1) Marketing and sales were originally unified under the Chartered Institute of Marketing's predecessor organization, but gradually separated over the past century as marketing developed as its own discipline.
2) There is now widespread recognition that separating marketing and sales creates conflicts and inefficiencies that harm business performance. Research shows stronger alignment between the functions leads to better results.
3) Changes in the competitive landscape and rise of digital marketing are blurring the traditional boundaries between marketing and sales, making their separation outdated and difficult to maintain. It is time for the functions to reunify as a single, coordinated team.
Customers do not need sales people who are highly product driven and focused to make the next sale, so they look good in front of their peers. They need intelligent people who add consistent and relevant value to the organisation. This is all that counts. See my article on page 4.
The marketing and advertising arms race to create emotional appeal, generate buzz and move up brand valuation league tables, is creating a widening gap between brand strategy and business strategy. In this environment some of the once coolest and iconic brands are faltering at a game they once dominated. The key question for businesses today, is how to expose such strategic blind spots and remain relevant in the face of an evolving marketplace? This article explores one methodology and framework into just how that can be done.
Sales White Paper: The Growing Sales OrganizationAltify
This White Paper covers the growing sales organization. It will touch on research into different frameworks for explaining company growth phases, and cover the four ages of the sales organization, the pressures at work and the initiatives and requirements for successful business. It will close with an analysis of how the Dealmaker from The TAS Group supports each of the four stages and sustains the organization as it grows and transitions from one stage to the next.
Customers do not need sales people who are highly product driven and focused to make the next sale, so they look good in front of their peers. They need intelligent people who add consistent and relevant value to the organisation. This is all that counts. See my article on page 4.
The marketing and advertising arms race to create emotional appeal, generate buzz and move up brand valuation league tables, is creating a widening gap between brand strategy and business strategy. In this environment some of the once coolest and iconic brands are faltering at a game they once dominated. The key question for businesses today, is how to expose such strategic blind spots and remain relevant in the face of an evolving marketplace? This article explores one methodology and framework into just how that can be done.
Sales White Paper: The Growing Sales OrganizationAltify
This White Paper covers the growing sales organization. It will touch on research into different frameworks for explaining company growth phases, and cover the four ages of the sales organization, the pressures at work and the initiatives and requirements for successful business. It will close with an analysis of how the Dealmaker from The TAS Group supports each of the four stages and sustains the organization as it grows and transitions from one stage to the next.
Artigo, em inglês, escrito pelo executivo global de Marketing, Bracey Wilson, sobre o tema que mais tem chamado a atenção de CEOs e profissionais de Marketing: Métricas em Marketing.
IBDF's first ‘Annual Report Card’ of the most valuable retail brands in the United States, plus the top 5 in Canada and Mexico. It’s an assessment of the companies that are most successful at managing their brand, as well as a look at those that didn’t make the cut.
BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2015 ReportKantar
Millward Brown and WPP have released the annual BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands report and ranking for the fifth consecutive year. In only five years, the report has become a strong resource for understanding Chinese brands and the dynamics that drive value growth.
http://bit.ly/1C7cfzE
BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands 2015 ReportKantar
Millward Brown and WPP released the 4th annual BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands report and ranking on Wednesday, September 23. The report identifies the key forces driving brand growth in six markets in the Latin American region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru).
CREATIVE WITH INVESTMENT? Addressing the need for creative transformation in ...Dog
Taking the idea of creative transformation - the evolving relationship between creativity, digital, marketing and business – Dog produced a whitepaper that seeks to uncover challenges faced by those involved in driving innovative marketing strategies and searches for actionable recommendations for today’s marketers working within the financial services industry.
Our findings are based on an independent survey of 200 marketing and communications professionals and insight gathered during an industry roundtable with Heads of Marketing at leading global financial services organisations.
2019 The annual report on the world's most valuable and strongest apparel brands.
Nike continues to dominate as the world’s most valuable apparel brand, with a brand value of US$32.4billion
+ Zara and Adidas move up the ranks as H&M’s brand value decrease pushes it down to 4th place
+ Uniqlo is the fastest-growing apparel brand in the top 10, up a whopping 48% year on year
+ Rolex is the strongest brand in the sector, posting an elite AAA+ brand strength rating
+ Luxury brands account for 7 out of the top 10 strongest apparel brands, showing importance of brand strength in the segment
Material Changes in the Customer Experience & the Profound Impact on CMOsJames O'Gara
Over the next three-to-five years, 75 percent* of marketers say
they will be responsible for the end-to-end customer experience. To be successful, CMOs must have a deeper understanding of the strategies and tactics required to deliver a superior customer journey. This paper explores how marketing’s responsibilities must change in the organization, how marketers must extend their reach into the customer experience, and why the CMO’s role must be reimagined.
