Paper info: How Changes in Sales Organisation and Processes May Assist Companies to Cope Effectively with the Economic Downturn: A Case Study from the Italian Construction Industry
Title
How Changes in Sales Organisation and Processes May Assist Companies to Cope Effectively with the Economic Downturn: A Case Study from the Italian Construction Industry
Authors
Andrea Perna
Uppsala University
Sweden
Place of Publication
The paper was published at the 27th IMP-conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 2011.
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Abstract
Keywords: construction industry, business relationship, sales management
SHORT ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to analyze, in a complex context like the construction industry and in
uncertain economic times like the current ones, how a company named Santarelli Group (Santarelli)
has changed its sales organization and processes to face effectively the economic downturn and
what are the main effects on the customer and intermediaries relationships.
Santarelli is an Italian enterprise, currently employing about 100 employees, and it represents a
leader in the civil and public building sector. Santarelli acts as general contractor, designer, builder
and buyer as well as handling the sale and management of properties for residential and commercial
use. Additionally in 2000 Santarelli expanded its business scope by creating a company, named
Inergia, operating in the field of renewable energy in Italy.
The crisis in the industry led to a strong competition among actors and as a consequence, there have
been difficulties for the contractors to foresee the economic returns of their projects. In order to face
the economic downturn, Santarelli created its own sale office and sales force and attempted to
develop good and lasting relationships with the autonomous real estate agencies.
In this paper we focus on the interactions among actors of the construction industry including the
conflicts that emerged and the way that these conflicts were handled by the actors.
From a theoretical perspective, the industrial network approach is used in order to trace the changes
implemented by Santarelli in its sales organization and to focus on the development of an important
business relationship between the company and one of its real estate agents.
We will use a single case study approach (Yin, 1989) to identify the complexity of this process.
Case studies can be very useful when investigating a specific phenomenon (Easton, 1995) and are a
means of understanding change processes better, as they allow heterogeneous factors to be
examined (Halinen and Törnroos, 2005).
This paper contributes to the IMP field in two different ways. First it provides an insightful case
study within the construction industry; and secondly it further develops theoretical aspects within
the IMP tradition addressing sales management issues.
SHORT ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to analyze, in a complex context like the construction industry and in
uncertain economic times like the current ones, how a company named Santarelli Group (Santarelli)
has changed its sales organization and processes to face effectively the economic downturn and
what are the main effects on the customer and intermediaries relationships.
Santarelli is an Italian enterprise, currently employing about 100 employees, and it represents a
leader in the civil and public building sector. Santarelli acts as general contractor, designer, builder
and buyer as well as handling the sale and management of properties for residential and commercial
use. Additionally in 2000 Santarelli expanded its business scope by creating a company, named
Inergia, operating in the field of renewable energy in Italy.
The crisis in the industry led to a strong competition among actors and as a consequence, there have
been difficulties for the contractors to foresee the economic returns of their projects. In order to face
the economic downturn, Santarelli created its own sale office and sales force and attempted to
develop good and lasting relationships with the autonomous real estate agencies.
In this paper we focus on the interactions among actors of the construction industry including the
conflicts that emerged and the way that these conflicts were handled by the actors.
From a theoretical perspective, the industrial network approach is used in order to trace the changes
implemented by Santarelli in its sales organization and to focus on the development of an important
business relationship between the company and one of its real estate agents.
We will use a single case study approach (Yin, 1989) to identify the complexity of this process.
Case studies can be very useful when investigating a specific phenomenon (Easton, 1995) and are a
means of understanding change processes better, as they allow heterogeneous factors to be
examined (Halinen and Törnroos, 2005).
This paper contributes to the IMP field in two different ways. First it provides an insightful case
study within the construction industry; and secondly it further develops theoretical aspects within
the IMP tradition addressing sales management issues.