Integrating technology within the sales-service ecosystem: the emergent sales techno-ecosystem

Abstract

Purpose Sales organizations embrace technological innovation. However, salespeople’s willingness to use new technology influences a firm’s return on investment, representing a significant concern for the organization. These concerns highlight tensions regarding the tradeoffs associated with technology implementations. The purpose of this study is to offer insights that help reduce the complexities of sales technology (ST) by exploring the changing dynamics of contemporary business relationships. Design/methodology/approach This paper synthesizes the ST literature using the service ecosystem perspective to propose the sales techno-ecosystem (STE) framework, providing new insights into organizational decision-making related to the ongoing digital transformation of sales tasks. Findings This synthesis of the ST literature with the service ecosystem seeks to clarify the impact of technology within the evolving nature of buyer–seller relationships by providing four unique perspectives. Research limitations/implications Perspective 1 reviews the sales-service ecosystem framework and develops the theoretical underpinnings and relevant terminologies. Perspective 2 summarizes critical aspects of the ST literature and provides foundations for future research in the STE. Perspective 3 offers a more granular view, explicating roles and contexts prevalent in buyer–seller–technology interactions. Perspective 4 provides a set of tenets and advances research questions related to each tenet. Practical implications The culmination of these four perspectives is the introduction of five key tenants designed to help guide strategy and research. Originality/value The paper advances Hartmann et al. (2018) service ecosystem paradigm by explicating critical aspects of its ST domain to generate insights for theory and practice.