Supporting salespersons through location based mobile applications and services

Abstract

The paper aims at assessing how mobile location applications and services can support salespersons, for greater performance when they are operating within a mobile work environment. After briefly discussing the state of the art issues associated with mobile location technologies, the paper conceptualises key dimensions of location-based mobile support. The paper then suggests a categorization of salespersons tasks based on both properties of location-based mobile support and the areas of salespersons tasks that may be affected by mobile location technologies. A third section suggests potential mobile location services and applications that can support salespersons in performing effectively their everyday tasks and links such applications to the determinant of salespersons' performance. The paper concludes with a discussion of a number of critical issues such as salespersons privacy, risk of information overload, autonomy and some core areas of further research. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.