翻译英文

Raj Agnihotri, William Paterson University, Wayne, USA*Adam Rapp, University of Alabama, USA

Competitive intelligence has emerged as a mantra for success in today’s competitive environment and the sales force has been recognised as a key resource in this process. However, for many salespeople, competitive intelligence remains a burdensome organisational process that offers little or no immediate value to them. Past research has failed to consider competitive intelligence as an instrument that salespeople can leverage to change their behaviours and ultimately influence their levels of performance. A comprehensive literature review suggests that conceptualisation of competitive intelligence has been limited to the organisational level, and thus provides little foundation for investigations aimed at the salesperson level. This paper explores this issue by approaching competitive intelligence as a tactical tool that can be useful at the salesperson level. A review of the literature concerning salesperson and competitive intelligence is presented. A conceptual framework of salesperson competitive intelligence is developed and research propositions are offered.

Keywords Competitive intelligence, Salesperson characteristics, Selling behaviours, Customer relationship performance, Sales performance

Introduction

As the current business landscape is becoming more global, organisations are facing competition like never before. In the wake of this intense global competition, relationships between buyers and sellers have evolved to a point where they have now become partners in order to gain a competitive edge through utilisation of each other’s core competencies (Spekman & Carraway, 2006). With this evolution, organisational sales forces have taken on a more strategic role in order to address the increased importance of the buying process. Consequently, selling has turned into a very sophisticated and complex task (James, 2009). For organisations, sales force effectiveness remains a priority and a salesperson’s responsiveness to competition has become a necessity for survival and success. Responding to the situation,

*Correspondence details and biographies for the authors are located at the end of the article.The Marketing Review, 2011, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 363-380http://dx.doi.org/10.1362/146934711X13210328715948

ISSN1469-347X print / ISSN 1472-1384 online ©Westburn Publishers Ltd.

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industry and academia alike emphasise the significance of competitive intelligence (hereafter, CI). In general, CI can be referred to as “insights about competitors that are derived from primary or secondary data” (Jaworski, MacInnis & Kohli, 2002, p. 304) and has been touted as critically important in “shaping strategic marketing decisions and building market-oriented organisations” (Jaworski et al., 2002, p. 279).

Scholars view the organisational CI process as a combination of sequential tasks including planning, collection, and analysis of information (Kotler, 1984; Porter, 1980). When conceptualising CI as a process, researchers focus their efforts on the challenges organisations face when trying to implement CI gathering and disseminating methods. It has been argued that CI activities can be performed by any individual employee in an organisation, not just by specific units or selected personnel (Ghoshal & Kim, 1986; Hannon, 1997).

A number of studies suggest that it is possible to collect information by utilising a sales force that is already in place (Band, 1982; Hershey, 1980; Moss, 1979). Because salespeople operate at the border of the organisation (i.e., at the interface with the customer) and are often considered boundary spanners, they are considered by many to be an ideal resource for gathering CI. While most managers expect salespeople to report observations of competitive activities and other relevant information, there is substantial evidence that salespeople generally fail to distribute the information that they collect (Lambert, Marmorstein & Sharma, 1990b). This is not a new problem for organisations as back in 1960s, Albaum (1964) claimed that critical competitor information was reported back by only 32% of salespeople. Researchers trying to find the cause behind salespeople’s failure to distribute information have suggested different reasons such as characteristics of the salesperson, lack of time, lack of an institutional reward system or feedback, and the belief that the information is already known (Lambert, Marmorstein & Sharma, 1990a; Pinkerton, 1995; Young, 1989). However, the problem remains unsolved and managers still find it hard to motivate salespeople to collect and share market information with them (LeBon & Merunka, 2006; Meunier-FitzHugh & Piercy, 2006).

One reason for this problem can be attributed to the fact that salespeople do not have a clear perspective on CI (Rapp, Agnihotri & Baker, 2011). There is a widespread notion among salespeople that CI is a long-term organisational process that involves bureaucratic hurdles. Given the tactical nature of sales, this long-term strategic process does not provide salespeople with any immediate value. Salespeople perceive that their time can be better utilised doing other selling tasks rather than collecting and reporting CI back to the organisation. Arguably, the primary reason for this perception is the lack of effort from researchers and executives to link CI with salesperson related performance outcomes. Although scholars and practitioners agree on the role CI plays in firm performance and strategy development as well as the critical role of the salespeople in CI collection, little attention has been given to understanding how CI may influence individual salesperson performance (Rapp et al., 2011).

