Abstract:

Practice has shown that sales management has the ability to positively affect all those involved in the sales cycle. Also, a more mature sales process and a sales manager that adapts and improves the process over time is an extra chance for a very good performance and a high level of company competitiveness. The main objective of this research was to find relations between the maturity of the sales process and the level of competitiveness of the firm, starting from the premise that the more mature the sales process, the more competitive the company is. In order to achieve the proposed objective, a series of data was collected using a questionnaire, which was applied in the online environment during August-December 2018. The questionnaire was addressed to sales managers from companies with activity in Romania and was part of wider research, so only certain data collected through it has been used in this paper. In this way, 784 valid answers were obtained. Using the collected data, a multiple linear regression model was applied that highlighted that the maturity of the sales process is indeed an important element for the company's competitiveness. The results indicated, among other things, that a company that is always preparing its sales force to make the best use of the sales process is a competitive one.