agents. The nature of the
work of first-line managers is specialized. In general, first-line managers are not
particularly interested in overall company direction, strategies or corporate initiatives.
What they are interested in is what affects them on a daily basis—their pay, their
supervisor’s mood, their benefits, how their performance will be rated and their chances
for advancement (Sprague and Del Brocco 35). Understanding their point of view helps
in creating messages that resonate with them.
Another interesting consideration in IT adoption situations is articulated by the
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This model hypothesizes that a person’s
perception of whether a new technology is easy to use and will help him/her perform
better is directly correlated to his/her adoption of that technology (Schillewaert et al.
324). Thus, the messages sent to this group need to reiterate ease-of-use and better
personal performance. The first-line manager has to be persuaded that the sales
technology changes meet these criteria so s/he can credibly pass it on to his/her direct
reports.
There are obvious drawbacks of this message transfer from the communication
originator, the executive, to the intermediary, to the first-line manager, to the sales force.
Often referred to as “cascading” (Proctor and Doukakis 268), it can be fraught with
misunderstanding and even misinformation, or simply ignored, especially if the
communications is forwarded without a customized message, that is, one the receiver
perceives is intended specifically for him/her. This demonstrates how important it is to
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develop a way to sustain message integrity and increase the likelihood that the original
communications will be read and acted upon.
Communications Pairings
A way of fostering readability is to identify communications pairings. “Pairings”
here refers not only to one sender and receiver, but to “forwarding pairs” where the
receiver becomes the sender who sends it on to the next person in the communications
chain. These pairings capitalize on the personal relationship through the creation of
customized messages when forwarding. This kind of pairing can complement an
announcement of a new tool by personalizing it. For example, the vice president of a
division might announce a new process via webcast that would also allow a forum for
questions and answers. This would be followed up with an e-mail from the same vice
president to be cascaded to the sales force. The executive would instruct the recipients to
attach a personal message, perhaps referencing the webcast and noting a link to those
who missed it, to endorse the message before sending it with a similar instruction to their
direct reports. Also, to enhance the two-way communications, the executive announcing
the new process could open an instant message to respond to questions on certain days
and times during the launch week.
Following are four communications pairs relevant to this discussion:

Peer to peer: Executive source to same-level executives in other global divisions.
These executives would be expected to forward messages and provide leadership to
drive the desired change through their chains of command, to reach the first-line sales
managers.
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
Executive source to direct reports: Those with line management responsibilities to
sales force influencers--marketing personnel, for example, who need to understand
the messaging and executive communications method.

Executive source direct electronic message to first-line sales managers. This channel
is often restricted because it does not go through the management chain. However,
the training organization might use this channel to directly correspond to those for
whom they would provide training.

Executive source communications up the hierarchy in order to influence up and get
support for the change effort.
Also essential is finding a way to make the communication two-way so the sales
people feel that they have a say in the change process. As pointed out by Proctor and
Doukakis, professors of business in the UK and Cyprus respectively, people like to feel
that they have power over their situations, so the more they perceive that change is
imposed on them, the more they feel threatened and resist (268). Creating a two-way
dialogue will facilitate adoption, and surveys, blogs, net meetings, team rooms, “townhall” meetings, web casts and open instant messaging dialogues can help with this.
Measurement
The most effective communicators understand that it is imperative to find a way
to measure the communications function, especially because many executives believe
that if work can’t be measured, it can’t be managed. Measuring message effectiveness is
a challenge that all communicators face. Fortunately, many of the activities that take
place on line can be measured, but there are limitations. For example, services like
Surfaid are able to measure intranet and extranet “hits,” compute how many links were
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opened, and provide graphic charts showing activity over a specified time period. They
can also track whether e-mails were opened and whether links from the e-mails were
opened (Dierks). However, they are not able to track the number of times the e-mail was
forwarded and to whom. This poses a problem in determining the reach—who in the
target audience received the e-mail and opened it. There is also no way to know whether
an e-mail was actually read (as opposed to being opened) and whether it provided the
impetus to act. Nonetheless, whether the recipient of a message was engaged enough to
take action can be measured by the number of people actually using a new process or tool
to get their work done. This is the bottom line.
To create a better change climate, then, change leaders need to ensure that
employees have the needed skills for change, that the technology actually is easy to use,
and that there is a climate of trust and teamwork engendered by understanding the sales
representative’s point of view. Communicators can help leaders show salespeople that
they have a say in the change process, will gain certain advantages by changing and will
provide better performance as a result. First line managers are charged with reducing
complacency, and creating a sense of urgency and are the “initiative champions.”
