Investing in sales is oxygen for business Sirpa Hänti Principal Lecturer at TUAS Last autumn (2018), the first MBA programme in Professional Sales Management started in Finland, and even in the whole world. The first group of students consists of people from different sales backgrounds and education, too. Most of the students hold a Bachelor’s degree in either Business or Engineering, but we also have in our group one Master of Engineering and even one PhD in Chemistry. The common denominator of all of us is the enthusiasm for sales. In the following articles, you can feel the enthusiasm for learning more about contemporary sales and sales management. Kalle Vuorio, who has a background in R&D, describes it in his article “Oxygen for Business”. He is responsible for the company’s export sales and writes about his growing understanding of the strategic role of sales. Marko Holmström has written about the eye-opening insights of the customer journey and customer experience from the sales point of view in his article “The Value of Studying an MBA Degree”. He points out also the importance of social intelligence and agility of sales in the continuing change we are facing. Joni Viitanen has been working earlier in consulting, engineering and project management in the fields of automation, instrumentation and
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process electrification and today he is leading the company’s sales in Finland. In his article “Lessons learnt”, he refers to Bob Marley: “I don’t like sales, I love it”. Acting as a tutor, and as a teacher on some of the courses, I am happy to work with this group – they boost me to offer them the best of the latest international sales research and practice, and endorse their careers in sales and sales management. In the following semester, we will cover the interesting themes of Sales Management and Leadership, International Sales and Social Selling.
Journal of Excellence in Sales
2019