Management Practice Insights
DOI: 10.59571/mpi.v2i2.4
Year: 2024, Volume: 2, Issue: 2, Pages: 53-58
Original Article
Renuka Kamath 1, Pranav Bharti 2
1 Professor for Marketing and Associate Dean of Full-time Programmes at SPJIMR
2 SPJIMR's Post Graduate Diploma in Management
Correspondence
[email protected]
Received Date:18 March 2024, Accepted Date:16 September 2024, Published Date:15 October 2024
The need for cross-selling has increased in the past decade, as it boosts company revenues at a reduced cost, given that acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining an existing one. While the need for cross-selling is strong, execution is a challenge. Fresh insights from research by Christian Homburg, Sina Böhler, and Sebastian Hohenberg illuminate how to succeed at cross-selling.1 They identify how familiar levers for cross-selling – such as salesforce incentives, training, and job rotation – need to fit the company’s structures for maximum gains. Using these levers and structures deftly can help you navigate the cross-selling ‘death valley’ – a U-shaped relationship that typically exists between cross-selling performance and operating profits. Ignore the insights at your peril – as many companies lose hope when investments in cross-selling do not yield expected returns fast enough. We illustrate this insight with examples and synthesize it with another set of insights – from a study by Yuhyung Shin, Won-Moo Hur, and Tae Won Moon – which delves deeper into managing salespersons for the challenging and rewarding task of cross-selling 2
1 Christian Homburg, Sina Böhler, and Sebastian Hohenberg, “Organizing for Cross-Selling: Do It Right, or Not at All,” International Journal of Research in Marketing 37, no. 1 (March 1, 2020): 56–73, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2019.04.002
2 Yuhyung Shin, Won-Moo Hur, and Tae Won Moon, “When and How Sales Manager Feedback Contributes to Sales Performance: The Role of Emotional Labor and Cross-Selling,” European Journal of Marketing 57, no. 2 (2023): 599–625, https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-12-2021-0984
3 Sophia Bernazzani Barron, “What Is Cross-Selling? Intro, Steps, and Pro Tips [+Data],” May 14, 2024, https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/cross-selling.
4 Sophia Bernazzani Barron.
5 Herman Vantrappen and Frederic Wirtz, “Making Silos Work for Your Organization,” Harvard Business Review, November 1, 2021, https://hbr.org/2021/11/making-silos-work-for-your-organization
6 Salesforce Research, “What Are Customer Expectations, and How Have They Changed?,” Industry research, accessed August 20, 2024, https://www.salesforce.com/resources/articles/customer-expectations/
7 Pranav Bharati, “Autumn Project Report” (Mumbai, India: S. P. Jain Institute of Mangement & Report, 2023), SPJIMR Library.
8 John Chartier, “The Six c's of Cross-Selling Success,” McKinsey Quarterly, February 3, 2021, https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-andcorporate-finance/our-insights/the-strategy-and-corporate-financeblog/the-six-cs-of-cross-selling-success
9 Jaap Vergote, “How McDonald's Uses Upsells and Cross-Sells to Grow Revenue,” Shopify Upsell & Cross Sell | UpsellPlus (blog), February 3, 2023, https://www.upsellplus.com/blog-post/how-mcdonalds-uses-upsells-andcross-sells-to-grow-revenue
10 Varya Davidson and Paul Leinwand, “How Starbucks's Culture Brings Its Strategy to Life,” Harvard Business Review, December 30, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/12/how-starbuckss-culture-brings-its-strategy-to-life
11 Andre Ye, “You're Not Just Buying Coffee at Starbucks, You're Buying Loyalty,” The Startup (blog), May 21, 2020, https://medium.com/swlh/yourenot-just-buying-coffee-at-starbucks-you-re-buying-loyalty-5d06a2affe14
12 Pranav Bharati, “Autumn Project Report.”
13 Writankar Mukherjee, “ITC Beats Adani, Britannia & Parle to Become Largest FMCG Co in Food Space,” The Economic Times, December 8, 2023, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/fmcg/itcfastest-moving-consumer-goods-company-in-foodspace/articleshow/105824152.cms
14 Charles, “What Amazon Can Teach You About Cross-Selling,” Predictable Profits (blog), May 14, 2014, https://predictableprofits.com/amazon-canteach-cross-selling
15 https://hbr.org/2012/12/the-dark-side-of-cross-selling
16 James Heskett, “What Are the Real Lessons of the Wells Fargo Case?,” HBS Working Knowledge (blog), November 1, 2017, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/what-are-the-real-lessons-of-the-wells-fargocase
© 2024 Published by SPJIMR. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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