CASE STUDY: XYZ/BIGCO
This case study provides an opportunity to examine the five aspects of sales
technology transformation in a large company—the sales technology itself, change
leadership, the communication professional’s role, the role of the change agent and the
communications flow to the target audience.
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Background
The author consulted for four months in 2006-2007 as the communications lead
for the vice president of a unit of a global brand-name IT services and hardware provider,
and encountered the challenges that are the subject of this paper. The unit and the parent
company, for purposes of confidentiality, will be referred to as “XYZ Unit” and “Bigco,”
respectively.
Opportunities
To improve sales, customer service and reporting, and to reduce costs and grow
the company, Bigco began a sales transformation several years ago. In order to do this, it
had to improve its relationship with its customers, find ways to increase business from its
current base of clients, and find new customers.
Threats
More compelling reasons for the sales force transformation were the myriad
threats to the business. Revenues of Bigco grew a marginal one percent in 2006 over
2005. Major problems in the sales process were holding the sales force back from taking
full advantage of cross-selling opportunities. Customer and lead data was spread widely
across individual silos--business units, brands, geographies and partners. Sales
representatives and partners did not have a way to consolidate or easily exchange sales
information such as the location of specific technical or professional expertise, Bigco
solutions and products already in place, product information, contacts within the account,
etc. This considerably slowed response time and negatively impacted the representatives’
potential to sell the client more Bigco products and services.
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To solve some of these problems, and to take advantage of the opportunity to
improve sales, increase customer loyalty, and help the company grow, Bigco
implemented CRM Siebel as the core information technology platform for the sales force.
The sales force resisted the new CRM strategy of using IT processes and tools
from opportunity identification through to the sale and customer follow-up. Sales
representatives simply were not changing the way they were conducting their sales
activities to conform to the company’s transformation vision. In the yearly global sales
force survey, sales representatives said that the CRM tool was complicated to use and
that it didn’t make them more productive or add value. At this juncture, Bigco realized
that it had to simplify its CRM Siebel processes and tools in order to simplify the
experience for the sales force.
As a result, an internal service unit, XYZ, was formed in 2005 and was assigned
to make processes and tools more user-friendly, integrated and efficient. Funded from
multiple sources, the unit did not generate revenue but was an expense center. XYZ’s
mandate included a focus on developing an integrated transformation strategy with sales
channels, business units, and sales operations teams. Three routes to market—business
partners, teleWeb and face-to-face sales—were consolidated under XYZ as part of this
new structure.
Strengths
Bigco has core competencies in modifying the CRM sales management tools-highly skilled developers and software experts and a world-class research center with a
reputation for innovation. It also has impressive resources in the human, financial,
physical and intangible realms. It has highly skilled employees with a diverse set of
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professional credentials and experience in the IT business. Employees are motivated and
innovative, as is evidenced by the creation of new software tools and commitment to
making the tools better. Other intangible resources include specialized knowledge of the
three sales channels--face-to-face sales, teleWeb and business partners. It has a fastpaced culture that values accomplishment, a diverse work force, and a dynamic work
environment. Human resources recruits talented people and provides technology training
and other training as needed, either web-based or face-to-face.
On the communications side, there is a deep understanding of the business and the
industry. The communications group for the service unit, XYZ, initiated an internal
website specifically for XYZ and uses the latest technologies to inform, persuade and
motivate employees, including collaborative software, Webcasts, Net meetings, audio
conferences, team rooms, the intranet and other high technology tools. E-mail is the
primary channel used to reach target contacts and is effective, especially between peers
and supervisors, because the business culture is tied to the e-mail inbox.
In the macro environment, Bigco has many impressive strengths. Bigco’s
operations are technologically streamlined in almost all areas of the business, from HR to
finance to operations to supply chain, coordination with international units, distribution,
recruiting, training, accounting, payroll, billing, and communications with employees.
The Internet and other electronic media have allowed Bigco to be more responsive to
customers, and it is able to interact directly with customers and business partners for
customer service, to provide product information and to help customers with their own
operations. Most importantly, however, Bigco has three organizational traits that
Rosabeth Kanter, a noted Harvard Business School business guru, has identified in
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“adept” organizations: “imagination to innovate, the professionalism to perform and the
openness to collaborate” (3). Relative to the others, the last trait—“openness to
collaborate”—is lagging.
Weaknesses
Bigco had been trying for years to change its culture to make it more collaborative
and customer-centric, and had met with some success, but the company was still
internally focused. As described by Kotter, internally focused companies “behave in an
insular, sometimes political, fashion” (28). In this case, where the sales representatives
are XYZ’s “customers”—end-users of the processes and tools that XYZ creates—the
brands, business units and geography executives made technology requests without
consulting one another or the sales representatives who would be using them.
