Talk about value, not

product…

The solution to widen the B2B sales pipeline?

Malin Väringstam & Annina Wede

Department of Business Administration

Master's Program in Management

Master's Program in Business Development and Internationalisation

Master's Thesis in Business Administration II, 15 Credits, Spring 2021

Supervisor: Christopher Nicol

Acknowledgements We want to give our warmest appreciations to our respondents from Tele2, who gave us

the opportunity to explore sales development within their organization. Your inputs,

competences, and inspiring experiences have provided great insights for this thesis.

We also want to thank our supervisor, Christopher, for motivational meetings and wise

insights, but also for teaching us a thing or two about proper English.

Finally, we would like to say thank you to Umeå University for these five years and for

preparing us for our future careers.

Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics, 26th of May 2021

_____________________ _____________________ Malin Väringstam Annina Wede

Abstract

Business-to-business (B2B) organizations are facing challenges related to complex sales

cycles and increasing competition, resulting in more value-driven sales processes and a

holistic ecosystem for the B2B marketplace. Recent studies have acknowledged the lack

of research on inside sales and sales development in B2B organizations. Scholars point

at the increasing importance of inside sales due to changes in the environment and

increasing customer demands, which has resulted in the development of digital sales

processes within companies. In this study, we have examined the early phase of the sales

process referred to as customer acquisition, which is an important part for companies to

do business and be profitable over time. In customer acquisition, lead generation and lead

management are two central phenomena including generating potential customers and

managing them in an adequate way. In this study, where we are writing on commission

for Tele2 IoT, our aim was to develop recommendations for how they can improve their

conversion rate and sales performance by asking; “How can B2B companies work with

sales development processes and lead generation to improve their sales performance?”

Based on a literature review of previous studies on sales processes, Internet of Things,

and content marketing, we developed an exploratory and qualitative research design,

where data was collected through twelve semi-structured interviews with respondents

from the case company. Our empirical findings present how the development of a separate

unit for Sales Development in Tele2 IoT can be a solution for handling the current

challenges for lead generation and lead management. A dedicated Sales Development

Representative (SDR) can be responsible for the early phase of the sales process before a

Sales Manager takes over. This would include responsibility for lead generation,

qualification, and follow-up to ensure that the qualified leads are timely managed.

We demonstrate a model that conceptualizes how companies in a highly competitive

business environment can initiate a dedicated function working with customer acquisition

practices, which we refer to as Sales Development. In our model, we emphasize how three

different channels for attracting and managing leads must be considered: 1) outbound

lead generation, 2) inbound lead generation and 3) marketing automated lead generation,

to improve sales performance. Based on these findings, we propose iterative customer

acquisition processes where communication, documentation and cooperation are at its

core. Finally, we propose a framework with reflective questions for managers and

organizations to take into consideration when implementing Sales Development into their

business.

The study primarily contributes to the scarce research field of inside sales, where we

encourage practitioners and academia to apply our model and utilize quantitative data

measures to understand how a Sales Development configuration can improve lead

generation within different industries.

Keywords: Customer Acquisition, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Sales

Development & Inside Sales

Table of Contents

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1

1.1 An evolving sales process ...................................................................................... 1

1.2 Case Company ........................................................................................................ 4

1.3 Introducing the Telecom industry and the Internet of Things ................................ 5

1.4 Research gap ........................................................................................................... 6

1.5 Research purpose .................................................................................................... 7

1.6 Research question ................................................................................................... 7

2. Theoretical framework ................................................................................................. 8

2.1 The evolution of sales ............................................................................................. 8

2.1.1 Relationship selling ......................................................................................... 9

2.1.2 Digital tools and technology in the sales process .......................................... 10

2.1.3 A Holistic and Value-oriented View of Sales ............................................... 11

2.1.4 Inside sales and sales development ............................................................... 12

2.1.5 Internet of Things .......................................................................................... 13

2.2 Customer acquisition practices ............................................................................. 14

2.2.1 The Sales Funnel/Pipeline ............................................................................. 15

2.2.2 Lead generation ............................................................................................. 16

2.2.3 Lead management .......................................................................................... 17

2.2.4 The sales lead black hole ............................................................................... 18

2.2.5 Sales-marketing integration ........................................................................... 20

2.3 Approaches for reaching the customers................................................................ 21

2.3.1 Digital content marketing .............................................................................. 22

2.3.2 A joint funnel for sales and marketing .......................................................... 22

2.4 Synthesis ............................................................................................................... 23

3. Methodology ............................................................................................................... 25

3.1 Scientific methodology ......................................................................................... 25

3.1.1 Choice of topic and pre-understanding .......................................................... 25

3.1.2 Research paradigm ........................................................................................ 26

3.1.3 Research approach ......................................................................................... 27

3.1.4 Research design and strategy ......................................................................... 28

3.1.5 Literature search and source criticism ........................................................... 29

3.1.6 Quality criteria ............................................................................................... 30

3.2 Practical methodology .......................................................................................... 33

3.2.1 Qualitative data collection method ................................................................ 33

3.2.2 Sampling method ........................................................................................... 34

3.2.3 Sample overview ........................................................................................... 35

3.2.4 Interview technique and interview guide....................................................... 36

3.2.5 Interview procedure ....................................................................................... 38

3.2.6 Qualitative data analysis ................................................................................ 39

3.2.7 Ethical considerations .................................................................................... 40

4. Empirical findings ...................................................................................................... 43

4.1 Experiences on the IoT sales process ................................................................... 43

4.1.1 A changing landscape for sales ..................................................................... 43

4.1.2 Challenges of selling IoT ............................................................................... 44

4.1.3 The Ideal Customer for IoT ........................................................................... 46

4.2 Continuous developments for customer acquisition processes ............................ 48

4.2.1 Three categories of leads ............................................................................... 48

4.2.2 Creating a pipeline - Lead Generation for IoT .............................................. 49

4.2.3 Tools for Lead Generation ............................................................................. 51

4.2.4 Insights from the B2B Sales Development Function .................................... 52

4.3 Improvement areas for increasing the conversion rate ......................................... 54

4.3.1 Marketing Automation .................................................................................. 54

4.3.2 Creating content for IoT solutions ................................................................. 55

4.3.3 Antecedents for deficient lead follow-up ...................................................... 56

4.3.4 Integration within the case company ............................................................. 57

4.4 Establishing Sales Development .......................................................................... 59

4.4.1 Considerations when initiating Sales Development for IoT .......................... 59

4.4.2 Characteristics of a SDR ............................................................................... 63

5. Analysis: Initiating Sales Development ..................................................................... 65

5.1 Improving customer acquisition activities ............................................................ 65

5.2 Implementing Sales Development at Tele2 IoT ................................................... 69

5.2.1 Structuring the sales organization ................................................................. 69

5.2.2 Developing the Lead Generation Processes .................................................. 70

5.2.3 Hiring the right person ................................................................................... 72

5.3 Conceptual Model ................................................................................................ 74

6. Conclusions & Discussion .......................................................................................... 77

6.1 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 77

6.2 Study Contributions .............................................................................................. 79

6.2.1 Contributions for Tele2 IoT ........................................................................... 79

6.2.2 Theoretical Contributions .............................................................................. 82

6.2.3 Societal Contributions ................................................................................... 83

6.3 Limitations & Future Research............................................................................. 83

References ...................................................................................................................... 85

Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 91

Appendix 1 - Interview guide ..................................................................................... 91

Appendix 2 - Information email to participants ......................................................... 93

Appendix 3 - The three lead generation processes ..................................................... 94

List of figures

Figure 1. A simplified prospecting process for Tele2 IoT ............................................... 5

Figure 2. The seven-steps selling process ........................................................................ 8

Figure 3. The sales funnel .............................................................................................. 15

Figure 4. Lead qualification stages ................................................................................. 48

Figure 5. The Integrated Sales Development Pipeline ................................................... 76

List of tables

Table 1. Research paradigms and approaches ................................................................ 29

Table 2. Overview for how we are achieving the Eight Big Tent Criteria for Excellent

………..Qualitative research .......................................................................................... 31

Table 3. Sample overview .............................................................................................. 36

Table 4. Themes and objectives of the interview guide ................................................. 37

Table 5. Exemplification of our data analysis ................................................................ 40

Table 6. Ethical considerations ....................................................................................... 41

Table 7. Digital tools for different lead generation processes ........................................ 51

Table 8. Reflective questions for practitioners for initiating Sales Development .......... 80

1

1. Introduction

This chapter starts with a descriptive background of the business-to-business market from

a sales perspective. We further attend to the empirical case background for the study,

which is written on commission for one of the biggest telecommunications providers in

Sweden. The relevance of the case will be motivated by focusing on its implications from

both a societal and business perspective, where we emphasize the digitalization trend and

the concept of Internet of Things. Derived from the theoretical and empirical background,

we will thereafter present the purpose for the study and state our main research question.

1.1 An evolving sales process

The business-to-business (B2B) marketplace is being reshaped by digital and mobile

technologies which affect how B2B-customers interact with salespeople (Ancillai et al.,

2019; Wengler et al., 2021), consume information, and make buying decisions (Rapp et

al., 2014, p. 246). B2B organizations are further facing challenges related to complex

sales cycles, increasing competition, and qualified lead generation (Rodriguez &

Peterson, 2012, p. 181), where companies must reshape their sales processes and

implement sales technology for higher effectiveness and quality (Hunter & Perreault,

2007, p. 31). Altogether, these influences put higher pressure on companies to fulfil and

exceed customer expectations (Ancillai et al., 2019, p. 293), in order to stay competitive

in an evolving and technology-driven sales climate (Syan & Sharma, 2018, p. 135).

The view of the sales process started to change in the beginning of the 21st century (Dixon

& Tanner, 2012, p. 12; Moncrief et al., 2006, p. 55). The traditional perspective of sales

visualizes the sales process as a seller to buyer process, where the salesperson persuades

and influences the buyer to buy a product or a service with interpersonal and direct

communication (Dixon & Tanner, 2012, p. 10; Hartmann et al., 2018, p. 12). However,

selling is a multifaceted process from pre-approach planning to post sale follow-up, where

the process differs in length, width, and complexity (Dixon & Tanner, 2012, p. 10).

Therefore, researchers argue for a more holistic and systematic approach of the sales

process meaning that sales need to be integrated in more business units in the

organizations, and salespeople need to have an understanding for customer value

(Hartmann et al., 2018, p. 13). To develop effective sales processes, scholars have further

suggested that the process should be viewed as iterative and non-linear (D’Haen & Van

den Poel, 2013, p. 545; Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 21), instead of the more traditional

linear process perspective. However, Hartmann et al. (2020, p. 221) argue that a more

holistic and systematic view of sales is still in its early phase, which implies that it is an

emerging field of studies.

Another shift identified in the market is the transition from a goods dominant logic (GDL)

to a service dominant logic (SDL) (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, p. 15). In GDL, the focus is on

transactions, embedded value, and resources. The shift towards SDL includes more

attention towards relationships, cocreation of value, and intangible resources. This shift

has affected sales in a way where the customers expect the selling companies to address

what value they can bring to the customers organization in the early phases of the sales

process (Rapp et al., 2014, p. 247), which requires salespeople to adopt their selling

approach to match the customers’ anticipations and needs (Inks et al., 2019, p. 89. The

first step of the sales process is commonly referred to as prospecting or lead generation

(Paschen et al., 2020, p. 407), which represents the most important activities for

expanding the customer base (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 181). Salespeople need to

2

screen the market and find new and potential customers, to ensure the growth of their

company (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 131). Thus, prospecting includes identifying

potential customers through lead generation, and qualifying these by assessing their

propensity to buy (Paschen et al., 2020, p. 406). A prospect can for example provide

contact information on a company’s website, over the phone, or while accessing digital

content provided by the selling company (Paschen et al., 2020, p. 406). The objective

with lead generation is to establish a sales funnel, also referred to as sales pipeline, where

potential customers convert through different steps of the sales process until they become

a customer (Syam & Sharma, 2018, p. 142). Usually, the qualification process for leads

is a challenge, where Ohiomah et al. (2019, p. 164) describe the challenge of knowing

which leads to contact, how to contact them, and when. If leads are not effectively

managed, companies can lose potentially valuable customers, and the value from

marketing efforts will not be seized (Ohiomah et al., 2019, p. 163). Despite the

importance of lead management, there is however still no common knowledge on how to

successfully convert a lead into a customer (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p. 2).

To successfully reach and interact with prospective customers, scholars are increasingly

favoring more relational selling approaches (Sheth & Sharma, 2008; Inks et al., 2019), in

support of a more customer-and service-oriented sales process (Moncrief, 2017, p. 273).

To successfully convert a potential prospect into a customer, salespeople need to gather

information about them to understand what value they can offer (Moncrief & Marshall,

2005, p. 13), which has proven to be a vital process to minimize time on prospects that

do not match with the selling company’s business offers (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p.

182). In the navigation between various popular selling approaches, it becomes clear that

scholars are opting for a relational-driven focus with the customer as the center of

attention. The importance of adjusting communication and behavior to different types of

customers in the form of adaptive selling has transformed the B2B-sales, which is often

characterized by long cycles (Inks et al., 2019, p. 91). To build relationships and focus on

value, Sheth & Sharma (2008, p. 266) argue for a more consultative selling process where

problem identification, presenting a solution, and continuous support brings value to the

customer. Selling can also focus on problem-solving instead of promoting a solution,

where the SPIN-selling model presented by Rackham (1988) provides a roadmap for

asking questions that will uncover the customer’s needs (Inks et al., 2019, p. 90).

Recently, scholars have recognized a need for modified sales approaches driven by the

increasing use of technology, where B2B customers are becoming more digital in their

interactions with salespeople (Ancillai et al., 2019, p. 293). The concept of social selling

is gaining attention, where utilizing social media in the salesperson’s toolbox provides a

direct communication channel, aiding in the understanding of customers and their needs

(Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 183). However, the impact of social selling in today’s

businesses have not been widely researched, and scholars are prompting for insights into

its role for B2B selling (Ancillai et al., 2019, p. 294). The increasing use of digital tools

in B2B sales organizations further reflects how companies need to rely more on their

inside salesforce, where the sales organizations can benefit from different configurations

(Sleep et al., 2020). Traditionally, the outside sales force has interacted face-to-face with

customers, whereas the inside sales force performs remotely conducted sales activities

through IT tools such as telephone, e-mails, and the web (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1026).

However, the existing academic sales research has mainly studied outside sales, which

has resulted in a low understanding for inside sales operations (Arnett, 2021; Ohiomah et

al., 2019; Sleep et al., 2020). Since B2B customers are changing their behavior and

3

becoming more active online (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 164), the strategic

importance of the inside sales personnel is rapidly increasing (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1030).

Amongst the few studies on inside sales, Sleep et al. (2020) have studied the

characteristics and responsibilities of inside salespeople with interesting insights. The role

is said to require certain skills for team building since inside salespeople work with cross-

functional teams and need to understand both verbal and digital cues (Sleep et al., 2020,

p. 1041). One configuration for sales organizations is to adopt a Sales Development

structure, where the inside sales force is primarily responsible for the lead generation

processes (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1044). This includes identifying prospects through

different channels, qualifying them, and handing them over to the outside sales force.

This configuration is said to be inexpensive and effective, whilst it creates more time for

the outside sales force to focus on closing deals (Sleep et al., 2020, 1044). Despite the

potential for inside sales, scholars are implying that there is a lack of studies exploring

how companies can improve their inside sales performance through effective prospecting

and lead management practices (Ohiomah et al., 2019, p. 163). For example, future

studies could focus on how the industry or product type influences the sales structure, and

why some salespeople prefer remote over face-to-face interactions, or vice versa (Sleep

et al., 2020, p. 1049).

The integration of sales and marketing has further been acknowledged as an important

organizational change with potential to improve sales performance (Guenzi & Troilo,

2006, p. 975). Marketing and sales are both responsible for generating revenue and are

described as two sides of the same coin (Pattersson, 2007, p. 185), but scholars have

acknowledged that the sales-marketing integration, hereafter SMI, has not been without

its challenges. In the beginning of the 21st century, many businesses were adapting to the

increased competition and changes in customer demands by flattening their organizations

to stimulate teamwork between functions as a means to creating competitive advantage

(Rouziès et al., 2005, p. 113). From a marketing perspective, this led to increased attention

on integrated marketing communications, which is about integrating activities such as

advertising and sales promotion (Rouziès et al., 2005, p. 113). The existing marketing

research was mainly focusing on the relationship between marketing and for example

R&D, engineering, and manufacturing to develop and deliver products to customers in a

successful way. Consequently, scholars had devoted little attention to the interfaces

between sales and marketing (Homburg & Jensen, 2007, p. 124), whose interactions has

been identified as one of the most important ones since both functional areas have a

prominent role in creating successful interactions and relations with customers (Malshe,

2011, p. 45; Rouziès et al., 2005, p. 113).

Since sales and marketing have an important role in customer acquisition, scholars have

explored why lead management practices are not always satisfactory. One reason for this

is that sales representatives complain over the quality in marketing-generated leads

(D’Haen et al., 2016, p. 69; Oliva, 2006, p. 397). This is referred to as the ‘sales lead

black hole’, which occurs when salespeople do not follow-up on leads generated by

marketing activities (Malshe et al., 2017; Sabnis et al., 2013; Van der Borg et al., 2020).

Scholars have identified several reasons behind this phenomenon relating to different

motivations and abilities (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 54), and communication paucity (Malshe,

2011, p. 49). Another view is that leads are not converted into deals because the targeting

efforts do not deliver enough value in relation to what the customers want (Van der Borgh

et al., 2020, p. 136). Another prominent factor is the lack of time for sales, where they

4

need to prioritize which activities, and what leads they focus on (Sabnis et al., 2013, p.

53). Hence, the lead target set by management must be aligned with available resources

within the organization (Van der Borgh et al., 2020, p. 136).

Overall, the importance of adding value to the customer’s business cannot be understated,

where the alignment of sales and marketing can improve the organization's value creation

towards customers (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 20), and increase the conversion rate

for leads into customers (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 173; Ohiomah et al., 2019, p.

164). To deliver value to customers, Arnett et al. (2021, p. 259) emphasize the importance

of sharing tacit knowledge about the customers with others in the organization, for

example between sales and marketing. Tacit knowledge transfer reflects personal,

context-specific and experience-related knowledge that is difficult to formalize and

document (Arnett et al., 2021, p. 259; Tanner et al., 2005, p. 173). Following the increased

use of digital tools, working with data management is important to search, document and

process data about customers in an accurate way (Wengler et al., 2020, p. 606), which

requires high collaboration within the sales force and with other departments as well

(Storbacka et al., 2009, p. 895). To develop effective processes for the beginning of the

sales process, more process-perspectives should be explored (Van der Borgh et al., 2020,

p. 139). We will now introduce the case company for the current study, which operates

within the telecommunications sector and aspires to improve their lead generation and

lead management practices through focusing on inside sales, digital customer journeys,

and process development.

1.2 Case Company

Tele2 AB is a Swedish telecommunications company providing fast network services

which enables streaming possibilities, TV, telephony, mobile and fixed connectivity, data

network services and IoT solutions, for both private customers and businesses (Tele2,

2021a). Tele2 AB is the second largest telecommunication provider in Sweden and has

been active since the 1970’s. Tele2 is a diversified company with the ultimate goal to

“lead in sustainability” and was allegedly the first telecommunication company to be

climate neutral within their own operations in the Nordics and Baltics (Tele2, 2021b).

The company was also the first telecommunication provider to launch 5G in Sweden.

This thesis is written on commission for Tele2 IoT, which is a department within Tele2

AB that provides businesses areas such as monitoring & tracking, predictive maintenance,

and remote steering with connectivity solutions (Tele2 IoT, 2021). Tele2 IoT connects

the world and provides their customers with the connectivity they need for a successful

IoT solution.

Tele2 IoT is operating in a highly competitive industry with a narrow segment of

customers who either want to change their IoT supplier or are about to start their IoT

journey. The company also has requirements on what customers they should attract,

including order size and growth potential. Thus, they experience the challenge of creating

a constant inflow of customers. After an introductory interview with the Head of Sales at

Tele2 IoT, we were informed that the department wants to establish a Sales Development

function who works primarily with creating a constant inflow of customers to widen their

pipeline. This process is referred to as prospecting, where four main activities are

included (see figure 1): 1) identifying leads, 2) finding contact information to the

identified leads, 3) qualifying leads and 4) handing them over to a Sales Manager. Today,

the Sales Managers are working with customer acquisition processes in parallel to their

other responsibilities and activities that directly bring revenue to the company.

5

The Head of Sales would want to decrease the Sales Managers time spent on prospecting,

and increase their time negotiating and closing deals. Consequently, the ambition is to

initiate a new function called Sales Development with a dedicated employee who will

work primarily with activities related to prospecting. The IoT department has a project

group that works with designing the function, the processes, and possible responsibilities

for the Sales Developers. However, these processes are not fully established, and they are

asking for creative inputs to ensure that the implementation of the function is effective,

technology-driven, productive, and cost-efficient. According to the Head of Sales there

are currently just 5 % of leads that convert from the first steps to later steps in the sales

process, where the closing rate does not exceed 3 %. Therefore, the Head of Sales wants

to improve their lead generation processes and increase the conversion rate to 13 %,

which in turn will affect the closing deal percentage as well. Hence, our mission is to

examine how this Sales Development Function can be organized to widen their sales

pipeline with more qualified leads and explore which important factors must be

considered to increase the conversion rate and improve sales performance.

Figure 1. A simplified prospecting process for Tele2 IoT

1.3 Introducing the Telecom industry and the Internet of Things

To put the case company into a sales context, we deem it important to explore its

relevance and implications on society, businesses, and academia. Studying the

telecommunications sector, Espadinha-Cruz et al. (2021, p. 6) acknowledges the

increasingly fierce competition, where the importance of customer acquisition strategies

is evolving. Whilst leads are at the front of company’s customer acquisition practices, the

process for managing them has proven to be a challenge, where ineffective lead

management can result in the loss of valuable customers (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p.

1; Ohiomal et al., 2019, p. 164). Further, telecommunication operators have been

acknowledged as having high power and influence over businesses in the industry for

information and communication technology (Cero et al., 2017, p. 2). During the last

decades, the traditional value chain for telecom operators have changed following the

digital development in society, which has led to new services that are delivered to

customers via connected devices (Cero et al., 2017, p. 38). These connected devices

represent the Internet of Things, hereafter referred to as IoT, which is regarded as a top

strategic technology trend in society (Nedić, 2019, p. 434).

Practitioners imagine a future with connected things for more sustainable, secure, and

smarter societies, where IoT brings beneficiary changes to businesses in the form of smart

and efficient solutions for connecting things/objects (Cong et al., 2021, p. 22). IoT also

aims to increase quality of life for people through more secure, smarter, and simpler

solutions (Wortmann & Flüchter, 2015, p. 221), and improves customers experiences by

providing a digital, meaningful, and personal experience (Cong et al., 2021, p. 22). The

term IoT is becoming more broadly used, but there is no general definition of what it

6

actually entails (Čolaković & Hadžialić, 2018, p. 18; Lee et al., 2017, p. 1057). For the

purpose of this study, we will use the definition provided by Lee et al. (2017, p. 1057-

1058) who conclude that: “IoT can be described as a dynamic global network

environment that combines the physical and virtual worlds, established by the connection

of smart objects that detect, identify, and execute without human intervention to other

objects or people on the Web in order to exchange information.”.

Despite its potential, there are challenges accompanying the increased use of IoT, where

Lee et al. (2017, p. 1056) raises the need for more non-technical perspectives on research

within IoT, to increase the critical reflections on its emergence. One prominent concern

relates to data security, where IT leaders must ensure that intrusive threats are prevented

(Nedić, 2019, p. 439). This also raises concerns for digital ethics, where personal

information about customers must be protected, and laws set by governments must be

followed (Čolaković & Hadžialić, 2018, p. 20; Nedić, 2019, p. 440). From a business

perspective, executives must consider how their business is affected by the emergence of

IoT, where re-positioning might be necessary (Wortmann & Flüchter, 2015, p.

224). Today, scholars describe how there are more IoT devices than people in the world

(Cong et al., 2021, p. 17), reflecting its increasing significance and potential, but also

resulting in higher traffic requirements which calls for extensive network capabilities and

security mechanisms (Čolaković & Hadžialić, 2018, p. 18). This also creates both positive

and negative impacts on the environment, where energy demands and electronic waste

from IoT will have an impact on the environmental sustainability (Čolaković & Hadžialić,

2018, p. 34). On the other hand, IoT provides new and innovative ways to approach

environmental problems (Čolaković & Hadžialić, 2018, p. 34), reflecting how future

applications of IoT in businesses will be of importance.

1.4 Research gap

As customer acquisition efforts provide the foundation for revenue (Patterson, 2007, p.

185), prospecting and lead generation have been described as key activities for ensuring

companies’ growth and success (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 131; Rodriguez &

Peterson, 2012, p. 181). Consequently, this research field can be considered as significant

for all types of businesses. However, Ang & Buttle (2006, p. 297) declared that research

on how to be successful and excel at customer acquisition was scarce, and more recent

studies argue that there is still no common knowledge on how to use the information

obtained during lead acquisition to effectively convert leads into customers (Espadinha-

Cruz et al., 2021, p. 2). Recently, the digital transformation and focus on inside sales has

gained attention (Ancillai et al., 2019; Sleep et al., 2020), where sales organizations are

increasingly relying on their inside sales force.

Despite the historically broad interest in sales and marketing, the research and academic

attention on inside sales for customer acquisition practices is unexpectedly low (Ohiomah

et al., 2019; Sleep et al., 2020). Scholars have confirmed that existing academic research

has primarily focused on outside salesforces, resulting in deficient insights and

knowledge for inside sales operations (Arnett, 2021; Ohiomah et al., 2019; Sleep et al.,

2020). Within a sales context, the inside sales force is described as an enabler to work

with lead generation and effectively manage different customer segments, where one

configuration for inside-outside sales organizations is described as sales development

(Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1029). In this configuration, the inside salespeople are responsible

for identifying and initiating contact with prospective customers, qualifying them, and

handing them over to the outside sales force. Consequently, scholars are asking for more

7

studies on how companies can improve their inside sales performance through focusing

on prospecting and lead management (Ohiomah et al., 2019, p. 163).

Even though the digital transformation for sales has been recognized as important, there

is still limited research on how digital tools should be designed and used to fully capture

its potential (Wengler et al., 2021), and what impact it has on the sales force (Moncrief,

2017). Another digital trend that is relevant for this study is the IoT market which the

case company operates within. Despite the progress in different research fields such as

security, opportunities, and emerging technologies, Čolaković & Hadžialić (2018, p. 17)

argues for how the research on IoT is still under development. Lee et al. (2017, p. 1058)

asks for a broader scope of research to reflect the significance of IoT, since academia has

focused on limited subjects and used few methodologies. Hence, more qualitative

research methods are called for (Lee et al., 2017, p. 1065), where we aim to contribute

with an exploratory and qualitative approach by focusing on our case company.