Artigo, em inglês, escrito pelo executivo global de Marketing, Bracey Wilson, sobre o tema que mais tem chamado a atenção de CEOs e profissionais de Marketing: Métricas em Marketing.
IBDF's first ‘Annual Report Card’ of the most valuable retail brands in the United States, plus the top 5 in Canada and Mexico. It’s an assessment of the companies that are most successful at managing their brand, as well as a look at those that didn’t make the cut.
BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2015 ReportKantar
Millward Brown and WPP have released the annual BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands report and ranking for the fifth consecutive year. In only five years, the report has become a strong resource for understanding Chinese brands and the dynamics that drive value growth.
http://bit.ly/1C7cfzE
BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands 2015 ReportKantar
Millward Brown and WPP released the 4th annual BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands report and ranking on Wednesday, September 23. The report identifies the key forces driving brand growth in six markets in the Latin American region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru).
CREATIVE WITH INVESTMENT? Addressing the need for creative transformation in ...Dog
Taking the idea of creative transformation - the evolving relationship between creativity, digital, marketing and business – Dog produced a whitepaper that seeks to uncover challenges faced by those involved in driving innovative marketing strategies and searches for actionable recommendations for today’s marketers working within the financial services industry.
Our findings are based on an independent survey of 200 marketing and communications professionals and insight gathered during an industry roundtable with Heads of Marketing at leading global financial services organisations.
2019 The annual report on the world's most valuable and strongest apparel brands.
Nike continues to dominate as the world’s most valuable apparel brand, with a brand value of US$32.4billion
+ Zara and Adidas move up the ranks as H&M’s brand value decrease pushes it down to 4th place
+ Uniqlo is the fastest-growing apparel brand in the top 10, up a whopping 48% year on year
+ Rolex is the strongest brand in the sector, posting an elite AAA+ brand strength rating
+ Luxury brands account for 7 out of the top 10 strongest apparel brands, showing importance of brand strength in the segment
Material Changes in the Customer Experience & the Profound Impact on CMOsJames O'Gara
Over the next three-to-five years, 75 percent* of marketers say
they will be responsible for the end-to-end customer experience. To be successful, CMOs must have a deeper understanding of the strategies and tactics required to deliver a superior customer journey. This paper explores how marketing’s responsibilities must change in the organization, how marketers must extend their reach into the customer experience, and why the CMO’s role must be reimagined.
Elementos necesarios para seleccionar y utilizar tecnologíaMaribel Galindez
Presentación basada en el libro de Escamilla de los Santos (2011) , para la asignatura La Tecnología en el proceso de Enseñanza y Aprendizaje. UNEFA 2016.
“Writing a Marketing Plan is similar to putting together a complicated puzzle. Each piece contains information that makes sense only when you see the finished product”
By Dr. Rashid Alleem
Sales performance in a changing world.. This short document will help you see why we work the way we do in sales performance and give you an quick insight into our services
Sales White Paper: Sales Leadership Whatever The WeatherAltify
This White Paper discusses Sales Leadership. It introduces perspectives, ideas, measurements and tools to help Sales Leaders succeed in both buoyant and challenging trading conditions. The chief take-away from this paper is that there are key things sales leaders should be focused on regardless of the economic environment.
An article about sales logic, creative selling and sales techniques. This ia not written by me so I am not taking credit for it Just taking credit for finding it, liking it and posting it!
This overview is informed greatly by the discussion at our Executive Forum in March 2015, but it also is
the culmination of our observations from Content Marketing World 2014 and our advisory client work in
the past year.
Our objective is to report on the key challenges faced by marketers, the vital insights being realized, and
the general health of content marketing as a strategic business approach. As was the case last year, this overview ultimately asks more questions than it answers; our goal is not to settle debates or provide trite answers to complex business challenges, but to update and inform.
At the two-day Executive Forum, CMI leaders and senior marketing executives from more than 30 enterprise brands came together to collaborate and to discuss and report on their own organizations’ efforts in integrating content marketing as a strategic approach.
The extraordinary insights and the identification of challenges could not have been possible without the
generous contributions of this forum class, as well as last year’s forum participants. Their input doesn’t represent their tacit endorsement of the ideas, but as a collective group they are responsible for the value contained in this report.
CHAPTER 1 The Field of Sales Force ManagementNew Dimensi.docxtidwellveronique
CHAPTER 1 The Field of Sales Force Management
New Dimensions of Personal Selling: The Professional Salesperson
Personal selling today is quite different from what it was years ago. The cigar-smoking, backslapping, joke-telling salesman (and virtually all outside sales reps were men in those days) is generally gone from the scene. Moreover, his talents and methods would likely not be effective in today's business environment.
