Sales

This chapter presents the sales field in Greece from a practitioner’s point of view, and is mostly based on the author’s professional experience working with Greek organizations, rather than on academic literature on the field. However, it is important to note that academic literature focusing on sales practices of Greek firms is scarce. An attempt has been made to incorporate relevant literature where possible; however, even this mostly originates from comparative work which covers Greece to some extent, and not work focusing solely on Greece. The modern sales field in Greece started developing in the 1970s, as in the case of other management practices explored in this book. It was a when the Greek economy was enjoying an upturn as a result of joining the EEC. This resulted in the creation of new firms and in the further expansion of existing organizations. In addition, the entry of MNCs to the Greek market meant the introduction of new sales practices that were perhaps absent from local firms at that time. The introduction of these new practices by MNCs meant that local firms had to evolve their sales thinking and approach in order to survive in an increasingly competitive market.