After producing many fixes to CRM Siebel through 2006, the XYZ unit managers
believed they were providing more user-friendly and efficient tools, but they weren’t
seeing the adoption rates improve, as expected. The managers thought that the problem
could be helped by communicating better with the target audience. But the problem, as
mentioned earlier, was not merely inadequate communications, it was many other things,
including the CRM software itself.
According to a well-known CRM consultant and writer for CRM Magazine, Jim
Dickie, four factors influence adoption: user-friendliness, functionality, training, and
technical support (2). Lack of user-friendliness and more functionality than needed were
two factors that were cited by the Bigco sales force in the Annual Sales Force Survey in
describing their experiences with CRM Siebel.
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In addition, there seemed to be little understanding of the scope of the change
management task at hand. The responsibility for IT adoption initially resided with the
Bigco Sales and Distribution Operations Group. However, it had no IT change
management plan in place, and the responsibility was subsequently shifted in 2007 to the
XYZ group, but with no additional resources provided. Change leadership was clearly
lacking.
Communications Program Assessment
XYZ management thought that part of the reason for the poor adoption rate was
inadequate communications. A consultant (the author) was hired as communications lead
and was charged with developing a communications plan specifically for XYZ in
November 2006. The team also consisted of two highly skilled communications
professionals, one an experienced editor for the XYZ intranet, the other an executive
communications writer who also tracked all communications activities for the team and
the XYZ group as a whole, including product launches and communications on training.
Together, they developed and partially implemented an XYZ tactical plan that was based
on one-on-one interview results with key executives and an assessment of the existing
program.
Executive Survey on Communications
The communications lead conducted 14 one-on-one interviews from December 6,
2006 to January 16, 2007 with executives and managers in the XYZ Vice President’s
organization who were located in various cities in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Three were conducted face-to-face and the remainder by telephone with an average time
Gagnon 21
of one hour. There were 19 questions on the survey. (Please see Appendix D, Executive
Communications Survey for topics.)
In the interviews, executives articulated the underlying framework for XYZ’s
mission--improving sales processes and tools to increase sales productivity, enhancing
the client and partner experience, and integrating the new processes and tools throughout
the company. The word “value” was mentioned 60 times, so articulating the value of
their processes and tools was very much on the minds of respondents. They also wanted
the communications team to create an effective, concrete, integrated and proactive plan;
to create a message framework; to build a structure around communications showing
communications plans by quarter; to provide information repositories to reduce
duplication; and to show how XYZ aligned with the Sales and Distribution group and
global sales groups as part of a bigger picture.
Tactical Communications Plan
The new tactical plan developed in response to the survey became a priority for
the communications team and it targeted the internal XYZ group, rather than the sales
force. This plan was to be presented to the Operations Committee in six weeks.
Although communications strategies relating to executive communications and IT
adoption were vital, responding to the executives’ communications concerns was
essential to maintain credibility and show responsiveness to their communications needs.
A high level of professional communications skills and capabilities were in place
to communicate with the XYZ team. For example, there was an effective intranet
program, audio/net conferences, a Leadership Council Newsletter to the Sales Leadership
Group, XYZ’s most important internal constituent group which was responsible for
Gagnon 22
operations relating to the sales force in the business units and brands. Other
communications activities included executive presentations for the vice president’s key
meetings and other executive communications activities as needed.
Strategic Internal Executive Communications
Management was not clear in their understanding of who their target audience
was, and initially wanted communications to the internal XYZ team. They also did not
realize the challenge that the barrier of restricted contact with the sales force represented.
It was decided that sales transformation needed to be done through the Sales Leadership
Group. However, in order for this communication channel to be effective, a new,
creative and targeted communication plan had to be developed. The vice president’s
communications team was being asked to drive the sales transformation effort through
the vice president’s peers and superiors, through intermediaries and e-mail, a huge
challenge on several fronts.
ACTION PLAN
Given the experience at XYZ, the author believes the communications challenges
could have been met by implementing recommendations relative to the five major aspects
of sales force transformation— sales technology, change leadership, communications
role, role of change agent and communications flow. These recommendations could be
used in any company transformation setting.
(Action Plan details have been deleted.)
Please call Yvonne Gagnon at 914-769-3630 or contact her via e-mail:
Yvonne@gagnoncommunications.com to discuss an action plan for your company.
