Author Archives Thomas Rohr

On 26 November 2020, the new white paper on sales engineering was presented to the public with a panel discussion at ESTA Belfort.

Thierry Peugeot, until 2014 Chairman of the Supervisory Board of PSA Peugeot Citroën, and Vincent Sekula, Sales Manager EMEA at GE Renewable Energy and graduated from ESTA in 1992, discussed under the moderation of Guillaume Jehannin with ESTA Director Laure Viellard and Professors Grégory Kotnarowsky and Thomas Röhr.

AASE President Thomas Röhr was able to present the European dimension of sales engineering and the results achieved for teaching and research through the cooperation between AAASE members.

You can find the visualization of the film on the white paper, the replay of the discussion panel and the download link for the white paper here (unfortunately films and documents are only available in French).

Three members of AASE contributed to November 2020 issue of Springer’s German ‘Sales Excellence’ magazine:

Ludger Schneider-Störmann from TH Aschaffenburg (Germany), together with Franky Muhamete, describes the opportunities for improved digital sales processes in the article ‘Use the opportunity for the turnaround to digital sales’:
Schneider-Störmann L., Muhamete F. (2020) Die Chance für die Wende zum digitalen Vertrieb nutzen. Sales Excellence, No 11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s35141-020-0390-y

Dominik Kagermann, AASE member Kati Lang and Angélique Roscher analyse how digitalised education can increase the learning outcomes and improve higher education:
Kagermann D., Lang K., Roscher A. (2020) Mehr Lernerfolg durch die Digitalisierung der Lehre. Sales Excellence, No 11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s35141-020-0392-9

And finally Luis Barrantes from Ruhr University of Bochum (Germany) dresses an image of sales engineering studies in Germany. Available in multiple universities and universities of applied sciences, sales engineering studies combine academic and practical exercises, ‘hard’ (technological) and ‘soft’ (marketing, sales, management) skills:
Vertriebsingenieur studieren. Sales Excellence, No 11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s35141-020-0396-5

AASE members met online on 24 September 2020 for the annual General Assembly of the association as well as to discuss the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on education and how AASE members adapted their lectures to this sudden and exeptionnal situation.

During the General Assembly, AASE members took leave of Liisa Kairisto-Mertanen, who passed away in early August. She has been member of AASE since 2014 and member of the AASE Advisory Board since May 2019. Prof. Dr. Kati Lang from Hochschule Düsseldorf was elected new Vice-President Strategy & Development. She succeeds Prof. Dr. Ing. Ludger Schneider-Störmann, who puts an end to leading functions in AASE after nearly 7 years as president or vice-president.

AASE members now represent 14 European higher education institutions active in teaching high professional Sales Engineers. Results from an members’ survey and three case presentations highlighted that challenges due to the lock-down of institutions have been mastered as well for sales, marketing and management topics as for engineering lectures. Online evaluation remains difficult, but especially international placements, when they are mandatory, are a huge challenge for students and institutions.

As real business gets more and more online too, these new forms of teaching also have an added value for students, and blended teaching with online and physical parts will become the new standard.