Aligning sales and operations management: An agenda for inquiry

Abstract

There is a rapid growth in solution selling in practice and a commensurate increase in research in this area. The focus of this sales strategy is on providing solutions to customer problems that typically entails combining products and services from the provider firm as well as other firms. The fulfilment of these solutions requires operations management support. In spite of the need for closer collaboration between sales and operations management, more research is needed on the interface of these two functions. In order to deepen our understanding of the interface of sales and operations management, we undertook qualitative research and conducted in-depth interviews of senior executives in global firms to determine the need for sales and operations management cooperation. We followed the qualitative research with a review of extant research on the interface of sales and operations management. Finally, we conducted a survey of academic researchers to identify areas and themes of future research in this area. We summarize the implications of our findings for future research.