Selling data-based value in business-to-business markets

The purpose of this paper is to study what aspects a sales function needs to consider when selling new data-based value in business-to-business (B2B) markets. The paper combines literature on the business-to-business sales process with data-based value. The study includes altogether 29 qualitative interviews from eight companies, representing seller companies at different stages in big data utilization. In addition, the study includes customer perspectives with six interviews from four customer companies. As a result, selling new data-based value is studied from several perspectives. First, we evaluate the impacts of the generated new data-based value from the seller and the market perspective. Secondly, we study what sales representatives need to understand, both from the customer's perspective, and in relation to data and digital solutions during the sales process. Thirdly, on the customer side, we explore the roles of 'digitalist” and old-school buyers, and their effect on the sales process. Our research findings highlight the crucial understanding of customer business and knowledge about real-time data management, digital twins, and artificial intelligence (AI) when selling data-based solutions that create real-time data, recommendations, and value for a customer's business.