Gagnon 23
CONCLUSION
As face-to-face communications becomes less common in global companies,
finding another way to persuade transformation target audiences to adopt new technology
becomes crucial. With advances in electronic communication interfaces, interactive and
collaborative software, electronic interfaces and graphics, webcasts and net meetings,
driving adoption virtually is more within the realm of the possible than ever before. The
latest technologies can be used to personalize messages and to make all electronic one- or
two-way correspondences compelling and persuasive by conveying the right messages to
the right people in multiple media. Understanding the elements that come together in
driving sales force transformation—the sales force technology itself, the change
leadership process, the role of the communicator, audience reach, the role of the
intermediaries and first-line managers as change agents—helps in the identification of the
right messages, the right people, and the right media, and increases the likelihood of
adoption. An analysis of these elements, combined with a SWOT analysis, helps
communicators and leaders to formulate plans that change behavior, making them change
agents in a new age of change implementation.
Gagnon 24
Appendix A
Ways to Raise the Urgency Level
1. Create a crisis by allowing a financial loss, exposing managers to major weaknesses
vis-à-vis competitors, or allowing errors to blow up instead of being corrected at the last
minute.
2. Eliminate obvious examples of excess (e.g., company-owned country club facilities, a
large air force, and gourmet executive dining rooms).
3. Set revenue, income, productivity, customer satisfaction, and cycle-time targets so
high that they can’t be reached by conducting business as usual.
4. Stop measuring subunit performance based only on narrow functional goals. Insist
that more people be held accountable for broader measures of business performance.
5. Send more data about customer satisfaction and financial performance to more
employees, especially information that demonstrates weaknesses vis-à-vis the
competition.
6. Insist that people talk regularly to unsatisfied customers, unhappy suppliers, and
disgruntled shareholders.
7. Use consultants and other means to force more relevant data and honest discussion
into management meetings.
8. Put more honest discussions of the firm’s problems in company newspapers and
senior management speeches. Stop senior management “happy talk.”
9. Bombard people with information on future opportunities, on the wonderful rewards
for capitalizing on those opportunities, and on the organization’s current inability to
pursue those opportunities.
(Kotter 44), Exhibit 2
Gagnon 25
Appendix B
Characteristics of an Effective Vision
 Imaginable: Conveys a picture of what the future will look like
 Desirable: Appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customers,
stockholders, and others who have a stake in the enterprise
 Feasible: Comprises realistic, attainable goals
 Focused: Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making
 Flexible: Is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative
responses in light of changing conditions
 Communicable: Is easy to communicate; can be successfully explained within
five minutes
(Kotter 72), Exhibit 3
Gagnon 26
Appendix C
Key Elements in the Effective Communication of Vision
 Simplicity: All jargon and technobabble must be eliminated.
 Metaphor, analogy, and example: A verbal picture is worth a thousand words.
 Multiple forums: Big meetings and small, memos and newspapers, formal and
informal interaction—all are effective for spreading the word.
 Repetition: Ideas sink in deeply only after they have been heard many times.
 Leadership by example: Behavior from important people that is inconsistent with
the vision overwhelms other forms of communication.
 Explanation of seeming inconsistencies: Unaddressed inconsistencies undermine
the credibility of all communication.
 Give and take: Two-way communication is always more powerful than one-way
communication.
(Kotter 90), Exhibit 2
Gagnon 27
Appendix D
XYZ Executive Communications Survey Questions
1. What is the large-scale change XYZ is trying to enable?
2. What is XYZ trying to accomplish?
3. What are the underlying messages?
4. What does XYZ need to do from an informational standpoint?
5. What are the critical five messages for the next six months?
6. What are the problems today?
7. What is your experience relating to communications execution?
8. What do you think is the company’s vision and mission?
9. What about XYZ’s mission?
10. What are the biggest challenges and opportunities facing XYZ in the short term? In
the long term?
11. How could XYZ improve the way the team works together?
12. If you were the communications lead, what would you pay the most attention to?
13. What do you think the communications strategy is? What should it be? Has it been
articulated?
14. How could XYZ use the skills of the XYZ communications group more effectively?
15. If communications performance has been poor, why has that been the case?
16. What makes a communications person successful, given your agenda?
17. What are your most pressing communications problems?
18. What are the change management issues that are most pressing?
19. Perceived usefulness is the degree to which a person believes that using a particular
system enhances his or her job performance. To what degree do you think the sales force
perceives that the XYZ process tools enhance job performance? What can we do about
that?
Gagnon 28
APPENDIX E
Audience Reach and Pairings
The focus at XYZ is on driving sales technology adoption through the Sales
Leadership Group executives. In order to implement change in this way, these senior
executives would need to be a part of a change coalition and to understand the urgency of
the change and the process for getting it done.