Derived from previous research and driven by the empirical context for the case company,

our exploratory study will focus on sales development as a potential sales configuration

for improving lead generation and increasing cross-functional collaboration within

businesses. We want to explore how sales development and inside salespeople, can be

successfully implemented to support sales and marketing personnel, create greater value,

and increase sales performance. With access to a case company, we can assemble insights

from different individuals, a contribution that has been requested by Malshe et al. (2017),

to compare different perspectives on this topic. Driven by the need for further studies on

effective lead generation processes (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p. 2), specifically the

lack of studies on inside sales, we argue that our exploratory research design can address

this research gap and provide useful managerial and theoretical implications.

1.5 Research purpose

The main purpose of this study is to examine how the Sales Development Function at

Tele2 IoT can be implemented to widen their sales pipeline with more qualified leads,

and further explore which important factors must be considered to increase the conversion

rate and improve the overall performance of sales. We further aim to provide guidelines

for how businesses operating in similar B2B environments can improve their sales

performance through sales development.

We will address this through emphasizing the internal perspective on process

development, and use knowledge generated by studies on marketing, sales, and sales-

marketing integration to provide insights and recommendations for how Tele2 IoT can

work to improve their customer acquisition activities.

1.6 Research question

Having argued for the importance of effective lead generation practices, the increasing

reliance on inside sales forces, and the empirical context of this study, our research

question is:

How can B2B companies work with sales development processes and lead generation to

improve their sales performance?

8

2. Theoretical framework In this chapter, we develop a theoretical foundation by presenting relevant theories,

concepts, and models related to our research topic. We start with an introduction to the

evolution of the sales process by emphasizing different selling approaches, digital tools,

sales configurations, and the sales context for IoT solutions. Thereafter, we focus on lead

generation and lead management practices and its implications on the sales process.

Subsequently, we will define the concept of sales lead black hole and how it is related to

insufficient sales-marketing integration, where different impediments and solutions are

examined. Lastly, the reviewed research areas and its implications will be discussed in

relation to our study.

2.1 The evolution of sales

The evolution of sales goes back many years, where the first actions included simple

trading (Inks et al., 2019, p. 89). Today, sales are an ordinary process occurring all the

time all over the world. Consequently, sales have continuously evolved due to

developments in the macro environment concerning technology, economics, culture, and

demographics (Syam & Sharma, 2018, p. 135). This also has an impact on customers,

who today have more transactional power since they can easily access information, whilst

the transparency of the marketplace is increasing (Rapp et al., 2014, p. 247). This has

resulted in a need for deeper understanding of the potential customers’ need before a sales

call or contact is made (Rapp et al., 2014, p. 247), where salespeople are adopting

different selling approaches with the goal of improving their effectiveness (Inks et al.,

2019, p. 89).

One of the most accepted paradigms in selling research is the seven steps selling process

(Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 13) and researchers argue for the seven-step selling

process to be applicable in most B2B selling situations (Syam & Sharma, 2018, p. 140;

Paschen et al; 2020, p. 406). Different companies in different industries distinguish their

sales processes depending on the complexity of the solution, sales cycles and customers

preferences (Syam & Sharma, 2018, p. 140). However, the process and its foundations

are to be considered standardized (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 14; Syam & Sharma,

2018, p. 135; Paschen et al., 2020, p. 404). The process was first proposed by Dubinsky

(1981, referred in Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 13) and include the seven steps: (1)

prospecting, (2) preapproach, (3) approach, (4) presentation, (5) overcoming objections,

(6) close and (7) follow-up (see figure 2). In our thesis, we will focus on the beginning of

the process including step one to three, since these steps emphasize our mission from the

case company (prospecting). The process for each of these steps will be described in depth

below.

Figure 2. The seven-steps selling process (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 13)

Step one, prospecting, refers to the method for how salespeople search for new and

potential customers, an important part for the company to continue growing (Moncrief &

Marshall, 2005, p. 13). This first step of the sales process is described as the most

important to expand the customer base (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 181), and has

9

also been referred to as lead generation (Paschen et al., 2020, p. 407). Once a lead has

been identified, the next step is to gather information about the lead to be able to qualify

them further in the sales process. The second step, preapproach, includes tasks to gather

information about the potential customer and find out what value the organization can

offer (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 13). The third step, approach, concerns initiating

the first contact with the potential customer, with the ultimate goal of making an overall

good first impression. Conclusively, the first three steps of the sales process include

gathering information about leads with the objective of evaluating and scoring the lead’s

propensity to buy, which describes the lead qualification process (Syam & Sharma, 2018,

p. 140). Leads that fulfil certain criteria are qualified and moved further in the process

depicted in figure 2. When the qualification process is well-executed, B2B organizations

can focus on their ideal clients and minimize time wasted on prospects that do not match

with their business, resulting in decreased sales cycle time (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012,

p. 182). This outlines the importance of employees’ skills in the qualification process,

where different sales approaches and behaviors can be adopted.

2.1.1 Relationship selling

The seven steps selling process has been criticized for focusing on transactional selling,

and researchers have argued for its falling (Moncrief, 2017, p. 273; Sheth & Sharma,

2008, p. 266). Moncrief & Marshall (2005) proposed a more customer-oriented process

with focus on relationship building activities. The relationship selling orientation mainly

includes consultative, problem solving, and adaptive approaches. Sheth & Sharma (2008,

p. 266) argued for a consultative selling process where the selling steps are focused

around problem identification, presentation of solution, and continued customer support.

In this approach, relationship building among salespeople and customers are at its core,

and significant contributions are made by both parties (Moncrief, 2017, p. 273). To be

successful in consultative selling, Inks et al. (2019, p. 91) suggest that salespeople should

possess high intellectual capital since they need to be capable of identifying the right

solution and advocate for how it can improve the business of the customer. Another

branch of sales models focuses on problem-solving, as opposed to promoting a solution.

One established model focusing on problem-solving is the SPIN-selling model, which

was first introduced by Rackham (1988). The SPIN-model focuses on strategic selling for

larger accounts, where situation, problem, implication, and need payoff provides a

roadmap for salespeople in the interactions with accounts (Inks et al., 2019, p. 90). Thus,

it is mainly a strategy and a tool for questioning to uncover the customers’ actual needs.

Further, the adaptive selling approach focuses on adjusting communication and behaviors

to different types of prospects and customers. Adaptive selling has transformed B2B sales

since it is applicable in situations where sales cycles are long (Inks et al., 2019, p. 91),

which relates to the situation for our case company.

An additional approach is called the challenger sales, where the salespeople need to

identify the buyer’s needs, where their business can be improved, and act as disruptors as

well as teachers towards their prospective buyers (Inks et al., 2019, p. 92). In a challenger

role, salespeople should strive to challenge, almost provoke, their prospects and push

them outside their comfort zone, and then adopt a teaching mode to explain to the

customer why their business needs a change (Inks et al., 2019, p. 94). When the potential

customers understand their need for this change, the salespeople will consequently be the

first people they turn to, and possibly buy from. Critiques against this model concern the

creation of tension between seller and buyer, which requires that the targeted customers

must be open to engage in a discussion (Rapp et al., 2014, p. 254). This might not always

10

be the case. The approach also requires an organizational-level capability, certain skills,

and a broad knowledge repository (Rapp et al., 2014, p. 254), where more inexperienced

salespeople might not have the characteristics needed to be a credible challenges

salesperson (Inks et al., 2019, p. 95). It is suggested that this shift towards viewing

salespeople as a teacher should be considered, but not to the exclusion of other more

traditional approaches focusing on questioning, problem-solving and relationship-

building (Inks et al., 2019, p. 96), which are paramount approaches to facilitate

interactions and trust between buyer and seller.

Social selling

Derived from the different views on relational selling approaches, a need for modified

sales approaches for B2B salespeople has been acknowledged since customers are

becoming more digital in their buying process (Ancillai et al., 2019), where social selling

is of certain interest for the present study. This strategy can be defined as “a selling

approach, which leverages social and digital channels for understanding, connecting

with, and engaging influencers, prospects and existing customers at relevant customer

purchasing journey touchpoints for building valuable business relationships.” (Ancillai

et al., 2019, p. 303). Social media tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have

been effective to directly communicate with and engage customers and learn more about

their needs (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 183). The use of social media has thus had

implications on the views on customer relationships management (CRM), which

traditionally has been important to manage customer information and relationships but

has not assisted with the first important step of the sales process, prospecting (Rodriguez

& Peterson, 2012, p. 184). One supportive technology for social selling is social CRM

that integrates social tools in the communication with customers, which according to

Rodriguez & Peterson (2012, p. 185) supports organizations in creating deeper insights

about the customers, facilitates more interactive conversations, and supports the step of

prospecting. However, the role of social selling has not been widely studied, and scholars

call for more insights into the approach (Ancillai et al., 2019, p. 294), since digital tools

and technology have affected the traditional sales process.

2.1.2 Digital tools and technology in the sales process

The view of the sales process has also changed due to better informed customers,

increased customer demands, digitalization, and globalization (Moncrief, 2017, p. 273;

Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 14; Sheth & Sharma, 2008, p. 266). Specifically, in our

research, the technological development is of interest to understand the process for B2B

selling in our case company. This focus is supported by Järvinen & Taiminen (2016, p.

164) who conclude that B2B customers are becoming more active online, and by Wengler

et al. (2021, p. 599) who describe that a majority of B2B companies are working on their

digital transformation journey in sales.

Researchers have proposed implementing advanced technology such as artificial

intelligence and machine learning in the sales process to increase the effectiveness and

closed deals (Paschen et al., 2020; Syam & Sharma, 2018). However, Syam & Sharma

(2018, p. 140) argue that the implementation for complex solutions, such as IoT, where

the salespeople need to be “knowledge brokers”' will take longer time. Even if the digital

transformation for sales is recognized as important, there is limited research on how

digital tools and technologies should be designed, and when they should be used (Wengler

et al., 2021, 605). To explore this field, Wengler et al. (2021) presents a market-oriented

transformation model for businesses working on their digital transformation in sales

11

where the main success factors are people, processes, and data, which can be directly

influenced by the management team. The meaning with people is that employees need to

have faith in the process, engage in a supportive culture, and possess digital competencies

at all levels. Data management is of high importance, where employees need to have

knowledge within searching, documenting, and processing data about customers. This

requires high collaboration within the sales team, but also with other departments in the

company (Wengler et al., 2021, p. 606), for example marketing, operations, and finance

(Storbacka et al., 2009, p. 895). Processes also need to be developed and defined before

digital transformation should even be implemented, where a more customer-centric

approach and cross-functional ecosystem perspective should be employed (Wengler et

al., 2021, 602). The final success factor, data, relates to how digital tools give companies

the opportunity to analyze their markets and customers (Tanner et al., 2005, p. 174). To

benefit from these opportunities, companies must have inhouse knowledge about data

integration, data preparation, and data analysis (Wengler et al., 2021, p. 607). In the

proposed model by Wengler et al. (2021, p. 607), technology is in itself not a key to

success, but should be viewed as a facilitator with potential to increase productivity.

Overall, digital transformation needs to be understood as a continuous process driven by

employees from various departments, not only sales.

2.1.3 A Holistic and Value-oriented View of Sales

Apart from these technological developments, we also want to consider more general

changes that have affected the sales process. Scholars have acknowledged that sales are

changing in three different interrelated main aspects (Hartmann et al., 2018, p. 13;

Storbacka et al., 2009, p. 890), which also affects the sales process. First, researchers

propose that sales should be seen as a nonlinear process instead of a seller to buyer

interaction because more actors are involved and the learning outcomes from

qualification should be considered (D’Haen & Van den Poel, 2013, p. 545; Dixon &

Tanner, 2012, p. 10; Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 21). Secondly, the sales process

should be integrated in the overall business, instead of an isolated and distinct activity

(Stenbacka et al., 2009, p. 890). The third important change in sales concerns the different

responsibilities and activities that are required from a salesperson (Sleep et al., 2020, p.

1050: Hughes et al., 2013, p. 92). Today, salespeople need an understanding of the whole

internal business, the service and the market to be able to offer a competitive proposal

(Rapp et al., 2017, p. 60).

The changing views on the sales process has resulted in Hartmann et al (2018, p. 1)

proposing a service ecosystem perspective of sales. To overcome these changes and

navigate in the sales landscape where value creation is increasing, the service ecosystem

reflects how the sales process benefits from being iterative, nonlinear, and more holistic.

From a service perspective, value is created in an interactive process between customers,

sellers, and other participants in B2B systems (Marcos Cuevas et al., 2016, p. 97). This

implies that businesses must enable processes that realizes, develops, and captures value

in various contexts. Marcos Cuevas et al. (2016, p. 100) describes one dimension of co-

creation, linking, which is about understanding and coordinating actors in the network to

share ideas, engage and organize information, which provides interesting insights from a

sales perspective on our study. Their study further highlights the importance of

interactions across levels in a customer-supplier relation to co-create value, which reflects

the increasingly servitizated marketplace and engagement with customers for sales forces

(Marcos Cuevas et al., 2016, p. 106).

12

With the modernized view of sales focusing more on co-creation, Hartmann et al. (2018,

p. 12) propose a framework that emphasizes how more actors are involved in the sales

process including other departments, firms, families, influencers, experts, and

government agencies. Thus, crossing points of information both within and outside the

organization occurs. These crossing points can include information regarding complex

descriptions, the customer, contact information but also the customer’s problems and

needs. Such information is often stored in a CRM tool. Having both humans and digital

systems involved in the sales process complexifies the crossing points (Hartmann et al.,

2018, p. 12), and it is important to not get lost of important information. The involvement

of different actors in the sales process will contribute to different types of communication,

meaning that communication can be both personal and impersonal depending on the actor

in the process. This comprehensive view of the sales process contributes to a wider view

of sales where Hartmann et al. (2018, p. 13-14) recommend companies to educate more

people in the firm in sales practices, to ensure that their employees understand the value

of the service and why customers buy it. Companies should also provide good tools and

processes for both communication and processing of customers.

2.1.4 Inside sales and sales development

Relating to the perspective of an ecosystem for sales, sales operations can be divided into

outside sales and inside sales, where outside sales include more face-to face interactions

in the sales process. Inside sales refers to remotely conducted sales using IT tools (e.g.,

telephone contact, e-mail communication, and the Web) without meeting face-to-face

with customers (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1026). Since the current study focuses on the sales

operations of a case company during a pandemic, with sales development of certain

interest, the inside sales force is expected to be of certain interest in the empirical

research.

The extant literature has acknowledged that inside sales personnel must be very adaptive

in their contact with both customers and prospects. They are often responsible for

customer relationship management (CRM) and developing the initial relation with

customers (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1026), reflecting an increased dependency on inside sales

in B2B selling (Arnett et al., 2021, p. 266; Ohiomah et al., 2020, p. 440). Within this

context, Sleep et al. (2020) has examined differences between roles and capabilities for

inside versus outside sales people, the impact of technology, and different configurations

for inside-outside sales forces. Their findings reveal that the inside sales role requires a

broader set of skills than outside sales, where inside sales must understand both verbal

and digital cues, deal with many rejections, and improve communications with customers.

The role also requires skills for team building, because inside salespeople work with

boundary-spanning activities (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1041). Their study also identified four

different configurations for inside-outside sales organizations: 1. Inbound sales/sales

support, 2. Sales development, 3. Team/hybrid, and 4. Discrete (Sleep et al., 2020, p.

1042), where the configuration with sales development is of uppermost interest for our

study.

In the sales development configuration, the inside sales force is responsible for the lead

generation (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1044). Thus, their main task is to identify qualified

prospects and hand them over to the outside sales force to enhance their productivity and

efficiency. To accomplish this, they take care of online customer inquiries, use outbound

techniques such as telephone and emails, and other tools such as LinkedIn and the Web

page to connect with prospective customers (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1044). The main benefit

13

with this configuration is that it is inexpensive and effective for generating new

customers, and it also leads to more selling time for the outside salespeople. When the

roles for inside and outside sales are clearly defined, the research by Sleep et al. (2020,

p. 1044) also describes how the transition of customers can become smoother, which

reduces conflicts and eases the process for the customer journey. Overall, the sales

process becomes much leaner.

The limitation for this configuration relates to the relations and communication between

inside and outside salespeople. If this is inefficient and not continuous, there is a risk for

low information sharing which can lead to high rejection rates by prospects (Sleep et al.,

2020, p. 1044). Further, if not enough investments are put into training the inside sales

personnel, the overall lead qualification can become inconsistent. The study also

indicated that more younger and inexperienced people were hired for this role, which had

a connection to turnover problems (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1044). They also pointed out that

the performance of inside salespeople in sales development should not focus on

behavioral outcomes such as calls made, since it can reduce task autonomy (Sleep et al.,

2020, p. 1051). Instead, companies should encourage more creative selling and customer-

centric approaches for the inside salesforce and define possible career opportunities to

reduce eventual turnover problems. One other approach is to pair new inside salespeople

with experienced outside salespeople to give them a solid understanding for the products

and customers (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1052). With this in mind, the sales development

configuration can according to Sleep et al. (2020, p. 1051) be beneficial in a certain

context:

“For example, firms that rely heavily on online leads or cold-calling should

consider a sales development configuration that uses the inside sales force to qualify

prospects before handing them off to the outside sales force, thus reducing wasted time

on bad leads for outside salespeople.“

2.1.5 Internet of Things

Since we are focusing on the solutions for Internet of Things (IoT), within our case

company, we want to dive into the research field of IoT, its usage, and how it could be

approached from a sales perspective. The emerging field of IoT creates new business

opportunities for companies who have the resources to seize and develop these kinds of

services and products (Cong et al., 2021). Typically, IoT solutions will combine physical

things with IT that is either hardware or software (Wortmann & Flüchter, 2015, p. 222).

To handle the connected “things”, an IoT platform is also needed to be able to manage

the physical things remotely, where the choice of IoT platform is a challenge for

companies who are offering connected products (Wortmann & Flüchter, 2015, p. 223).

As described in chapter 1.1.2, the case company primarily offers connectivity through

SIM-cards, and has a partner providing the IoT platform. The IoT technologies can further

be grouped into numerous domains, for example smart transport, health, logistics,

security systems, and energy (Čolaković & Hadžialić, 2018; Wortmann & Flüchter,

2015), reflecting how it can be applied in a variety of industries.

Lee et al. (2017, p. 1058) points out that the academic studies on IoT are few, and that

there are many aspects that need to be covered in future research. We have found that the

existing research on IoT has centered around its meaning and technology (Cero et al.,

2017), applications and possibilities (Cong et al., 2021), and risks, but there is to our

knowledge no sales literature focusing on the specifics of IoT in a seller or buyer situation

14

or process. Since we are focusing on that perspective, we will explore the general B2B

sales research field to increase our understanding of IoT from a sales process perspective.

Within the sales ecosystem, selling IoT creates a new context that requires an extensive

understanding of the buyer behavior. Robinson et al. (1967) introduced the “Buygrid

Framework” as a generic conceptual model for procurement processes in organizations

and categorized the buying situation as three situations: new task, modified rebuy, and

straight rebuy.

We argue that the novelty, complexity, and durability of IoT means that it can be

classified as a new task situation for buyers. This situation means that buying

organizations will have a high need for information whilst they will actively consider

alternative suppliers (Robinson et al., 1967, p. 25). The fact that the sales cycles in B2B

and IoT tend to be long can therefore be understood from the novelty and complexity of

the products and services, resulting in a high need for information which requires

intensive communication between the seller and buyer before a deal is closed. In a new

buying situation, the selling organization must develop an understanding for the buying

organization's structure, needs and problems through continuous interactions which can

facilitate a relationship selling approach (Moncrief & Marshall, 2005, p. 17). In the

context of B2B selling, companies often deal with fewer potential customers because of

larger purchases (Syam & Sharma, 2018, p. 142), which is also the case for our case

company when selling IoT. In line with increasing customer demands and competition,

the selling organization must consequently be flexible and adaptable to the individual

customer to be successful. In the B2B market, Marcos Cuevas (2018, p. 106) further

argues for the importance of alignment of the sales force and other functions to enable a

proactive and collaborative approach towards customers to fully understand their needs,

reflecting the previously mentioned shift from “selling” to “co-creating value”. To further

explore how companies can identify and interact with potential and existing customers,

our next chapter will focus on customer acquisition practices and explore whether there

are any specific challenges that could occur in these processes.

2.2 Customer acquisition practices

In a B2B context, the development of leads and customer acquisition practices are central

to increase the performance of the company (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 182). In a

growing market like IoT, Ang & Buttle (2006, p. 297) also points out the strategic

importance of aggregating the market size by prioritizing customer acquisition, which is

a key area for both sales and marketing departments. Since the telecommunications sector

is characterized by high and increasing competition, Espadinha-Cruz et al. (2021, p. 1)

acknowledge that increased market share or service and product innovation are common

ways to achieve competitive advantage and attract customers. Within the research field

of customer acquisition, lead generation and lead management are two other important

and interrelated areas to work with (see e.g., Ang & Buttle, 2006, D’Haen & Van den

Poel, 2013; Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021). A lead is a potential customer who has formally

expressed an interest in the company’s offerings (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p. 2). Two

challenges with B2B customer engagement are to find the right decision maker in the

company, but also finding the right type of customer through prospecting, also called lead

generation (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 181). Thus, the first step of the sales process

includes identifying and attracting leads through lead generation to create a sales

pipeline.

15

2.2.1 The Sales Funnel/Pipeline

As previously mentioned, for the purpose of this study we are focusing on the first three

steps of the sales process: prospecting/lead generation, pre-approach and approach. The

overall objective of these steps is to find and attract new qualified leads that can be

converted to customers. The sales process has also been illustrated as a funnel (or

pipeline), but also as a customer acquisition funnel, where each step in the process is

narrowed among the funnel (Syam & Sharma, 2018, p. 142; Paschen et al., 2020, p. 404).

Based on the case company and how they are trying to widen their pipeline we will

discuss this view further on. To better understand why the sales funnel or pipeline are of

interest, there are some things to highlight. Sales are together with marketing responsible

for bringing revenue into the company (Patterson, 2007, p. 185), where revenue is the

result of:

[Rev=Pipeline Opportunities × Average Deal × Win Rate) / Cycle Time) × Sellers]

This equation outlines the number of opportunities in the pipeline, multiplied by the

average deal size, multiplied by the win rate, this product is divided by the sales cycle

time and thereafter multiplied by the number of sellers within the firm (Patterson, 2007,

p. 185). A small increase in one of these variables can have a huge impact on the revenue

stream for a company. Thus, increasing the number of opportunities in the pipeline and

the average deal size will contribute to increased revenue. Therefore, the focus of the

thesis will pay attention to these two parameters: increasing the number of opportunities

with higher average deal size.

Sleep et al. (2020, p. 1044) recommends that companies with large deals have people

dedicated to lead generation, lead qualification and information search in order for the

salespeople to focus on activities that directly will bring revenues to the company.

Furthermore, the sales funnel has been illustrated differently among scholars where the

positioning of prospect and lead in the funnel is something that differs (D’Haen & Van

den Poel, 2013, p. 545; Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 166). However, these different

models of the sales funnel all illustrate the different steps in the seven steps selling

process. We will use the illustration by D’Haen & Van den Poel (2013, p. 545) in our

research, because it most accurately reflects the process described by our case company

(see figure 3).

Figure 3. The sales funnel (D’Haen & Van den Poel, 2013, p. 545)

16

The darker parts of the model illustrate the current sales funnel at Tele2 IoT, where the

beginning of the funnel is a list of suspects. Suspects are potential customers who may be

interested in the products and services that the company offers, but do not consist of

existing customers (D’Haen & Van den Poel, 2013, p. 545). Once the suspect is identified,

processing is required to see which ones might be interesting for the company to proceed

with. A new list is created with prospects. Prospects refers to potential customers that

meet certain criteria that the company searches for. The next step is to qualify these

prospects to leads, by assessing their propensity to buy through scoring them based on

certain criteria and characteristics (Paschen et al., 2020, p. 406). They will be contacted

by the company and those who are interested will be moved forward in the sales process

and hopefully become customers. D’Haen & Van den Poel (2013, p. 545) are pointing at

the process as iterative, meaning that companies need to go back and forth between the

steps of the sales funnel. This helps to improve the whole sales process, for instance

potential customers that are not ready to move forward in the process today can be ready

later, but also learning from each step in the process will help improve the quality of the

process. According to Cue (2004, p. 67) the conversion rate from prospects to leads is on

average 10 % and decreases to 1-5 % when it comes to converting a lead to a customer.

The lighter parts in the pipeline illustrate the purpose of our thesis, to provide insights

regarding how to widen the pipeline while selling a complex product or service in a highly

competitive industry.

2.2.2 Lead generation

It is important to distinguish between lead generation and lead management to understand

the different processes and responsibilities that exist within companies. Lead generation

is one of the first stage in the process of customer acquisition, and can be described as the

following:

“Lead generation describes the marketing process of engaging and capturing interest

in a product or service for the purpose of developing a sales pipeline and ultimately

gaining new customers.” (Rothman, 2014, p. 10)

Different departments are involved in the lead generation process, but it is mainly the

focus for marketing and sales personnel (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 183).

Consequently, the literature usually divides leads in two categories: marketing-generated

leads or self-generated leads. Marketing-generated leads are a result of activities

conducted by the marketing department, such as advertisement, events, webinars, blogs

and articles. Self-generated leads refer to leads that have been generated by salespeople

themselves through for example sibling search or cold calls (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 53).

Leads can also be described as hot or cold, reflecting where they are in the sales funnel.

When a lead is qualified through the funnel, they become warmer and more ready to buy.

For lead generation purposes, the distinction between inbound and outbound leads is also

important to understand. An outbound lead has been approached by for example a

salesperson through outbound activities such as cold calls and emails (Sleep et al., 2020,

p. 1044). Inbound leads can be generated through marketing activities such as campaigns,

events, social media, and web activities. The main difference between inbound and

outbound leads is that inbound leads are warmer and have an interest in the company

offerings, whilst an outbound lead has often not interacted with the company before.

17

The ideal customer profile and Social CRM

One suggested way to improve conversion of leads into customers is to focus on

managing the lead qualification process (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p. 3), where one

main issue is to identify when and which lead should be contacted. This requires a great

understanding for the buyers, their purchasing process, and their specific needs. For

example, Inyang & Jaramillo (2020, p. 616) describes how a shared view on the “ideal

customer profile” can improve the sales performance by targeting the right leads. This

profile should be developed by the sales managers and communicated within the whole

sales team to facilitate both lead generation, but also managing the leads.

Another way to improve the lead generation practices is to adopt a social CRM strategy,

which relates to the approach for social selling described in 3.1.x. By utilizing social

media tools such as LinkedIn and Twitter to find information and communicate with

prospective customers, it becomes easier for salespeople to qualify and find the ideal

customer (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 187). The adoption of social CRM can improve

the first step of the mentioned sales process relating to prospecting, since it can provide

companies with exhaustive information about potential customers, identify the right

decision maker, and let salespeople share information about their solutions. B2B

organizations that want to implement a social CRM strategy should focus on four primary

aspects. First, they need to identify where their interactions with clients can be improved

(Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 188). As an example, the creation of white papers on

important topics that are published on the company website is one way to create interest

and get prospects interested in the company's solutions. Secondly, organizations need to

focus on how they communicate, which can include both push and pull strategies. For

this purpose, webinars are presented as a way to share ideas and create interactive

conversation with prospects (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 188). Third, prospects can

be engaged in conversations via blogs, which requires regular postings. Finally, the

organizations need to use various social media tools and grow their community online.

