Customer behavior and adoption · Mixed methods: interviews with sales personnel plus CRM analysis of 4,000 leads. Multinomial logistic regression predicts win, lost, or canceled outcomes from relational complexity, internal sales-task complexity, and vendor cross-business-unit collaboration.
Complexity of sales situation and sales lead performance: An empirical study in business-to-business company
Tatu Virtanen, Petri Parvinen, Minna Rollins (2016). Complexity of sales situation and sales lead performance: An empirical study in business-to-business company. Industrial Marketing Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.02.024
Plain-English take
Close customer collaboration increased the probability that a lead was canceled. The authors conclude that collaboration-focused selling may not increase hit rates in highly collaborative B2B environments.
How much weight to give this
2/5 Evidence needs cautious interpretation
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
Mixed methods: interviews with sales personnel plus CRM analysis of 4,000 leads. Multinomial logistic regression predicts win, lost, or canceled outcomes from relational complexity, internal sales-task complexity, and vendor cross-business-unit collaboration.
A large global IT solution provider selling integrated solutions; 4,000 CRM sales leads classified as win, lost, or canceled.
Check comparison conditions and analysis in the paper.
Publisher record checked; full-text methods were not verified.
Double-blind? Blinding details were not established from the checked publisher page.
Research question
What the authors investigated
What does complexity of sales situation and sales lead performance: an empirical study in business-to-business company show about customer behavior or marketing outcomes?
Design
Mixed methods: interviews with sales personnel plus CRM analysis of 4,000 leads. Multinomial logistic regression predicts win, lost, or canceled outcomes from relational complexity, internal sales-task complexity, and vendor cross-business-unit collaboration.
Sample and setting
A large global IT solution provider selling integrated solutions; 4,000 CRM sales leads classified as win, lost, or canceled.
Reported result
What the study found
Close customer collaboration increased the probability that a lead was canceled. The authors conclude that collaboration-focused selling may not increase hit rates in highly collaborative B2B environments.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The accessible publisher abstract identifies the single-company CRM/interview setting but does not provide a full limitations section; no additional limitations are asserted here. Full-text methods and correction history were not independently checked.
Possible founder application
Use this paper as evidence about complexity of sales situation and sales lead performance: an empirical study in business-to-business company in the stated context; compare its population, treatment and outcome with your own decision.
Evidence access
Publisher page; full-text availability varies and was not established.
Candidate study metadata and reported evidence were cross-checked against a direct publisher-page retrieval; the full article was not independently reviewed.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.