News and knowledge from the UVA Darden School of Business.

Expert

Robert E. Spekman

Tayloe Murphy Professor Emeritus of Business Administration

Robert E. Spekman, Tayloe Murphy Professor Emeritus at Darden. Expert in B2B marketing, strategic alliances, supply chain management & go-to-market strategies.

Full Bio

Expertise

Robert Spekman

Insights

A territory is a salesperson’s battleground; it’s the turf that he or she defends. As one of the first decisions that many sales executives make, territory assignment can be quite a complex process, serving several goals — and stakeholders — at once.

There is not a sector of the economy that does not rely on alliances to gain a competitive advantage. Alliances require soft skills that many managers with command-and-control backgrounds need to acquire in order to create successful partnerships.