Instead, a new type of sales representative has emerged—a professional salesperson who is also a marketing consultant. This new breed works to relay consumer wants back to the firm so that appropriate products may be developed. Its representatives engage in a total consultative, nonmanipula-tive selling job; they are expected to solve customers' problems, not just take orders. For example, Medtronics, a leader in the design and manufacture of high-tech surgical devices, sells to surgeons. These doctors often want the sales rep to be in the operating room during surgery to advise them in the best use of the product.9 The vice president of sales and marketing for Lucent Technologies states that Lucent's overall goal is "to have all of our customers say that we are vital to their business success."10 Of course, this is difficult given the rising expectations of customers.
The new-style reps also serve as territorial profit managers. They have the autonomy they need to make decisions that affect their own territory's profitability. Many decisions that in the past would have been made by the sales manager are today made by the salesperson. Salespeople are empowered to act in the best interests of their firms. A recent survey of salespeople's competencies found those salespeople who excel at aUgning the strategic objectives of both customers and suppliers, and who understand the business issues underlying their customers' needs, are the most successful.11 To a large extent, technology has empowered salespeople to increase the quality of contact and service they provide to their customers by allowing them to tap into huge data banks.
Whose sales forces best reflect this new professionalism? The HR Chally Group surveyed over 1,000 customers in two separate surveys—one in 1994 and one in 2002.12 The customers identified the best sales forces according to the 10 factors that are shown on Figure 1-4. Only 13 sales forces were
f I6URE1-4 le Ten Host Important factors for Professional Sales Forces
The Professional Sales Force ...
1. Provides service that solves problems and responds to customer needs.
2. Has excellent product knowledge.
3. Serves as an advocate for the customers within the selling firm.
4. Keeps customers up-to-date.
5. Sells a high-quality product.
6. Offers superior technical support.
7. Has accessible personnel that are available locally.
8. Sells a wide variety of products that offer a total solution.
9. Understands the customers' business.
10. Sells the product for a competitive price.
Source: The HR Ch ...
Chapter 8 - SECRETS TO BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS BUSINESS THROUGH LEADERSHIP MAR...VINCE FERRARO
Do you dream of winning? Are you In It To Win It? There is an old saying that states:To the victor go the spoils. This saying originated from wars fought in ancient days - and meant that the victor got all the goodies! In today's competitive society, our desires and intentions are to be the best at what we do to win the prize - tangible or intangible. In fact, even the US Army used the slogan Be all that you can be as a motivator for recruits to join and excel.
Tom Hopkins, Author of How To Master The Art Of Selling & states that if you're going to do anything-small or large-why not do it to the best of your ability? Being the 'best' connotes drive, perseverance, leadership, success - factors that are valued by our culture, by which we are judged, and which make us feel good. Where does this take us? Well, we all want to be successful in our endeavors.
The Celebrity Expert® authors in this book have earned 'Blue Ribbons' in their respective fields of endeavor. They have succeeded in attaining their goals. Are you aspiring to be the best in your field? Are you planning to succeed? These Celebrity Experts® have blazed a trail that will show you the way and make it easier for you to succeed. They will show you how to avoid the pitfalls they encountered and, if you take advantage of their experiences, they will coach you to attain your desired goals. Experience suggests that readers of this book will be...In It To Win It.
Most corporate boards are completely in the dark about their.docxmoirarandell
Most corporate boards are completely in the dark about their
companies' marketing strategies. A simple series of management
reports can give them the light they need.
M ISGUIDED MARKETING STRATEGIES have de-stroyed more shareholder value - and probably
more careers-than shoddy accounting or shady fiscal
practices have. In almost every industry - telecom-
munications, airlines, consumer products, finance - it
is easy to point to poor marketing as a major cause
of low growth and declining margins.
If marketing were simply the sum of advertising
and promotion, as some marketers seem to believe,
this would he a douhtful claim. But marketing is a lot
more, as the famous "four Ps" (product, price, place,
and promotion) suggest. Classical marketing encom-
passes all the activities organizations engage in to hear
and respond to their customers-from market research
into the Boardroom
by Gail J. McGovern, David Court, John A. Quelch,
and Blair Crawford
70 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
ll - I M . I I ( I c c i i l I'
) Ji-rd tiof (liiii
71
B r i n g i n g C u s t o m e r s i n t o t h e B o a r d r o o m
to product development to customer management to
sales. Marketing discovers what customers want, drives
the creation of products that meet customers'needs, and
ideally generates profitable relationships. Indeed, a com-
pany that excludes marketing from its product develop-
ment may build faster, lighter widgets, but it could miss
what customers really want - widgets that have longer
battery life.