This paper conceptualises an individual level perspective of CI by approaching CI as a tactical tool that can be useful at the salesperson level. Researchers’ neglect of this area is attributable to the fact that past frameworks of CI have been restricted to the organisational level, and thus

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provide little foundation for investigations aimed at the salesperson level. To our knowledge, no research has considered CI as an instrument that salespeople can leverage to change their behaviours to influence their levels of performance. With this in mind, we review the relevant literatures and advance a conceptual framework that proposes relationships between CI and salesperson performance via facilitating mechanisms and moderating influences. Finally, we discuss theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research.Tactical use of CI

As we discussed in the previous section, the majority of the research in the CI domain focuses on the ways that organisations can develop and build an effective CI gathering system, and how an organisation’s sales force can be a practical tool in this regard (please refer to Table 1 for detailed literature review on CI). In the context of strategic use of CI, Porter’s “Competitive Strategy” (1980) is arguably the seminal framework underlying much of the research examining how intelligence can be used for strategic decision making by firms. Later, suggesting the concept of an “alert” organisation, Hannon (1997) argued that an organisation should promote and allow its employees to utilise strategic competitors’ information. This argument is arguably more appropriate in the sales context relative to any other scenario, as the nature of the sales job is such that salespeople must be autonomous and learn to solve problems without direction from supervisors and trainers (Artis & Harris, 2007).

However, there are several challenges involved in CI process in any organisation. Often, businesses do not maintain steady CI organisations, especially if they function in a comparatively less competitive industry (Jaworski et al., 2002). There are considerable delays between the time that intelligence is gathered and when it is disseminated throughout the organisation (Attaway, 1998). Extended delays render intelligence obsolete, which means the opportunity to take any competitive action, based on the intelligence, would be lost.

The research that considers the organisation level perspective of CI has relied on a process-based view of CI. Such a viewpoint focuses on the processes associated with gathering and disseminating competitive information (Vedder, Vanecek, Guynes & Cappel, 1999). Although the past literature highlights the importance of the salesperson’s role in various CI activities and establishes the link between salespeople and CI, its focus is restricted to the organisational and managerial factors that may encourage salespeople’s involvement in CI activities. We view the process approach as limited to the organisation level and suggest that, in order to be applicable at the individual level, it is essential to adopt an individual level perspective.

Therefore, in this research, we conceptualise CI as a tactical tool or knowledge-based asset that can be leveraged by a salesperson instantaneously upon receiving the intelligence. Because there is no such thing as “perfect information”, this “intelligence product is unlikely to be created from perfect information” (Bernhardt, 1993, p. 22) nonetheless, it should provide insights regarding one’s actions and directional moves (Prescott & Gibbons, 1993).

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Table 1 Competitive intelligence literature review