The communications plan calls for sustaining message integrity and capitalizing
on personal relationships when forwarding e-mail messages by using a system that adds a
customized message at each stage of the correspondence. These “source” executive emails would be complemented by the employee communications professionals’
communications vehicles to ensure the message is received by the target audience. For
example, the communications between the XYZ vice president, who will be referred to as
“Executive A,” to one of the ten Sales Leadership Group (SLG) same-level executives in
charge of a unit, geography or brand, or “Executives B,” would be sent with a personal
message. Although Executive Bs would receive notes that would contain the same main
messages, the content would be altered to reflect the needs of each Executive’s
organization. These receivers (B) have monthly face-to-face meetings with Executive A,
so they have a personal knowledge of each other’s work and responsibilities. Executives
at this level have more opportunities for face-to-face interactions with their peers and
their direct reports because they have travel budgets and can allocate resources to team
building activities. In this case, Executive A would be the initiative champion and would
be expected to create initiative champions among her peers. These initiative champions
in turn would do the same for their direct reports, the C-Directors. They would need to
Gagnon 29
create a sense of urgency and constantly communicate the benefits of changing.
Directors C would forward messages to Manager D, and then D to F, the first-line
manager who is most likely to have face-to-face relationships with the sales
representatives.
Each change message from Executive A would be crafted to appeal to the unit
executive (B) with specific benefits to his/her team spelled out and reinforced by
additional information that would resonate—a change management article, or link to a
timely and appropriate web site. The appearance of an article on the web could spur a
second correspondence to the fellow vice president (executive B) asking him/her to read
the article on new benefits to them of a certain change. Next, a reminder about a web
meeting on the target subject could be a third touch to B with the same messaging. And
the web meeting itself would be the fourth touch. Accompanying each correspondence
would be specific instructions to the receiver on what was expected of him/her when the
message is forwarded to C. For example, a personal message or endorsement on
correspondence from A would be accompanied by a request to forward with specific
messages (supplied) making it easier for B to forward with a purpose. B would then
cascade down to the next level, Director C, and so forth, to the first-line manager.
Next, it would be interesting to formulate a direct e-mail list of Executive B’s
direct reports, “Director Cs.” With these directors, the message openings and links
clicked could be tracked and personal follow-up messages would go to everyone on the
list if the click responses are low.
Gagnon 30
WORKS CITED/WORKS CONSULTED
Chang, Julia. “Sales 2.0: Where Your Sales Force’s Technology is Headed.” Sales and
Marketing Management Magazine 5 Apr. 2007. Manage Smarter Nielsen
Business Media Inc. 25 May 2007.
<http://www.salesandmarketing.com/msg/content_display/publications/e3iab6436
a390b6 7cec1d8aa92ef1483eb2>.
Dembofsky, Meg. Personal Interview. 12 June 2006. This meeting was a job interview
for the Corporate Vice President of Communications Planning at New York Life.
The selling agents are not New York Life employees, but are independent agents,
and communications with them is through intermediaries. This poses a different
set of challenges, but agents have an opportunity for face-to-face communications
at an annual event.
Dickie, Jim. “Demystifying CRM Adoption Rates.” CRM Magazine July 2006. CSO
Insights 6 May 2007.
<http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=6098>.
Jim Dickie is a managing partner with CSO Insights, a research firm providing
consulting and research in CRM. As the writer of this article for CRM Magazine,
an online trade publication promoting customer relationship management, his
point of view is influenced by the fact that he is selling services in the CRM
space. In this short article, he shares the results of CSO Insights’ 2006 Sales
Performance Optimization Study on CRM use and whether it improves sales. He
outlines four factors that influence adoption by the sales force: the system
selected and whether it is user-friendly; whether myriad functions are provided
Gagnon 31
when only a few will do to meet the company’s objectives; whether the training
integrates CRM into the sales representative’s daily routine; and technical
support. He neglects to mention the importance of communications in IT
adoption.
Dierks, Diana. Conference call on Surfaid capabilities. 13 Dec 2006.
<http://www.coremetrics.com/services/strategic_services.html>. This discussion
was with Surfaid Strategic Services Consultant on e-mail tracking which she
described as “e-mail analytics.” The focus was on internal e-mails using a Lotus
Notes database, and whether tracking of internal e-mails could be done. The
Surfaid tool was able to determine how many messages were opened, and how
many links were clicked. However, the tool was not able to track whether the
messages were forwarded. Surfaid has since been acquired by Coremetrics.
The list of services on their website promotes only the “external” or marketing
services that they provide.
Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat. 1st rev. and expanded ed. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2006. This book is one of the most important books of the
decade. In it Thomas Friedman explains what is happening in the world as the
result of “The Triple Convergence” that is, the confluence of three developments:
IT progress, telecommunications, and global competitiveness. He describes the
ten “events” that “flattened” the world, beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall
on November 9, 1989, which led to an increase of democracy/capitalism and the
“sudden revolution in connectivity” on August 9, 1995 when the Internet as a tool
connecting people globally emerged and the use of web browsers became
Gagnon 32
widespread. There are eight more well-thought out forces that he identifies that
virtually constitute a history of the world in an enjoyable format. Friedman has a
personal style that illuminates events by talking about his personal experiences or
those of friends and acquaintances on a subject. This is essential reading for
every student of change management. It provides the “why” and the “how” things
have changed so quickly. He also explains how those who do not, or will not,
change face the fate of the dinosaurs. There is one chapter of particular interest
for business people, “How Companies Cope.” He provides rules about what to do
in this new environment. His primary advice is to “embrace the change” and use
the new tools to the best advantage of a particular business, regardless of size,
geography, or expertise. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his
work at the New York Times where he is a columnist on foreign affairs.
Goleman, Daniel. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. New
York: Bantam Dell, 2006. Daniel Goleman, a former New York Times reporter
on brain and behavior sciences, is also the author of Emotional Intelligence, a
ground-breaking book about how important emotional intelligence is to happiness
and success. In this book, Social Intelligence, Goleman demonstates how social
intelligence impacts every relationship in people’s lives. Social intelligence
makes a person aware of another’s feelings and produces feelings of empathy.
This connection, which he attributes to “mirror neurons,” are neurons in the brain
that light up when there is interaction between two people. It affects everything
from a baby’s awareness of the parent to falling in love. He describes how these
interactions— stressful or happy—affect all the cells in the body and that the
Gagnon 33
hormones produced in these situations can be good or bad and can even affect
how long a person lives. Goleman makes a subject that brings together the
disciplines of biology and brain science quite fascinating and accessible to the
lay person. In the work environment, Goleman briefly addresses leadership and
how socially intelligent leaders acknowledge others’ points of view to seek a
remedy for conflict situations. This book is a compelling read, and one that all
who seek to have better relationships with the people they care about should read.
Herbster, Gene. Lecture. Leading Change Class and Discussions. Manhattanville
College. Graduate School of Business and Professional Studies. Purchase, NY.
Fall 2006 and 3 May 2007. A discussion with Professor Herbster on change
management yielded some suggestions relating to this paper, the most important
of which was his suggestion to use the SWOT analysis in looking at a change
situation rather some of the other paradigms from his lectures. Lectures presented
provided a strategic view of the organization that resulted in a better appreciation
by the author of the forces of change and individual and organizational responses
to it.
Kanter, Rosabeth M. “The Enduring Skills of Change Leaders.” Leader to Leader 13
Summer 1999: 15-22. Leader to Leader Institute. 30 Apr. 2007.
<http://www.leadertoleader.org/knowledgecenter/L2L/summer99/kanter.html>.
Rosabeth Kanter is a professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business
School and a well-known consultant and author of 13 books on a number of
business and marketing topics. Her target audience for this article is an
association of social organization leaders. Professor Kanter begins her discussion
Gagnon 34
with a description of change management, and then segues into the leadership
skills required for successful change management. She makes some interesting
points in the article, including the fact that real change is beyond the control of
top management—it cannot be ordered. She writes that change at successful
organizations share three attributes--innovation, performance competence, and
collaboration--and delineates the skills that leaders must have for a successful
change effort.
Keillor, Bruce D. and Edward Bashaw. “Sales Force Automation Issues Prior to
Implementation: The Relationship Between Attitudes toward Technology,
Experience and Productivity.” Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing
12.3/4 (1997): 209-220. Business Source Premier. Ebsco. Manhattanville Coll.
Lib., Purchase, NY. 17 Apr. 2007.
<http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=9711022403
&site=ehost-live>. The authors, Bruce Keillor, Assistant Professor of Marketing
and International Business, Southwest Missouri State University, and R. Edward
Bashaw, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Arkansas at Little Rock,
seek to understand the relationship between technology and various aspects of
customer-salesperson interaction. They conducted a survey of 129 salespeople
from small, medium and large organizations with the overall objective of gaining
insights into the means for driving sales force technology adoption. By giving
salespeople quicker access to better information, new technologies can increase
the efficiency and effectiveness of salespeople, thereby improving their customer
interactions. The overall conclusion of the survey was that automation is required
Gagnon 35
for effective sales. Two elements of technology—portability and multimedia
capability—were seen as necessary for future sales force success. Attitudes
toward technology play a large part in resistance to adoption. The results of the
study show that firms with more experienced sales forces may have the greatest
difficulty in successfully implementing technology-based programs.
Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
John Kotter, Harvard Business School professor and leading expert on business
leadership, begins his book by “creating a sense of urgency” with a discussion
about why firms fail at change management and the costs associated with that
failure. Where Thomas L. Friedman in The World is Flat writes about the forces
of change as a “triple convergence”—IT, telecom and globalization—Kotter
points to technology change, international economic integration, maturation of
markets in developed countries and the fall of communist and social regimes. It is
interesting to see how these two great thinkers sort it out. Kotter then provides an
eight-stage approach to managing change, which is very useful as a model against
which to track the progress of change in any organization. This is the model that
is used in this paper to track the progress of change at the XYZ unit. He provides
concrete change guidelines and emphasizes the importance of a change leader,
demonstrating the difference between managers and leaders. His point of view is
from a leadership angle, and he takes every opportunity to emphasize its
importance. He also demonstrates what a great teacher he is by providing useful
exhibits that clarify his concepts for every aspect of his discussion.
Gagnon 36
Proctor, Tony and Ioanna Doukakis. “Change Management: The Role of Internal
Communication and Employee Development.” Corporate Communications 8.4
(2003): 268-277. Emerald Library Fulltext. Manhattanville Coll. Lib.,
Purchase, NY. 17 Apr. 2007.
<http://librda.mville.edu:2101/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?Filename=html/Output/Publis
hed/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/1680080405.pdf>. The collaborators on this
article are geographically dispersed and culturally diverse. Tony Proctor is a
Professor of Business at Liverpool University, while Ioanna Doukakis is in the
Department of Business Administration, Intercollege, Limassol, Cyprus. Using a
large public organization as a case study, they suggest that the success of change
initiatives relies on effective communications. In the article, they state that
cascading communications from the top of the large public organization through
to first-line management and front-line operatives was inadequate. This was the
case for a number of reasons, including information being withheld, altered, or
not delivered at all. In its place, they recommend e-mail communications from
the top executive directly to the rank and file through the intranet and extensive
use of e-mail. Their recommendations in this paper relating to direct contact by
top executives with the rank and file is directly at odds with ideas presented in
this study. Rather, increasing the likelihood that a message will be read relies on
the personal relationship between the sender and recipient, so cascading would be
more effective, provided the message is forwarded with a personal note. The
authors have also collaborated on an article about TV ad messaging, and Proctor
has also written on integrated marketing communications, internal
Gagnon 37
communications and change management.
Recklies, Dagmar. “What Makes a Good Change Agent?” The Manager.org ed.
Dagmar Recklies Oct. 2001. Recklies Management Project GmbH (RMP) 30
Apr. 2007. <http://www.themanager.org/strategy/change_agent.htm>.
Richards, Liz. “Improving Line Manager Communication.” Strategic Communications
Management 2.1 (1997-8): 34-40. Business Source Premier. Ebscohost
Manhattanville Coll. Lib., Purchase, NY. 30 Apr 2007.
<http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=7007846&sit
e=ehost-live>. Liz Richards is a Client Director at Smyth Dorward Lambert, a
London-based communication management consultancy. Richards focuses
on the line managers and their influence on the communication climate and
culture of an organization. This role becomes critical during change, and
Richards focuses on their working relationships with their own teams. The key is
to ensure that line managers understand their communications role in three areas:
media awareness, the ability to select the appropriate media; self awareness, their
own communications style; and interpersonal training.
Rigby, Darrell K., Frederick R. Reichheld, and Phil Schefter. “Avoid the Four Perils of
CRM.” Harvard Business Review OnPoint 80.2 (2002): 101-109. Business
Source Premier. Ebscohost. Manhattanville Coll. Lib., Purchase, NY. The
overall idea of this article is that effectively managing customer relationships
involves strategy rather than software sales tools. IT supports whatever the
customer-facing strategy is. With this as a given, the authors introduce the four
pitfalls of CRM: executing on a CRM system without a customer acquisition and
Gagnon 38
retention strategy; installing CRM before making a cultural shift to being more
customer-centric; assuming that the more functionality the software has, the
better; and stalking, not wooing, customers. The authors’ definition of CRM was
succinct: “CRM aligns business processes with customer strategies to build
customer loyalty and increase profits over time.” Another useful aspect of the
article was a table, “What CRM Really Comprises,” that puts the central points of
the article in one place. In addition, the authors provide some interesting
statistics relating to the consequences of “stalking” customers. The authors end
on a hopeful note and encourage those who have failed at CRM to try again even
if their initial efforts did not enact sales force change. The authors are senior
executives at Bain and Company in Boston, which conducts an annual
management tools survey.
