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ISBM Pulse: Curated B2B Research

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customer

Multichannel Strategies for Managing the Profitability of Business-to-Business Customers (Lawrence et al. 2019)

Companies selling to B2B customers face two key issues: managing the salesperson channel and managing the customer-specific discounts often utilized to drive sales. Companies must determine if customers using online channels would benefit from also being served using salesperson channels, or if utilizing salespeople in such a way would be a waste of valuable resources. Lawrence et al. (2019) provide compelling evidence that sellers gain approximately twice as much net profit from customers that have greater contact with salespeople. The interpersonal relationships that salespeople forge with buyers in the B2B context may bring forth positive financial outcomes.

social comparison

Social Comparison in Retailer–Supplier Relationships: Referent Discrepancy Effects (Lee and Griffith 2019)

While maintaining relationships between different parties proves imperative across business contexts, the task often becomes challenging in the business-to-business (B2B) domain. Perceptions of fairness in retailer-supplier relationships are a key issue in B2B relationships. Due to multiple suppliers often having active relationships with the same retailer, these perceptions can lead to conflicts. Recent research by Lee and Griffith (2019) studied the social comparisons that occurs, and focus on distributive fairness, reference discrepancies, and tie strength.