This can be accomplished through looking at what existing customers are doing in social

media - where are they active?

Conclusively, the focus of social CRM is to utilize tools such as webinars, blogs,

LinkedIn and Twitter to engage customers, but it is equally important to integrate the

social CRM practices into the existing CRM workflow (Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p.

190). Further, Moore et al. (2015, p. 17) declare that when adopting tools for social CRM,

sales managers should assess which tools are most appropriate for the sales process and

other tasks related to the job. For example, the potential return on investment (ROI) from

different tools should be estimated. Here, the conversations on social media need to be

interesting for buyers to generate higher ROI. It is also suggested that the use of social

media should be incorporated in salespeople's education (Moore et al., 2015, p. 17), to

ensure that they can effectively apply it in their workflow.

2.2.3 Lead management

To efficiently process the generated leads, companies also need an adequate strategy for

managing them, where lead management has been approached as an innovative strategy

in recent years (D’Haen et al., 2016; Sabnis et al., 2013). The overall aim with lead

management is to systematically register and process information about leads and

estimate their probability to convert into customers (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p. 3).

Despite the obvious importance of lead management, the challenge of knowing how to

contact which lead in the right way at a proper time remains (Ohiomah et al., 2019, p.

18

164), reflecting ineffectiveness in the lead management process which can result in the

loss of potentially valuable customers (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p. 1). Since the

purpose of the current study is to deliver insights to the case-company on how their lead

process can be improved, this research area is important to consider.

When a lead has been generated, they are supposed to be managed and converted to

customers through the sales funnel. In the process of lead management, information about

leads is processed in different systems, for example in Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) systems. Organizations can utilize CRM to for example track

campaigns, manage leads and opportunities, and handle customers’ issues (Rodriguez &

Peterson, 2012, p. 184). Documenting information about the leads is vital for the sales

process, where both the quantity and quality of information in a lead can be used to

estimate the probability for conversion into a customer (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p.

3; Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 184). Interestingly, research within the field of

customer acquisition acknowledges that a dedicated budget for the task is a key to

success, whilst CRM technologies for the purpose of lead management is not associated

with excellence (Ang & Buttle, 2006, p. 310). Furthermore, traditional CRM systems do

not assist either sales or marketing with the most important step - lead generation

(Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 184).

Scholars have further identified various reasons for the problems with lead management,

such as slow identification of which leads to contact, not knowing how to meet their

demands (Espadinha-Cruz et al., 2021, p. 2), and complaints over the quality of

marketing-generated leads from sales representatives (D’Haen et al., 2016, p. 69; Oliva,

2006, p. 397; Patterson, 2007, p. 186). This reflects how both marketing and sales can

blame each other for either low quality of leads, or insufficient follow-up and contact

with the generated leads, which has consequences for both their separated and joined

performance and metrics. Hence, when leads are not carefully and timely managed, the

efforts made by marketing for lead generation becomes worthless (Ohiomah et al., 2019,

p. 163). When leads are managed properly, they can become qualified leads, be pursued

by sales representatives, and ultimately converted into customers.

2.2.4 The sales lead black hole

Ineffective practices for lead management can lead to different problems in the sales

process, such as low quality and/or hit rate for generated leads. Past studies have for

example revealed that B2B firms spend a lot of money on marketing activities to gain

information about prospective customers, but these are not followed up by sales

representatives in a satisfying way (Malshe et al., 2017; Sabnis et al., 2013, Van der Borgh

et al., 2020). This phenomenon is referred to as the “sales lead black hole” (Sabnis et al.,

2013, p. 52) which reflects a lacking follow-up on leads that have been generated by

marketing. This black hole has several implications on the sales process and lead

management in businesses, which often results in lost opportunities and inefficient

marketing and sales efforts.

Previous studies have identified various drivers for this phenomenon such as different

goals, motivations, and abilities (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 54), inadequate leadership

(Malshe et al., 2017, p. 155) and lack of communication (Malshe, 2011, p. 49). Sabnis et

al. (2013, p. 54) further describes how different time horizons and goals for marketing vs

sales results in different views on the attractiveness of leads. For example, a sales rep

often has more short-term focus and a quota of customers to fill, whilst marketing has a

19

more long-term perspective and tools to generate a large number of leads (Rouziès et al.,

2005, p. 115; Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 54). Another view is that deals are not closed because

of misalignment between the targeting efforts in relation to what the customers need (Van

der Borgh et al., 2020, p. 136). To synthesize why the sales lead black hole can emerge,

Sabnis et al. (2013) conclude that the time put into following up marketing-generated

leads is a function of the sales representatives’ motivation to pursue goals, opportunity,

and ability. Sales representatives are often responsible for lead follow-up for both self-

generated and marketing generated leads, whilst they have other responsibilities, resulting

in a lack of time (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 53), where they must prioritize what activities,

and which leads they spend their time on.

In their conceptual model, motivation can be either internal or external, where Sabnis et

al. (2013, p. 55) believe that the external motivation factors are of higher interest since

they can be influenced by the company through rewards, feedback etc. Lead

prequalification is an important process where marketing leads are screened and

discarded if they do not fulfill certain criteria. The responsibility for the prequalification

is usually in the marketing department (Van der Borgh et al., 2020, p. 141). If the quality

of leads is low, sales representatives are more likely to focus on their self-generated leads

(Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 55). The managerial tracking concerns how managers monitor the

follow-up on marketing leads and is seen as an extrinsic motivator. Opportunity related

to how many marketing-leads are handed over to sales, and ability relates to skills for

selling, experience, and market knowledge (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 56). Their study used

this model as a conceptual framework and provides interesting insights for the focus of

our thesis. Firstly, the sales rep’s perceptions on the quality of leads are individual, not

objective. According to Sabnis et al. (2013, p. 62), this is something future research in

sales could explore further. The higher the perceived quality is, the better is the follow-

up on marketing leads. Further, managerial tracking has a negative interaction effect with

experience. If sales representatives are experienced and monitored, they will focus less

on lead management and more on customer retention. Focusing on opportunity and

ability, the results show that a sales rep with more experience that gets a large volume of

marketing leads will spend less time on these leads, and more time on the self-generated

leads (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 63). To reduce the sales lead black hole, they conclude by

suggesting that companies could focus on more cooperation that considers the individual

abilities for sales representatives and develop both the marketing and sales processes.

In contrast to Sabnis et al.’s (2013) view on B2B selling, Van der Borgh et al. (2020, p.

137) conclude that existing research of the sales lead black hole has neither validated its

existence, nor examined lead management process by accounting for more process related

outcomes such as speed (time for processing), or quality for marketing-generated leads.

Maybe sales representatives spend less time on marketing-leads than self-generated leads

because they take less time to process? This would mean that there is a balance in the

processed leads, making the perspective of time allocation misleading. The existence of

this problem might even be a perception problem, such as managers having unrealistic

targets for the follow-up. The targets need to be aligned with available resources (Van

der Borgh et al., 2020, p. 136).

For companies operating in a newer arena, such as IoT, we have found that studies on the

sales lead black hole is limited. Even if previous research has identified the reasons for

this black hole, the cooperation between sales and marketing is still a recurring

phenomenon that can be identified in a variety of industries (Malshe et al., 2017; Ohiomah

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et al., 2019). Previous research on the sales lead black hole (e.g., Sabnis et al., 2013), lead

generation and lead management (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016; Ohiomah et al., 2019)

describes the importance of cooperation between marketing and sales departments to

increase the conversion rate of leads into customers. To explore how a sales development

function can support cooperation and integration between these functions, we will

forwardly focus on studies related to this important relationship.

2.2.5 Sales-marketing integration

During the last decade, the alignment of sales and marketing has been a popular topic in

research, and various impediments, approaches and solutions to a successful integration

have been identified and suggested. Recent studies have also pointed out how sales and

marketing are integrated especially at the early stage of the sales funnel in a B2B context

(Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 167; Paschen et al., 2020, p. 406). However, the

integration continues to be a challenge for companies in various business settings (Arnett

et al., 2021, p. 265; Malshe et al., 2017, p. 154), which reflects the importance of

continuous research with new perspectives.

One of the first studies within the field of sales-marketing integration (SMI) was

published by Rouziès et al. (2005), who presented a conceptual framework for effectively

integrating the sales and marketing function through mechanisms related to structure,

systems/processes, culture, and people. Because of the novelty of the concept, Rouziès et

al. (2005, p. 115) also suggested a definition for Marketing–Sales integration: “the extent

to which the activities carried out by the two functions are supportive of each other”. This

definition has been mentioned by scholars such as Guenzi & Troilo (2006) who suggest

that the definition should also emphasize sharing of goals, resources, strategies, and plans

to cover different organizational levels in the integration. After these initial studies, the

focus on integration between sales and marketing activities has been widely researched

in various industries. Several impediments to a successful integration have been

identified, such as different mind-sets between the functional areas (Rouziès et al. (2005,

p. 114), internal communication (Arnett et al., 2021, p. 265; Le Meunier-FitzHugh et al.,

2011, p. 1168; Malshe et al., 2017, p. 147), subcultures (Beverland et al., 2006, p. 392),

and unaligned objectives. These factors can lead to three commonly experienced

dysfunctions between sales and marketing relating to: communication paucity, lack of

collaboration and interface conflict (Malshe et al., 2017, p. 147), which has a negative

impact on the sales process.

Different enablers for effective integration

There is no doubt that the interface between sales and marketing is crucial for businesses,

and many scholars have studied how it can be facilitated and coordinated in an efficacious

way. Rouziès et al. (2005, p. 115) argued that SMI needs to be viewed as a dynamic

process where marketing and sales can create more value by working together. In this

process, the functions need to support each other’s activities, be consistent, timely

coordinated, and congruent. To facilitate the integration, Guenzi & Troilo (2006, p. 983)

point out effective communication as a central node that stimulates other positive

outcomes (e.g., collaboration, sharing, effectiveness, and efficiency), whilst other

suggests customized approaches to address dysfunction experiences (Malshe et al., 2017,

p. 155). The support for coordination from managers from both marketing and sales is

also important to facilitate collaboration between the functions (Le Meunier-FitzHugh et

al., 2011, p. 1168), where Malshe (2011, p. 53) conclude that managers need to ensure

that both formal and informal communication channels are available, and that joint

21

activities and achievements are visible in the organization. Other frequently mentioned

enablers are the creation of shared vision and goals for marketing and sales, as well as

focusing on building a team spirit between the functions.

Despite the scholarly insights on how to harmonize SMI and the potential positive

outcomes, the integration is still problematic in real business-settings (Arnett et al., 2021,

p. 265; Malshe et al., 2017, p. 154). One explanation for this can be that previous studies

have failed to include the perspective of the employees when it comes to their experience

of the collaboration. It is suggested that organizational leaders must consider the holistic

dysfunction experience of marketers’ and salespeople to deal with SMI dysfunction and

develop customized approaches to handle these at an early stage (Malshe et al., 2017, p.

155). The study also raises how sales and marketing personnel respond differently to the

same dysfunction, which can lead to increased problems. Interestingly, this reflects how

potential dysfunctions do not always appear in a linear fashion which is similar to the

perspective on the development of sales processes discussed in the previous section.

Instead, Malshe et al. (2017, p. 156) argues for a more circular relationship that can be

addressed and managed at early stages, where managers can play a proactive role to

identify and reduce SMI dysfunctions.

Knowledge transfer

Recently, Arnett et al. (2021) have also argued for the managerial importance of

facilitating integration between different departments. To improve this integration,

scholars have studied tacit knowledge transfer - knowledge that is personal, context-

specific, and stored in the minds of individuals (Arnett et al., 2021, p. 259; Tanner et al.,

2005, p. 173). Knowledge can also be explicit, meaning that it can be more easily shared,

codified and stored in for example a CRM system.

In relation to the sales process and the integration of sales and marketing, much

information that is collected in the interactions with customers can be both tacit and

explicit. Both types of knowledge are important to create a holistic view on the customer

(Tanner et al., 2005, p. 173). However, Arnett et al. (2021) discusses how tacit knowledge

is rarely shared between individuals in organization. Tacit knowledge can be in the form

of a customer story, which is difficult to formalize and share. Salespeople need to interpret

and formalize this knowledge to document it in a CRM system, which has proven to be

challenging due to the context-specific nature of tacit knowledge, (Tanner et al., 2005, p.

173). Any technology is just as good as the knowledge that has been stored within it, and

sharing tacit knowledge will often rely on social interactions (Arnett et al., 2021, p. 259).

Here, the inside sales force can be used to capture more tacit knowledge by leveraging

their close work with outside sales and the marketing department (Arnett et al., 2021, p.

266). Managers could also consider promoting more cross-functional teams to stimulate

knowledge transfer and focus on delivering higher value to the customers. For example,

if a team would consist of both inside and outside salespeople, marketers, and other

relevant individuals with a common and specific goal, a higher level of communication

could be expected (Arnett et al., 2021, p. 266).

2.3 Approaches for reaching the customers

The previous research on sales, lead generation, lead management and SMI reflects the

prominent role of sales in generating and widening a pipeline of potential customers to

improve the performance of the company. Throughout this process, the marketing

department is for example responsible for creating and delivering relevant and timely

22

content to both prospective and existing customers. Relating to increasing digitalization,

Golec et al. (2019, p. 2) recognizes the potential benefit in a B2B setting, where

organizations who embrace mature technology and integrate it with their B2B marketing

can position themselves as leaders in their industries. The creation of content requires a

deep understanding of the customer and its needs, and the utilization of available

technology, which will be the focus of this chapter.

2.3.1 Digital content marketing

To effectively manage the lead generation process, it is crucial to understand how the

targeted customers will behave. There is to our knowledge no available information on

the characteristics of IoT buyers and their behavior within existing literature, so we will

focus on increasing our understanding for the general B2B customer instead. Järvinen &

Taiminen (2016, p. 164) describes how the internet is becoming more important for B2B

customers in their purchasing decision, which has led to a marketing paradigm called

“digital content marketing” (Holliman & Rowley, 2014, p. 275). In our study, we will use

the definition of content marketing described by Holliman & Rowley (2014, p. 285):

“B2B digital content marketing involves creating, distributing and sharing relevant,

compelling and timely content to engage customers at the appropriate point in their

buying consideration processes, such that it encourages them to convert to a business

building outcome”, which describes an inbound marketing tactic, also called pull

marketing. In the creation of content marketing, Järvinen & Taiminen (2016, p. 173)

provide evidence for how the content should target the customer’s specific needs and

focus on solving their problems. The focus should thus not be on promoting a specific

product or solution. Instead, companies should actively listen to their customers to

understand their needs and use the expertise from both marketers and subject specialists

to create high-quality content.

Marketing automation

Since B2B-customers are becoming more active online, it is further suggested that selling

companies should utilize marketing automation to work with behavioral targeting and

deliver personalized content to generate leads with higher quality (Järvinen & Taiminen,

p. 165). The primary goal of marketing automation is to gather behavioral, transactional,

and geographical data of clients, which is processed and analyzed (Pol, 2019, p. 77).

Marketing automation is further described as a process for segmenting potential

customers (Pol, 2019, p. 77), where personalized offers and messages that have been

prepared by marketing for each segment are automatically sent (Heimbach et al., 2015,

p. 130). In section 3.2.2, we exemplified how current academia within lead generation

has identified how timing and identifying where customers are in their buying cycle is a

challenge in the lead generation process. Järvinen & Taiminen (2016, p. 173) addresses

this challenge by pointing out the possibilities with using IT tools to understand where

customers are in their buying process and target them with content based on their recent

activities online to move them further in the sales process. For example, social media can

be used to share and deliver content, and marketing automation, which involves a

software platform where users can set specific rules, can be used to deliver content to

customers (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 165).

2.3.2 A joint funnel for sales and marketing

According to Järvinen & Taiminen (2016, p. 164) it is also crucial to understand the role

of content marketing in B2B sales due to the conflicts between sales and marketing when

23

it comes to management and generating leads. Marketing automation is an IT tool, where

the vendors of software systems like e.g., Pardot, Silverpop and Marketo claim that their

program will assist companies in integrating their marketing and sales system interfaces

and ultimately improve their lead qualification. Scholarly findings also feature how

managers must understand that the tactics for content marketing and marketing

automation is a learning process that takes time, and possibly requires a cultural change

within the company (Holliman & Rowley, 2014, p. 286; Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p.

173). This learning process can be improved if marketers are encouraged to learn through

trial and error, which can be facilitated by education and a suitable leadership (Järvinen

& Taiminen, 2016, p. 173). It is thus important to understand that the adoption of these

tactics will require time and investments. Other insights are that automation requires

expertise in IT and data analytics, and that marketing employees should understand the

digital age and understand how it is incorporated in the B2B sales process.

Earlier, we described the sales funnel which depicts how a potential customer is converted

and qualified through the funnel into a deal. This concept has been developed with the

purpose of aligning marketing and sales systems through a joint funnel, which is seen as

a way to increase transparency and cooperation (Järvinen & Talminen, 2016, p. 173).

This funnel should not be a way to separately track either sales or marketing's

performance. Instead, managers should measure their joint performance to foster, not

hinder cooperation. The study by Järvinen & Taiminen (2016, p. 172) shows how

seamless cooperation between sales and marketing is important to successfully integrate

content marketing with the B2B sales process. This integration can be critical to the lead

qualification process and should include both IT integration between the sales and

marketing departments systems, collaborative planning, and functional alignment

(Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 172). This relates back to the sales lead black hole and

SMI; if marketing leads are not followed-up, the efforts put into content marketing to

produce leads would be in vain. The scholars acknowledge that this funnel is most

suitable in B2B with long sales cycles (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 173), which

corresponds to the characteristics of the case company in the current study. We will

therefore use this funnel as a guiding framework to understand how our case company is

working with different streams and processes for lead generation, including marketing

automation, inbound, and outbound tactics.

2.4 Synthesis

The objective of this chapter has been to examine relevant academic research for our field

of study. We have presented different theories, models, and concepts, which will guide

us in the empirical data collection, but also be utilized in the upcoming analysis of our

findings (chapter 6). The development of sales is changing in different interrelated

directions of the business. Some of the drivers for this change are technology

development, globalization, and increased customer demands (Moncrief, 2017, p. 273)

for information and value-oriented solutions (Marcos Cuevas et al., 2016, p. 97). These

changes in turn affect the sales process, cooperation and communication among different

departments in the companies, but also the need for an educated and experienced sales

force as a competitive advantage for businesses.

We have examined the early phase of the sales process referred to as customer acquisition,

which is a prerequisite for businesses to generate revenues and be profitable over time

(Patterson, 2007, p. 185). Within the sales process we have focused on studies on lead

generation, lead management and inside sales, which are three central phenomena

24

focusing on generating potential customers and managing them in an adequate way.

Previous studies have provided insights on challenges in the qualification process of leads

(Ohiomah et al., 2019; Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012), which is of high relevance for our

study. We want to explore if our case company is experiencing these challenges and focus

on how they can be handled. For example, scholars describe that sales-marketing

integration and the collaboration between these departments is a necessity for effective

lead generation (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016). One key priority for both sales and

marketing is to identify relevant and interesting leads, where one crucial aspect is the

capability of targeting and connecting with these customers in an effective and adequate

way (Van der Borgh et al., 2020, p. 136). Furthermore, the increasing use of digital tools

(Wengler et al., 2021), and value-driven view on the ecosystem of sales (Hartmann,

2018), has led to salient changes in the B2B market, with implications on buyer-supplier

interactions. For example, understanding the customer’s need before contact is initiated

(Rapp et al., 2014, p. 24), and utilizing social media (Ancillai et al., 2019), are elements

that will be important to explore in the future course of our study. Aligning with the

purpose of our study, insights from these previous studies can guide us in providing

recommendations on how companies can improve their sales performance through lead

generation and specifically, a sales development configuration for Tele2 IoT.

25

3. Methodology This chapter begins with an introduction of the author's choice of topic and pre-

understanding of the research area, followed by our guiding philosophical assumptions

for the study, and justifications for our methodological choices. A description over the

literature search and review process is provided, including a critical reflection for the

processed sources, and an overview for the study’s achievement of eight quality criteria.

Thereafter, we focus on our choices for the data collection, sampling method, selection

of respondents, preparation, and execution of interviews. We present how the collected

data was handled and which method for data analysis was applied. The methodology

chapter is rounded off with a reflection over important ethical considerations.

3.1 Scientific methodology

In the following sections, we will describe which role we, as researchers, will have on the

current study by reflecting on different alternatives for our methodological choices. We

want to once again acknowledge that this thesis is focusing on a specific case company,

which will be considered throughout this chapter.

3.1.1 Choice of topic and pre-understanding

The choice of sales development processes within the telecom industry, focusing on IoT

as our topic had different drivers. With our shared academic background from studying

M.Sc. in Business and Economics we have acquired comprehensive knowledge in the

field of business administration with a focus on service management, strategic

development, and behavioral science. Beyond this, we have professional experience from

working with customer value, business development and market analysis where one of

the authors has years of experience from the telecom industry. Our choice of topic has its

root in our curiosity and interest in the fast-moving environment of the telecom industry,

where flexibility and adaptability are important factors to deliver high value to customers.

At the same time, the digitalization in society is increasing at a tremendous speed, where

IoT will play an important role in the years to come. Saunders et al. (2016, p. 32) describes

the importance of choosing a topic that the authors have previous academic knowledge

from, whilst they should have a personal interest in the subject. We believe that our

interest for the industry, and our previous academic knowledge within business

administration will be useful to collect and interpret data related to processes and value-

creation, which are two important aspects that can contribute to the purpose of the study.

In the interface between respondents and the collected material, the researchers will

always contribute with a pre-understanding that includes opinions and perceptions about

what is being studied (Dalen, 2015, p. 179). It is therefore important to understand the

researchers’ potential impact before the empirical collection, to be able to identify and

reflect on what might have affected the study (Stenbacka, 2001, p. 553). In relation to

this, we want to acknowledge that one of the authors has been doing an internship at Tele2

within the business unit IoT and has acquired knowledge from their business operations

which can facilitate the understanding of the study. This can at the same time lead to

consequences, where it will be important to consider potential biases. We want to

acknowledge that both researchers are motivated by the topic itself and are not getting

any compensation for this study. The joint understanding and interest for the sales

process, IoT and the telecom industry has evolved during the development of this study,

26

where we have acquired knowledge from previous research and related trends to increase

our pre-understanding.

Furthermore, we need to consider our attitude and objectivity to the studied subject.

Digitalization, IoT and 5G are topics that are frequently mentioned in all industries as

possibilities for the future, whilst there are also discussions about concerns relating to for

example health and integrity. We are therefore motivated to shed light on existing

challenges and opportunities with selling IoT by utilizing the personal connection to a

prominent company within this sector, our case company. It is a prerequisite that we aim

for objectivity in the development of the study to ensure that it is based on a solid

theoretical background that will lead to an open-minded data collection and analysis. Our

goal is to provide Tele2 with fruitful insights to their internal process development and

generate new insights and recommendations for researchers and practitioners within the

industry.

3.1.2 Research paradigm

Paradigm is a well-used term in social science, which describes a set of the researcher’s

beliefs to create knowledge (Morgan, 2007, p. 50). The term paradigm has been used in

different settings and is an umbrella concept among researchers and can be explained as

shared belief systems among a community of researchers pointing at what knowledge

they search for and how they will interpret the results (Morgan, 2007, p. 50). The two

main branches of paradigms within research are called ontology and epistemology, which

guides methodological choices, research strategy, data collection and analysis methods

(Saunders et al., 2016, p. 125). The ontological and epistemological assumptions will thus

have an impact on the studied subject, the view of theories, and the methods used (Marsh

& Furlong, 2002, p. 17). In the context of our study, we are examining a case company

that will include comprehensive empirical material, which is important to consider when

adopting one of these paradigms.

Ontological standing

Saunders et al. (2016, p. 125) describes ontology as a researcher's view on the nature of

being and existence, which relates to social phenomena. Within ontology there are two

different perspectives called objectivism and constructionism (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p.

52-53). These perspectives can be seen as two extremes on a continuum between each

other (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 96), where Marsh and Furlong (2002, p. 18) explain the

objective side of ontology as the social reality that exists independently of people’s

knowledge about it. Saunders et al. (2016, p. 128) point out how the reality from an

objectivist worldview is not affected by social constructions or the environment, and

therefore the perception of reality will not differ between individuals. Constructionism

on the other hand, refers to a reality that exists in each actor’s mind and actions, resulting

in different and individual perceptions of the reality (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 53). In our

study, we argue that constructivism is an adequate ontological viewpoint that allows us

to focus on different individual perspectives to answer our research question. Scholars

have acknowledged that quality perceptions about leads in the sales processes are often

individual rather than objective (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 62), which reflects the importance

of subjective and individual experiences. The reality for the studied case company will

undoubtedly reflect a socially constructed reality, where we expect the respondents to

share their own voice. Therefore, we believe that the respondents will provide us with

subjective answers that we must interpret, which can be supported by adopting a

constructivist perspective.

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Epistemological standing

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that concerns knowledge, including what is to

be regarded as knowledge, and what characterizes acceptable knowledge (Collis &

Hussey, 2014, p. 47). Within epistemology, one can have two different views: positivism

or interpretivism (Bryman & Bell, 2017, pp. 47–49). Positivism is more of a scientific

method for examining social reality, where science must be regarded as objective, and

only phenomena that can be confirmed with the senses should be seen as real knowledge.

In positivism, the purpose with theory is to develop hypotheses that can be tested and

provide explanations (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 47). In contrast to this view, interpretivism

is about interpretations to capture the subjective meaning provided by social actions,

where one wants to take into account the study objects and understanding of the social

sciences for human behavior, instead of trying to explain how science affects humans’

actions (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 49). Consequently, findings in an interpretivist study is

usually based on qualitative research data, whilst positivism tends to produce more

objective and quantitative data (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 50). In this study, we will adopt

an interpretivist view on knowledge where we will interpret the collected data to gain

insights from the study objects. Further, the interpretivist perspective fits the study well

because our interpretations of the empirical data will be subjective and aim to understand

how different perspectives and experiences can influence the process development for

lead generation.

3.1.3 Research approach

Another important consideration is the relation between theory and practice, which can

be described from two main approaches: deduction and induction. In deductive research,

a study is developed based on conceptual and theoretical structure, and then tested by

using empirical observations (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 7). The deductive approach is

the most common view on the relation between theory and practice (Bryman & Bell,

2017, p. 42). In an inductive approach, theory is formulated on the basis of empirical

results where a set of observations of the reality is used to develop general inferences

(Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 7). In contrast to deductive research where theory is tested,

inductive research creates theory based on the result of collected data (Bryman & Bell,

2017, p. 45). According to Kvale & Brinkmann (2014, p. 238), qualitative research is

often inductive because researchers approach their subject without pre-existing ideas to

test. The two approaches can also be combined, creating an abductive approach where

the researcher moves back and forth between an inductive and deductive approach

(Saunders et al., 2016, p. 148). This means that information is used to explore a

phenomenon, identify themes and explain patterns, which can result in the creation of

new theories or change existing theories (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 152).

The purpose of this study is to develop recommendations for how the case company can

work with sales development to widen their pipeline and improve the sales performance.