Key StudiesWebster Jr (1965)Montgomery & Weinberg (1979); Wee Tan Tsu (2001)Central theme/proposition/findingsCompetitors’ information can affect not only a firm’s competitive strategy, but also its marketing mix elements.Marketing organisations should scan the external environment for potential competitors in order to inject quality in their strategic planning and top management should give special consideration to it. Organizational Strategy and Competitive IntelligenceHershey (1980); CI can be labeled as commercial intelligence and small and moderate sized Groom & David (2001)organisations should incorporate CI into their operations to get a competitive edge against bigger firms.Band (1982)Grabowski (1986)Rottenberger (1991)Maltz & Kohli (1996)Attaway (1998)Jaworski et al. (2002)Organisations should establish a regular reporting system to allow employees to monitor the actions of competitors.A central intelligence system should be in place and all the departments should participate in the intelligence process.Information about competitors’ pricing, quality, and service is vital for sales and marketing efforts.Dissemination frequency and formality have nonlinear effects on the perceived quality of marketing intelligence. Significant delays exist between the times when intelligence is gathered and when it’s disseminated throughout the company.CI generation, unlike the market research process, is relatively unstructured in nature, gets performed on a continuous basis and involves high uncertainty about the definitive value of the gathered information.In order to get information valuable to organisations, marketing intelligence process i.e., keeping track of the marketing environment, needs to be in place.Evidence from Greece suggested that firm’s CI objectives are not focused on long-term competitiveness, instead they are focused on short-term customer satisfaction.Very few salespeople actually report back the competitor information to the organisation.Sales managers generally fail to utilise the competitive information collected by salespeople in the decision making process. It is possible for organisations to gather market intelligence by utilising a salesforce that is already in place.Kotler (2002)Priporas, Gatsoris & Zacharis (2005)Albaum (1964); Lambert et al. (1990b)Salesforce Involvement in Competitive Intelligence ProcessRobertson (1974); Saegart & Hoover (1980)Band (1982); Hershey (1980); Moss (1979)Fouss & Solomon As an extension to the market research function, a firm’s salesforce can be used as a (1980); Grace & Pointon tool to collect market and competitor data.(1980); Mellow (1989)Evans & Schlacter (1985)Sales managers and salespeople can play a vital role in a company’s marketing information systems.Lambert et al. (1990a); Individual characteristics, perceptions, and sales management styles are responsible Pinkerton (1995); for salespeople’s failure to report back CI to the firm.Young (1989)Sharma (1991)Chonko, Tanner Jr & Smith (1991)LeBon & Merunka (2006)Meunier-FitzHugh & Piercy (2006)Rapp et al. (2011)Salesforce should be utilised to collect customer service information.US multinational corporations are utilising their global sales forces in collecting marketing research data.Salespeople’s desire for upward mobility affects their involvement in intelligence activities; manager-level factors i.e., control systems, feedback & recognition, influence salespeople’s motivation to participate in marketing intelligence activities.Salespeople’s participation in firm’s CI process is essential; unambiguous objectives and proper incentives are the factors that contribute to salespeople’s interest in CI activities.Salespeople play a critical role in the CI process; individual use of CI may enhance performance and help organisations strategically.Agnihotri & Rapp Perspectives on competitive intelligence

We argue that even if a salesperson uses information without having paused to pass it through formal organisational mechanisms to process, evaluate, and disseminate this information, the information still represents a tactical tool.

We garner theoretical support for our framework from the sales literature focusing on salesperson influence tactics. This rich literature stream supports the idea that salespeople use different tactics for different purposes during the buyer-seller exchange process (e.g., Brown, 1990; McFarland, 2003; Pullins, Haugtvedt, Dickson, Fine & Lewicki, 2000). For example, influence tactics are considered as “the mechanism through which salespeople persuade buyers in interactions” (McFarland, Challagalla & Shervani, 2006). In another study, DelVecchio, Zemanek, McIntyre and Claxton (2003) identify particular sales tactics such as customer-focused, competitor-focused, or product-focused that salespeople use to develop strategic relationships with buyers. Notably, tactics focused on competition require salespeople to have a sound knowledge of industry and competition to produce comparison statements. Building on this argument, we suggest that CI has the potential to influence different dimensions of sales tactics such as operational, promotional, or technical which we outline below.

CI includes the operational information about competitors such as their operating activities, moves, and decision-making processes. In order to surpass competition, salespeople need CI because it has the potential to provide timely information that illuminates competitors’ near-term plans (Bernhardt, 1993). Moreover, CI can significantly influence salespeople’s work abilities. Salespeople work in an uncertain and competitive environment where they need to monitor competitors’ actions. CI can serve as a window through which to view upcoming changes in the marketplace. More specifically, it can be utilised for predicting industry moves, scheming and managing risks, and crafting better strategies (Gilad, 2004). For example, the sudden expansion of a competitor’s sales force will signal a salesperson about fierce upcoming competition. Acting accordingly, the salesperson can redesign his/her strategy to account for that particular environmental event in their effort to achieve upcoming sales quotas. A salesperson armed with CI will be better able to predict a competitor’s next move and use effective operational tactics for his/her own success.

