Research Overview
The Texas A&M Industrial Distribution program is built on applied industry research. Nowhere is this truer than in the area of technical, industrial, and engineering sales. Our team of faculty experts, research staff, and data scientists work tirelessly to develop insights to help you optimize your sales organization by increasing sales and reducing turnover. The main mechanism we use to do this is the “research consortium,” which is basically a group learning project where, rather than pay a consultant $500,000+ to address a problem you’re facing, you can join a consortium, pooling resources with other companies, to address the same problem for $50,000 or less.
Our sales-focused faculty have collected and analyzed data from hundreds of sales organizations. Their work has been published in top research outlets like the Journal of Marketing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Retailing, and Industrial Marketing Management. Further, their work has been highlighted in popular press outlets ranging including Fast Company, Psychology Today, Big Think, Retail Wire, TD Magazine, and Harvard Business Review (France). Below, we outline the two main types of consortia we currently offer.
Strategic Consortium Membership
We offer various strategic research consortia to help our industry partners address problems of shared interest at a fraction of the cost of consultants. Currently, our focus is on exploring the salesperson competencies (really, competency profiles) that optimally drive salesperson performance across different roles. The result of this effort will be best practices around the competencies that are ideal for different selling roles and contribute to optimizing sales performance. The figure below provides a simulated example of this output.
Strategic consortium membership starts at $50,000 annually. Additional consortium topics will be introduced over time. Strategic consortium members have access to every TIES Sales Showdown.
Developmental Consortium Membership
We also offer a developmental research consortium every semester focused on two issues. First, the consortium seeks to identify best practices around the topic of how hiring organizations can best engage with technical sales students. That is, what activities are most beneficial for enhancing students’ perceptions of a company, depending on students’ background, personality, and career intentions Second, the consortium seeks to identify best practices regarding technical sales education and skill development by assessing working professionals’ perceptions of the students and the skills they demonstrate. In short, how can we continually improve the way we prepare technical sales students and ensure their ongoing success after graduation?
Developmental consortium membership is $5,000 per semester. Developmental consortium members also have access to every TIES Sales Showdown.
Sample of Consortium Members to Date
Our team has produced research deliverables for the following organizations (among others):
Contact and Coordination
For more information, please contact Dr. Willy Bolander at wcbolander@tamu.edu.