There is no previous research on this within the context of sales development and IoT

solutions, which means that we will produce new knowledge in line with a mainly

inductive research approach. Since the nature of the study is exploratory, meaning that

we are not testing existing theories or working with hypotheses, a pure deductive

approach can be excluded. However, the study uses a theoretical framework as a

foundation for the data collection and analysis, so our approach will contain components

of deductive logic as well.

28

3.1.4 Research design and strategy

Following our chosen research paradigm with a constructivist view on the world, and an

interpretivist perspective on knowledge, we will now focus on the design of our study

which is closely linked to these assumptions (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 59). The research

design requires alignment with the purpose and research question, as it will ultimately

guide the methods for planning, conducting, and analyzing the empirical data. In line with

an interpretivist perspective, case studies are a commonly used method. One type of case

study is the exploratory case studies, which can for example be conducted if there is

deficient knowledge within the studied research field (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 68).

Relating to our study, we argue for how an exploratory case study is a suitable research

design. Firstly, we are focusing on a specific department within a company, where the

case setting was described in chapter 2. To properly answer the research question and

fulfil the purpose of the study, we need to understand every aspect of their operations in-

depth, which will require a more exploratory approach. Secondly, as described in the

theoretical framework, scholars have argued for the need for more research within the

sales process, with specific focus on lead management processes (Van der Borgh et al.,

2020, p. 137), and inside sales (Arnett, 2021; Ohiomah et al., 2019; Sleep et al., 2020),

reflecting the need for more exploratory studies. As an example was the existence of the

sales lead black hole explicitly confirmed for the first time as recently as 2020 by Van

der Borgh et al.

The research strategy is a plan for how the researchers will work to answer the stated

research questions (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 177). This means that the research strategy

defines how data will be collected where Collis & Hussey (2014, p. 52) present the

quantitative and qualitative method. Edling & Hedström (2003, p. 11) differentiate

between the methods by pointing out how the qualitative method provides more in-depth

information but with fewer observations, while the quantitative method is based on more

research objects but not as nuanced information. Collis & Hussey (2014, p. 52) further

describes the quantitative method as numerical, which is mainly used in positivist studies.

Edling & Hedström (2003, p. 11) mention the advantages of the quantitative method,

where one is its generalizability which contributes to results that are easier to

communicate to a wider audience. Ahrne & Svensson (2015, pp. 11–12) criticize the

quantitative approach by pointing at the difficulties of describing interactions, feelings,

and experiences in quantities, which indicates that it might not be an applicable strategy

for us given our inductive and exploratory study.

The qualitative method on the other hand uses words and images to describe phenomena

(Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 52), where Merriam (2015, p. 128) explains that the intention

of qualitative research is to understand how people interpret their lives and experiences.

The researcher mentions that qualitative studies explain how people construct meaning,

to uncover and identify a phenomenon of interest. Previous scholars studying IoT have

for example suggested that qualitative methodologies are necessary to expand the

understanding of the topic from a social science and business perspective (Lee et al.,

2017, p. 1065). Ahrne & Svensson (2015, p. 9) further describe qualitative methods as

the overall concept for observations, interviews and analysis of such material that is not

intended to be analyzed through quantifications and numerical data. Qualitative data

analysis based on qualitative data is a commonly used method within the interpretivist

perspective (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 47), where the main criticism is that these results

are usually not generalizable because they are rarely derived from probability selection

(Fejes & Thornberg, 2019, p. 287). Cronbach (1975, p. 124), on the other hand, has

29

responded to this critique by describing how social phenomena are too complex to be

generalized due to their constant change. Ahrne & Svensson (2015, p. 12) also support

the qualitative method by describing how it has contributed to the development of social

science research by becoming more nuanced as a result of setting different norms and

values in a context. To assess qualitative research, Tracy (2010) has developed a

conceptual model for connecting qualitative research’s means (methods and activities)

with its end goals, to increase the understanding for qualitative research and, in our view,

address the critique of its low generalizability by focusing on other more flexible

evaluation criteria.

For this study, we have decided on a qualitative approach both based on the interpretivist

research paradigm, but also because an exploratory study within a case company can be

considered difficult to quantify. The possible unfavorable effect of the qualitative

approach is thus that the result can be considered context dependent, making the results

difficult to apply to a wider mass, which needs to be considered. Conclusively, since our

study focuses on how Tele2 IoT can improve their lead generation process to widen their

sales pipeline, we will conduct an exploratory study with a qualitative approach.

Table 1. Research paradigms and approaches

Methodological choices Our perspective

Epistemological standing Interpretivism

Ontological standing Constructivism

Research approach Inductive

Research strategy Qualitative

Research design Exploratory

3.1.5 Literature search and source criticism

To understand what previous research has examined within the focus of this thesis, a

literature search has been conducted. According to Saunders et al. (2016, p. 104), research

questions within a more unexplored research area will often require a wider search than

more examined and documented areas. Since our topic is not extensively explored, we

have therefore studied several different areas that relate to our research purpose and

question. We have searched for literature within the field of sales processes, customer

acquisition, sales-marketing integration, digital transformation, IoT, and content

marketing. We have mainly used databases provided by Umea's university library's search

service, EBSCO host and via Google Scholar. The search has been systematically

executed based on guidelines from Collis & Hussey (2014, p. 77) where we identified our

topic, created relevant keywords, localized useful articles, and scanned the reference list

to find original sources for important concepts and definitions. The literature search has

been ongoing during the creation of this thesis, where we started searching for keywords

of lead generation, sales development, sales lead black hole, and process development.

However, these keywords did not provide us with the necessary information required to

support the focus of the study, so we had to expand our search. We explored the reference

30

lists from the most relevant articles to find additional material and previous studies in

relevant areas. We then chose to do an extended search by using the keywords: sales

process, sales-marketing integration, inside sales, sales ecosystem, lead management,

and marketing automation resulting in a more comprehensive theoretical framework to

support our purpose.

Throughout this process, we have critically examined each source to review whether they

fulfil the four important criteria for source criticism described by Thurén & Werner (2019,

p. 12): authenticity, independence, time, and tendency. To be selective in our literature

research and find adequate and relevant literature, we have almost exclusively used peer-

reviewed articles and primary sources to ensure that our contributions will be of high

academic standard. This relates to the criteria for authenticity and independence, where

the sources we have chosen to use have been publicly recognized and published. Due to

restricted access to older primary sources, we have done a few exceptions and used

secondary sources to describe certain phenomena. We have also examined the timing of

the research versus publication and strived to use recently published sources to ensure

that their contributions are still valid for the context of our study, relating to the criteria

of time. In the methodology chapter we have further used the latest editions of relevant

literature and course literature that has been available at the library for Umeå University,

to support our research perspective and methodological choices. To our knowledge, the

scholarly produced articles and literature used in this study do not include any biases and

should therefore fulfil the criteria for tendency.

3.1.6 Quality criteria

A qualitative and inductive research approach in line with an interpretivist view on

knowledge will result in context-specific and subjective knowledge. It is thus important

to consider the quality of the research to understand and assess its validity. To ensure that

the research covers relevant truth criteria for qualitative research, trustworthiness and

authenticity are mentioned as two fundamental criteria (Lincoln and Guba, 1985 & 1994;

cited in Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 380). To consider the quality of our study, we will use

the “Eight Big-tent” criteria for Excellent Qualitative Research as presented by Tracy

(2010). The framework is a conceptualization of common markers that can be used to

assess qualitative research independent of which paradigm or methods are used (Tracy,

2010, p. 839).

The criteria within this model are worthy topic, rich rigor, sincerity, credibility,

resonance, significant contribution, ethical, and meaningful coherence. In table 2, we

conclude how each of these criteria have been fulfilled in this study. Following on from

this table, we will explain the data collection method in chapter 4.2 to be transparent about

our procedures and fulfil the quality criteria for sincerity.

31

Table 2. Overview for how we are achieving the Eight Big Tent Criteria for Excellent

Qualitative research as presented by Tracy (2010, p. 840).

Criteria for

quality (end

goal)

Various means, practices,

and methods through

which to achieve

How it was achieved in this

study

Worthy topic The topic of the research is

• Relevant

• Timely

• Significant

• Interesting

The topic of this study is relevant

from a societal and organizational

perspective. The empirical case

company provides services in support

of an increasing digitization in

society, where IoT is a popular, but

also questioned and debated topic.

Further, the case reflects how an

increasingly complex context for

interactions between company and

customer has been affected by the

ongoing pandemic, reflecting the

timeliness of this study.

Rich rigor The study uses sufficient,

abundant, appropriate, and

complex

• Theoretical constructs

• Data and time in the field

• Sample(s)

• Context(s)

• Data collection and

analysis processes

This thesis encompasses sales and

marketing research, more specifically

customer acquisition, the sales funnel,

and content marketing, to examine

improvements for lead generation

practices.

By using an exploratory research

design focusing on a specific case

company, we will gather empirical

data through semi-structured

interviews.

In the following chapter, we will

provide a comprehensive

understanding of our data collection

method and analysis process for the

data.

Sincerity The study is characterized by

• Self-reflexivity about

subjective values, biases,

and inclinations of the

researcher(s)

• Transparency about the

methods and challenges

We have provided an outline of the

researcher’s pre-understanding,

perspectives and potential biases.

An explanation of the data

collection method will be provided.

The limitations and challenges in the

research will be accounted for.

Credibility The research is marked by

• Thick description, concrete

detail, explication of tacit

(nontextual) knowledge,

and showing rather than

telling

Primary data will be used for the

purpose of this study.

The empirical chapter will include

direct quotes from numerous

respondents and be presented in a

story telling way to let the reader get

a deep understanding of the study

context and the respondents.

32

• Triangulation or

crystallization

• Multivocality

• Member reflections

During the analysis, we will make

clarifications about the empirical data

with interviewed contacts from the

case company if needed.

Resonance The research influences,

affects, or moves particular

readers or a variety of

audiences through

• Aesthetic, evocative

representation

• Naturalistic

generalizations

• Transferable findings

We will strive to present the

empirical data in a detailed, engaging,

and evocative manner.

This will include considerations

about structure, layout, and use of

illustrative tables and figures.

We will provide useful managerial

and empirical implications

Significant

contribution

The research provides a

significant contribution

• Conceptually/theoretically

• Practically

• Morally

• Methodologically

• Heuristically

This study will make theoretical

contributions.

This study will make managerial

and empirical contributions.

Our findings will provide direction

for future research.

Ethical The research considers

• Procedural ethics (such as

human subjects)

• Situational and culturally

specific ethics

• Relational ethics

• Exiting ethics (leaving the

scene and sharing the

research)

Permission to record the interviews

will be asked to all respondents.

Informed consent and

confidentiality will be communicated

to all respondents.

Possibly confidential and classified

information about the case company

has been carefully handled and not

disclosed.

The empirical data will be handled

and communicated with care and

respect.

The results will be shared openly

with the respondents and case

company.

Meaningful

coherence

The study

• Achieves what it purports

to be about

• Uses methods and

procedures that fit its

stated goals

• Meaningfully

interconnects literature,

research questions/foci,

findings, and

interpretations with each

other

The study will provide an answer to

the stated research question, and

strive to fulfill the stated purpose.

Through careful considerations and

prioritizations, we will make every

effort to ensure that the purpose and

research question of this study are

linked to the theoretical framework,

the methodology, empirical findings,

analysis and conclusions.

33

3.2 Practical methodology

In the following sections, we will present and argue for our chosen data collection

method. We will further discuss other methods that can be suitable for qualitative research

and compare our choice to methods applied by previous research. We will further describe

our interview structure and account for our sampling strategy. In addition, we will present

and reflect on the chosen analytical procedure for our collected data and present our

ethical considerations within our study context.

3.2.1 Qualitative data collection method

To fulfil the study’s purpose, it is important that the chosen data collection method is in

congruence with the overall research strategy and provides relevant data to answer the

research question. In line with an interpretative view to develop in-depth knowledge

(Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 133) and our earlier methodological standpoints, we have

chosen interviews as the method for our data collection. Interviews is a popular method

within qualitative research (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 451), and is commonly seen as an

effective method for exploring how respondents think, act, or feel (Alvehus, 2019, p.

85). The primary critique against qualitative methods relates to the limitations for

generalizing the findings (Fejes & Thornberg, 2019, p. 287). However, qualitative

research should not be assessed in the same way as quantitative research (Tracy, 2010),

where we have decided to apply specific quality criteria for qualitative research, as was

demonstrated in section 3.1.6.

Besides interviews, methods like observations, participating observations, and surveys

are commonly used to collect data in qualitative research. Observations mean that the

researcher systematically observes, interprets, and analyzes human behavior (Saunders et

al., 2016, 354). Since we are focusing on experiences and perspectives within the case

company on for example collaboration, observations could be a possible alternative.

However, we have neither the time or skills required to prepare and realize such a method

for data collection. Further, solely conducting observations would not aid us in creating

an in-depth understanding for the study object and would therefore need to be combined

with other methods. Surveys are an appropriate method when you have standardized

questions that the respondents will probably interpret in a similar way (Saunders et al.,

2016, p. 439). Surveys are often used to describe or explore a phenomenon. For example,

a survey can be suitable if you want to collect data on consumers' attitudes to IoT, but to

fully understand their attitude, the survey will probably need to be supplemented with

interviews. Hence, surveys could be an alternative in our study, but since our focus is on

exploring and understanding internal process development for lead generation, we believe

that we will need more in-depth information from our respondents, which is also in line

with our interpretivist view and in support of interviews as our method.

Interview structure

There are several structures for conducting an interview, which guides what types of

questions are used, and thus how the respondents might formulate their answer. In a

qualitative study, unstructured or semi-structured interviews are preferred, since it is

desirable to focus on different directions and adapt the conversation to the respondent

(Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 452). In an unstructured interview, the interviewer may for

example use one major question, or several questions related to themes (Bryman & Bell,

2017, p. 453), or the interviewer have not prepared questions before-and, they rather

emerge during the interview to resemble an ordinary conversation (Collis & Hussey,

34

2014, p. 133). In a semi-structured interview, the interviewer can use an open form, based

on themes with broader questions and ask follow-up questions (Alvehus, 2019, p. 87).

Based on information about the case company, and insights from our theoretical

framework, we have developed a presentiment for what we need to investigate to answer

the study’s research question. To interpret our respondents accurately, we must be able

to ask follow-up questions to elaborate on the respondents' answers. In addition, we have

some main themes that need to be processed during the interviews, which makes

unstructured interviews an inappropriate research method. Interviews can also be

structured, which means that the questions are standardized (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p.

213). This type of interviews is mostly used in quantitative studies, where deviations are

not allowed because it threatens the reliability and credibility of quantitative studies

(Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 452).

Given our exploratory and qualitative research design, we are striving to collect

qualitative and rich data that reflects the respondents' different perspectives on the topic

of lead generation, where we consider interviews to be an adequate method. For the

structure of the interviews, we argue for the adoption of a semi-structure. This format will

allow us to create an interview guide that is based on the theoretical framework, but also

allows us to elaborate on our respondents' answers through follow-up questions to create

full and comprehensive data. This data collection method will allow us to create a deep

understanding for the actions and behaviors within the case company, by focusing on

different individual perspectives and discovering new knowledge, in line with our

interpretivist view.

In further support of our choice of data collection method, previous scholars within our

field of study have developed different research designs, but more qualitative methods

have dominated the studies presented in our theoretical framework. For example, Guenzi

& Troilo (2006, p. 976) who studied sales-marketing integration conducted an

exploratory study with a qualitative research design, where interviews were the primary

data collection method. Other recent studies within sales research have used semi-

structured interviews (Malshe et al., 2017) and in-depth interviews (Sleep et al., 2020) to

produce qualitative data. A quantitative approach was used by D’Haen & Van den Poel

(2013) who applied a model including algorithms on sets of data to test their hypothesis,

with the ambition to present how customer acquisition practices can be improved with

the use of a quantitative model for a sales force automation tool. Some of the goals of that

study resemble ours, but the quantitative model failed to account for other variables such

as people and processes, which is something we strive to incorporate in this study.

3.2.2 Sampling method

Another important choice of method relates to the population and sample of respondents

for the preparation of our interviews. As described by Collis & Hussey (2014, p. 51), a

population presents the whole body of people that can be considered in the study, whilst

the sample should present a subset of that population. According to Saunders et al. (2016)

there are further two main sample methods: probability or non-probability sampling.

From an interpretivist point of view, a non-probability sampling is common since the goal

for the research is not to generalize the results to a population (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p.

131), which would require a probability sample. Hence, in a qualitative study with semi-

structured interviews, non-probability sampling is usually preferred (Bryman & Bell,

2017, p. 188). With this method, the selection of respondents is not random, but specific

respondents are approached and selected (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 295), which is an

35

important prerequisite in our study. This can be done through different techniques such

as snowball sampling, purposive sampling, and convenience sampling (Collis & Hussey,

2014, p. 132). The sampling method in qualitative research tends to focus on purposive

selection, where the researchers design selection criteria that make it possible to identify

respondents who contribute to answering the research question (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p.

405). The snowball sampling is suitable when it is essential to include people with

specific experience or expertise, and once you find one, they can refer you to other

suitable respondents to extend your sample (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 132), which can

also be considered as one type of convenience sample (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 411).

For the purpose of our qualitative study, the population consists of the Sales Development

function at B2B, and the organization for IoT, as presented in chapter 1.2. For our sample,

we argue a non-probability sampling method through a purposive sampling. This method

allows us to both utilize the insights into the case company generated during one of the

researchers' internships, but also to create different criteria that provides guidance in the

sampling process. We also considered a snowball sampling method, to ensure that we

included all important perspectives in the study. However, the probability sampling

method resulted in a relevant list of respondents, and the snowball method was therefore

not applied.

To identify suitable respondents, a list of criteria was created, including:

1. Involved in customer acquisition activities such as lead generation, lead

management and/or sales development

2. Working within IoT or B2B sales development

3. Experience from working in sales, marketing and/or sales development

The first criterion is the most important one for our selection since our research question

focuses on customer acquisition processes and practices. It was therefore of high

importance to identify relevant people within the case company that has been involved in

this process. Secondly, we are not interested in the whole company, but focusing on IoT

and B2B sales development. Employees outside these departments were therefore not of

interest in our purposive sampling criteria. Finally, we wanted the respondents to have

experience from working in sales, marketing and/or sales development. This experience

could be within the case company, and we have also been interested in their general career

experiences to elaborate on their experiences from their current role in contrast to other

contexts. This criterion was further used to ensure that we included individual

perspectives from different roles to generate rich empirical data that can be compared and

contrasted in the upcoming analysis.

3.2.3 Sample overview

The criteria mentioned above was used to identify people with the right experiences and

skills within the studied case company. In total, 12 employees were invited to participate,

and all accepted. The respondents have different backgrounds and years of experience

from various industries, but primarily within the telecom-industry. Some have an

international background and have worked for years for different companies within sales,

marketing and as managers. Hence, about half of the interviews were held in English, and

half were held in Swedish. A few of the respondents had recently graduated, so their main

experience from working with customer acquisition comes from their current roles. Since

the company operates worldwide, one respondent was also situated outside Sweden.

36

However, most of the respondents are working from the headquarters in Stockholm. An

overview of our sample is provided below in table 3. As can be seen, two respondents

have senior roles within the company where each represents either an IoT or B2B

department. The sample includes four sales managers where the experience ranges from

a few years up to decades of experience from sales. Four of the respondents work with

different aspects of the customer acquisition process, for example creating content for

IoT, developing processes, and implementing marketing automation within the

organization. Finally, we have two people in the role of Sales Developers working

specifically with lead generation since 2020. In the empirical findings, each of the

respondents will have an alias based on their job title, which is presented in table 3.

Table 3. Sample overview

Alias Job title Department Interview

duration

H1 Head of Sales IoT 41 min

H2 Head of Digital Sales B2B 35 min

SM1 Sales Manager IoT 60 min

SM2 Sales Manager IoT 55 min

SM3 Sales Manager IoT 42 min

SM4 Sales Manager/Business Developer IoT 53 min

PM1 Product Marketing Manager IoT 40 min

PM2 Process Manager – 50 min

MA Marketing Automation Manager B2B/IoT 50 min

CM Content Manager & Editorial Strategist B2B/IoT 48 min

SDR1 Sales Developer B2B 46 min

SDR2 Sales Developer B2B 46 min

3.2.4 Interview technique and interview guide

As semi-structured interviews strive to capture the subjective beliefs of the respondents,

it is important that the conversation enables the respondent to freely express itself

(Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 459). Within our research paradigm and methodological

choices, the role of the interviewers will hence affect the implementation of the

interviews. Kvale & Brinkmann (2014, p. 32) describe how qualitative interviews require

a high level of proficiency for the interviewer. The interviewer must have knowledge

about the study field, have an understanding for different methodological alternatives,

and have insight into what types of theoretical problems can arise when one intends to

create knowledge through conversational methods. Furthermore, the created knowledge

is dependent on the social interactions between the interviewer and the respondent, where

it is important to create a comfortable and safe environment. To accomplish this, the

interviewer must have balance between their interest of accessing valuable knowledge

and show ethical considerations and respect for the respondent and its integrity (Kvale &

Brinkmann, 2014, p. 33).

37

Because our experience of conducting qualitative interviews was relatively limited before

this study, we have prepared by following recommendations and techniques from

scholars within the field of qualitative studies. According to Kvale & Brinkmann (2014,

p. 34) interview skills are developed by interviewing, but at the same time you can

prepare yourself by following some rules and techniques. A central aspect is based on the

interviewer's skills and personal judgment when asking questions. The quality of the data

produced at the interview will thus depend on the interviewer's social skills and

knowledge, where knowledge about the studied topic is specifically required to develop

follow-up questions (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2014, p. 85). In preparation for the interviews,

we have developed our understanding of the topic through literature search and reviews,

and by writing this thesis. We have also strived to increase our understanding for the case

company’s business and understand what challenges they might face due to relevant

macro influences. Since one of the researchers has some established relations within the

company from her internship, the understanding for the respondents work and roles have

also been increased prior to the interviews. Through establishing this pre-understanding,

we should be prepared to develop the conversations by asking follow-up questions and

interpreting the empirical data in an accurate way.

In further preparation for our semi-structured interviews where we aspire to answer our

stated research question, we have developed an interview guide (to be found in appendix

1) using concepts, models, and theories from the theoretical framework as a foundation.

The interview guide has been structured in five main themes concerning the interviewee

profile, the sales process, customer acquisition practices, collaboration, and sales

development with different objectives in relation to our research purpose (see table 4).

Under each theme, we have developed questions that focus on the respondents' view on

different phenomenon and topics. Since our respondents have different areas of expertise,

we have further constructed broad and flexible questions to attend to their different

understandings and experiences. The themes and questions in the guide have been set,

but also designed to ensure flexibility and order rearrangement, as the conversation could

move in different directions. We have further reduced the use of scientific language when

constructing our questions, in alignment with our inductive research approach.

Table 4. Themes and objectives of the interview guide

Theme Objective

Interviewee profile To cover data about the interviewee’s current role,

responsibilities, and previous experiences.

The sales process To investigate how the current processes for sales and customer

acquisition is conducted and uncover challenges and

improvement areas related to these processes.

Customer acquisition

in practice

To explore characteristics for the ideal customer, understand

different lead generation activities, and uncover important tools

Collaboration and

integration

To explore how the collaboration between departments is

experienced by the interviewee and understand what underlying

drivers might have an impact on a successful integration.

Establishing sales

development

To discuss expectations and experiences on initiating a specific

Sales Development function, and capture ideas for

improvements.

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Following the structure of our main themes, our interview guide begins with an open

question where the respondent is asked to describe their role within the company. This is

followed by potential sub-questions of what they do in that role, and how long they have

worked at the company, with the purpose of fully understanding what the respondents do

in their daily work, and what responsibilities they have. Thereafter, the interview guide

focuses on sales and lead generation processes, different methods, and its challenges. This

is followed by asking the respondents to describe the ideal customer, its characteristics,

opportunities, and difficulties. Then, we shift focus to experiences from communication

and collaboration within the company, specifically between sales and marketing

departments. The interview is summed up by asking what expectations the respondent

have for a sales development function in IoT, and how this could facilitate their daily

work. Finally, we have included a question asking whether there is something the

respondent wants to mention, that has not been framed by our previous questions, which

can be an effective way to capture another point of view that is of great importance for

the respondent (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 462), and can contribute to our increased

understanding and interpretation of the collected data.

3.2.5 Interview procedure

Prior to the interviews, we forwarded a participant information e-mail to the selected

respondents (to be found in appendix 2), where we included the purpose of the study, and

information on ethical dilemmas such as anonymity, confidentiality, integrity, as a way

to establish a confirmed consent (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 252). Usually, the study’s

strategy and purpose will guide what information needs to be conveyed before the

empirical data collection begins. We chose to inform the participants about their right to

cancel the interview, and that they can choose to not answer one or several questions. We

further described the indented use for the results and clarified that their participation is

anonymous and will be handled confidentially.

Focusing on the interview setting, Bryman & Bell (2017, p. 459) describes how using

multiple interviewers could ease the interview situation and make it resemble a

discussion, but the authors also emphasize how some respondents can experience the

dynamic as being questioned if two interviewers are present. We chose to conduct the

interviews together, since one of the researchers already had an established relation with

some of the respondents, which made the conversations more friendly than formal, which

was also the goal with the semi-structured interview approach. Due to an ongoing

pandemic during the creation of this study, physical interviews were not possible. Hence,

all interviews were conducted remotely through video-meetings using Microsoft teams,

and took between 40-60 minutes. We believe that one benefit with this setting was that

all respondents could position themselves where they were comfortable, either at home

or in their office. To develop a natural conversation, both interviewers participated in the

conversation by taking either a more active or passive role. For example, we took turns

being primarily responsible for asking our main questions and guiding the conversation.

The other more passive interviewer ensured that all themes were covered in a satisfying

way. This person was also paying more attention to body language, which is important to

notice potentially emotional responses to the questions (Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 462),

and took reflective notes during the conversation.

In general, we began all interviews with a short introduction to ourselves, and a recap of

the study’s purpose. Information regarding anonymity, confidentiality, and the right to

not answer certain questions or cancel the interview was repeated. We further asked our

39

respondents to request clarifications if they any question was unclear. Before the

interviews began, we asked for permission to record the conversations, and if they would

be comfortable with us stating their role in our study. All respondents granted their

permission to these questions. During the interviews, variation in the formulations of the

questions was done so that the respondent could respond to them in relation to their

department and personal experience. Hence, we might not have asked all questions to all

respondents, since some questions were intended for the sales managers, whilst others

focus on marketing practices. Since all interviews took place online, simulating a face-

to-face conversation, we could record both voice and video which made it possible to

both transcribe words, but also reflect on the non-verbal communication within the

conversations. During interview 11-12, we noticed that no new insights or categories

emerged in the data, which reflected that we had reached saturation (Saunders, 2016, p.

297). Consequently, we decided that we had enough empirical data which provides the

base for the upcoming analysis.

