Electronic Marketing in Business-to-Business Markets – User Related Benefits of Sales Configurators

Tommi Mahlamäki; Kati Stormi; Lauri Saarivuori; Mika Ojala

Electronic Marketing in Business-to-Business Markets – User Related Benefits of Sales Configurators

Tommi Mahlamäki
, Kati Stormi
, Lauri Saarivuori
, Mika Ojala

Industrial Engineering and Management

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

46 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Electronic marketing is becoming an integral part of the sales process in business-to-business (B2B) markets. In line with that, sales configurators are emerging as novel applications that help companies engage customer and drive sales. This research investigates the feature related benefits of sales configurator. Our goal is to categorize the benefits and to identify the important ones. In order to reach the goal, personal interviews were conducted and data was gathered through an online questionnaire. Responses from 152 business-to-business customers were analyzed and a factorial model of the feature related benefits of sales configurators was developed. The results show a model with five factors: versatility, configurability, user experience, security, and customizability. Of these, user experience and security were found to be the most important. In light of this, we suggest that companies emphasize the aspects of user experience in addition to core functionalities when developing sales force automation systems.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
Pages	4695-4702
Number of pages	8
ISBN (Electronic)	978-0-9981331-2-6
Publication status	Published - 2019
Publication type	A4 Article in conference proceedings
Event	the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - Hawaiji, USA, United States Duration: 8 Jan 2019 → 11 Jan 2019 Conference number: 52 http://hicss.hawaii.edu

Conference

Conference	the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Abbreviated title	HICSS
Country/Territory	United States
Period	8/01/19 → 11/01/19
Internet address	http://hicss.hawaii.edu

Publication forum classification

Publication forum level 1

Access to Document

0467Final published version, 216 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

http://hdl.handle.net/10125/59907Licence: CC BY-NC-ND
http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202110117520Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

@inproceedings{dbf239ee5842458d88d33ce1d665b589,

title = "Electronic Marketing in Business-to-Business Markets – User Related Benefits of Sales Configurators",

abstract = "Electronic marketing is becoming an integral part of the sales process in business-to-business (B2B) markets. In line with that, sales configurators are emerging as novel applications that help companies engage customer and drive sales. This research investigates the feature related benefits of sales configurator. Our goal is to categorize the benefits and to identify the important ones. In order to reach the goal, personal interviews were conducted and data was gathered through an online questionnaire. Responses from 152 business-to-business customers were analyzed and a factorial model of the feature related benefits of sales configurators was developed. The results show a model with five factors: versatility, configurability, user experience, security, and customizability. Of these, user experience and security were found to be the most important. In light of this, we suggest that companies emphasize the aspects of user experience in addition to core functionalities when developing sales force automation systems.",

author = "Tommi Mahlam{\"a}ki and Kati Stormi and Lauri Saarivuori and Mika Ojala",

year = "2019",

language = "English",

pages = "4695--4702",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)",

note = "the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS ; Conference date: 08-01-2019 Through 11-01-2019",

url = "http://hicss.hawaii.edu",

}

Mahlamäki, T, Stormi, K, Saarivuori, L & Ojala, M 2019, Electronic Marketing in Business-to-Business Markets – User Related Benefits of Sales Configurators. in Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). pp. 4695-4702, the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, United States, 8/01/19. < http://hdl.handle.net/10125/59907>

Electronic Marketing in Business-to-Business Markets – User Related Benefits of Sales Configurators. / Mahlamäki, Tommi; Stormi, Kati; Saarivuori, Lauri et al.
Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). 2019. p. 4695-4702.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Electronic Marketing in Business-to-Business Markets – User Related Benefits of Sales Configurators

AU - Mahlamäki, Tommi

AU - Stormi, Kati

AU - Saarivuori, Lauri

AU - Ojala, Mika

N1 - Conference code: 52

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - Electronic marketing is becoming an integral part of the sales process in business-to-business (B2B) markets. In line with that, sales configurators are emerging as novel applications that help companies engage customer and drive sales. This research investigates the feature related benefits of sales configurator. Our goal is to categorize the benefits and to identify the important ones. In order to reach the goal, personal interviews were conducted and data was gathered through an online questionnaire. Responses from 152 business-to-business customers were analyzed and a factorial model of the feature related benefits of sales configurators was developed. The results show a model with five factors: versatility, configurability, user experience, security, and customizability. Of these, user experience and security were found to be the most important. In light of this, we suggest that companies emphasize the aspects of user experience in addition to core functionalities when developing sales force automation systems.

AB - Electronic marketing is becoming an integral part of the sales process in business-to-business (B2B) markets. In line with that, sales configurators are emerging as novel applications that help companies engage customer and drive sales. This research investigates the feature related benefits of sales configurator. Our goal is to categorize the benefits and to identify the important ones. In order to reach the goal, personal interviews were conducted and data was gathered through an online questionnaire. Responses from 152 business-to-business customers were analyzed and a factorial model of the feature related benefits of sales configurators was developed. The results show a model with five factors: versatility, configurability, user experience, security, and customizability. Of these, user experience and security were found to be the most important. In light of this, we suggest that companies emphasize the aspects of user experience in addition to core functionalities when developing sales force automation systems.

M3 - Conference contribution

SP - 4695

EP - 4702

BT - Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)

T2 - the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

Y2 - 8 January 2019 through 11 January 2019

ER -

Electronic Marketing in Business-to-Business Markets – User Related Benefits of Sales Configurators

Abstract

Conference

Publication forum classification

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this