Prioritizing Sales Force Decision Areas for Productivity Improvements using a Core Sales Response Function

The time and budgets that managers can devote to enhancing sales force productivity are limited, so sales managers must decide where it is worthwhile to invest in productivity improvements—to improve salespeople’s current effort allocation, realign territories, enhance sales force sizing, or provide more training. To prioritize these alternatives, management must assess the outcomes of investments on the basis of a common metric—profit. This paper proposes to estimate a core sales response function that allows for quantifying the profits derived from each possible action and demonstrates the benefits of this approach through an actual case study.