3.2.6 Qualitative data analysis

Analyzing qualitative research has been described as one of the most time-consuming and

complex steps in qualitative research (Attride-Stirling, 2001, p. 386) and there is no

established method to ensure success (Rowley, 2012, p. 267). The choice of method to

analyze qualitative data will depend on the researchers (Rowley, 2012, p. 267), and the

chosen method needs to be suitable for the research depending on the research question,

purpose, and other methodological approaches (Braun & Clark, 2006, p. 97). Thematic

analysis is described as a method that aims to identify, analyze, and distinguish patterns

in collected data (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 6), and provides a useful method for

processing comprehensive data generated in semi-structured interviews (Saunders et al.,

2016, p. 579). Our research aims to explore how the case company can work to improve

their lead generation processes, where we are striving to emphasize contrasting views.

Therefore, we argue that a thematic analysis process is suitable and will help us identify

important insights derived from our empirical findings. One identified weakness with

thematic analysis is that researchers tend to present the same ‘themes’ from the data, as

the ones used in the interview guide (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 95), which does not reflect

a well-executed thematic analysis. Further, a potential pitfall to be aware of is the mistake

to develop themes that overlap too much or are not coherent and fail to provide rich

descriptions of the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 95). Since we have an inductive

research approach, we deem it suitable to focus on developing data-driven themes, which

is also suggested by Braun & Clarke (2006, p. 84).

The thematic analysis is usually described in several phases (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p.

16; Saunders et al., 2016, p. 580), where the first concerns familiarize yourself with the

collected data (Nowell et al., 2017, p. 4-5). Our transcription process started directly after

the first interview and was executed simultaneously as we proceeded with the remaining.

We listened through the recordings, transcribed the data, and strived to reflect over non-

verbal communication and language to fully interpret the meaning of the conversations.

The next step focuses on generating initial codes, identifying them, and presenting them

in a document for a good overview (Nowell et al., 2017, p. 5-6). In this step we started to

identify the initial codes in our data and collect relevant data extracts to develop a

fundamental understanding of our findings. Phase three concerns searching for themes,

where all relevant codes are extracted into themes (Nowell et al., 2017, p. 8). In this step

we clustered the codes into potential themes and gathered relevant data to each theme to

ensure that related data from all interviews was covered. Even if we approached the data

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from an inductive and interpretivist view, we had in mind that our findings needed to

relate to the purpose of our thesis, and thus we strived to capture insights relating to the

areas described in the theoretical framework.

In phase four we reviewed the themes through analyzing all subthemes to see if a coherent

pattern existed (Nowell et al., 2017, p. 10). Phase five concerns defining and naming the

themes, where we discussed and analyzed how all sub themes were connected to each

main theme, and how the themes should be named and defined (Nowell et al., 2017, p.

10). During this process, we also compared how each theme was connected to the overall

insights from the empirical findings, to ensure that the overall story of the analysis was

rich and coherent. Finally, it was time to produce the report meaning that when all themes

were identified and we could see how they were connected, we started to summarize our

empirical findings (Nowell et al., 2017, p. 11). Even though the process is described as

linear with six phases, the importance of being iterative and moving back and forth

throughout the process of coding and analyzing themes is highlighted (Nowell et al.,

2017, p. 4). This is something we have been aware of throughout the analysis process by

for instance looking into the transcriptions again when the themes were identified and by

removing and adding themes, an example of our thematic analysis is provided in table 5.

Table 5. Exemplification of our data analysis

Data extract Coded for Theme Subtheme

… for us it's definitely the

educated customer who either has

that experience with somebody

else or is ready to start and just

needs a good prize and feel

supported and secure about who

they buy from.

1. Prefer customers who

understands IoT

2. Important to be a

trustworthy provider

Experiences on

the IoT sales

process

The ideal

customer for

IoT

3.2.7 Ethical considerations

Ethical principles are necessary to take into consideration throughout a research study to

ensure that the study has been compiled and addressed in an adequate way for both

respondents, researchers, and other stakeholders (Bell & Bryman, 2007, p. 63; Collis &

Hussey, 2014, p. 30).

Bell & Bryman (2007, p. 71) presents eleven ethical principles to ensure that harm and

inaccuracies of respondents and researchers are mitigated (see table 6). We argue that

these eleven principles are useful both because they are formed for social research (Bell

& Bryman, 2007, p. 64) and because they are pointing at the importance of taking ethical

principles into account throughout the research process. In the table below (see table 6),

we explain the eleven considerations and how we have addressed each principle

throughout our research.

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Table 6. Ethical considerations, based on Bell & Bryman (2007, p. 71-72).

Ethical Principle Signification Execution

Harm to

participants

Ensure well-being from

both a psychological and

physical perspective of

respondents, researchers,

and others throughout the

research process.

We have ensured and informed

respondents that they can cancel the

interview, pass questions, and review

their interview afterwards.

Informed consent Ensure full informed

consent from respondents

and research participants.

We have emailed information to the

participants about the study’s

purpose, anonymity, integrity, and

confidentiality aspects prior to the

interviews.

Anonymity Ensure anonymity of both

participating respondents

and organizations if

desired.

The case company has agreed to have

their company name published. The

respondents have consented to having

their job titles published. We have

created aliases for each respondent,

to ensure they feel comfortable with

their participation in the study.

Dignity Ensure dignity among

respondents and researchers

and make sure no one feels

anxious or discomfort.

Throughout the interview, the

researcher that was not responsible

for the interview questions was

focusing on body language to ensure

that the respondents were

comfortable. No sensitive questions

were asked during the interviews.

Privacy Ensure privacy for the

respondents and protect

from intrusive privacy.

The interviews were held separately

online meaning that privacy could be

ensured from an individual

perspective. However, no interviews

were disrupted, and privacy can be

seen as fulfilled.

Confidentiality Ensure that data is handled

confidentially regardless if

it is about respondents,

organizations or

groups/teams.

All information has been handled

confidentially through files which

only the researchers for the study

have had access to.

Affiliation Ensure that none kind of

affiliation, such as

sponsorships, funding for

research or other interests

affect the research outcome

and need to be declared.

The study is written on commission

but there is no compensation

involved. The researcher's process

has been conducted independently of

the case company. The researchers

have ensured that their role is

professional and do not have any

impact on the findings in the study,

resulting in a truthful and

representative research outcome.

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Honesty and

transparency

Ensure honest and open

information while

communicating the research

to interested parties.

We have briefed all respondents

about the purpose of the study and

clarified our interest for the

organization.

Deception Ensure no deception occurs

throughout the research

process.

The intentions for this study are

sincere, and every effort has been

made to ensure transparency and

honesty in the data collection method

and presented results.

Misrepresentation Ensure that the findings of

the research do not consist

of misrepresenting,

misleading or false

information.

All information in the thesis has been

discussed between the researchers to

avoid misrepresentations. We have

given the respondents the opportunity

to review our findings from their

interviews.

Reciprocity Ensure that the research is

of mutual benefit for both

researchers and

participants.

This research is written on

commission where the case company

wants insights for the SDR function.

We as researchers can also use the

learning outcomes in our future

workplace due to learnings in

customer acquisition practices.

Further, the findings will contribute

to the existing business research and

provide new insights on under-

researched areas.

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4. Empirical findings In this chapter, the primary findings derived from our twelve semi-structured interviews

will be presented. The findings have been structured by applying a thematic analysis

method, where the empirical data have been clustered into themes and headings resulting

in the following structure: experiences on the IoT sales process, continuous developments

for customer acquisition processes, improvement areas for increasing the conversion

rate, and establishing sales development. The themes and subthemes presented below

cover answers to the questions that guided this exploratory study, including interesting

findings from the data collection in general.

4.1 Experiences on the IoT sales process

Tele2 IoT is working with finding new customers in order for the business to grow and

stay profitable. The company sells SIM cards and connectivity to their customers, but

each customer needs to solve the hardware and software for their solutions through other

distributors. The sales managers’ work includes identifying the customers that need the

connectivity that Tele2 IoT can provide. One of the sales managers described their work

in the early phases of the sales process as:

“It is part of the work as a sales manager to identify new customers to build a good

pipe, so that you constantly have new opportunities and prospects that come in who you

can process and warm up. And then maybe qualify in different steps. So, it must always

be an inflow, it is a natural part of the sale that you work with prospecting. So as a

sales manager, I prospect regularly.” (SM1)

With this statement the sales manager clearly described the importance of creating a good

pipeline in order to have new opportunities to work with and have a healthy customer

inflow to close more deals. The respondents from the IoT sales team also meant that the

lead generation process, the early phase of the sales process, does not work optimally

today. This is something that the Head of Sales also confirms, by explaining that the sales

managers today need to spend too much time on prospecting and finding leads instead of

using their time to manage the leads and closing the deals. According to one of the sales

managers, it is time consuming to search for leads because you do not know where they

are in their needs cycle. Maybe they just want to understand what IoT is but are not ready

to buy. Due to high sales targets per salesperson, there is no room to work with customers

who are not ready to invest or mature enough. All the sales managers pointed out that

finding customers is the biggest challenge in the sales process.

4.1.1 A changing landscape for sales

In the theoretical framework, we addressed that the sales ecosystem is changing due to

e.g., digitalization, globalization, and higher customer demands. Our respondents

confirmed these changes where one of the sales managers pointed at the digitalization

and how the pandemic of COVID-19 has accelerated this change even more. From a

globalization perspective one of the respondents pointed at the pros for sales with the

rapid digitalization development. The respondent explained that earlier they needed to

travel in most cases for doing business in other countries and continents. Before the

pandemic, outside selling was the most common way to sell and it was almost the only

effective way of selling. Today, one can sit in the countryside doing business with

companies all over the world. The respondent mentioned that already before the

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pandemic, you started to see a change towards digital sales solutions because of

environmental drivers such as the climate activist Greta Thunberg, but the pandemic has

speeded up, or even forced, digital interactions and sales channels to take over. However,

the respondents from the sales team agreed that the pandemic makes sales more difficult.

Earlier, they could be at events and conferences and meet potential customers which was

a good way of prospecting and identifying leads. It was easier to find customers they did

not know about and mingle to get in contact with the right people.

The respondents from the sales team also mentioned that customers do not buy the

product/connectivity per se, they buy the solution that can help their business grow.

Therefore, the potential customers often have different people involved in the negotiation

process, to ensure that their high expectations are met. To better navigate in these

challenging environments the sales team consists of the sales managers and an expert that

can help them during the sales process with technical specifications if needed. The

company also holds customer surveys regularly to see how they can improve the customer

journey and add more value to the service offer.

4.1.2 Challenges of selling IoT

In this study, we have also focused on exploring if there are any specific challenges with

selling IoT compared to other telecom solutions. Our respondents describe that IoT is a

service that people are variously familiar with, and it is a fairly new concept. One of our

senior respondents explained during the interview that the concept of IoT has changed

and emerged over time due to digital development and faster telecommunication

networks. This person mentioned that during the 1990-s, it was called telematic solutions,

later on it was called machine to machine, and nowadays the internet of things. Our

interviews also showed that people’s knowledge about IoT differs a lot, and there are

many customers who do not know how the service works, but still want to implement it

in their business. As one of the respondents stated:

“IoT is a concept that not everyone knows what it stands for, it is still a buzz word. So

when talking to customers, it is important to be on a level where you do not explain it so

any of them feels stupid. But at the same time, one cannot take for granted that they

understand the service.” (PM1)

This raises the first challenge with selling IoT solutions. The sales process is affected

because selling IoT requires educated customers. The more unmature the customers are,

the harder it is to convince them to join the IoT journey and to invest their money in IoT

solutions. The result of this is that Tele2 must sometimes educate the customers before

they can sell their IoT solutions to them. As one respondent exemplified “you cannot just

pick up your phone and call a customer and say hello, do you want to buy our product?

It is supergood!” You rather need to sell a solution to the customer and explain what

value the implementation of IoT will bring to their business. One of the sales managers

confirmed the educating part by describing his experience:

“Selling IoT is more solution oriented, you really want to find something out... One

must explain why the customer needs it and how their business can benefit. This is not

really easy. You cannot just read about IoT and decide, now I will go out and sell it...

It is not in the inbox of itself, it is often a bit of work behind, a bit of detective work.”

(SM2)

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Secondly, one of the sales managers explained that there is a huge difference between

selling B2B and B2C and selling IoT is an additional layer for B2B that results in longer

sales cycles. The respondent explained that this is mainly because of a need from a

customer perspective to really understand the value of the service. Further, it is also

because of other factors such as big investments. One of the sales managers also pointed

out that the sales cycle for IoT can go through several steps, meaning that Tele2 IoT does

not always sell to the end customer. This in turn makes the selling process even more

challenging because the sales manager deals with one company that deals with a third

party. The effect of this is consequently that the sales cycle becomes longer, and the sale

becomes more challenging to close. All the respondents from the IoT department

confirmed this challenge, where the average sales cycle is six months.

Some of the respondents also pointed at the challenge of selling IoT outside Sweden and

the Nordics, where the company does not have the same brand recognition. Our

interviews also showed that the competition in the field of IoT is growing. Today there

are more and more suppliers of IoT connectivity all over the world, where start-ups with

cheaper solutions enter the market. According to one of the sales managers, the focus for

Tele2 IoT is therefore to deliver excellent customer service and competitive but still

profit-driven prices. Lastly, the main challenge that all the sales managers pointed at is

having the right timing when offering the service. The customers need to be in a condition

where they understand the IoT solution, are ready to invest, and see the value of

implementing this in their business. When these parameters are fulfilled one of the sales

managers mentioned it is easy to sell the service.

Focus on promoting value Two of the senior sales managers gave their differing opinions on how these challenges

could be approached. To deal with educated and mature customers, one suggested that

Tele2 IoT could work with sharing information about IoT through a “Marketplace” and

position themselves as a “center of excellence”. The suggestion entails that the

marketplace would promote IoT solutions, both the ones offered by Tele2 IoT, but also

by its customers. Different education and certification programs are also something that

could be offered to educate potential customers about IoT, so when they are ready to buy,

they will convert to inbound leads and contact Tele2 IoT who will be the obvious and

most knowledgeable solution provider. The Head of Digital Sales also describes how the

company needs to talk more about value instead in their service offerings. The consensus

is that they need to have more to offer than pure content such as product sheets or PDFs.

The perspective from another senior sales manager was to work with selling as more

problem oriented. Rather than focusing on the solution and educating customers, Tele2

IoT should focus on creating a need gap for the customers by “building up” a problem for

them. Thus, one way to address the previously mentioned challenges could be to work

with SPIN-selling and create this need gap where the customer realizes what they cannot

live without. Then, they can focus on explaining how IoT can solve that problem.

“When working with SPIN selling, which is the best school for B2B sales, it is about

building up a problem so big that they [the customers] have to do something about it…

SPIN selling is about being consultative, you should ask questions, you should not come

up with a solution. If you come up with a solution before the problem is big enough, the

customer does not want to pay.” (SM4)

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To conclude, all the respondents agreed upon how Tele2 IoT should position themselves

as the center of excellence and get away from the price war of cheaper connectivity. Tele2

IoT should be recognized as the ones that are best at solving the customer's problems, the

one you can trust and the one that understands the customer the best.

4.1.3 The Ideal Customer for IoT

In order to understand what type of customers the sales managers and marketers want to

find and attract to widen the pipeline we asked the respondents about their view of the

ideal customer. The respondents gave quite similar answers, where there are a few

characteristics that potential customers should fulfill. Below we will describe the different

characteristics mentioned by our respondents.

Educated customers who are ready to invest

To start with, the ideal customer should understand the service and the value IoT can

bring to their organization, but also be ready to invest in the solutions. This was something

all the respondents from the IoT department highlighted throughout the interviews.

“I'm looking for the educated ones! For us it is definitely the educated customer who

either has that experience with somebody else or is ready to start and just needs a good

prize, and feel supported, and secure about who they buy from.” (SM3)

The sales managers pointed at the customers who have experience of IoT or have used

more expensive solutions for connectivity, like traditional mobile broadband. To those

customers, Tele2 IoT can offer much better prices which pleases the customers. As one

of the respondents expressed it, “when we can reduce their costs, we are portrayed as

gods”. The sales manager also exemplified the horror customer as those who do not know

why they should implement IoT for their business but still want to do it. Those customers

take a lot of time and might not become profit generating customers, which is a waste of

time.

Cluster customers

The respondents also described how they are looking for customers within different

clusters. According to one of the sales managers, they are looking at the customers based

on their needs and what kind of connectivity their business requires, instead of visualizing

the customers per industry. There can be companies in different industries in need of

similar connectivity solutions and vice versa. The sales manager also mentioned that

research from bigger telecommunications distributors shows that IoT should be divided

in clusters where it is more frequently used and more widespread, instead of per industry.

Furthermore, Tele2 IoT is focusing on customers within three major IoT clusters of: 1)

monitoring and tracking, 2) predictive maintenance and 3) remote steering. Monitoring

and tracking include industries such as public transport, manufacturing and retail.

Predictive maintenance refers to industries such as energy and utilities, healthcare, and

manufacturing. The third cluster, remote steering, is for companies within automotive,

public transport and public safety. These three clusters also require different amounts of

connectivity depending on the complexity of the solution. The most profitable customers

want many sim cards with a high amount of connectivity. One of the sales managers

exemplified a customer within the cluster of monitoring and tracking:

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“In our case, there is a cluster that we group as monitoring and tracking. They need

connectivity for these purposes. It is such customers who have smart products or who

need connectivity to track, to monitor and perhaps take in data to analyze their process

as well as the solution they have, to optimize their business. There may be those who

offer connected bikes where you know, they need to track and trace their bikes, then

they need a SIM card!” (SM1)

According to the sales manager the company will enter an additional cluster in the future

called real time automation. The real time automation points at energy and utilities,

manufacturing, and healthcare. The expectation is that this cluster will grow more while

the high-speed connectivity of 5G becomes more widespread.

Company size, Order quantity and Growth potential

The ideal customer does not have any typical company size, the attractiveness is more

based on their need for IoT solutions. This includes what kind of solutions they are

looking for, the quantity of SIM cards, and the customers growth potential. Further, the

sales manager described that depending on the customer case, small companies with just

4-5 employees may be really good customers with high potential. However, companies

must fulfil some criteria to be managed by Tele2 IoT. The company has to be an

established company and Tele2 IoT needs to see a potential for the customer to either

grow their business with more connected SIM cards, have an IoT order exceeding 1

million SEK, or at least 500 active SIM cards. Companies that are not profitable enough

are sent to resellers that handle smaller customers. This indicates that the ideal customer

for IoT should fulfil some different criteria. First, an ideal customer should know what

IoT is and understand how it can optimize their business. Secondly, the customers should

be ready to invest in the solution. Further, the customer should have a solution within any

of the mentioned clusters. And finally, the customer needs to have at least 500 active SIM

cards and/or there should be growth potential. One of the respondents summarized the

ideal customer very clearly:

“The ideal customer is a Nordic customer, because we have a lot to gain from Tele2

brand recognition, so it goes without saying! ... Yes, and then it is a customer that has

come so far that it understands how it should make money, and that it has done that

homework of why they are implementing IoT, because otherwise we will have to spend a

lot of time on it to make them mature enough. To be an ideal customer, there may be

grains of gold among those who have just started and even though there may be great

potential there, we really have to believe in them in order for us to do business with

them.” (PM1)

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4.2 Continuous developments for customer acquisition processes

In our case company, lead generation is described as the process of creating leads through

systems like Ocean, LinkedIn, SalesQL, and the website. In this process, our respondents

explained how the approached companies and potential customers transform from being

a prospect, to becoming a lead, being qualified into opportunities, and finally becoming

a customer when a deal is closed (see figure 4). Throughout this lead generation process,

the potential customer is documented in various systems, where sales and marketing are

responsible for managing the potential customer throughout their journey.

Figure 4. Lead qualification stages

When it comes to lead generation within the IoT department, our respondents from sales

describe different ways of working, but also different categories of leads. We will start

with describing different types of leads and experiences from our respondents from

approaching, attracting, and converting these into customers, and later focus on how our

respondents from both IoT and B2B work with the process for lead generation.

4.2.1 Three categories of leads

The respondents mentioned three main processes for identifying, contacting, and

categorizing new potential customers. They have outbound lead generation, inbound lead

generation, and marketing automated lead generation. These activities result in three

categories of new potential customers that are divided into outbound leads, inbound leads,

and marketing automated leads.

Outbound leads are self-generated cold customers that for example the sales managers

have identified. These leads include “cold” companies that the employees have identified

through different methods and channels and decided to contact. The Head of Sales at

Tele2 IoT mentioned that there are mostly outbound leads for Tele2 IoT which also makes

their sales process more complex. These customers are harder to close deals with because

they need to be warmed up before they are ready to invest in IoT solutions.

Inbound leads refer to warmer leads that have interacted or initiated contact with Tele2

in different ways. Inbound leads are companies that are contacting Tele2 IoT and showing

an interest in their services, these customers can be website visitors filling in a “Contact

me-form”, or they can be generated through marketing activities such as blogs, campaigns

or events.

Marketing automated leads are potential customers somewhere between inbound and

outbound leads. These leads are generated through their activities on the Tele2 IoT

website and get scores depending on, for instance, what kind of information they searched

for and/or what blog posts they read.

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4.2.2 Creating a pipeline - Lead Generation for IoT

There is no set or common Lead Generation Process for Tele2 IoT right now, but it is

under development. The respondents described different methods for finding these leads,

getting the initial contact, and managing them. Below, we will elaborate on how they are

currently working with outbound, inbound, and marketing automated lead generation to

widen the pipeline. An outline of each of these processes can be found in Appendix 3.

Outbound lead generation

To find prospects that can be converted to outbound leads, our respondents described

different methods for how they are working today, but they would like to have a more

systematized process. The overall outbound lead generation process today includes

research of potential prospects, creating a list of these prospects, finding contact

information to people in these organizations, and together with marketing constructing an

outreach to see if somebody is interested. If somebody says thank you, but no, they

remove them from the list. If a prospect does not leave any feedback on the outreach mail,

the company continues nurturing the potential customer. The sales manager contacts the

customers who show interest, and if they are fulfilling the criteria as a profitable customer

then they move on in the sales process. Customers who do not fulfill all the criteria, for

example if they only need a small quantity of connectivity, are moved to a reseller.

The sales managers also described that they have for example joint activities where they

do research on companies. This includes competitive analysis, sibling search meaning

looking at competitors for existing customers, and gathering information about other

interesting companies for IoT. The result is a list of companies, where the next step is to

find the right contact person, reach out to them, or place them in an automation campaign

where they will receive automated emails with information about IoT.

Most of our respondents describe two main challenges with outbound leads: 1. finding

correct contact information, and 2. deciding what, how and when information should be

sent. One important aspect to manage these challenges is to have rules and guidelines on

how often and when these leads should be contacted, but also understanding when they

can be seen as “warmer” and ready to be taken to the next step in the process, being

qualified into opportunities. To work with this process at a scale, our respondents from

IoT believe that they need a dedicated employee that works with these activities. One

respondent described the prospecting process for outbound leads as the worst, but it needs

to be done, and on top of that, they need to keep every other part of their pipeline posted

and for example know who is about to get closed. The sales managers agree on the fact

that prospecting, the first step in the lead generation process, is important but very time

consuming.

“Usually, you have stage one whenever you find the customers or the companies that

you want to contact. You do a lot of the, as you know, a lot of research and that is just a

part of it. And that is the worst thing about sales, prospecting. It is the worst! But it

needs to be done because otherwise you'll never find them.” (SM3)

The Process Manager also described how there is a lot of interest in IoT, and in the past

this interest has often come from smaller customers who unfortunately cannot invest too

much in IoT solutions, but still require a high maintenance and support from the supplier.

The problem with this was that Sales Managers could spend too much time on a lead that

in the end does not qualify the desired customer portfolio, but still require the same level

50

of attention, resources, and maintenance. Today, our empirical findings indicated that this

issue has been handled. The Sales Managers nowadays focus more on prospects that are

mature, of greater size, and are expected to convert into a customer within at least a year.

Inbound lead generation

An inbound lead is a company that contacts or interacts with Tele2 in various ways. This

could be through the website, events, social media, email campaigns etcetera. Our

respondents described inbound leads as the “hottest leads” that often move through the

sales process much faster than outbound leads. This type of leads often have an interest

and understanding for what they want to buy, and do not have to be processed as much

as outbound leads. In IoT, an example for the inbound lead generation process is that a

visitor enters the company website and fills in a “contact-me-form”. This information is

sent to the head of sales at Tele2 IoT and the sales managers, who proceed with qualifying

the leads into opportunities.

Apart from focusing on Tele2 IoT, we have also focused on how the larger B2B

department works with lead generation. In B2B, they have a Sales Development Function

with Sales Development Representatives (SDRs). The SDRs handle all inbound leads

from “contact-me” and update the status for the lead, qualifies and converts them to

opportunities, and sends them over to the correct Account Manager, who proceeds with

negotiations and ultimately signing the initial visitor as a customer. Throughout this

qualification process, it is important to document information about the customer so it

can be shared with others within the company for the upcoming interactions.

To generate inbound leads, our respondents described that it is important to position Tele2

as a knowledgeable provider for IoT solutions. It is also important to create content that

attracts and inspires potential customers to engage with Tele2 IoT. One ambition now is

to do a lot more social media posting to attract leads, where LinkedIn and Twitter are two

platforms that the Content Manager & Editorial Strategist for IoT wants to develop.

Marketing automated lead generation

The Head of Digital Sales described how they two years ago in the B2B department

decided that they had to become more digital in the way they look at sales and their sales

channels. This led to the development and implementation of a Sales Development

function during 2020. This team has worked with building a digitalized customer journey,

supported by digital tools linked to digital touchpoints, such as the web page and social

media. This digital transformation has also led to the implementation of marketing

automation for B2B.

Working with marketing automation has proven to be an efficient way to handle leads,

and our respondents from B2B are positive to this development. Marketing automation

has not been implemented at Tele2 IoT yet, but they are developing the process for their

department as well. Two of our respondents from the Sales Development team in B2B

gave their perspective of how they work with marketing automation leads in their

department. They described marketing automated leads as somewhere between hot and

cold leads. This type of leads is generated through a system where information about who

has for example downloaded a guide from the website is stored. Through marketing

automation, they have different programs depending on the visitors’ activities that

automatically sends out information to the visitors. This type of leads is generally not

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prepared to be contacted by the company, but they have already been given information

through marketing automation programs which often makes them a bit “warmer”.

4.2.3 Tools for Lead Generation

In the theoretical framework we have identified that lead generation nowadays are in need

of effective digital tools for efficiently finding qualified potential customers. Throughout

the interviews we have identified some tools that the respondents are using for finding

and attracting new potential customers for IoT. The different tools are used for different

reasons and purposes depending on whether it is an outbound, inbound, or marketing

automation activity. The tools will be divided under each of the three categories

outbound, inbound, and marketing automation and are explained in the table below (see

table 7).

Table 7. Digital tools for different lead generation processes

Lead category Tool/system Description

Outbound ocean.io Sibling search, searching for potential

customers similar to the customer base.

Sales Navigator

(LinkedIn)

Finding potential companies and the

right people within these companies and

adding them to a prospect list.

Sales QL Connected to Sales Navigator, gives

contact information to people on your

prospect list.

Inbound Website Visitors on the website fill in the contact

me form which makes it easy for Tele2

IoT to contact them.

LinkedIn Posting blogs and activities at the

LinkedIn page. People who are

interacting with the activities can be of

interest.

Content marketing Creating interesting content to inform

and attract companies through activities

on YouTube, blogs, events, campaigns

etc.

