How to Improve Sales Performance : Strategic Measurement in Sales, an Empirical Study at Saab.

Sammanfattning: This bachelor degree study will deal with strategic measurements within sales. It undertakes an empirical evaluation of the two measurement strategy concepts “Sales Pipeline” and “Strike Zone”. Firstly, the study will explain key advantages of implementing the strategic measurements. Secondly and finally, the potential challenges as well as possible ways to overcome them will shape the structure of the study with the purpose to develop a sales process.   The foundation of the study is based on modern market trends, which is influenced on characteristics such as globalization, increased demands from customers and similarities of products and services being offered among suppliers acting on the market. These aspects among others pressures organizations to establish superior strategies in order to create a competitive advantage. The set up of successful strategies commonly entails the process of converting strategic intent into actionable activities as well as being able to measure them. Therefore the concept of measuring is an important key in developing a superior competitive advantage.   The authors worked hand in hand with the organization Saab throughout this study. Therefore, the thesis is a qualitative single case study of the organization. It will specifically investigate Saabs sales process in the market of global defense security, and evaluate key measurable strategies that can be related to their organization. According to the study findings and the analytical results, the conclusion is that both of the theories “Sales Pipeline” and “Strike Zone” will develop the sales process of Saab if the challenges of the theories can be addressed. This would be in terms of composing complements to reach a number of benefits such as an increased close rate, higher efficiency, reduced bottlenecks in the sales process, higher awareness of what types of business cases the organization should select etc.