CI related to competitors’ advertising, pricing strategies, sales promotions, public relation activities, or promotion-related actions should influence a salesperson’s promotional tactics. To be successful, salespeople must account for and respond to the promotional tactics waged by their competitors. CI enables salespeople to match promotional competitive parity. Information about competitors’ pricing and other promotional strategies receives a high level of attention from sales representatives (Evans & Schlacter, 1985). Such information allows the salespeople to feel confident or unsure, depending on the nature of information, about their own product. For example, if a salesperson happens to know about a competitor’s upcoming discount policy, he/she can plan a counter strategy in an effort to defend his/her own customer base. Considering that promotional activities will be a powerful influence on customers’ buying decision processes, promotional CI should provide a salesperson with a competitive advantage.

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Finally, in order for CI to be effective it should incorporate information regarding competitors’ products, technology, as well as research and development efforts (West, 2001). More specifically, the information about competitors’ new product development and introduction, product line changes, technological advances, and other market-oriented research and development efforts will significantly influence salesperson’s technical tactics. It has been argued that competitive information concerning new product introductions or distribution plans can be of significant tactical importance, and thus crucial for salespeople (Evans & Schlacter, 1985). For example, information about a competitor’s plan to provide its salespeople with unique relational database software or information about a new product launch can have a chilling effect for competing salespeople. While this type of strategic move from a competitor can have serious outcomes on other competing salespeople in the market, gaining access to this information in advance can allow a salesperson to offset the competitor’s plans.

To this point in our research, we have offered insights into CI as a tactical tool for salespeople. Throughout these discussions, we have argued that CI provides salespeople with a competitive advantage that can be leveraged to enhance performance. Below, we outline the mechanisms through which this enhancement can occur and present potential moderating circumstances.Conceptual framework of salesperson CI use

It is our position that to be of substantial practical impact to salespeople, one must demonstrate the link between CI and salesperson’s performance related outcomes. The focus of past, process-based CI research has emphasised organisational outcomes. When viewed as a tactical tool, however, CI also has clear performance implications at the individual level. While it is possible that CI may have a direct relationship with salesperson performance, there are other, more complex relationships that should also be considered. We propose that there are intervening variables, which fall under the broad categories of salesperson behaviours and relational outcomes. Relying on a contingency framework, we also suggest that CI may benefit these outcomes when certain factors, characteristics, and/or situations are present. We briefly outline and present these arguments and propositions below.

CI and salesperson behavioural performance

The rise of the relationship selling approach has made salesperson behaviours a major force in a customer-centric environment (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005) and, consequently, elements that can influence these behaviours have become critically important. CI can provide insights regarding one’s actions and directional moves (Prescott & Gibbons, 1993). Therefore, it is logical to anticipate that CI has the potential to influence salesperson performance by benefiting such salesperson behavioural outcomes as “adaptive selling” and “information communication”. These outcomes are aligned with the behavioural measures of salesperson performance such as successfully attaining quantity and quality sales goals, transferring information, developing and using technical knowledge, and making effective sales presentations as suggested by Behrman and Perreault (1982).

Agnihotri & Rapp Perspectives on competitive intelligence

Figure 1 A framework of salesperson competitive intelligence

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SALESPERSONTACTICALCHARACTERISTICSSALESPERSONBEHAVIOURSCUSTOMERRELATIONSHIPPERFORMANCEInformationCommunicationSalespersonCompetitiveIntelligenceAdaptiveSellingCustomerSatisfactionCustomerLoyalty- Complex Buying Process- Relationship StrengthMicroenvironmentVariablesThe concept of adaptive selling is well regarded among practitioners and researchers and can be defined as the practice of “altering behaviors during a customer interaction or across customer interactions” (Weitz, Sujan & Sujan, 1986, p. 175). Expanding this concept, researchers have proposed different adaptive selling behaviours and outlined the range of adaptations that can be used by salespeople (e.g., Eckert, 2006). More specifically, Eckert (2006) suggested that adaption is possible at four categories such as information (i.e., adapting the information depending on the specifics of selling situation), solution (i.e., adapting the solution based on needs and situation of the customer), communication (i.e., adapting the dyadic interaction process), and process (i.e., adapting the resources utilised in the sales practices).