Marketing

automated

Albacross Helps to identify website traffic and

what the visitors are interacting with.

More than one lead

activity

Pardot Companies can keep tabs on important

customer data by tracking interactions

through the customer lifecycle.

Salesforce CRM system with all information about

existing customers but also qualified

leads (opportunities).

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The respondents have different opinions on the effectiveness and usefulness of the

different tools for identifying and attracting new customers. Some of the respondents are

happy with the tools and consider the usability to be high, while others do not see the

potential of using some of the tools. For example, one of the sales managers mentioned

that ocean.io and searching for siblings to an existing customer is useless, because all

customers have different needs and just because you are in the same industry does not

mean that you are looking for IoT solutions. Another of the sales managers think they

have been installing too many tools lately and people cannot really use all of them which

is cost inefficient. One sales manager explains that the tools they choose must be effective

with high hit rates and cost efficient to be retained. It is also important that they have

systems that aid the sales managers in finding contact information. If they only have a

company and a contact person, but no contact information, it is hard to do something with

the lead. In relation to this, one of the sales managers pointed out the importance of

improving and optimizing the tools they use over time:

“It is something that you have to improve and optimize all the time. Trial and error.

Our ambition is that we will improve it much more. And it is difficult to assess now at

this stage, the efficiency and how good the leads are. We would like to have maybe

more data in one or 2 years where we have done this and seen perhaps different ways to

improve this.” (SM1)

Other tools

Throughout the interviews we could identify the tools above as the main digital tools used

in the lead generation process. However, the respondents mentioned some other effective

ways for lead generation activities. First, all the sales representatives mentioned

conferences as a good way to build new relationships and meet potential customers. Some

of the respondents were also talking about cold calling and whether it has died or if it is

still a good method to use. In this matter, the respondents had different views of the

effectiveness. Some people did not believe in cold calling whereas others recommended

it for more personal selling and both information gathering and information sharing. As

one of the sales managers said:

“[...] regarding cold calling, it is dying, but as we've been talking about, once you get

that one connection it's still the best way to get to talk to people in person or over the

phone... It’s about building trust. It has always been. People buy from people. That is,

without a doubt always the truth. So, the more personal you can get with somebody, the

higher the hit rate you’ll have, definitely!” (SM3)

4.2.4 Insights from the B2B Sales Development Function

The digital sales team at the B2B-department today consists of twenty-two employees.

Within this team, there is one distinct role that is primarily relevant for the purpose of our

study: the Sales Development Representatives (SDRs). The SDRs have the objective and

the KPIs to drive lead generation for both inbound, marketing automated and outbound

leads for the whole B2B organization. Initially, there was only one SDR, but the team has

grown to three SDRs, where they are supposed to be responsible for each lead generation

process. In the lead generation process, the SDRs “own” the early buyer phase until they

hand a customer over to the Account Manager. The Account Manager team is primarily

responsible for managing the existing customer stock and reacting to incoming leads. The

SDRs are also responsible for following up on the leads they have generated and ensure

they are being contacted and qualified.

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“Because their role [SDRs] is really just to open up sales opportunities, either by

taking care of everything that comes in to Tele2 through different channels that can be

customer support, other salespeople, the web, chats, or LinkedIn. But they're also

supposed to generate outbound opportunities, contacting companies and getting in

touch.” (H2)

Before this function was established, there was no specific data for the conversion of

leads, which makes it difficult to compare the effectiveness of this new function.

However, one respondent said that if they look at absolute figures, they have definitely

contributed to the success of the organization. Today, they are documenting everything

and have a lot of data. When it comes to hit rate (leads turning into a sale), it is around 40

% on incoming leads, and about 20 % on marketing generated leads for B2B. To support

this function further, they are currently implementing a new KPI setup for the SDRs to

clarify what their focus is supposed to be. They are also recruiting a new SDR, so that

they will have three SDRs who can be responsible for each category of leads; outbound,

inbound and marketing automated. Until now, the SDRs have been prioritizing the

“hottest leads”, which refers to incoming leads. Due to time capacity constraints, the

outbound leads have not been given as much attention. The ambition is to focus more

equally on each lead channel to increase the conversion rate and the number of produced

leads.

Based on the experiences from lead generation and building a Sales Development

Function for B2B, our respondents describe some important parts that need to be

considered. One part involves building a clear workflow that should be integrated in the

business reality for the SDR. This includes integrating different tools to save manual work

and improve efficiency. The Head of Digital Sales highlighted that every integration

needs to be evaluated from a security and data-security perspective for the internal

customer data, so the legal requirements must be in place which can take some time. One

other organizational aspect is the creation of clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs),

which for example regulates how quickly the leads should be contacted. After the initial

contact from SDR, the lead should be qualified and transferred to an account manager,

who has an SLA again that could be for example three working days to actually contact

the company again. The SDRs are responsible for following up on this process and

ensuring that the lead is handled.

“And then we have also established a formal process so the SDR is actually sending a

message to the Account Manager if they can't manage or haven't done the work yet. But

yeah, that's just super important so that the hit rate is high. It has given a positive

effect.” (H2)

Our two respondents in the SDR role from the B2B Sales Development Function also

described how they have had to discover what process works best for them in this role,

and how the process has been developed frequently since the start. Finally, the

respondents from B2B describe the importance of understanding each other’s role. The

sales teams should know where their leads are coming from, data and documentation

about the leads needs to be available, and it is important to work with communication to

ensure that the leads are managed correctly all the way.

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4.3 Improvement areas for increasing the conversion rate

A recurrent theme in the data collection was the importance of managing leads, where

one sales manager described how lead management includes how the leads are processed

after they are created; for example, how they are handled in the system Pardot, and how

they are qualified into opportunities and sent to the CRM-system Salesforce. The strategy

for managing leads is described as somewhat difficult, primarily due to various levels of

maturity of leads. A few of our respondents described how it is important to understand

what kind of activities or content the leads are looking for to optimize the marketing,

campaigns and return on investment (ROI). The lead management also requires careful

consideration for how many leads should be sent to sales and how qualified or “warm”

they should be, where consultation and collaboration is of importance.

“Maybe you don’t forward all leads to sales immediately, you try to process them and

decide how many you should send, how qualified or warm they should be before

forwarding them. And this is something you need to do in consultation between the

departments [sales and marketing]. And that might be the most important – that you

have buy-in from both sides.“ (SM1)

4.3.1 Marketing Automation

The use of marketing automation technology is something relatively new for the studied

Case Company. It is used to generate leads as described in 4.2.2, but also to manage

different types of leads. The conversion rate for smaller customers in B2B is already high;

it is primarily the medium to large customers that requires more time and effort to

convert.

To be successful with marketing automation, it is important with flawless data to

accurately process the customers. The marketing automation manager described that all

the functionalities must be in place, and the leads need to be placed in the right queue to

be processed efficiently. It is also important to work closely with the SDRs who are the

“first line” that receives, qualifies, and routes the leads further in the process to the correct

account manager or partner or whoever should handle them. However, there is room for

improvements. The marketing automation manager for B2B described how the work with

marketing automated inbound leads could improve even more if the SDRs would spend

more time in the qualification. Currently, these leads are for example getting emails with

reminders and information through marketing automation techniques. Ideally, the SDRs

would cultivate these leads and qualify them through more research that could include

documenting what kind of company it is, what products or solutions they have, and what

challenges they have or might face. This could result in more personal contact leading to

better response and higher quality of the leads that are sent to the sales team.

The marketing automation manager believes that when the SDRs become more

experienced, it might take about 15 minutes to qualify these leads to opportunities. Here

it is important to use the available tools and system in an efficient way. One other method

for interacting with leads is through phone calls, which is sometimes used by the SDRs

in B2B. The marketing automation manager believes that it should be mandatory to call

customers who have voluntarily shared their phone numbers with them, for example by

filling it in on the “contact-me” form on the website. In that case, the SDRs should call

the lead as soon as possible, as a standardized procedure to not miss out on good

opportunities. Two of our respondents also had reflections about possible constraints

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related to marketing automation and its implementation, where customers have different

needs, and automation cannot solve everything.

“I think when everything started to become automated and digitized, I think a lot of

people in marketing thought: OK, we set up these processes and then we just, you know,

it'll all just work and we just kept feeding things to the beast. But I think like good old

fashion, just instincts and sort of understanding the relevance of things. I don't think we

will automate out completely when it comes to marketing. And I think if you do, I think

you're making a mistake.” (CM)

Marketing automation for IoT

When it comes to the IoT department, the integration of marketing automation is an

ongoing project. Until now, the focus has been on B2B since IoT is a smaller organization

than B2B. Two of the respondents think that it might be easier to implement marketing

automation at the IoT department because of higher flexibility in their working processes,

which enables shorter decision-making processes.

Our respondents are unified when it comes to marketing automation and the lead

processes, it is a prerequisite for their work. In IoT they need to work with defining the

lead process because it will guide the employees in how both new and existing customers

should be processed, and how the internal communication should work. One respondent

would like to have a marketing automation program for all their products, so if a company

is showing interest, they have a shared view and a plan for how they should be targeted.

This is not really the reality right now, but something to work with more when

implementing more marketing automation for IoT. One other ambition is to use marketing

automation to reach more potential customers, and process them more efficiently. Since

IoT customers are individual, one sales manager described how the response can vary

greatly. To increase the pipeline and conversion rate, it would for example be desirable

to send a lot of mails at the same time to increase the probability of having perfect timing

for some of the leads. When implementing marketing automation, it will overall be

important to document important information in the systems and integrate the systems to

ensure that everybody has access and a shared understanding of the work.

“If you do this in a professional way, you do not want to do this one by one, you want to

send quite a few emails at the same time so that you increase the probability that you

will get a customer where you have perfect timing. We have seen that you do not have to

do so much sometimes when the customer is really interested, and it is the right time for

them. Then it goes very quickly, from the time you make the first contact until you have

an end. But then there may be such leads or prospectuses that need to be processed for

like six months a year.” (SM1)

4.3.2 Creating content for IoT solutions

From a marketing perspective, it is important to work closely with different departments

such as sales, product, operations, and professional services to ensure that they are talking

about the right things, creating relevant content, and reaching the right people. Earlier,

we described the ideal customer from a sales perspective where the maturity and level of

knowledge for different companies can vary greatly. This is also evident for the people

working with marketing, where the marketing manager described how they use basic

advertising where they must know what the customer is interested in. The content is

delivered through e.g. white papers, webinars, blog posts, the website, and LinkedIn. The

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difference with IoT is that people might have heard about it, but they don’t really

understand it, so the content they produce must be adjusted to different levels. The

marketers try to write in a conversational, friendly, and engaging way, whilst keeping

things balanced so they talk to different levels at the same time. It is also important that

they are not too technical in for example webinars, to make sure people understand their

material.

“When I first started, I knew nothing. So, I was very much writing from ‘tell it to me like

a 5-year-old kind of thing’. But on the other hand, you don't want to insult the people

who really know about IoT. So, in creating our editorial calendar or whatever content

we're going to do, we try to do things on different levels. For different kinds of

customers depending on where they are in their IoT journey and their knowledge.”

(CM)

Furthermore, you must inspire people. The marketing manager described that they aim to

help their customers understand what their possibilities with IoT are. If companies do not

adopt, the risk is that they will be left behind since IoT is currently being applied in a lot

of industries. This is something Tele2 strives to inform the market about, which relates

to educating the customers. In the creation of content for IoT, our respondents underline

the importance of understanding what the customers want and need, which requires well-

functioning communication and collaboration. However, our respondents' experience of

this collaboration has historically not always been satisfactory.

4.3.3 Antecedents for deficient lead follow-up

A majority of our respondents from both B2B and IoT acknowledged that the concept of

the “sales lead black hole” either is or has been a problem in their organization, which

could be ascribed to different factors. First, one explanation for why marketing-generated

leads have not always been followed up by sales relates to capacity, mainly a lack of time

for sales representatives. For example, if a major marketing activity has been carried out

and 500 leads have been generated, a few sales managers can not follow up on all those

leads because it takes too much time if they are to manage their other job responsibilities

simultaneously. Secondly, the hit rate for many marketing-generated leads tends to be

low when the quantity is high and the documentation and information about the leads is

scarce.

“So, I think that's a super basic explanation. It is that you simply do not have time. And

then when you've got them, these leads, you have no relationship with them.” (SM2)

Another sales manager thinks that the low expectations have nothing to do with the

marketing department per se, but it depends on the process for transferring them. A

suggested solution is to establish processes and a specific role that focus on filtering and

qualifying these marketing-generated leads before they are sent to sales. Relating to the

sales lead black hole, one respondent further believes that a reason for this could be

connected to motivation and incentives. To assure that sales or the responsible SDR

actually qualifies the generated leads, the respondent argues for establishing the right

incentives. This could be targets for signing new customers or moving a qualified lead

further in the process to for example negotiate or agreement. If they do not create the right

incentives, the risk is that they will miss out on good leads.

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Interestingly, many of our respondents mentioned a specific example of how the “sales

lead black hole” has manifested in the IoT organization. Recently, they found many old

leads that had been generated a few years back but were never followed up on. They

recently started contacting these, which resulted in some booked meetings. Apart from a

lack of time, one reason for this incident relates to processes and human factors, where

nobody paid attention to these or ensured that they were taken care of. One respondent

from the marketing team also described how this incident has led to positive outcomes

for the organization.

“It was actually detrimental to us how that happened, you know. Because we possibly

lost customers who would have been interested in talking to us if we had actually paid

attention. So now we've cleaned that up and now we have sort of processes in place

where that doesn't happen. We don't get this. We're clearing out the backlog. And now

we're on top of that.“ (CM)

To avoid this kind of “black hole”, several of our respondents described that it is

important that somebody is formally responsible for following up different projects and

activities. Today, our respondents from IoT recognize that the Head of Sales at Tele2 IoT

is focusing more on the collaboration between sales and marketing, so they do not see the

problem of sales lead black hole anymore. However, they believe that somebody else

should take responsibility over this process, for example a SDR that focuses on getting to

know the customer and delivering a pleasant first experience to the customer. A few of

the respondents also raised the question about who gets credit for creating the lead or sale.

Is it marketing who generated the lead, or sales who closed the deal? The marketing

automation manager described that they have a system that keeps track on how a lead was

generated initially, what the source is, so it is easy to track and view statistically. An

example for this is that the marketing campaign that “created” the lead gets 20 %, whilst

the department who managed the customer journey and closed the deal gets 80 %. This

portioning is important to recognize the value of marketing efforts. If the value is zero, it

would obviously not be justified to continue investing in the campaign.

4.3.4 Integration within the case company

When it comes to sales-marketing integration and how these departments collaborate and

communicate with each other, most of our respondents believe that they are well

integrated and work collaboratively.

“I think it is a very open climate in Tele2 and everyone shares a lot between each other,

and it is super unpretentious. It is very much above average. I do not know why it is so,

if it is that the people are that way, but I think it [the collaboration] works really well.”

(SM2)

Perspective from the B2B respondents

To collaborate efficiently, our empirical findings clearly describe the importance of

having a continuous dialogue. Our respondents from B2B describe both formal and

informal communication channels. In the B2B organization, they have a monthly lead

forum, where various people from the organization are invited, for example from

marketing and sales. In this forum they discuss the past month, what has been going on

etcetera. More informal communication takes place through e-mail or meeting

spontaneously at the office. In B2B, one challenge is that the people from marketing that

produces the content for the marketing automation journey do not always have enough

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understanding of what interests the customer, and what sells. It also goes the other way

around, more input from marketing to how sales can work would be desirable. A reason

for this challenge can be that the organization is big. A few of our respondents from both

B2B and IoT said that in a larger organization, it is common to work in silos. One

respondent described this as an area for improvement where they can work more together

and focus on value and selling point to the customers.

“But what is actually the selling point of the product? What is the customer using, and

what is giving the customer value? Like we need to talk about value, not product. Also

really important where we can definitely improve and then we're going to improve the

conversion rates as well, I think.” (H2)

Furthermore, our respondents acknowledge that the integration and communication often

depend on a few people. For example, the SDRs’ role in B2B is seen as important, because

if they were not there, one person would have to stay in touch with hundreds of sellers.

One respondent described the situation as fragile, meaning that if a few people would

leave the company or become ill, problems would arise. There are also other challenges

that might hinder the potential for sales-marketing integration. One respondent meant that

there are too few employees in the marketing department, which is often the case in many

companies. Marketing is also working a bit too analogue, where everything is not

measured all the way. Here it is important to have demands on delivery, educate, use

marketing automation, and discuss how the collaboration between sales and marketing

can increase. Another suggested approach is to work in smaller groups in different

projects to work with the people who are actually interested, and want to process the

marketing-generated leads, instead of focusing on involving a lot of salespeople.

“For example, you ask who wants free leads. And then 10 people say ‘Yes, I feel that I

would like to test this’, and then you have like these super users. So instead of taking

300 salespeople and telling everyone during a recorded session to do this in the system,

click here, click there, where they don’t understand anything because they are never in

Salesforce [CRM-system]. You can focus on smaller groups and find those who are

interested.” (MA)

Perspective from the IoT respondents

The respondents from IoT said that the collaboration between their departments works

well now, but this is something that has been improved during the last couple of years. In

the past, the IoT team was more siloed and did not talk to each other as much, so they

were not aware of what was going on. Now, they have both formal and informal meetings

to facilitate communication, which lets them work more cross-functional and support

each other. The content manager from IoT says that it is important to talk to different

people to understand their needs, what is going on, and understand what the customers

need to know more about. When this information is shared, it becomes easier to tailor the

marketing content to answer the customers questions and show them how Tele2 IoT can

help them. From a marketing perspective, it is important to understand the larger picture

and every part of the organization to be able to support them in the best way and land the

customers, which goes back to not being siloed. One of the sales managers also described

the importance of doing what you are good at, whilst supporting each other, and giving

others credit. This sales manager feels very supported by colleagues from other

departments within IoT, but believes that this gap exists in other places, where people

might not support each other fully.

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“I have two things when I do sales; people buy from people, and work smart, don't work

hard. Work smart, they’re [marketing] used to doing these outreaches. They’re used to

writing good texts and so forth. I'm just a sales guy or girl or woman. And if I can tell

that they supported me getting a lead, I will be able to support somebody in marketing.“

(SM3)

Even if the integration is generally viewed as good, there is room for improvements. One

sales manager says that they have not been able to work fully systematically and

structured, because they are still developing their processes and testing what works, and

what does not. This is something that still needs to be improved. One other respondent

from the IoT organization is not fully satisfied with the current collaboration. This person

understands that this can be related to the ongoing pandemic, which results in less

meetings in the office which normally is a good occasion to find out what the colleagues

are working with.

4.4 Establishing Sales Development

To work with the identified problems at Tele2 IoT in finding new potential customers and

to widen the pipeline, they have begun to formulate processes for a new sales

development function, likewise the B2B department. Thus, they are in need of inputs on

how to make it cost efficient, time efficient and other important aspects that need to be

considered while implementing the new role into their business. Therefore, we have

examined how sales development at the B2B department is working and how sales

managers, marketing managers and people working related to this function sees it.

4.4.1 Considerations when initiating Sales Development for IoT

The sales managers have pointed at the lack of leads and quality of leads which makes

their work stressful in periods due to quarterly sales targets. The respondents explain that

working with unqualified leads is time consuming and they would prefer some kind of

filtration of incoming leads. As one of the sales managers outlined:

“There is a need for a good and effective way to get rid of the leads that are not

qualified. We need someone who understands what we are doing. An imposition of

hands between sales and marketing would be interesting… such a refining function is

needed; it is not possible to automate everything... It is completely uninteresting for a

salesperson to follow up on 50 leads which then turn out to be completely unqualified. It

just takes a lot of time and generates nothing.” (SM4)

Furthermore, all respondents are pointing at the value of having someone dedicated to

working with prospecting, lead generation and lead management. Currently, it is hard for

the sales managers to prioritize the earlier phase of the sales process because they need

to focus their time on managing leads later in the process that is closer to a deal. However,

the company cannot survive on a few big customers, there must always be an inflow of

new potential customers. One of the respondents said that implementing a sales developer

could help the company become more digitized, cost-efficient and time efficient. For

instance, one of the Sales Managers mentioned that it is important to understand how the

Sales Development function should work to ensure that you get the most out of every

penny deposited, the return on investment (ROI).

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At the end of one conversation, one of the respondents also mentioned that the interview

had opened the eyes for how much potential they have in developing such a function as

Sales Development. Furthermore, it was kind of a wakeup call that they have not worked

more on developing it because of its potential. The questions during the interview helped

the respondent to start reflecting upon how the lead generation and Sales Development

function could be developed much more efficiently. It is important to further decide and

clarify how the process should be formed, who is responsible for the implementation and

how the team and/or role should be gathered and built.

Defining the Processes

To implement the sales development function there are some processes that need to be

defined and set in order for the person, or people, dedicated to this role to understand

what their responsibilities and activities are, and what is expected from them. To begin

with, all the respondents think that the sales developer should work closely with both the

marketing team and the sales team. The process for sales development is as mentioned

currently not set for the IoT department. Thus, the sales developers from B2B mentioned

that the IoT department could learn from their mistakes and successes. For instance, the

three different processes for working with leads depending on whether it has been

generated through outbound, inbound or marketing automation has worked well for

them.

“It's a bit like a spider in the web between departments, helping to optimize the process

and helping to scale away things that may not be as effective or as good, and helping us

Sales Managers get as good and qualified leads as possible.” (SM1)

Marketing automation at Tele2 IoT has as mentioned not been prioritized, but it is

evolving. Marketing automation will be an important part of the sales development

function to nurture unmature customers. What is still unanswered is how the marketing

automation emails should be formulated. Should there be a PDF attached or, a clickable

link, and how often should the emails be sent? The respondents thought there should exist

different programs for different customers depending on their cluster, maturity and

complexity. These programs should include emails with different time horizons, like just

a few days up to 6 months or so. To conclude, all respondents agreed upon the importance

of a set lead generation process for the sales developers. This would make it easier for all

people involved in and with the sales development.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Another area that came up for discussion during the interviews was key performance

indicators (KPIs). The respondents mentioned that it is important to understand from both

a sales developer perspective and an organizational perspective what the goals with the

function are. From an individual perspective there are different drivers and people are

motivated by different things, which should be considered. Further, having set KPIs can

increase the motivation to find new leads, and it will become easier to see the

development and the value of such work. From an organizational perspective one of the

respondents mentioned:

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“We may not know that we will get three new deals from our marketing automation

program annually, but we can hope so. What do we need to do to make it three? Yes, we

need to make good content. We need to know who our ideal customer is and how it is

that we should somehow know if we reach three or if we did not. Because if we do not

even reach three, then we are doing something wrong. We should be able to achieve

that and so on and I have not seen such KPIs.” (PM1)

Cooperation

Cooperation and collaboration between different departments and other employees is also

something all respondents highlighted as a success factor for a sales developer. A sales

developer needs to understand the value of the service and different solutions, which

makes it important to have good communication with other teams and people. The

collaboration with other employees can also help the sales manager in finding new

potential leads based on their personal contacts, experiences, or customers. One other

opinion is that it is good to have projects with people from different teams. This favors

the cooperation between departments and employees, which in turn will increase the

service delivery. One respondent also mentioned the value with the project of

implementing the SDR function. There is currently an ongoing project for this with

different people with different roles from different teams coming together to discuss and

give their inputs on how the SDR function should be formed. This is a good way for the

whole organization to share knowledge and in turn make the whole department better,

and the respondent asked for more projects like it.

Documentation

An area that also seemed important for the respondents was the documentation parts. All

respondents highlighted different things that need to be documented from a sales

developer. The respondents mentioned loss reasons as an important area and one

respondent from digital sales at B2B mentioned that their SDRs are responsible for

documenting this. This is a lesson that Tele IoT can take with them to understand why

they lose leads in the lead generation process, so that they can improve their marketing

content, services, and price strategies.

“I think it's important to log the reason for why we are losing a lead. And for that we

have a win-loss analysis functionality in the system. In my view this analysis should be

reviewed on a quarterly basis to actually understand and learn from the negative

experiences as well. And if those are, let's say price sensitive types of reasons, it's

definitely something we should look into.” (PM2)

Furthermore, the sales managers asked for documentation regarding information about

company size, industry, and the services the potential customer has. With this information

it would be easy for the sales managers to take over from the sales developer, and the

journey to closing the deal could be less challenging. One of the sales managers

recommended initiating a problem analysis of the potential company before it is handed

over to the sales manager, where the problem analysis should include for instance why

the customer has lost as much money or what data breaches they have had. This would

help the sales managers a lot to navigate them in the sales process closer to a deal.

Recognition

One of the sales managers with experience of working as a SDR in another organization

was particularly pointing at the importance of recognition and rewards for their work. It

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is important that the whole organization understands the importance of the SDR role and

that they get attention for reaching their goals. It is also important that the SDRs feels

team-affiliation with both marketing and sales to ensure high performance and

motivation. According to the B2B sales developers, people in the organization do not

really know about the SDR function. However, the management shows appreciation and

the SDRs feels recognized.

“Appreciation is very high from the management and the others. I mean it is still

something very positive to give and send leads to others I would say.” (SDR2)

Organizational responsibilities

The organizational responsibilities for the SDR function is also something that we have

examined throughout the empirical data collection. In addition to a thorough onboarding

where the employees get an understanding for the whole organization and other

employees, it is also important with an introduction to the tools, and continuous education

throughout the employment. There should also be some defined career paths for the

employers in order to keep and attract good people. One of the respondents from digital

sales at B2B also mentioned the importance of good leadership, with somebody who is

open-minded and supportive.

Capacity

To conclude, we believe that the empirical findings in this chapter has shown that there

are a lot of good inputs from the employees regarding a SDR function, and there are

already tools in place for the function to work. However, the SDR function is not in place

yet. One of the sales developers explained why:

“We do not dare to press the go button fully yet, because we know that we have still

found pretty well-qualified leads and we want to process them, but we want to do it in a

good way so that the leads do not fall out. We believe that if you have initiated contact

with a lead and then do not follow up properly, then you may have ruined that chance

for a long time to come.” (SM1)

The respondent continued explaining that it is important to have a continuous dialogue

and maintain the customers interest to build trust after the initial contact has been made.

Likewise, the SDRs from B2B explained that the account managers taking over from

them need to act quick to build trust. One sales manager mentioned that today, the

capacity to handle all the potential incoming good leads that is already identified do not

exist. The department is in need of someone dedicated to working with these leads,

managing them and qualifying them further to the sales managers.

Expectations on Sales Development

To be sure that Tele2 IoT gets the most out of every penny deposited in sales development

it is important to understand what expectations the employees have on the function. It is

also important to clarify what ambitions the management has with the implementation.

According to one of the respondents there are still things to be considered by the project

group before they can move the initiative forward. From a sales perspective, the

expectation is that a sales developer will open up for a pipeline constantly filled with

qualified leads that they can reach out to. The sales managers also expect that their burden

will decrease so that they can focus on the closing parts with their customers. The sales

manager can focus on processing the leads instead of searching for them. Another

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expectation is that a sales developer has one foot in both camps, sales and marketing,

which makes the whole organization and lead generation more coherent. This in turn

would benefit the collaboration between the teams but also other teams.

