Organisational Strategy and Sales Methodology

Corporate strategy consists of decisions that determine the mission, business portfolio and future growth directions for the entire corporate entity. A separate business strategy must be developed for each strategic business unit(SBU) in the corporate family, defining how that SBU plans to compete effectively within its industry. Because an SBU typically consists of multiple products serving different markets, each product/market combination requires a specific marketing strategy. Each marketing strategy includes the selection of target market segments and the development of a marketing mix to serve each target market. A key consideration is the role that personal selling will play in the marketing communications mix for a particular marketing strategy.

The corporate, business, and marketing strategies represent strategy development from the perspective of different levels within an organization. Although sales management may have some influence on the decisions made at each level, the key decision makers are typically from higher management levels outside the sales function. Sales management does, however, play the key role in sales strategy development.