Ready for Digital B2B Sales or not? Wie die Digitalisierung die Vertriebsarbeit verändert

The digital transformation is leading to profound social change and is having a significant impact on business-to-business sales (B2B sales). The sales process is increasingly characterized by digital technologies and the relationship between customers and sales is shifting to the digital space. In order to successfully meet the resulting challenges in sales and to transform sales, the readiness of sales employees must be ensured. This is often neglected when introducing digital initiatives and current research only insufficiently discusses readiness for digital B2B sales. This article shows what characterizes readiness and examines the requirements for digital B2B sales at employee level. Qualitative interviews are used to derive three key subdimensions of readiness for digital B2B sales: Customer orientation, hybrid sales and market orientation. Sales employees need a deep understanding of customers, an open attitude towards digital technologies and an awareness of the use of data in their day-to-day work. The results show that closer cooperation between marketing and sales is required, that digital transformation must be understood as a continuous process and that new disciplines are needed in sales.