Dealing with the Barriers to Performance through Value-Adding Mobile Solutions: Case Study of the Sales Force of a Pharmaceutical Company

Firms are increasingly rushing to invest in a variety of technologies or sales force automation (SFA) to increase the performance of their sales forces. Research has shown, however, that a high proportion of SFA projects fail. The high failure rate of SFA projects can be explained by the lack of appropriate planning, resulting in a gap between management and the sales force in perceptions and usefulness of SFA. This paper explores the barriers to performance that the pharmaceutical sales force face when operating in a mobile working setting. The paper also explored the perception of the sales force with regard to a number of mobile solutions that could provide the sales representatives with the necessary support to deal with the barriers to performance they face in the course of their everyday work. This is achieved through a case study of a midsized multinational pharmaceutical company