While the acquisition and use of customer information is particularly important for the practice of adaptive selling (Weitz et al., 1986), product- and competitor-related information will also play a significant role in this process (Sujan, Weitz & Kumar, 1994). In order to be adaptive, salespeople need to have information about customers as well as about competitors. Notably, CI will be useful for keeping salespeople informed, as well as for developing, implementing, and revising sales plans. With CI, salespeople can better anticipate customer responses, prepare appropriate ways to meet customer needs, and overcome customer objections. Importantly, CI will allow a salesperson to provide the customer with a greater listing of available options in the marketplace thereby influencing the customer not by pressure tactics, but with information valuable to the customer (Stock & Hoyer, 2005).

Another salesperson behavioural performance variable that we include in our framework is information communication. Having been defined as

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“the formal as well as informal sharing of meaningful and timely information between firms” (Anderson & Narus, 1990; p. 44) and the “glue that holds together” business relationships (Mohr & Nevin, 1990; p. 36), information communication is clearly an important element needed to enhance the performance of a salesperson (Agnihotri, Rapp & Trainor, 2009). Today’s salespeople are considered both a solution provider and a sales consultant (Anderson & Dubinsky, 2004) and must act as experts and provide buyers with customised solutions. In such scenarios, salespeople need to convey that their solution is unique and that no competitor can better serve their purpose. To accomplish this, both customers and salespeople must share information with each other regarding competitors, products, and business trends in order to reach a satisfactory solution. Clearly, this represents a bi-directional approach. Salespeople obtain valuable information from the customer, but in order to serve as experts, salespeople must carry competitors’ information as well. Importantly, CI is involved in both directions of information communication, from customer to salesperson and vice versa, and this involvement will tend to benefit salesperson performance in the ways described above.

Formally stated:P1 A salesperson’s tactical use of CI will have a direct positive influence

on adaptive selling tendencies and information communication.CI and customer relationship performance

A salesperson’s performance depends largely on having a full understanding of the environment in which they operate, including competitors, markets, and products. Previous research indicates that high-performing salespeople effectively plan and maintain a high level of knowledge concerning their products, customers, and competitors (Sujan et al., 1994). During a sales encounter, an exhaustive and independent assessment of a customer’s perceptions with regard to other sources of supply can provide ground for a winning proposition. Accordingly, we argue that CI will positively relate to customer relationship performance including customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Access to improved information flows and increased product differentiation are among the characteristics of today’s consumers (West, 2001). These informational and environmental changes have prompted customers to emerge from their previous segments and expand the amount of available product alternatives. With such a wide array of options present in today’s market, a salesperson’s performance is strongly influenced by their concern for and responsiveness to customer needs as well as to competitive actions. In fact, it has been reported that nearly 60 percent of firms measure sales force success on the basis of customer satisfaction (Brewer, 2000).

A number of factors such as satisfaction with the salesperson and offered services are related to a customer’s overall satisfaction with a sales interaction (Rapp, Ahearne, Mathieu & Schillewaert, 2006). Researchers have argued that salespeople’s actions during sales encounters influence customer satisfaction with salespeople as well as the services they provide (Oliver & Swan, 1989). In order to be reliable and responsive, salespeople

Agnihotri & Rapp Perspectives on competitive intelligence

must seek out market, competitor, and customer-related information in order to anticipate changes in the external competitive environment. CI fills this need, and in turn, should help salespeople to satisfy their customers. Maintaining CI should afford salespeople with benefits in terms of promptly and confidently engaging in sales interactions and influencing customers by exhibiting customer-oriented behaviours such as “providing information” instead of “asserting pressure” (Stock & Hoyer, 2005, p. 536).