Schillewaert, Niels, et al. “The Adoption of Information Technology in the Sales Force.”
Industrial Marketing Management 34.4 (2005): 323-336. Business Source
Premier. EbscoHost. Manhattanville Coll. Lib., Purchase, NY. 17 Apr. 2007.
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00198501>. Schillewaert and his
collaborators have focused on salespeople adopting information technology, and
they base their conclusions on a survey of 229 salespeople. The authors conclude
that the degree to which the technology enhances their performance is correlated
to adoption. Other factors include their personal innovativeness, and user
training. They see high failure adoption rates in the sales force and have
developed a “Technology Acceptance Model” to demonstrate how they arrived at
their conclusions. They also note that it is important to target the first-line
Gagnon 39
manager to affect the behavior change of the end user, an important concept in
this paper. The study is very academic in its approach, and though the abstract,
introduction and final conclusions were interesting, the style of this paper was an
exercise in obfuscation.
Sims, Ronald R., ed. “The Changing Roles and Responsibilities of Change Agents.”
Managing the Way We Manage Change. Westport: Quorum Books, 2002.
Ronald R. Sims is a senior professor of Business Administration and
Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business at the College of
William and Mary, and a prolific author. He has authored or co-authored 23
books and more than 80 articles on organizational topics, including change
management, human resources management, employee training and management
development, learning styles, experiential learning, and business ethics. He is the
editor and contributor of a chapter focused on change agents whom he sees as
people throughout the organization—staff people, first-line and middle managers,
human resources experts and communicators. However, he writes convincingly
that mid-level managers have a special place in the change process. Because they
are key to getting employee involvement in any transformation, every change
process must have the involvement of mid-level managers to succeed.
Sprague, Robert W. and Samuel F. Del Brocco. “Calculating the ROI on Internal
Communications.” Employment Relations Today Spring 2002: 33-44.
ABI/Inform Global. Proquest. Manhattanville Coll. Lib., Purchase, NY. 17 Apr.
2007.
Gagnon 40
<http://librda.mville.edu:2452/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&jid=PEY&site=e
host-live>. Sprague and Del Brocco focus on the challenge of measuring
investment in internal communications, which they see as “the single most
influential factor” in an organization’s success or failure. They state that the only
goal of internal communications is to “change employee behavior in order to
further the goals of the organization.” They demonstrate how the traditional role
of internal communications was to inform, which implies management telling
employees what they want to tell them rather than what the employees want to
know. They believe that “internal communications that serve as part of the
typical ‘top-down’ or ‘cascade’ model are unlikely to deliver ROI.” To show
how internal communications affects ROI, they provide a case study focusing on
the employee retention, product quality, labor union activity, and sexual
harassment and workplace discrimination liability, and demonstrate how ROI
can be impacted. They effectively argue that communications programs
delivering the highest ROI will be those that are targeted to front-line managers.
Sprague and Del Brocco are the co-founders of PCI Communications Inc., a
communications agency located in Washington, D.C. and New York.
“What is CRM?” CRM.com 21 Feb. 2002. CSO Insights. 5 May 2007.
<http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=1747>.
The editors of CRM have posted a definition of CRM for the uninitiated on their
web site, and this is the definition quoted in this paper. This particular quote was
used to provide more detailed information on what CRM can actually help a
salesperson do. The editors also provide an additional list of benefits. As a trade
Gagnon 41
magazine, CRM’s point of view is to promote interest in CRM and connect
supporting vendors with potential clients.
Widmier, Scott, Mark Rosenbaum and Donald Jackson, Jr. “Keys to Implementing
Productive Sales Force Automation.” Marketing Management Journal 13.1
(2003): 1-13. Business Source Premier. Ebscohost. Manhattanville Coll. Lib.,
Purchase, NY. 17 Apr. 2007.
<http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=18075810&site=eho
st-live>. The authors focus on trying to understand the factors that influence the
adoption of sales force automation (SFA) by salespeople, in face-to-face
environments. They present four hypotheses: perceived benefits of the
technology by the sales force; initiative training; sales force involvement; and the
presence of an “initiative champion.” These same factors are considered in sales
force transformation via intermediaries and e-mail. They surveyed 1,000 people
and 217 responded, a 22 percent response rate. In evaluating the survey, their
conclusion was that only the presence of an “initiative champion” had a
significant positive effect on sales technology adoption. Their findings
emphasize the importance of interpersonal information to “influence the decision
to adopt a product,” and the “importance of management involving key
salespeople in the implementation of SFA as initiative champions.”
Gagnon 42