Transformational Sales: Making a Difference with Strategic Customers

​Inspired by a new, transformative era in human and business relations, this book provides a unique perspective on the business transformation that results from the collaboration between suppliers and their strategic customers. It is all about guiding organizational change and business transformation, starting with sales itself. Companies choosing this approach can make a significant and meaningful difference with strategic customers, moving beyond the competition. By challenging existing business assumptions and creating new perspectives on the marketplace, organizations can increase value across traditional company borders, making the (business) world a better place in the process. Both thought-provoking and practical, this management book integrates academic insights, real life examples and best practices of business transformation. It is a must-read for business leaders aiming to make a difference.

＂Integrating with your strategic customers beyond a transactional sales relationship is key for shaping new markets, developing your brand, and leveraging your strategic relationships. If sales and profitability with strategic accounts are to grow beyond the average, a change in mindset from seeing sales as an ＂outside＂ to an ＂inside＂ job is required to truly create a win-win relationship. Kotler/Dingena/Pfoertsch’s ＂Transformational Sales＂ provides hands-on insights and tools needed for companies who truly want to achieve this transformation.＂

Marc Hantscher, CEO and President Asia-Pacific, BSH Home Appliances Pte. Ltd. Singapore

＂The more profoundly and systematically B2B companies familiarize themselves with and accommodate their customers’ functional, emotional and strategic needs, the more powerful they are on the market. Top brands are professionally and passionately tuned in to their customers. Sales, Project Management, Marketing, R&D, Production and Purchasing work in concert to drive customer success, always with an eye to the future. This book presents illustrative cases, highlighting how champions have scaled up their business.＂

Achim Kuehn, CMO Herrenknecht AG, Schwanau, Germany

Philip Kotler (M.A., University of Chicago, Ph.D., M.I.T.) is the S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He has published Marketing Management (15^th edition), Principles of Marketing (16^th edition), B2B Brand Management, Ingredient Branding, Building Global Biobrands, Winning Global Markets and 50 other books. His research covers strategic marketing, innovation, industrial marketing and corporate social responsibility.

He has consulted GE, IBM, Apple, Honeywell, Ford, Merck, Samsung and many other companies and has lectured on all the continents. He has lectured to many companies about how to apply sound economic and marketing science principles to increase their competitiveness and growth. He has also advised foreign governments on how to develop the service quality of government agencies and how governments can support their domestic companies to prosper in the global marketplace. He has also extensively consulted nonprofit organizations on marketing strategies and policies.

In 2013, Professor Kotler was selected as the first recipient of the William L. Wilkie American Marketing Association Foundation’s (AMAF) ＂Marketing for a Better World＂ Award for significant contributions to marketing’s theory and practice. Professor Kotler is the recipient of 22 honorary degrees from abroad. Philip Kotler is widely respected by the marketing profession as a legend in marketing.

Dr. Marian Dingena is visiting faculty at the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and other European Business Schools and founder of MPCN Action Learning. At the Rotterdam School of Management she is involved in custom and open enrollment programs with corporate clients, such as the Strategic Account Management and the Sales Leadership Diploma Program. As a change management expert, Marian has over 20 years of international experience in guiding business transformation through action learning programs and customized interventions. She has experience across a wide range of industries and worked throughout Europe, Southern Africa, North America, and India.

Marian is specialized in Strategic Customer Management, Sales and Market Leadership and Change management. Marian is working as a business coach, sparring partner, lecturer, source of inspiration and independent researcher.

Earlier publications include: The Creation of Meaning in Advertising (1994), Successful Marketing Planning (co-author, original publication: 1997), and Key Account Management (2002).

Dr. Waldemar A. Pfoertsch is Professor for International Business at the Pforzheim University, Germany. From 2007-2010 he was Professor of marketing at China Europe International Business School Shanghai (CEIBS). His other teaching positions have been at the Executive MBA Program at the University of Illinois, Chicago and at the Steinbeis University in Berlin, the University of Cooperative Education Villingen-Schwenningen. He was visiting Associate Professor at Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University and Lecturer for Strategic Management at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. He has taught online with the University of Maryland University College Graduate School. At the start for his career he was Research Assistant at the Technical University of Berlin.

Waldemar Pfoertsch has extensive experience in management consulting. In his years at UBM/Mercer Consulting Group, Arthur Andersen Operational Consulting and LEK Consulting, he worked throughout Europe, Asia and North America, assisting companies in developing international strategies. His earlier positions include sale and strategy positions at SIEMENS AG in Germany/USA and being an Economic Advisor to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

He is the author of various books and numerous articles. The most current book was published with Katherine Xin, Arthur Yeung, and Shengjun Liu - The Globalization of Chinese Companies: Strategies for Conquering International Markets. Ingredient Branding: Making the Invisible Visible and B2B Brand Management were co-authored with Philip Kotler from Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He also published Business-to-Business Marketing with Rob Vitale and Joe Giglierano in 2010 and with Peter Godefroid B2B Marketing in 2009. In the field of Internet Marketing, he has published Living Web and Internet Strategy, books on application of Internet marketing and Internet strategy. He has also written numerous articles on international strategies; B2B Brand Management, Ingredient Branding, Internet Marketing, CRM and market opportunities in emerging markets. He holds various board positions with private and not-for-profit organizations.