Extending this line of thought, we suggest that salespeople equipped with competitors’ information will be able to answer customer queries more effectively and provide competent solutions. This, in turn, should translate into higher perceived levels of expertise, and ultimately result in a trusting salesperson-customer relationship. Additionally, previous research has postulated that enduring relationships between a buyer and seller provide a foundation for loyalty (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Loyalty refers to “the strength of the relationship between an individual’s relative attitude and repeat patronage” (Dick & Basu, 1994, p. 99). Often, customers develop a comparatively stronger relationship with a salesperson than with an organisation (Beatty, Mayer, Coleman, Reynolds & Lee, 1996). In such cases, customers will tend to regard the salesperson as an industry expert and willingly share information with the salesperson. A salesperson’s ability and capacity to provide effective information should have a positive influence on a customer’s loyalty, and thus lead to higher customer retention (Agnihotri & Rapp, 2010). Additionally, CI should exhibit a positive relationship with customer satisfaction, which is, in turn, associated with customer loyalty and aggregate retention rate (Rust & Zahorik, 1993). Therefore, we advance that:P2 A salesperson’s tactical use of CI will have indirect positive influence

on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.Microenvironment variables as moderator

Considering the dynamic environment within which salespeople work, it is likely that external factors will influence CI. Aligned with this viewpoint, proposing a contingency framework of salesperson effectiveness, Weitz (1981) suggested that the relationship between salesperson behaviour and performance is contingent upon or moderated by characteristics of the salesperson, the environment, and/or the work situation. In a similar vein, several researchers have empirically demonstrated that the relationship between performance and individual characteristics varies across sales circumstances (Franke & Park, 2006; Weitz, 1981). In light of this evidence, we apply contingency theory and propose that the relationship between CI and performance will be moderated by microenvironmental factors.

While numerous contextual factors have the potential to play a role in this regard, we offer that the nature of the buying process (i.e., level of complexity) and the nature of the relationship between the salesperson and customer (i.e., strength of the customer relationship) will have moderating effects on the relationship between CI and behavioural performance. In the following section, we discuss these two microenvironment variables and their moderating influence in detail.

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Complex buying process

As early proponents of strategic selling in an industrial setting, Miller, Heiman and Tuleja (1985) defined complex buying as a process where the final buying decision includes approval from several people. These situations require salespeople to be “far more analytical” than in a regular selling context (Miller et al., 1985; p. 22). With the industrial buying process exhibiting higher levels of complexity than ever before (Anderson & Narus, 1990), and the costs of personal sales calls skyrocketing, acting efficiently and developing solutions that fit the needs of both the customer and the organisation has become essential. Considering the importance of this issue, Moriarty and Spekman (1984, p. 138) highlighted the “ubiquitous and pervasive influence of the industrial salesperson throughout the procurement decision process”. They further suggested that in complex buying processes buyers usually rely on personal commercial sources of information (i.e., a salesperson) and personal non-commercial sources of information (i.e., an outside consultant).

Providing suggestions for approaching a complex sale, Thull (2003) advanced the idea of the prime process. Defining this concept, he suggested that in a complex sales situation, salespeople should act as a “valued business partner” and a “source of business advantage” for the customer (Thull, 2003, p. 18). Thus, when salespeople enter into a complex buying process with competitor information in hand, this information should act as a resource for the customer; thereby, simplifying the decision-making process. Although CI is useful to salespeople in all types of selling situations, it will have a particularly strong influence on salesperson performance in complex buying processes.

In complex buying process, buyers usually anticipate repetitive interactions with sellers; they exert more effort to become familiar with sellers compared to situations where they expect a transactional interaction (Bendapudi & Berry, 1997). Recently, it has been suggested that the frequency of customer-salesperson interactions positively influences a customer’s view of both trust and expertise (Belonax, Newell & Plank, 2007). Therefore, in a complex buying process customers’ reliance on the salesperson are greater and repeated interactions between buyer and seller will lead to strong ties between them. The stronger links will give salespeople more opportunities to utilise the CI and they will have more possibilities to communicate information or practice other selling behaviours.

P3 The link between salesperson’s tactical use of CI and behavioural

performance will be more positive for salespeople who report more complex buying processes than those who report less complex processes.Customer relationship strength

In many situations, it is the relationship between the salesperson and the customer that determines the probability of upcoming transactions between those parties (Crosby, Evans & Cowles, 1990). Preferably, exchanges between buyers and sellers will involve long-term commitments and a continual stream of buyer-seller interactions. Researchers have argued that customers want close relationships with sales and service providers but have difficulty

Agnihotri & Rapp Perspectives on competitive intelligence

finding such relationships (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1994). Customers

are more likely to purchase the same product from the same source, given they are satisfied with the services (Goff, Boles, Bellenger & Stojack, 1997). The primary reason for this could be the fact that customers will consider the relative switching costs (or savings) of the available choices when considering possible changes from one selling company to another (Jackson, 1985). Notably, it has been argued that in the buyer-seller context, “suppliers’ relational assets”, “transaction-specific investments by the buyer”, and “higher levels of knowledge of seller” significantly impact the buyer and seller’s relational orientation (Pillai & Sharma, 2003, P. 649). Therefore, it is sensible to assume that the in-supplier (i.e., the current salesperson) will use CI to engage in higher quality behaviours and therefore raise switching costs.