“There would be a constant qualified lead pipe. I guess it will definitely ease the work

for the Sales Managers. When they finish with one thing, then they wouldn’t have to

spend too much time on searching for new leads as there would already be a list of

additional and already pre-qualified leads that are actually worth to tackle, spend time

on and work with.” (PM2)

From a marketing perspective, the employees expect that the SDR will monitor LinkedIn,

the activity there and understand the software. They also expect the SDR to spend time

on processing of leads so they understand what cluster they are in and what kind of

solution that would fit each customer. Furthermore, they expect a SDR would contribute

to increase the marketing generated leads. The marketing automation manager also hopes

for good collaboration with the SDR within IoT.

4.4.2 Characteristics of a SDR

Beyond the identified organizational and process factors for a successful sales

development function we could also identify some characteristics that the respondents

see as important for people working with sales development. This included personal

characteristics, experiences, and motivation.

Personal Characteristics

The respondents from the B2B sales development team mentioned some traits that an

individual in a sales development position benefit from. A sales developer needs to be

good in both oral and written communication because they have a lot of contact both in

conversations online and through the phone. A SDR should feel comfortable and/or be

motivated by talking to new people and enjoy social situations. They should also have the

skill to make people feel trust and comfortable in new business situations, since they are

the initial representative for Tele2 in contact with new leads. Furthermore, the head of

digital sales at B2B also mentioned it is important to be a team player because you are

not the person closing the deals and getting recognition for that, but you are very

important to initiate the deals. Therefore, you need to be content and proud for the success

of the whole team.

“You need to be a little bit like one of Tele2’s values, fearless, like social and

entrepreneurial, not afraid of taking contact with new people.” (SDR1)

Experiences, Expertise and Competences

We have already discussed different ways to approach and attract inbound, outbound, and

marketing automated leads. Other ways to find optimal customers also include manual

methods like utilizing your network, knowing people in the marketplace, and getting in

touch with them to see if they are interested in IoT solutions. Therefore, experience within

the industry, expertise knowledge within IoT solutions and competence is desirable for

the position as a sales developer in IoT. However, one of the sales managers with

experience of working as a sales developer mentioned that they still need to have a

learning curve. You cannot expect the sales developer to be fully trained from the

beginning, there should be room for development and maybe continued education for the

SDR.

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“You need more experience to actually be able to make a good assessment... It's a lot

about expertise, or about competence and experience as well. You may have a wide

network of contacts and then it will be much easier. It comes a bit with age and with

time as well.” (SM1)

Motivation

We also talked about motivation for a sales developer, because as one of the sales

managers mentioned, it takes a lot of time and sometimes it can be hard to find qualified

leads. The SDRs from B2B mentioned that they are driven by social interaction, customer

contact and team affiliation. One of the SDRs mentioned that her education is within

marketing automation, and for her working with that and between sales and marketing

relates to her education and her interest. The other SDR from B2B has an education within

business administration and has been part of the journey when they started to implement

the function. For her it has been motivating to set the processes and continuously improve

the SDRs work and resources. Furthermore, the sales manager with experience of

working as a SDR also mentioned it is important to have a good career path to maintain

and create motivation.

“There's also a learning curve because the idea when you have a sales developer, is not

that that person is going to be a sales developer for the rest of their life, because that's

the worst. But it is the capability to start becoming a really good salesperson and

understanding what are actually the needs in the market and then being able whenever

you have a handle.” (SM3)

Currently, a majority of our respondents believe that the content produced by marketing

for Tele2 IoT has high quality where they for example produce very good articles, so they

have good prerequisites and capabilities to produce good leads, but they need the capacity

to follow up on these leads, which they lack at the moment, relating back to the need for

developing their lead generation processes.

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5. Analysis: Initiating Sales Development In this section, we will compare and analyze our empirical findings to scholarly insights

within sales and marketing research. The ambition with this analysis is to contribute with

recommendations and insights on how the customer acquisition-related processes can be

enhanced, and how Tele2 IoT should implement a Sales Development function within

their organization.

5.1 Improving customer acquisition activities

The main purpose of this study is to give insights on how companies can work with sales

development to improve their sales performance through lead generation and lead

management activities - also referred to as customer acquisition. Therefore, we have

strived to get a profound understanding of the current sales process with focus on

customer acquisition phenomena within the case company. Thanks to detailed insights

from our committed respondents, we managed to collect data on how their sales processes

have evolved, what challenges they face, and how they believe these processes can be

improved.

Approaching IoT customers

Throughout the empirical data collection, the respondents pointed at the sales context for

selling IoT and highlighted the phenomenon of increased competition and long sales

cycles. These challenges have also been recognized by scholars, where sales cycles in a

B2B setting tend to be longer and more complex than a B2C setting (Inks et al., 2019, p.

91; Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p. 173) especially due to larger purchases, fewer potential

customers, complex solutions, and a higher need for knowledge sharing (Syam &

Sharma, 2018, p. 142). The driving forces for the long sales cycle for Tele2 IoT were both

tied to the company itself and to changes in society. To begin with, a lack of brand

recognition of Tele2 among companies outside the Nordics was mentioned, which in

combination with an increasing number of competitors reflects the importance of

positioning Tele2 IoT as a knowledgeable and trustable IoT provider. The driving forces

in society were connected to a changing digital sales landscape, more actors involved in

the sales process, and big investments for customers to implement IoT. In relation to this,

the consensus of our respondents is that the sales cycle can be decreased if they can

identify and attract educated and mature customers. Currently, many companies know the

concept of IoT, but do not really understand the service or how it can benefit their

business.

Attending to a successful lead generation process, one important element identified

among the respondents was hence their view on the ideal customer profile for IoT.

According to Inyang & Jaramillo (2020, p. 616), a shared view on the desired customers

can improve the performance of sales by targeting the right types of leads. We can

conclude that the respondents have a common view of which segments and companies

they are scanning for in their current lead generation efforts. They are looking for the

customer who is knowledgeable about IoT solutions, is ready to invest, operates within

any of the three clusters of monitoring & tracking, predictive maintenance, and remote

steering, has an order of connectivity which exceeds 500 SIM cards, and/or growth

potential. However, these customers are not always easy to identify. Thus, instead of

finding educated customers, Inks et al. (2019, p. 92) presents the challenger sales

approach where salespeople can take on the role as both disruptor and teacher to explain

why the customer's business needs to change in a certain direction. We advocate that this

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approach reflects an alternative focus on the sales process, compared to today where most

of the respondents focus on more solutions-oriented selling approaches. However, the

challenger sales approach requires certain skills (Rapp et al., 2014, p. 254), so more

inexperienced salespeople might not benefit from this approach. Our data collection

implies that this perspective exists within the sales force of IoT, but since the salesforce

have various experiences, we argue that the challenger approach might not be the best

alternative to employ. Instead, the selling approach should be adjusted to the potential

customer, where adaptive approaches have proven to be especially applicable in

businesses with long sales cycles (Inks et al., 2019, p. 91).

Furthermore, we contend that even if digital tools are widely used for approaching IoT

customers today, our respondents describe how old-fashioned methods for meeting face-

to-face like conferences is still one of their favorite approaches to build relations and meet

customers. Our interpretation is that even if customers are more active online, and there

are many effective sales tools available on the market, B2B selling needs to be personal

and built on trust which is in congruence with more relational selling approaches

(Moncrief & Marshall, 2005; Wengler et al., 2021). This indicates that Tele2 IoT needs

to be aware of their customers, their needs, and focus more on educating their customers

to stay competitive, develop relations, and continue to grow their customer base.

Embracing technology to improve lead generation

Despite the shared view on the ideal customer for IoT, the Head of Sales at Tele2 IoT

underlined that they still need to establish a way to best scan the market to identify these

customers and make it easy to reach out to an accurate contact within the potential

company. Our respondents confirmed this as the most difficult aspect with customer

acquisition, and especially outbound lead generation; to find correct information, and

decide what, how and when content and information should be delivered. The importance

of rules and guidelines on how leads should be contacted was coherent throughout our

interviews, but there were also reflections on how to know when leads are “warmer” and

should be qualified into opportunities. This challenge has also been recognized by

Espadinha-Cruz et al. (2021, p. 3), who suggest that the conversion rate can be improved

by focusing on the qualification process for leads.

One suggested way to improve the qualification process is to focus on social selling, and

a social CRM strategy, where social media tools like LinkedIn and Twitter are used to

find contact information and communicate with potential customers (Ancillai et al., 2019,

p. 303; Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 187). Our interviews reflect that social media

channels, especially LinkedIn, is already a widely used tool for both sales and marketing

people. Even if Tele2 IoT seems to work with both social selling and adopt a social CRM

strategy, we argue that they could benefit from focusing on measuring their data from

these tools, to assess which ones are most appropriate for their sales processes. Moore et

al. (2015, p. 17) suggests that the potential return on investment (ROI) for different tools

can be estimated, and that salespeople should be educated in using social media. Hence,

we attend to the possibilities with expanding their usage of social media, where more

focused and interesting content and conversations can generate higher quality of their

leads. This is something that our respondents are already aware of, but we believe it could

be of higher focus in their future activities. This can also be connected to the perspective

of our respondents from the marketing department, who described the importance of

creating relevant content and utilizing marketing automation to engage with customers.

However, our findings reflect how not everything can or should be automated or digitized,

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since this could remove the human parts of intuition and instincts. Even if Tele2 IoT is

successfully adopting and integrating various tools, we argue that it is important to

remember to keep focusing on value, trust, and relations, to be an excellent provider.

Another insight for improvements comes from B2B, where the sales development team

has focused on creating a digitalized customer journey by using digital tools that are

linked to digital touchpoints (e.g., their web page and social media channels). These

digital touchpoints can indicate where the customer journey can be improved, which

Rodriguez & Peterson, 2012, p. 188) describes as an important part of a social CRM

strategy. Our respondents from IoT described that they have a dedicated content manager

who produces for example white papers on important topics, to increase interest for their

IoT solutions. Here, the importance of understanding what information the customers

need was underlined, where different people in the organization needed to be involved to

both develop relevant content, but also ensure smooth customer journeys for the

customers. This reflects a holistic view on the sales activities within Tele2 IoT, where

D’Haen & Van den Poel (2013, p. 545) suggest that the sales process should be seen as

nonlinear and iterative, when people from different departments have an impact on the

sales process. This view correlates with a service ecosystem perspective on sales, where

value is created in an interactive process between different participants in B2B systems

(Hartmann et al., 2018, p. 1; Marcos Cuevas et al., 2016, p. 97). Consequently, we assert

that both marketing and sales processes need to be integrated to create and deliver value

to customers, where coordination of different actors becomes a prerequisite to improve

lead generation activities, qualification, and the conversion rate.

Cross-functional collaborations to create value

To support customer acquisition activities, the importance of collaboration,

communication, and integration was expressed by all respondents in the study. This has

significant implications on the lead management process, where the efforts and

investments made by marketing for lead generation activities can become unprofitable if

the leads are not carefully and timely followed-up (Ohiomah et al., 2019, p. 163). Hence,

a satisfactory cooperation between marketing and sales departments can increase the

conversion rate for leads into customers (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016; Ohiomah et al.,

2019), which is one ambition for the case company of our study.

From a marketing perspective, it is further important to work closely with different

departments within IoT, not only with sales. Our interviews reflect that this is the key to

making sure they are talking about the right topics, creating engaging content, and

connecting with the right customers. When creating content marketing, the focus should

be on actively listening to the needs of the customers and using expertise from

knowledgeable people to create high-quality content (Järvinen & Taiminen, 2016, p.

173). Instead of promoting or focusing on a specific product or solution, the content

should focus on value, which relates back to the value-oriented perspective of our

respondents. This further reflects how value can be created together, where Rouziés et al.

(2005, p. 115) argues for how different departments within an organization need to

support each other’s activities, be congruent, and consistent in their contact with

customers. This collaborative perspective is reflected by our respondents, who describe

that they see the benefit of supporting for example marketing, since they are the best at

content, to ensure that sales get good leads and can do what they are good at. As described

by one of the sales managers: “Work smart, don’t work hard”.

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However, some of the communication between different departments seems to be

depending on a few people, which reflects a fragility in both the B2B and IoT

departments. To facilitate this communication, it is for example important that both sales

and marketing managers support the collaboration (Le Menuier-FitzHugh et al., 2011, p.

1168), but also that managers make sure that there are formal and informal

communications in place, and that joint achievements are visible in the organization

(Malshe, 2011, p. 53). Here, a few of our respondents mentioned that they want to see

more cross-functional project groups to stimulate knowledge transfer and increase service

delivery. For example, if a team would consist of inside and outside salespeople,

marketers, and other relevant people with a shared goal, Arnett et al., (2021, p. 266) argue

that the communication could improve. Hence, we argue for the managerial importance

in facilitating both collaboration and communication in and between departments.

Furthermore, our interviews consistently reflected that documentation is a factor that has

a significant impact on the results from lead generation activities. We argue that this is an

area for improvement, especially in the qualification process, where it is important to

document information about the customer before they are handed over to, for example, a

sales manager. Here, we want to emphasize the tacit knowledge transfer, which is rarely

shared between individuals (Arnett et al. 20219, but very important to create a holistic

view of the customer (Tanner et al., 2005, p. 173). If the story of the customer is not

documented, vital information will be lost. For example, what is the situation for the

customer, have they been losing money, why is that? Or does this customer prefer emails,

or to be called? The documentation of this information is important no matter which

process is in focus; inbound, outbound, or marketing automation. By knowing the

specifics of the customer, we assert that the content can be improved, the sales approach

can be adapted, and the potential hit rate for leads can increase.

A dedicated role for lead generation

Our study has thoroughly examined the lead generation process for the studied case

company, where the consensus is that the pipeline for leads needs to become wider, and

that the generated leads should have better quality, meaning that the probability for

converting a lead into a customer needs to be increased. This perception reflects the basic

assumption for the sales funnel presented by Patterson (2007, p. 185), where increasing

the number of opportunities, or the size of a deal are two parameters that can have a

significant impact on the company's revenue streams. To succeed with this process, Sleep

et al. (2020, p. 1044) recommends companies to have people dedicated to lead generation.

The importance of a role devoted to this process has been recurrent throughout our study,

where sales managers expect their workload to be eased, resulting in lower stress and

giving them more time to work with lead management for closing deals.

Another interesting aspect described by scholars is how marketing is usually responsible

for pre-qualifying leads before they are sent to a sales manager (Sabnis et al., 2013; Van

der Borgh et al., 2020). This does not seem to be part of the process for Tele2 IoT, where

the sales teams are currently responsible for the qualification themselves. From a process

perspective, our respondents believe that the role of a sales developer representative can

improve the qualification which will ultimately reduce the time that sales managers spend

on leads that are not yet ready to buy. To increase the ROI for marketing-generated leads,

we can further interpret how the quality of leads is important to ensure that sales

representatives feel motivated to follow up on them. If the volume of leads is high, and

they have not been filtered before they are handed over to the sales managers, the

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motivation to follow-up on them is expressed as low. Scholars have suggested that the

quality of leads is subjective, not objective (Sabnis et al., 2013, p. 62). To improve the

lead qualification process, we therefore argue that both marketing, sales, and sales

developers should be involved in setting up certain qualification criteria for prospects and

leads. Hence, we are of the opinion that a dedicated person for customer acquisition is

necessary for Tele2 IoT, mainly because their value proposition seems to be complex for

people to understand, which takes a lot of time from the Sales Managers. A dedicated

person working with these activities can become an expert of the leads process,

understand whom to contact, how to find their contact information, and assess when they

are interested to talk about an offer, which in turn has the potential to increase the overall

sales performance.

5.2 Implementing Sales Development at Tele2 IoT

The inquiries for a dedicated person working with identifying and attracting new potential

customers to Tele2 IoT is something that was confirmed during the interviews both in the

initial interview with the Head of Sales at Tele2 IoT and with the respondents. However,

there are still questions regarding how the function should be formed, activities involved

and what needs to be considered in order for the function to be as productive and cost-

efficient as possible. With insights from the B2B department, who already has

implemented a similar function and with inputs from employees with an understanding

for customer acquisition activities, we could identify some common expectations.

However, Tele2 IoT is still in the early phase of implementing a sales development

function and therefore we want to give recommendations on how they should configure

their sales organizations to embrace the full potential with sales development.

5.2.1 Structuring the sales organization

Scholars have pointed at the increasing importance of inside sales due to changes in the

environment, increasing customer demands and a call for development of digital sales

processes within companies (Arnett et al., 2021; Ohiomah et al., 2020). These indicators

reflect the current situation at Tele2, where the B2B department has already shifted their

focus to digital sales, and now it is time for IoT to transform their sales organization. In

the theoretical framework, we described how sales organizations can be organized in

different configurations with the inside and outside salesforce, where Sales Development

is a configuration where Sales Development Representative (SDR) represent the inside

salesforce and are responsible for identifying and qualifying prospects (Sleep et al., 2020,

1044). Our empirical data presents how the development of a separate unit for Sales

Development in Tele2 IoT can be a solution for handling the current challenges for lead

generation and lead management. A dedicated SDR can be responsible for the early phase

of the sales process before a Sales Manager takes over. This would include responsibility

for lead generation, qualification, and follow-up to ensure that the qualified leads are

timely managed.

Currently, the sales team for IoT seem to work with both inside and outside sales, since

they combine digital sales channels with conferences and face-to-face meetings when

possible. However, during the last 1,5 years, their interactions with customers has been

primarily digital due to the ongoing pandemic, reflecting a somewhat forced change that

not all sellers are content with. Therefore, we argue for the importance of defining the

inside and outside salesforce and responsibilities, to ensure a lean sales process without

conflicts, which the sales development configuration has the potential to contribute to

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(Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1044). Another potential benefit of establishing a specific inside

sales force is that they can be used to capture the mentioned tacit knowledge, since they

will work closely with both outside sales and marketing (Arnett et al., 2021, p. 266).

However, a reflection is whether the SDRs currently working exclusively for the B2B

organization, could also be responsible for the lead generation for IoT? Since it is already

established with several SDRs, set processes, and reliable tools, it might be a less costly

solution than implementing Sales Development specifically for IoT. However, due to the

differences in the value proposition for IoT versus traditional telecommunications

solutions offered by Tele2, we deem that this solution is less feasible. Further, our

interviews reflect that the SDRs in B2B are already working at a high capacity and adding

IoT to that would probably require an additional employee. Hence, we argue that their

current plan, to establish a separate Sales Development function for IoT, is a better

alternative.

When organizing the sales organization through a sales development configuration, there

are further various limitations that need to be considered. Firstly, if the communication

between inside and outside salespeople is inefficient, the risk for low knowledge sharing

increases, which can result in higher rejection rates by prospects (Sleep et al., 2020, p.

1044). Hence, we believe that the SDR should work closely with the sales managers, both

to take advantage of their experiences and selling skills, but also to understand what kind

of information they want the SDR to document about the customer and ensure that the

leads are of high quality. Another pitfall for this configuration is to not educate the inside

SDR, where one solution can be to pair new inexperienced inside salespeople with

experienced outside sellers (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1052). One third important

consideration that our respondents mentioned was to provide clear career opportunities,

and incentives. If this is not prioritized, the risk for turnover problems can arise (Sleep et

al., 2020, p. 1044). We believe that especially for Tele2 IoT, these limitations must be

addressed early to ensure that the SDR gets the support needed from others within the

organization, and ensure they are motivated and have the right tools to improve the

current processes.

5.2.2 Developing the Lead Generation Processes

For the current lead generation process for Tele2 IoT, we have identified that there are

three primary sources of leads: inbound, outbound, and marketing automated. Even if the

methods for processing different leads differ, they all move through the pipeline in a

similar order. There were some important insights the respondents pointed at to focus on

in lead generation overall. Within the IoT department, our empirical findings indicated

that outbound leads are the prioritized source of potential customers. The company

already has drafts on the outbound lead generation process and established tools, but they

still need to set the process and communicate it internally. We argue that the process for

outbound lead generation should be fully tested through trial and error to make it as

efficient as possible, which is also recommended by Wengler et al. (2021, p. 609). This

should further include integrating a clear workflow in the SDRs everyday work, where

the use of integrated tools is underlined by our respondents.

With a relational selling approach driven by offering value to the customers, we further

believe that the process for the outbound lead generation is something every company

needs to elaborate and develop within the organization amongst people involved in the

process, to ensure that interactions and offers towards potential customers are

personalized and attractive. In B2B, they have one SDR responsible for each category of

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leads, and thus only focuses on one lead generation process per SDR. They explained that

they have realized that is the best way to work, to ensure that all categories of leads are

managed adequately. However, in the beginning B2B had only one employed SDR, and

due to capacity constraints, we see that this is also the most feasible for IoT in the

beginning of the implementation. However, this might change when the processes

become established, more marketing automation is integrated, and when the inflow of

customers increases. We further see a need for close collaboration between the SDR, the

marketing automation manager, and sales managers to ensure that the processes are

integrated and to capture the experiences of different knowledgeable people within Tele2

IoT. Overall, we further believe that the initial focus of the SDR should be on prospecting

for outbound leads and improving those processes. If they would be responsible for both

inbound, outbound, and marketing automated leads from the start, we argue that it could

be overwhelming, especially if the person is inexperienced and new within IoT.

One other aspect that should be developed when implementing SDR for IoT is the follow-

up of leads. In B2B, they use Service Level Agreements (SLAs), to regulate how quickly

different leads should be contacted. Since timing is one important challenge described by

our respondents, and further acknowledged as a main challenge in lead management

overall (Ohiomah et al., 2019, p. 163), we argue that SLAs must be considered when

initiating sales development. The IoT department can consider their current processes,

resources, and data, to develop clear SLAs. When these are established, the SDR should

be responsible for ensuring that they are followed, and if not, they can remind the sales

managers and/or assist them if they do not have time.

An iterative perspective

In the current lead generation process, Sales Managers at Tele2 IoT are interacting with

different people in the potential customer firms, they are interacting with digital tools

such as CRM systems, social media platforms (mainly LinkedIn) and co-workers that

may have valuable knowledge for certain phases of the sales cycle (e.g., technician,

service manager etc.). This makes the crossing points of information more complex where

important information can get lost. Therefore, Hartmann et al (2018, p. 12) has argued

for how the sales processes need to facilitate interactions between actors to create value

together and capture relevant information. Along with the changing views on sales,

scholars have further proposed that the sales process should be seen as nonlinear and

iterative (D’Haen & Van den Poel, 2013; Hartmann et al., 2018). Inspired by this view,

we argue for the sales process as well as the customer acquisition processes to be iterative

where the salespeople move back and forth with information search and processing of

customers. At the same time, various people with different expertise might need to be

consulted to ensure a smooth customer journey for the individual customers in IoT. We

claim that this will create a more dynamic pipeline which will result in a more efficient

lead generation. Our respondents also pointed out that customers that are not ready to buy

or mature today might need to be unqualified and approached at another time, which

confirms how the process needs to be iterative. If it is not, the risk is that the company

will miss out on good opportunities in the future.

Realistic targets and clear KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) were also something several of our respondents

discussed in relation to the sales process. KPIs can both be used to assess the return on

investment for different tools and activities, but it can also help to improve processes and

content. With KPIs, the company can measure how many leads are converted to

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customers, they can improve their marketing content, marketing automation processes

and they can identify weaknesses in the different lead generation activities. Which KPIs

are used is something each organization needs to reflect upon depending on their industry,

challenges, and ambitions when implementing SDR. For example, the company can

consider: 1. What kind of productivity and efficiency do they want to achieve with

implementing such a function, and 2. How do they want to measure the sales developers'

performance?

Further, we suggest that KPIs should be reviewed on a quarterly basis to ensure that the

Sales Development function delivers the desired value and that errors can be fixed

quickly. However, the targets need to be realistic and aligned with available resources

(Van der Borgh et al., 2020, p. 136), to avoid perception problems between managers and

employees. Further, we suggest that targets or KPIs for SDRs should not focus on

behavioral outcomes, such as how many calls they make, or how many emails they send,

since it can reduce their feeling of task autonomy (Sleep et al., 2020, p. 1051). We argue

that the focus should be on encouraging creative, customer-centered, and value-oriented

approaches to increase their social skills and deliver a good first impression to potential

customers. Based on the different perspectives in the interviews, we recognize that it will

be important to establish relevant KPIs to motivate the SDR in their work and make their

contribution visible within the organization. For example, to fully capture their efforts,

they should have a KPI reflecting the sales effort of the whole team.

Effective tools

Interestingly, our respondents had individual opinions on the usefulness of their current

tools. Some even said that they have too many tools available, where not all of them are

of high use, which we believe reflects a potentially high cost with low return. As

described in the theoretical framework, effective tools should be provided by selling

companies to improve communication and the processing of customers (Hartmann et al.,

2013, p. 14). However, our data also indicates that the company has high demands on

their software, which must provide high hit rates, be cost-efficient, and optimized over

time. Hence, we contend that these tools should be evaluated to ensure the efficiency and

ROI of them. We also argue that the outbound lead generation and the utilized tools

should be customized to each company, industry and the people working with them. Since

B2B customers are increasingly active online, social channels and digital media should

be used (Ancillai et al., 2019, p. 303), and inside salespeople need to be given proper

education to succeed with their responsibilities (Sleep et al., 2020, 1052). Consequently,

we assert that the education for SDRs should not only focus on the IoT solutions and the

lead generation process, but also include how social media and available digital tools can

be used to their full potential.

5.2.3 Hiring the right person

To implement an efficient and productive SDR function it is important for the company

to hire the right person/people into the position. Our respondents described how the

characteristics of a SDR should be a social person that feels comfortable with establishing

contact with unknown people, or at least feel motivation for initiating contact with new

people. Relating to motivation, Sabnis et al. (2013, p. 55) proposed a model for how

motivation, ability, and opportunity can explain why sales representatives put more or

less time into different types of leads. In relation to this model, our respondents discussed

motivation and ability, where external motivation in the form of managerial tracking is

supposed to negatively affect the follow-up the more experienced salespeople is (Sabnis

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et al., 2013, p. 55). In contrast to this, our empirical data reveals that the sales

representatives see an advantage in having somebody who is formally responsible for

following-up lead-generating activities. When nobody has been responsible, they have

had delays in the lead management process where a lot of leads have been forgotten.

Thus, our findings reflect how processes and people can be another contributing factor

behind the problem of the sales lead black hole, confirming the importance of a process

perspective presented by Van der Borgh et al. (2020, p. 140), and how a more formalized

process for the follow-up might be a solution. Therefore, we argue that a future SDR can

be responsible for lead generation, but also for ensuring that the qualified leads they have

sent to sales managers are followed up in time, to ensure that they are managed throughout

the whole process.

Our respondents from IoT also see a value in having the right incentives in place for sales

representatives, where targets and KPI’s are suggested to increase the motivation for

following-up on different types of leads. This reflect that external motivators can be of

higher importance than intrinsic motivation, as presented by Sabnis et al. (2013). In

contrast to this, the SDRs from B2B described motivation in a more intrinsic nature,

where the person should be a team player and feel satisfaction for the team's success

because the SDR will not be the one closing the deals. The person should also be a good

communicator both orally and in text and be able to formulate themselves in business

English, since they will interact with international customers. Furthermore, the SDR

should be good at communicating because of their cooperation with other departments,

employees, and potential customers. The SDR will be “the spider in the net”,

communicating with other departments as its core. Furthermore, the SDR needs a problem

solving and creative mind because identifying leads and lead sources is a bit of detective

work. A hot lead can be just in front of you, but there may also be a gold mine somewhere

out there, so they must also have a creative and curious side.

