Effect of Customer-acquisition Orientation on Salespeople’s Performance in Distribution of Pharmaceuticals

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate sales managers' strategic focus on customer acquisition, specifically its effect on salespeople's performance. In addition, this study aimed to determine how salespeople's interpersonal skills, salesmanship skills, and technical knowledge affect the relationship between customer-acquisition management and salespeople's performance. Research design, data, and methodology: This study conducted a survey of 310 salespeople working at pharmaceutical companies. A structural equation modeling approach was applied to test the main effects and interaction effects using AMOS. Results: The results indicated that both managers' customer-acquisition orientation and salespeople's salesmanship skills and technical knowledge positively affected the latter's performance. Further, it was found that the higher the technical knowledge of the salesperson, the greater the effect of the customer-acquisition orientation on sales performance. Conclusions: Sales managers should enable salespeople to quickly acquire technical knowledge with respect to the market, products, competitors, and company policy so that they can bring greater synergy to the customer-acquisition orientation.