Service-Sales Ambidexterity: Evidence, Practice, and Opportunities for Future Research

Abstract

Aligning the service-sales interface within and beyond organizational boundaries is worthwhile, yet many firms are not reaping the rewards of such practice. The managerial need for in-depth insights into the blending of selling and service delivery could be better informed through resolution of current open theoretical debates. This position article extends the current knowledge base on the service-sales interface in three ways. First, we offer a synopsis of current scholarly progress on blending service delivery with sales and identify contextual conditions that foster effective service-sales ambidexterity. Second, turning to current practice, we use an empirical case study to demonstrate how a multinational company strategically deploys online learning to bridge structural knowledge and skills gaps within its reseller network to build ambidextrous capacity in the channel and support solution selling. Complementing this human learning approach, we also explore recent advances in machine learning and their impact on the service-sales interface. Third, we blend these academic and practice perspectives to offer a service-sales interface agenda that identifies directions for future research in terms of both the theoretical development of ambidexterity and defining the effective blending of technologies at the service-sales interface that enables ambidexterity in practice.

The microfoundations of organizational ambidexterity: A systematic review of individual ambidexterity through a multilevel framework

“…Some papers are only based on the literature about organizational ambidexterity, while other studies use more specific theoretical and conceptual frameworks. However, about one-third of the studies (29.6%) do not specify any theoretical approach (e.g., Bidmon & Boe-Lillegraven, 2019; De Ruyter et al, 2020; Hughes & Ogilvie, 2020).…”

Understanding the Antecedents and Consequences of Service-Sales Ambidexterity: A Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) Framework

“…In recent years, service-sales ambidexterity has been introduced as a new form of ambidexterity that may focus on understanding salespeople's performance outcomes [7,37]. This field of research separates salespeople's activities into two different categories: services and sales.…”

Sales technology and salespeople’s ambidexterity: an ecosystem approach

“…The first stream, service-sales ambidexterity (Jasmand et al , 2012; Yu et al , 2013; Agnihotri et al , 2017a, 2017b), perceives ambidexterity as an orientation that motivates a series of customer services and cross-selling and up-selling behaviors (Jasmand et al , 2012; Sok et al , 2016), where ambidexterity is the simultaneous pursuit of service and sales during encounters with the customer. Many recent works have also followed this approach, adhering to the general individual sales ambidexterity definition (Mullins et al , 2020; Panagopoulos et al , 2020; Becker et al , 2020; Hughes and Ogilvie, 2020), more so than the organizational one (de Ruyter et al , 2020). The second research stream (Van der Borgh and Schepers, 2014; Van der Borgh et al , 2017) studies ambidexterity as product selling ambidexterity, aside from cross-selling and up-selling.…”

“…Moreover, in the face of the growing importance of technology for B2B sales, sales technologies have caused a shift toward interactivity, connectivity and the pursuit of ongoing relationships, which seem to have not only reduced some traditional sales activities but also transformed the role and the activities carried out by the salesperson (Sheth and Sharma, 2008). The growing technological developments such as digitalization, artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to have major implications for personal selling and sales functions in terms of how to identify, approach and communicate with target customers, manage the pre- and post-sales process and create and maintain customer knowledgebase (Singh et al , 2019; de Ruyter et al , 2020).…”