Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2022

Publisher

Elsevier

Source Publication

Industrial Marketing Management

Source ISSN

0019-8501

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2022.10.004

Abstract

Suppliers can grow sales by offering expanded solutions to specific, promising customer accounts via relationship expansion proposals. Extant perspectives offer conflicting advice on which accounts to target and how to price such proposals. The authors investigate how expansion proposals can be strategically targeted and designed to enhance supplier financial outcomes. A novel conceptual framework provides direction for targeted account growth based on three relationship metrics: sales potential, prior profitability, and service level. Two studies with a major industrial supplier assess the effects of relationship expansion proposals contingent on these three metrics. A quasi-experiment in Study 1 reveals that higher sales potential and higher service provision make accounts an ideal target for expansion efforts. However, when a relationship exhibits higher past profitability, expansion proposals can backfire. Study 2 focuses on discounting expansion proposals to incentivize customer response. Results show that the depth of discounting in a proposal can negatively affect sales. The findings contribute to industrial marketing literature by (i) demonstrating positive and negative financial outcomes of customer growth strategies, (ii) showing how these outcomes depend on multiple relationship metrics in ways that align with value capture theory, and (iii) illustrating and explaining ambivalent effects of discounts in expansion proposals.

Comments

Accepted version. Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 107 (November 2022): 407-422. DOI. © 2022 Elsevier. Used with permission.

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