Aligning sales strategy with organizational strategy: A case study of a multinational enterprise
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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2024
Department
Johtamisen laitos
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Strategic Management in a Changing World
Language
en
Pages
70 + 5
Series
Abstract
Amidst growing uncertainty, driven by pervasive and perpetual changes in the external environment, businesses and organizations must find new ways to meet the pace of change. As the uncertainty exceeds mere economic factors, research has implied that to survive, organizations need the ability to adjust and align their strategies to match the changing needs of the external environment. The importance of strategic alignment and its positive impact on business performance has been established in research for a long time. However, thus far, research on strategic alignment has been highly focused on the alignment between IT-departments and organizations in general. The main objective of this study is to examine factors that enable strategic alignment between sales strategy and organizational strategy; this is accomplished through an extensive literature review and a qualitative case study. Additionally, this thesis aims to broaden the understanding on strategic alignment overall and discuss the common challenges inherent in this process. The literature review indicates that alignment is needed to agilely navigate in the continuously changing markets. Furthermore, it highlights the newly established role of sales organization as a strategically important unit; also, it emphasizes that alignment should be a continuous process that involves all stakeholders. The empirical part of this study is conducted as a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews that were used to discover and determine in-depth knowledge of strategic alignment in a sales organization in Organization X. Three interviews among the case company’s sales management were conducted to explore the perceptions of sales strategy experts on the importance of alignment, and how it could best be achieved. The study reveals that dialogue, management support, and clear targets are among the main enablers of effective alignment. Hence, these aspects should be in focus if organizations aim to improve or establish alignment. Furthermore, the study indicates that lack of concrete action points and contradicting goals hinder alignment. Furthermore, it shows that there can be variance between the perceptions on alignment maturity level even within the same management team. These findings highlight that, in addition to developing strategic alignment competencies, objective tools to measure strategic alignment are also needed.Description
Thesis advisor
Galkina, TamaraKeywords
strategic alignment, case study, sales organization, multinational enterprise