The general objective of the study was to explore how sales force automation (SFA) can be used to improve sales force performance (SFP). The study was conducted in in the STM of Western Region of Ghana in four Unilever distributing firms. These four companies had a combined sales force of 102 dedicated salesmen and saleswomen. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. In other to capture all the sales force in the area for the study, the researcher used the census method. However, at the end of data collection, the study was able to elicit data from 97 sales force persons resulting to 95.1 percent response rate. A questionnaire, made up of only close-ended items with five sections was the instrument used to collect data. Both descriptive and inferential statistical tools were used to analyse the data. The findings of the study revealed that effective use of SFA will lead to SFP in the organisation through improvement in sales persons’ communication styles and adaptive selling behaviours which will in turn ignite the sales person’s ability to use appropriate communication styles in increasing the sales performance of the company. It is recommended that the managers of the various key distribution companies of Unilever Ghana should ensure that all it salespersons are train to be able to apply information technology and to use it in supporting their selling and/or administrative activities. This will help them in recording, storing and retrieving customers and market information.
Ahearne, M., Jelinek, R., & Rapp, A. (2015). Moving beyond the direct effect of SFA adoption on salesperson performance: Training and support as key moderating factors. Industrial Marketing Management, 34(4), 379-388.
Anderson, E., & Oliver, R. L. (2014). Perspectives on behaviour-based versus outcome-based sales force control systems. Journal of Marketing, 67(4), 76-88.
Barua, A., Kriebel, C. H., & Mukhopadhyay, T. (2015). Information technology and business value: An Analytic and empirical investigation. Information Systems Research, 26(1), 3-50.
Buehrer, R. E., Senecal, S., & Pullins, E. B. (2013). Sales force technology usage: Reasons, barriers, and support. Industrial Marketing Management, 34(4), 389-398.
Porter, M. E., & Millar, V. E. (2015). How information gives you a competitive advantage. Harvard Business Review, 87(4), 149-160.
Rouzies, D., Anderson, E., Kohli, A. K., Michaels, R. E., Weitz, B. A., & Zoltners, A. A. (2016). Sales and marketing integration. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 25(2), 113-122.
Shoemaker, M. E. (2016). A framework for examining IT-enabled market relationships. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 26(2), 177-185.
Unilever Ghana Limited. (2017). Annual report: Final draft. Unpublished annual report, Unilever Ghana, Accra.
Wade, M., & Hulland, J. (2014). The resource-based view and information systems research: Review, extension, and suggestions for future research. MIS Quarterly, 28(1), 107-142.
Wedell, A., & Hempeck, D. (2016). Sales force automation: Here and now. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 7(3), 11-16.
In-Text Citation: (Alhassan, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Alhassan, N. (2018). Assessing the Effect of Sales Force Automation on Sales Force Performance in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, Ghana. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(9), 1004–1014.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
