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The purpose of this paper is to understand marketing–sales–service (M-S-S) interface from the point of how social media marketing (SMM) platforms are prioritized and associated business-to-business (B2B) sales process influence. This study also seeks to understand whether effective triadic alignment is achieved between marketing, sales and service.

This study combines literature review and the analytical hierarchy process model. In total, 30 M-S-S managers of a multinational electronics firm situated in Africa and the Middle East participated in this study. The authors collected data from M-S-S managers during training sessions on marketing, sales, service alignment and SMM role in sales process.

In their drive for customer orientation and improved organizational performance, marketing, sales and service managers view understanding the customer as the most important sales process attribute. Considered second most significant sales process attribute is needs discovery, whereas approaching the customer is ranked the least important. From the ratings of sales process attributes evaluation and rankings of SMM platform alternatives, the results show a significant hierarchical influence of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter on sales process. The results also show an enabling influence of SMM activity on M-S-S interface alignment.

This study has a twofold limitation. First, it explored only one major B2B firm in the electronics industry. Second, only the African and Middle East settings are considered in this study. These limitations could be addressed in future research.

This paper provides practical insights into how M-S-S managers may leverage social media to enhance customer orientation and boost organizational performance. The use of SMM can help M-S-S managers of the focal firm to predict purchase behavior of customers more accurately and as a result effectively manage and improve sales performance. In that drive of using SMM-based competitive intelligence to deliver superior customer experience and enhance sales performance, B2B marketing-oriented firms can also leverage the interdependence (information sharing and involvement) in the M-S-S interface during the SMM activity to enhance triadic alignment.

This study contributes to the literature by developing a framework for modeling SMM influence on M-S-S and B2B sales process to deliver superior customer experience and drive business performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify key social medial channels which pharmaceutical firms need to consider when desiring to understand consumer behavior, build, maintain and proactively manage relationships. Also, it proposes the application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) sensitivity analysis algorithm to test the stability or robustness of the priority ranking. Specifically, this paper leverages performance sensitivity analysis to evaluate how small changes (perturbation) in the major objectives of the pharmaceutical relationship marketing (PRM) tactics within the social media environment will influence the ranking of the alternative course of actions.

This paper used AHP-based questionnaire survey to evaluate the relative importance of factors accounting for PRM and the impact of social media channels. The major objectives and the alternative strategies used were from literature reviewed. Interviews with senior managers were insightful and helpful in the wording, content and format of the questionnaire.

Customer engagement is the most important PRM tactic, followed by communication and trust. The performance sensitivity analysis carried out on the PRM tactics showed that the ranking associated with social media channel options remained robust or insensitive to small perturbations.

The data procured for this paper were based on one focal pharmaceutical firm. Convincing the same to grant an interview and late responding to the questionnaire was a great challenge.

Social media impact on pharmaceutical marketing relationship is important for pharmaceutical marketers. PRM bodes well with the social media environment. Pharmaceutical industry can build and maintain relationships with consumers through social media. Firms that leverage social media to enhance their PRM tactics will be viewed favorably in terms of trust, transparency, openness and honesty. The results provide pharmaceutical marketing managers with insightful and valuable information with respect to the role or social media impact on the PRM. The AHP model, objectives and their relative importance provide valuable information for managers on how to monitor the values that matters to customers the most.

This paper is one of the very few on the PRM and perhaps the first that examines social impact leveraging the AHP model. In addition, this paper contributes to the relationship marketing literature by leveraging a multi-criteria decision-making algorithm to prioritize the most important factors accounting for the PRM strategies.

Rising expectations for exceptional customer experiences demand strategic amalgamation of cross-functional, customer-focused teams (marketing/sales/service departments). However, the long history of interface conflicts between functional teams continues to attract research attention. Past research has given more attention to conflicts between marketing and sales teams than to triadic interface conflict between custom-focused teams and their sub-conflicts in a business-to-business (B2B) sales process. The purpose of this research paper is to quantify the triadic interface conflicts and associated sub-conflicts between customer-focused teams, discuss conflict resolution strategies and perform a sensitivity analysis (SA) to give a fuller account of functional team conflict.

Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) based in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed for identifying and resolving conflicts in customer-focused team interfaces. A group of 30 managers of a large electronics company participated in this research. The authors collected the data from customer-focused team managers during training sessions on interface conflicts and conflict management/resolution strategies. The authors perform SA to test the robustness of conflict resolution strategy rankings.

The findings reveal that managers adjudge task as the most crucial conflict attribute driving teams apart, followed by lack of communication. For the sub-conflicts, managers considered how to do the task as the most important conflict attribute, followed by lack of regular meetings. For conflict resolution strategies, managers regarded collaboration or integration as the overall best strategy, followed by compromise. Leveraging the AHP-based MCDM to resolve customer-focused team interface conflicts provides managers with the confidence in the consistency and the robustness of these solutions. By testing the SA, it is also discovered that the final outcome stayed robust (stable) regardless when the priorities of the main criteria influencing the decision are increased and decreased by 5% in every combinations.

This study examined only a large B2B company in the electronics industry in African and Middle East settings, focusing on interface conflicts among customer-focused departments. Future research could address these limitations.

This paper advances our understanding of customer-focused team interface conflicts in a B2B sales process. It also provides valuable insights on effective management of major and sub-interface conflicts. This paper provides a framework for and practical insights into how interface conflicts that are prevalent in marketing, sales and service sectors can be resolved to improve customer experience and business performance.

This study contributes to the literature by developing an AHP-based MCDM, which not only extends our conceptual understanding of the interface conflicts between customer-focused teams by emphasizing their triadic nature but also provides valuable strategies and insights into the practical resolution of such conflicts in a B2B firm’s sales process. Methodologically, SA is valuable to ensuring the robustness of the conflict resolution strategies’ rankings that will influence relevant pragmatic decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how international drug policy continues to have a hugely damaging effect on population health, human rights and wellbeing, not only on individuals who consume and/or sell drugs but also on societies as a whole. And to review whether anything has changed after United Nations General Assembly Special Session.

UNGASS had been seen as a real opportunity for scientific evidence to become the driver of future drug policy. This paper looks at any changes that have since taken place that might support such an aspiration.

The authors found the criminalisation and incarceration of people who use drugs, mainly from the most marginalised sections of society, remains the primary response in almost every member state of the UN and there are at least 33 countries that retain the death penalty for drug offences. The impact on the health of people who inject drugs (PWIDs) living with HIV is devastating and overdose and AIDS related mortality are the leading causes of death. Hepatitis C infections among PWIDs are increasing at epidemic levels even though this now a curable disease.

Changes in drug policy urgently needed.

This paper is an important review of the health implications of bad drug policy.