Topic outline

  • Managing value-based selling

    Zoom link to joint sessions

    Most companies are in the middle of moving their business practices toward service-based exchange, proactive evidence of customer business value, and ecosystem-based value creation. Related skills are in great demand: Business management needs to update their mindset and capabilities to succeed in the transformation. Specifically, B2B selling and sales management need new skills, tool and processes to succeed in the new business environment. 

    The “Managing value-based selling” course focuses on contemporary B2B selling and sales management from an organizational perspective. The course views selling as a proactive business function that seeks to identify, communicate and agree for joint value creation opportunities by showing how the supplier's capabilities, products and services combined with the customer's capabilities help customers achieve their goals. 

    The course content builds on a view that suppliers and customers integrate their capabilities and resources to create value. The task and goal of the sales function is to 1) identify value creation opportunities, 2) communicate the value creation opportunity to key stakeholders in the customer organisation, structure and agree on the roles, responsibilities and rules for the joint value creation, and finally agree on how the valued created is shared among the participants.

    The influencing task of the sales function is described as an organised system of sales activities, which are supported by (digital) tools and sales skills. Central to the value-based selling is value proposition, which the sales function builds, communicates, and adapts during the buyer-seller interactions.

    The proactive influencing by the sales function is organised into a framework of sales, key account management, sales opportunity management, and sales funnel management processes, which all link to the customer's buying and procurement processes.

    Learning Outcomes

    The participants will learn how to plan, perform, and manage contemporary B2B sales. The course develops knowledge, skills, and tools to build an effective sales function, develop market-driven value propositions, and evaluate and coach sales quality. The course also teaches customer value (and value proposition), which lay the foundation for the business-to-business exchange. Further, the participants will learn about the changing role of sales as cross-disciplinary function in a networked (ecosystem-based) value creation.

    Assignments

    The course teaching leveraged a versatile set of learning methods, outlined below:

    • Online activities (Online pre-learning module, short introductory videos on the key concepts)
    • Article reviews (in-class activity, in groups of 2-4 students)
    • Learning cases (visiting business guest speakers from sales consulting and professional services industries)
    • Learning diary (1-page summary of a key topic in a pre-specified format)
    • Course essay (group activity in groups of 2 students)
    • Course exam

    For details & dates, see the course schedule page.

    Scope 6 Cr

    • Questionnaire icon
      MVBS Exam on 9.12.2020 at 09:00 - 12:00 Questionnaire
      Student must submit this questionnaire to complete it

      The course exam consists of six essay type of questions on the key themes: 1) value, buying & selling, 2) the sales process, 3) individual selling skills, 4) funnel and opportunity management, 5) key account management, and 6) sales management system.

      You answer 4 of the 6 questions by writing a short essay (half a page)

      The questions will be based on the lecture materials (lecture presentations + value-based selling article).

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