We argue that CI will have a greater impact on salesperson behaviours in situations where there is a stronger bond between the salesperson and the customer. First, it is evident that as relationships strengthen, trust within the dyad typically increases as well. Under strong relationships, there will be a greater likelihood of customers ‘hearing and believing’ the information that the salesperson has to offer. Under weaker circumstances, the information offered may be viewed as manipulative or simply as a way to make the sale, mainly because the information is not readily available and may not have been heard previously. Second, under weaker relationships, we argue that a salesperson may not be as willing to provide or use information for fear of ‘shooting the messenger.’ A salesperson in a strong relationship will realise that the more powerful the message the more important for the customer and be prepared to deal with the customers concerns.

Based on the theoretical foundation outlined above, we formally propose that:

P4 The link between salesperson’s tactical use of CI and behavioural

performance will be more positive for salespeople who report stronger relationships with customers relative to those who report weaker customer relationships.Discussion

An amalgamation of risks and opportunities has created a business environment where sales organisations are required to keep vigil on trends in customer preferences as well as competitors’ actions. CI can help firms and salespeople to command a superior understanding of change in the market environment and to identify current and future competitive actions. For example, in order to convince customers that the product and service offering are best suited for their needs, salespeople are required to outline product performance aligned with customer needs as well as with competitor’s product performance. This approach is required to send the customer a signal that the current offerings are better able to fulfill customer’s needs in comparison to competitors. Salespeople often evaluate sales plans taking into consideration the competitive environment within their territory. Notably, such evaluations are performed under time and resource restraints. Thus, CI can be extremely helpful for salespeople operating under those

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circumstances. CI will enable salespeople to compare their organisation’s strengths and weaknesses with those of competitors. This can eventually help salespeople to become competitive in the long-run.

Despite the value of CI for a salesperson, the role of the sales force in the CI process has been limited to intelligence sharing. Stemming from this, it is possible that salespeople do not feel motivated toward CI as they perceive it as an organisational level process and hindrance which does not provide them with any individual level benefit. Day (1994) argued that a salesperson will be motivated to collect and communicate market information only if he/she perceives there to be some rewards associated with it. We address this issue by proposing an individual level perspective of CI hoping that our effort would accelerate the discussion on CI and its tactical utilisation.

The primary objective of the current study was to highlight the role of CI as a tactical tool in the sales process that has potential to influence salespeople’s behaviours and ultimately, customer relationship performance. More specifically, we outlined the relationship between CI and salesperson behaviours (i.e., adaptive selling and information communication) as well as its indirect influence on relational outcomes (i.e., customer satisfaction and loyalty). We also discussed characteristics of microenvironment with the potential to moderate the relationship between CI and salesperson behaviours. This model included complex buying processes and customer relationships strength as microenvironment variables.Managerial implications

The proposed conceptual framework and salesperson level perspective of CI have significant implications for managers and businesses. Knowing that CI may directly impact salesperson behaviours and indirectly enhance relationship performance, it should be considered as a top priority because sales effectiveness is an area where many organisations are still struggling. By recognising and establishing a salesperson level perspective of CI, managers will find it easy to make salespeople feel remunerated for their efforts and consequently they will begin to view the CI program as a source of assistance rather than a burden. Organisations should also start thinking about setting up recognition systems by offering formal and informal rewards for collecting and disseminating CI because it is expected that in the presence of such recognition systems, the search for intelligence would be “comprehensive and timely” (Jaworski et al., 2002).

