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Interactive Multiple Objective Decision Support for Sales Force Sizing and Deployment *
Author(s) -
Stam Antonie,
Joachimsthaler Erich A.,
Gardiner Lorraine R.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
decision sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.238
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1540-5915
pISSN - 0011-7315
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5915.1992.tb00399.x
Subject(s) - software deployment , sales management , resource allocation , computer science , decision support system , resource (disambiguation) , sales force , operations research , sales and operations planning , normative , sizing , marketing , business , engineering , computer network , artificial intelligence , perspective (graphical) , operating system , art , philosophy , epistemology , visual arts
ABSTRACT An interactive decision aid is introduced for the deployment of two sales resources: salespeople and sales support staff. The aid consists of a normative sales resource allocation model with five objectives and an interactive multiple objective programming solution procedure. The specific decision problem addressed involves the assignment of salespeople and sales support people to customer accounts and the allocation of the time they spend on these accounts. The authors contribute to the existing sales resource modeling literature by dealing with the deployment of two sales resources and interactively solving this problem with respect to five short‐run and long‐run objectives of the firm. This approach differs from existing sales force modeling efforts in which the solution is found noninteractively by optimizing a single sales resource model with respect to a single objective, often short‐run sales. An application of the decision aid to the deployment problem of an industrial sales force manager is presented. Furthermore, useful extensions of the basic sales resource allocation model are discussed.