Organizational Commitments

To implement a Sales Development function the respondents mentioned some things that

need to be considered, and we argue that this should be a responsibility for the

organization and the management team. To begin with, the importance of long-term

orientation with the Sales Development function is crucial both to ensure the ROI and for

motivation among all employees. One crucial organizational commitment it to have a

dedicated budget for customer acquisition, and as the focus of this study, for sales

development. Ang & Buttle (2006, p. 310) contemplates that this is a key to success,

whilst for example CRM systems is not associated with the same excellence. Hence,

before the implementation is done, a dedicated budget for sales development needs to be

confirmed. They currently have an established project team, where they are brainstorming

ideas on how the Sales Development function should work. However, without a dedicated

budget, it is difficult to process. We argue that all roles in the group should be clearly

defined so all people in the project group knows what to do and who is responsible for

what. Furthermore, we argue that the project group should have follow up meetings

continuously to make sure that the project continues to move forward and that the project

group continues to feel motivation for working with the project.

It is further important to ensure that the SDRs get a proper education and are given a clear

career path, to ensure that the potential problems presented by Sleep et al. (2020) related

to high turnover and inconsistent qualification is accounted for. Furthermore, we contend

that managers should focus on quality before quantity in sales development metrics to

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both ensure that they focus on delivering high-quality leads, but also to embrace the

value-oriented approaches that were reflected throughout our interviews. One way to

make sure that a long-term orientation is in place is to create KPIs already from the start,

where trial and error learning will increase the ultimate goals and numbers over time.

Additionally, the organization needs to take responsibility for questions concerning data

security and secure control of sensitive and personal data of identified leads.

5.3 Conceptual Model

Derived from our presented analysis, and in relation to the purpose of this study, we have

developed a conceptual model for an integrated and holistic view on lead generation and

sales processes (see figure 5). This conceptual model aims to give an overview for how

inside sales, Sales Development, can improve the overall sales performance through lead

generation and lead management in businesses. Our proposed model is developed for

businesses in a highly competitive business environment with long sales cycles where the

primary resource of potential customers are outbound leads. The model begins with

describing such a challenging business landscape with pointing at macro influences, such

as digitalization of sales processes, increasing competition and increased customer

demands, affecting the whole sales process. It also outlines the importance of

understanding the customer needs to communicate what value the company can offer the

potential customers. Driven by these three factors, the model proposes attracting and

finding potential customers through three different main activities: outbound lead

generation, inbound lead generation and marketing automation lead generation.

The outbound lead generation concerns activities such as sibling search, personal

network, conferences, mingle on activities, cold calling, social media channels and digital

tools. Inbound lead generation concerns activities like content marketing including blog

posts, the website, white papers, newsletters, and social media etcetera. Furthermore, we

have argued for a third way of creating leads, marketing automation lead generation,

which refers to managing potential customers through personalized and marketing

automated programs (MA programs) where the leads get information about the service

and what value the company can deliver to the customer. Marketing Automation can also

be used to track potential customers visiting the website and to arrange them in the

programs to manage them. In this model, inbound lead generation and marketing

automated lead generation are illustrated as narrower because they are not the primary

resource of leads, but still need to be managed and qualified in an adequate way. This

reflects that inbound leads and marketing automated leads are usually “warmer” than

outbound leads, meaning that they will not be prospected and approached by sales.

Instead, they initiate the contact with the company and already have an interest for the

solution when the interaction begins.

The model also illustrates how a potential customer converts through the funnel from a

prospect to a more qualified lead. If the potential customer fulfills the quality criteria and

they are interested in implementing the solution that the company offers, they are

qualified to an opportunity. A company that has been qualified to an opportunity is

handed over to a Sales Manager who continues to persuade the value that the company

can bring to the potential customer’s organization. These customers are also transferred

into the CRM system where information regarding their needs, problems, organizational

information etcetera, are documented. Those leads that are unqualified are those potential

customers who neither are interested in the company or implementing the solution, these

leads are just removed from the pipeline and not introduced in the CRM system. However,

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unqualified leads can also be potential customers that are not mature enough meaning that

they do not reach the company’s qualifying criteria but are still interested in implementing

the solution. In the case company, these leads are removed to a reseller, but how to handle

these leads can differ among companies depending on their solution and business

ecosystem. Not mature leads can also be those who are interested but not ready to invest

yet, these leads are put in a MA program to be managed.

While working with implementing Sales Development into an organization we argue for

four supporting elements. Illustrated in the model is the importance of iteration

throughout the funnel and in the customer acquisition processes. The iteration in the

model refers to how a Sales Developer needs to go back and forth for two main reasons.

First, regarding the information about the potential customers and their needs. For

instance, a lead that currently is not mature enough can be saved for the future where the

Sales Developer goes back to see if they are ready to invest later. The iteration also

illustrates how learnings from successes and failures can improve the process where trial

and error and continuous improvements are taken into consideration. Another supporting

element in Sales Development is documentation, where information about the potential

customer’s needs, problems, contact information etcetera are documented. Lead loss

reason is crucial for the company to document because it can help them with improving

the processes and understanding why customers choose or not choose to invest in their

solution, it can also help improving marketing content. Furthermore, communication

throughout the process among employees and teams are crucial. Communication will

decrease the common loss of leads when a potential customer converts throughout the

funnel. With communication and documentation, we argue this “black hole” will

decrease. Finally, cooperation between teams, employees and managers is central for a

Sales Development function to be efficient and productive. Cooperation can include

sharing information about potential customers, new ways of identifying leads and sharing

ideas of how the function and its processes can be improved.

The model we propose (figure 5) differs from earlier models in research by introducing

three differing lead generation processes to widen the sales funnel to improve the overall

performance of sales. Scholars have earlier examined the iteration and the sales marketing

integration to widen the funnel ((D’Haen & Van den Poel, 2013, p. 545; Järvinen &

Taiminen, 2016, p. 170), but they lack the combination of the three processes we have

identified. We illustrate the model as a funnel to highlight the iteration and leave the linear

and stepwise approaches behind. Illustrating the model as a funnel also reflects that

customer will fall out of the pipe due to different reasons, for instance not fulfilling

qualification criteria, not being ready to invest, or choosing other providers etcetera.

However, we argue that the proposed framework has the potential to increase both the

quality and the number of leads, which in turn will have a positive effect on efficiency,

productivity, and the overall sales performance for companies.

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Figure 5. The Integrated Sales Development Pipeline

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6. Conclusions & Discussion The following chapter will finalize this thesis by linking our findings to the research

question and purpose of the study. We will also emphasize how our findings are

contributing to the case company, academia, and society. Furthermore, we will introduce

some reflecting questions for managers to consider while implementing SDR. The chapter

is concluded with a reflection on the study’s limitations, and propositions for future

research areas within the field.

6.1 Conclusions

On commission for Tele2 IoT, we have examined how a Sales Development function can

be organized and managed to be efficient and productive. The purpose of this study has

accordingly been to reveal insights on how inside sales, especially Sales Development,

can be constructed to widen the pipeline, increase qualified leads, and improve the overall

sales performance. We have substantiated the empirical findings through comparisons

with existing academic research in the field, in order to answer our research question:

How can companies work with sales development processes and lead generation to

improve their sales performance?

We have examined the early phase of the sales funnel referred to as customer acquisition,

which is a prerequisite for companies to be profitable. In customer acquisition, lead

generation and lead management are two central phenomena including generating

potential customers and managing them in an adequate way. We have focused on

processes for widening the sales funnel in a highly competitive business context with

complex solutions for value creation. Our findings reveal that these parameters can result

in long sales cycles, where companies need to educate their customers, have the right

timing while introducing the solution, create value, but also identify customers that are

ready to invest. We recommend that companies who are relying on different lead sources,

and experiencing problems with their conversion rate, should initiate a dedicated function

working with lead generation, which we have referred to as Sales Development.

To improve sales performance through implementing sales development, our results

indicate that several elements need to be considered. First, to be successful in the B2B-

market, all people working with the sales process need to focus on customer-centric,

value-oriented, and relational selling approaches. By fully understanding the customers

and their needs, SDRs should hence focus on how their solution, in our study IoT, can

deliver value to the customer’s business. In this process, it is important to collaborate

cross-functionally within the company to ensure that the right customers are approached,

where a shared view on the customer profile must be developed. Furthermore, people

from marketing, sales, and other departments should together establish relevant

qualification criteria for leads, to ensure that they are of high quality.

Secondly, we argue that SDRs should utilize digital tools and systems to become experts

on their lead generation processes and ensure that the conversion rate is as high as

possible. Here, we acknowledge the importance of not having too many tools and

ensuring that the integration of systems is sufficient. It can be frustrating to learn all tools

and a leak may occur if information is transformed between too many tools. To further

improve the lead generation activities, the company must assure that the employees can

use the tools in an efficient way, measure data and ROI from different tools and social

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media channels, and subsequently remove tools that are not bringing value to the process.

The SDR should further document relevant knowledge about customers within the CRM-

system, including tacit and individual knowledge about the potential customer and their

business, to support the outside sales force in their subsequent qualification of

opportunities into customers.

To further improve the performance of sales, content marketing and marketing

automation must be considered. Here, we recognize that the marketing department should

strive to incorporate insights and opinions about customers from different departments in

the organization, to ensure that they deliver relevant content, in a timely manner, to the

right people. Our conclusion is that people working in Sales development will work

closely with both sales and marketing people, which indicates that they can capture

important information from different perspectives. To stimulate collaboration and

improve the sales processes, we also see that managers must establish formal and informal

communication channels, and support cross-functional activities and projects so that each

employee can do what they are good at, whilst supporting others.

The implementation of this unit will also require relevant KPIs to motivate the SDR in

their work. The SDR role and responsibilities need to be defined and communicated

within the sales team to ensure that they get recognition, even if they are not personally

closing the deals. We conclude that clear and set processes together with internally

communicated KPIs are important to consider for people working with, or closely to Sales

Development. These considerations can make the customer acquisitions activities more

focused on delivering value, instead of focusing on the product, which can result in higher

quality of leads and make the overall customer journey more personalized.

To synthesize these different improvement areas and activities for lead generation, we

propose an integrated sales funnel for companies adopting a Sales Development

configuration (see figure 5 on p. 76). This model highlights three different lead generation

processes: 1) outbound lead generation, 2) inbound lead generation and 3) marketing

automation lead generation. The model also points out the importance of iteration to

capture all potential customers and improve the customer acquisition processes through

trial-and-error learning, and continuous improvements. Documentation, communication,

and collaboration are other central phenomena to increase the number of qualified leads,

the efficiency and productivity of customer acquisition practices. However, we recognize

that it can be beneficial for SDRs to focus on one lead generation process, for example

outbound leads, instead of focusing on different streams, to ensure adequate processing

of the leads. Depending on what their responsibilities are, the SDRs will need education

and support, where we conclude that each SDR should have a mentor, preferably an

experienced salesperson.

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6.2 Study Contributions

6.2.1 Contributions for Tele2 IoT

By focusing on the case company Tele2 IoT, we will now present our findings for how

they can proceed with their work on implementing Sales Development into the

organization. Our findings can be considered contextually applicable due to the research

being written on commission for Tele2 IoT, but we argue that our findings can be applied

for businesses operating in competitive sales ecosystems where outbound lead generation

is the primary activity for customer acquisition. With illustrative and nuanced insights

from all respondents participating in the study, in combination with earlier research on

customer acquisition processes, we argue that the implementation of a Sales Development

function is a viable alternative.

According to the Head of Sales at Tele2 IoT, the IoT department heavily relies on

outbound leads. Consequently, the steady inflow of customers to the pipeline is

challenging which contributes to difficulties for the Sales Managers to close deals and

reach their quarterly targets. Our findings reveal that implementing a Sales Development

function can increase the time for Sales Managers working with directly profit generating

activities, reduce stress, and particularly increase a steady inflow of potential customers

resulting in an improved sales performance. As mentioned before, Tele2 IoT has begun

to formulate processes and organized a project group for implementing the function.

However, the processes for this function, and the activities and roles in the project group

are neither clearly set nor communicated internally. To support their work, we have

established a checklist of reflective questions (see table 8) for the management and the

project group executing the process while implementing Sales Development. The table

outlines some main activities, processes, and elements to consider for Tele2 IoT. We

argue that this checklist is a good complement to our suggested model “The Integrated

Sales Development Pipeline” (figure 5 on p. 76). The checklist is also applicable for other

B2B companies that want to develop their sales processes by implementing a dedicated

Sales Development Function.

Our findings firstly point at the importance for an intended budget for implementing Sales

Development into the business. To ensure that the investment is profitable it is crucial

with a long-term orientation of the implementation by setting up clear, realistic, and

internally communicated ROI targets and KPI ambitions. We recommend the

management team at Tele2 IoT to determine these numbers and establish a long-term

orientation for Sales Development within their department. We argue that the ultimate

goals and numbers need to adapt over time through trial-and-error learnings.

Additionally, Tele2 IoT needs to consider questions concerning data, security, and

integrity of identified leads and how to handle information about potential customers that

has not yet been transferred to the CRM system.

Tele2 IoT currently does not have the capacity and dare to press the “go-button”.

However, our empirical findings revealed that they have the tools in place and the

knowledge about how to form such a function, but certain processes and roles are

requested from the project group to be clarified. Therefore, we suggest that Tele2 IoT

defines who is responsible for the implementation of Sales Development and selects a

project manager for the project group. Furthermore, we recommend the project group to

discuss our proposed reflective questions to develop an efficient and productive Sales

Development function. We also recommend the project group to have continuous

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meetings to make sure that the project moves forward. One prerequisite will be to hire

the right person for the role as SDR in IoT, where social capabilities and team-building

skills should be highly valued. The empirical findings also pointed at the importance of

recognition and clear career paths for people working in the SDR function. We argue that

these issues need to be considered by the management to ensure that the SDRs stay

motivated.

Finally, we recommend Tele2 IoT to follow up the performance of Sales Development

on a quarterly basis by comparing results with KPIs. We also recommend them to

evaluate the processes in place and their formation, the people involved in the process,

the collaboration and whether they need other competences. Furthermore, we recommend

them to discuss the tools in place for the function, their efficiency and whether they need

to be adapted.

Table 8. Reflective questions for practitioners for initiating Sales Development

Reflective Questions

Project Group

• Who is responsible for the implementation?

• What competencies do we need in the project group?

• Is there a clear timetable for the implementation?

• How often does the project team need to meet? Does everyone need to be

present at all meetings?

Process

• What are the long-term goals with implementing SDR?

• Do we have a clear and solid process for outbound lead generation/ inbound

lead generation/ marketing automated lead generation?

o How should the processes be formed?

• What KPIs should be measured and what are the targeting goals?

• Are the processes internally communicated?

Sales Developers

• How many SDRs should be implemented?

• What are the requirements of an SDR?

• What are their responsibilities?

• Who should they report to?

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Tools

• What tools do we need for lead generation?

• Do we have all tools in place and are all tools we have necessary?

• Do we have education and practices in place for SDRs to learn the tools?

Iteration

• How can we apply iteration in the process?

• How should we save unqualified leads that can be interesting for the future?

Documentation

• What should be documented and how should it be documented?

• Are there guidelines in place regarding what should be documented?

• How do we follow up on documentation?

Communication & Cooperation

• What is important for SDR and connected teams to communicate/cooperate

with?

• What and how should the information be communicated in the handing over

to the Sales Managers (need analysis/ problem analysis)?

• What and how should the communication/cooperation with marketing/other

departments look like?

Security and handling of personal data

• How do we handle company information in a secure way?

• How do we save customers that are not ready to be implemented in the CRM

system?

Management

• Do we have a budget intended for SDR?

• What ROI is the ambition?

• What career paths do we have for SDR?

• What education should be included for SDR?

• Are KPIs set and communicated to those concerned?

Continues Improvements, Trial & error learning

• On quarterly basis:

o Are the KPIs reached? Why/Why not?

o How can we improve Sales Development? (Process, people, data)

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6.2.2 Theoretical Contributions

We have completed an exploratory and qualitative study to contribute to the documented

scarce research field of inside sales (as pointed out by Ohiomah et al., 2019 and Sleep et

al., 2020). We have provided contributions for how inside sales performance can be

improved through effective lead generation and management activities, which is an

allegedly scarce research field (Ohiomah et al., 2019, p. 163). Our study provides

empirical data from 12 semi-structured interviews from knowledgeable individuals

operating in the telecommunications industry, with a specific emphasis on selling

solutions for Internet of Things, where Lee et al. (2017) has explicitly requested more

qualitative studies.

Firstly, our study provides an illustration for how the Ideal Customer Profile for IoT

solutions can look like. The challenge with these customers is to educate them about IoT

and help them understand how IoT solutions can benefit their business. From a supplier

perspective, we have acknowledged that relational and adaptive selling approaches are

important to understand the customers, develop relations, and grow the customer base

through providing both knowledge and value. The use of either face-to-face interactions

or digital tools has been analyzed, revealing that salespeople are using both, where for

example conferences are viewed as one of the best ways to connect with both potential

and existing customers. Hence, some people prefer face-to-face interactions over remote

because it provides a more personal and trusting contact towards B2B-customers.

Furthermore, we provide support for how inside sales is becoming increasingly important

for B2B selling, where the digitalization trend is pushing this change more than might

have been expected by scholars such as Wengler et al. (2021). We have discussed

motivations, capabilities, and skills for Sales Development Representatives, as part of the

inside salesforce, which extends the current academia, and was also specifically asked for

by Sleep et al. (2020, 1026). We have further demonstrated implications on how the Sales

Development configuration can be applicable in competitive business contexts, with the

telecommunications sector as an example. Sleep et al. (2020, p. 1049) requested future

studies to focus on how industries or product type had an influence on sales structure, and

why some people prefer face-to-face interactions over remote (and vice versa). We argue

that we have contributed to insights on both issues by providing a comprehensive view

over an example of Sales development, and the driving factors behind the implementation

of this sales configuration in our case company.

We have further demonstrated how the implementation process for setting up a Sales

Development function needs to be viewed as a continuous and iterative process to

improve lead generation activities. To support and motivate SDRs, it is further important

to work with KPI, where our study indicates that these should be both individual and on

a team level, where it is important to acknowledge their performance to ensure a high

level of collaboration between for example sales and marketing. Relating to this, we have

explored different perspectives on the concept for sales lead black hole and its existence

(as requested by Malshe et al., 2017), relating to sales-marketing integration. Here, our

empirical findings indicate that it might exist within the company, but it is difficult to tell

because this kind of data has not been accurately measured historically, and we can

therefore only base our assumptions on this issue on subjective interpretations.

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6.2.3 Societal Contributions

The societal responsibility of growing companies has been lifted in the last decades,

where FN has established a development program with seventeen sustainability goals to

achieve before 2030 for sustainable development (UNDP, 2016, s. V). From a societal

perspective, the responsibility of companies is highly relevant to reflect upon, and our

study includes some interesting contributions. In our study we have examined the B2B-

market for IoT, which is said to have the potential of improving societies in a sustainable

way by smarter, more secure, and environmentally friendlier solutions. However, various

concerns regarding security and data traffic reflect challenges for this market. From a

social perspective, we have underlined that companies working with Sales Development

need to handle contact information and confidential information in a secure and ethical

way. This is also in line with ethical principles but needs to be lifted to ensure that

companies are working towards the seventeen sustainable goals.

Furthermore, companies who are adopting a Sales Development configuration can benefit

from our study, where we have given recommendations for how communication and

collaboration can be improved to ensure success. We have also discussed the work

environment for SDRs, where companies should focus on proper education, clear career

paths, and recognition. We have further mentioned one important standpoint for the

studied company Tele2, who aims to “lead in sustainability”, where they deliver solutions

that are collectively important to ensure an open and communicative society. We assert

that the findings and conclusion from our study can further be universally applied, where

for example more responsible companies with circular business models can improve their

sales performance through improved lead generation and inside sales activities. This can

further have positive implications on society, by creating a holistic and value-driven focus

on sales processes. Furthermore, we argue for increasing the productivity and efficiency

in inside sales with digital systems in the sales process, which can contribute to less

business travelling for Sales Managers and other people persuading sales for

organizations. Increased digitization in the sales process with a Sales Development

configuration also has the potential to decrease costs and the environmental footprint of

businesses from an environmental and economic perspective.

6.3 Limitations & Future Research

This study has been applied to one large telecommunications provider in Sweden.

However, they are not the biggest IoT provider in Sweden, resulting in that the findings

may not be applicable in bigger organizations. Sweden is also an unpopulated country

compared to for example China or the United States of America, where the biggest

telecommunications providers operate. Consequently, limitations for our study can be

considered regarding its applicability in bigger organizations and countries. However, we

argue that the model can be applied more widely, but the reflective questions may need

to be adapted depending on the context, for instance company size, number of employees

and hierarchical structures. Furthermore, our study is of qualitative nature, meaning that

quantitative measurements and data are not considered. Accordingly, conclusions

concerning the sales lead black hole are not included. For those kinds of metrics, we

would have needed data on transferability among potential customers and lead loss

reasons. We argue that this can be an interesting area for future research, for instance an

abductive approach with both qualitative and quantitative data of Sales Development

focusing on how the sales lead black hole can decrease in a similar business

ecosystem.

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To conclude, we have contributed with new insights for inside sales and sales

development, but as Sleep et al. (2020) described, the academic research is still scarce.

Future research can develop academic research for the inside salesforce, where it would

be interesting to understand what characteristics are important in comparison to outside

salespeople, whose characteristics have been widely studied in the past. Another

interesting research focus would be a more longitudinal study, utilizing quantitative data

to measure the effect of implementing sales development and SDRs, especially in

organizations where integration and communication is a problem. Finally, future research

can explore whether this sales configuration is really a way to improve lead generation

practices, and resolve issues relating to coordination and communication between sales

and marketing, as our study has indicated.

85

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Appendices

Appendix 1 - Interview guide

Checklist prior to the interview

• Introduce/recap of the researchers, the research topic and inform that the

interview is conducted as a part of the thesis.

• Repeat the theme, the purpose and why the respondent has been selected

• Clarify again that their participation is anonymous, that the thesis will be

published in Diva, and they have the right to avoid certain questions

• Clarify that if something is unclear, please ask for a rephrasing of the question or

a further explanation.

• Ask if it is okay to record!

Interviewee profile

1. What position do you hold at Tele2?

• What do you do in that role?

• For how long have you been working for the organization and in the

industry?

The sales process

2. Can you describe your experience of selling/marketing IoT (or telecom solutions)?

• How would you compare your experience of selling/marketing IoT,

compared to selling/marketing other solutions?

• How do you perform sales/marketing activities?

• How would you describe outbound/inbound leads?

• What are the challenges of working with outbound leads? What is your

experience of approaching them to make them “warmer”?

3. How would you describe the ideal customer for Tele2 IoT?

• What are the challenges with approaching these customers?

• How have you developed your “Ideal customer profile” for IoT solutions?

Customer acquisition in practice

4. How does the lead generation (marketing and sales) process look today? (How do

you find/create leads?)

• Are there any challenges with this process?

• How would you like to develop/change this process?

• What do you think is important in the lead generation process?

92

5. What channels/tools do you use?

• In your opinion, what is the most effective way to contact and create

interest from potential customers?

6. Are you familiar with the term “Sales lead black hole”?

• What is your experience of that at Tele2?

• What do you think are the reasons for this problem?

7. Have you automated something in the customer acquisition processes?

• What kind of automation? Why?

• What is your experience from this automation?

8. What kind of software/tools are you using in the lead generation process?

• Pros and cons?

• How integrated are the systems?

• How do you manage your data from these sources?

Collaboration and integration

9. How well integrated is your sales department with the marketing department (vice

versa)?

10. How are you experiencing the processes between sales and marketing today?

• What do you think are the drivers for these difficulties/advantages?

• What do you think could be a solution for the mentioned

problems/difficulties?

Establishing Sales Development

One ambition is to set up a separate Sales Development function for the IoT department.

11. What is sales development for you and what do you expect from this function?

• How could this function help you in your activities related to lead

generation and customer acquisition?

12. What do you think is important to work with for sales development to support and

improve the sales and marketing performance?

13. Is there something we didn’t ask you about that you want to mention?

Checklist after the interview:

• Ensure that all questions have been asked

• Check if it is okay to return with complementary questions

• Ask if the respondent want to review quotes before publication

• Thank them for their participation

93

Appendix 2 - Information email to participants

Hi X,

Thank you for participating in our study. Here comes more information regarding the

interview tomorrow.

We are two master students from Umeå University who are writing our master's thesis

focused on Management and Business Development. As previously mentioned, we are

exploring Sales Development processes with a focus on lead generation / prospecting

for Tele2 IoT. The purpose of our study is to provide insights and recommendations for

how Tele2 IoT can work to improve their lead generation, widen the pipeline and work

collaboratively to develop the sales performance. During the interview, we want to get

an understanding of your experiences, expectations and capabilities related to your work

with IoT.

The interview will focus on the following topics:

• Lead generation and digital tools

• The sales process within IoT

• Cooperation between departments within the organization

Your participation in the interview is voluntary and anonymous, and your answers will

be treated confidentially. You can choose to not answer one or more questions, and you

also have the option to end the interview. We will ask if it is okay for you that we

record our conversation.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

We wish you a nice day and look forward to our conversation!

Kind regards,

Annina & Malin

94

Appendix 3 - The three lead generation processes

Simplified overview of the outbound lead activities and tools for SDR

Outbound lead activity Tools and activities

Search for leads & convert them into a

list

• Ocean.io

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• Paper about IoT deals

• Website search

• Conferences etc.

Finding contact information • LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• Sales QL

Initial contact • Pardot (mail campaigns)

• Cold calling

• Mail

Qualifying Leads Lead Qualification

• Identify needs, problems, clusters etc.

Qualification outcome

• Qualified Leads

• No Answer/Unqualified leads

(not mature enough)

• Unqualified Leads

Qualified leads are handed over to a Sales

Manager

Put in a nurturing program

Removed to a reseller alternatively totally

removed from the list

• Documenting lead loss reason

95

Simplified overview of the inbound lead tools and activities for SDR

Inbound activity Tools and activities

Content Marketing • Blog Posts

• Website

• White papers

• Newsletters

• Social Media

Customer initial contact • Website

• LinkedIn

• Call

• Email

SDR filtering of leads

Lead Qualification

• Identify needs, problems, clusters etc.

SDR handing over to Sales Manager Qualified leads are handed over to a Sales

Manager

Simplified overview of the marketing automated tools and activities for SDR

MA activity Tools and activities

Identify companies/customers to put in MA

program • Outbound leads sended to Marketing

Automation Manager

• Identified interacting companies

Decide MA program What program should they be included in?

• Cluster?

• Maturity?

• Needs?

MA outcome

• Qualified Leads

• No Answer/Unqualified leads (not

mature enough)

• Unqualified Leads

Qualified leads are handed over to a Sales

Manager

Put in a nurturing program

Removed to a reseller alternatively totally

removed from the list

• Documenting lead loss reason

Business Administration SE-901 87 Umeå www.usbe.umu.se