Sales Force Compensation and Customer-Centric Business Model in The 21st Century

Abstract

Companies are changing the way they do business. Successful companies in the 21^st century are focusing on developing long-term relationships with their customers. Sales efforts are shifting to reflect these changes. And because sales efforts are changing, compensation plans should also be revised as well. Instead of being rewarded for selling as much as possible and winning market share, sales people could be rewarded for building penetration of each customer, keeping customers longer, and increasing the value of each customer. Questionnaire was the principal source of the primary data collected. Both descriptive and inferential approaches were used for the analysis. Out of twenty-nine components that account for motivation of a sales person that was analyzed, the result revealed that six principal components account for 85.75%. This suggests that salary compensation, commission incentive, bonus payment, fringe benefits, recognition of awards for outstanding performance, opportunity for promotion and advancements were the major factors that accounts for sales person motivation in the 21^st century.

Keywords: Job satisfaction; Reward Orientation; Social Interaction; Job Enrichment; Intrinsic Rewards; Extrinsic Rewards; Internal Marketing; Organisational Commitment; Integrating Interests.