Very few managers would claim that their organisations effectively use their sales force to obtain ongoing market, customer, and competitor intelligence in an organised fashion. To obtain maximum value from the sales force, management must tap more formally and frequently into their extensive intelligence base. Salespeople have frequent and intimate contact with a firm’s customers. These customers have likely shopped around, used competitor’s products, and may have insight provided by the competitor’s sales force (Yovovich, 1995). The sales force is a valuable source to access this intelligence. However, using the sales force for strategic information may present some difficulties. One major problem may be motivating salespeople to participate in CI activities, especially, if there is no formal CI system in place.

Agnihotri & Rapp Perspectives on competitive intelligence

In general, salespeople assess whether or not to disseminate competitive data based on how the factors enhance or detract from achieving their primary job expectations. The acceptance of CI as a tactical tool for salespeople should make it easier for managers to create an effective and knowledgeable information gathering system using their sales force.

Salespeople are typically provided with the information necessary to deal with competition within the industry. This transfer of information is not always a two-way process. Often, salespeople do not reciprocate the transfer of valuable intelligence back to the relevant departments. Sometimes this is due to the lack of communication or lack of a reporting system within the company. Other than this, salespeople often have subjective information regarding the market instead of objective information (Festervand, Grove & Reidenbach, 1988) which is hard to report. The frequent communications between manager and salesperson can help determine what information is worthwhile and how to make the best of it.Limitations and future research direction

As with any research, the implications of our proposed framework should be considered along with theoretical limitations and issues of generalisability. One assumption within this research framework is that if a salesperson has CI they will use it. However, future research should treat these two constructs separately and try to find the variables that influence salesperson CI collection as well as CI use. Metrics for the measurement of salesperson CI would be a valuable contribution to the literature as this is a big hurdle in the progress of CI-related empirical research. Although we acknowledge the feedback loop from salesperson-customer relationship outcomes to salesperson CI, the detailed investigation of this issue is beyond the scope of this paper. Future research studies that attempt to deal with salesperson CI as a dependent variable should look into this relationship. Considering the fact that customers could be the biggest source of intelligence for salespeople, having a solid relationship with them will open the door for salespeople to gather this intelligence.

Even a totally effortless reporting system will yield little information unless the salespeople feel that they are being rewarded for their efforts (Mellow, 1989). It is necessary to provide some motivational incentive to ensure that intelligence will be disseminated (Saegart & Hoover, 1980). The current framework does not include this variable, primarily because we wanted to remain focused at individual level. Future researchers should explore this construct in CI dissemination context.

Although our conceptualisation of CI focuses on a salesperson’s use of CI as an instrument, it does not suggest that a salesperson’s role as information gatherer is of less importance or that a salesperson should not invest their time discussing this intelligence with their managers. In fact, in some situations, it may take extensive compilation and scrutiny before the true value of information becomes known; however, this mechanism is beyond the realm of the presented framework.

Recently, it has been evidenced that there exists a correlation between the degree of customer-related information processing and the degree

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of competitor-related responsiveness within an organisation (Homburg, Grozdanovic & Klarmann, 2007). Given the importance of customer orientation in sales literature, it would be valuable to investigate a similar relationship at the salesperson level. For example, examining the effects of CI on salesperson’s customer and competitor-related responsiveness could be a valuable addition to the existing literature. Finally, future researchers can elaborate on the range of potential antecedents, such as individual characteristics, organisational-level factors, and other aspects of the buyer-seller relationship.References

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About the Authors and Correspondence

Raj Agnihotri is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Professional Sales, William Paterson University. His research interests include buyer-seller exchange process, sales technology, competitive intelligence, salesperson performance, and product management.

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Corresponding author: Raj Agnihotri, Assistant Professor of Professional Sales, Russ Berrie Institute for Professional Sales, William Paterson University, 1600 Valley Road, Wayne, NJ 07474-0920, USA.E agnihotrir@wpunj.edu

Adam Rapp is currently the D. Paul Jones and Charlene Jones Endowed Chair in Services Marketing at the University of Alabama. Adam’s research examines factors influencing the performance of front-line service and sales personnel.

Adam Rapp, Associate Professor of Marketing, D. Paul Jones and Charlene Jones Compass Bank Endowed Chair in Services Marketing, Department of Management and Marketing, Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA.E arapp@cba.ua.edu

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