When marketingactivitiesare tightly aligned with cor-
porate strategy, they drive growth. But in too many com-
panies, marketing is poorly linked with strategy. Market-
ing may seem to be performing well according to
standard metrics, like the number of repeat purchases
customers make, but i f t h e company's strategy is to, say,
build market share, simply boosting
repeat purchases isn't enough. In
many organizations, marketing ex-
ists far from the executive suite and
boardroom. Marketing managers
are rarely held accountable for ROI
and rarely expected to explain, ex-
actly, bow what they do supports
corporate strategy. This isn't a case
of dereliction; most companies are
struggling to make their marketing work.
Rather, it's a case of myopia. No one in the organization
sees the relationship between marketing and strategy
well enough to diagnose the problem and begin to fix It.
The failure of marketing strategy is a crisis that requires
attention at the highest levels of the organization-from
the corporate board itself. Here we provide a simple set of
tools that can bring companies' marketing performance
into focus, help directors gauge how well marketing sup-
ports corporate strategy, and allow boards to direct re-
pairs tbat can revive their companies' growth.
Mismanaged Marketing
To understand how marketing fails, it's helpful to look
first at a success. After tbe events of September n . South-
west Airlines swiftly agreed to grant refunds to ali cu ...
This paper from Swystun Communications focuses on the lost art and science of creating tangible go-to-market strategies. Too often marketing plans are just calendarized events and that is not the way to engage the most desired customers.
3. 2 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 3
Although this requires a major shift
in thinking, the concept is not as
radical as it sounds. A century ago,
The Chartered Institute of Marketing
began life as a sales organisation.
Over those 100 years, the two
disciplines gradually fragmented.
The result – as outlined in countless
academic papers – is, at best, an
on-going battle and, at worst, a war.1
Even in companies where the two
disciplines seem friendly enough on
the surface, distinct marketing and
sales departments inevitably slip
into silo thinking, rife with the kind
of subtle conflict which holds back
business.2
The CIM takes full responsibility for
our part in encouraging marketing to
carve out its own niche, but now – to
mark our centenary year – we feel it’s
time to hold up our hands, express
a measure of regret, and recognise
that both distinctive professional
areas can better move ahead
together, not apart. Furthermore,
we want to put some meat on the
bones of our apology by addressing
this problem for the greater good of
UK PLC.
In many ways, this is a problem
that can no longer be ignored. Both
online and offline, the boundaries
between marketing and sales
activities are becoming increasingly
blurred and companies who ignore
this, and continue to treat them as
separate and independent entities,
will appear out of touch and pay
a high price in loss of business
opportunities. Marketing’s reputation
will suffer too, with the discipline
inevitably reaching the end of its path
with no way of moving forward. In
the current economic climate – with
marketing already being relegated in
many organisations and with even
tougher times predicted for the UK’s
future – this is not a welcome option.
The good news is that extensive
evidence shows that aligning the
two departments leads to better
productivity, reduces duplication and
Executive Summary
Marketing and sales fusion
wastage, improves staff motivation
and increases customer satisfaction.1
This is as relevant for B2C as it is for
B2B sectors.
Having a unified department,
concludes Giorgio Delpiano, General
Manager Sales West Europe and
South Africa at Shell, is “essential
to drive growth.” Indeed, a study in
cooperation with Northern Illinois
University found that organisations
with a strong alignment between
sales and marketing performed
better, with more new customers,
higher client retention, improved
sales figures and better average
order values than those companies
with looser alignment.4
The belief
that “we are in it together” helps
each discipline appreciate the value
added by the other discipline to
their activities, and recognise the
constraints under which they are
operating, confirms Avinash Malsh.2
“My data suggest that while it takes
time to build esprit de corps, when
achieved, it helped firms overcome
many challenges,” he says.
It’s easy to see where, how and
why things go wrong. At the level
of small business it’s not generally
an issue because there is usually
no formal marketing function. It
may not even be an issue when a
marketing person or two is brought
in to help relieve the sales force.
This person conducts research to
calibrate the size of the market,
choose the best markets and
channels and determine potential
buyers’ motives and influences. But
as companies become larger and
more successful, they realise there
is more to marketing than setting
the four Ps: product, price, place
and promotion. It is decided that
effective marketing calls for people
skilled in segmentation, targeting
and positioning – and it is once
companies hire marketers with
these skills, that marketing tends
to become an independent player
and starts to compete with sales for
funding.1
“While the sales mission
has not changed, the marketing
mission has. Disagreements arise.
Each function takes on tasks it
believes the other should be doing
In 10 years from now there will be no such thing as
separate marketing and sales departments. There will be
one team comprising two interdependent disciplines. This
is a vision that we believe has much to recommend it.
“while the sales
mission has
not changed,
the marketing
mission has.”
4. 4 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 5
The Committee of Advertising
Practice code and Broadcast code
(CAP and BCAP) have specific
sections on advertising to children,
defined as individuals under
16. Certain products cannot be
advertised at all, and others cannot
be advertised during children’s
programmes. The codes also address
general areas of including, forbidding
advertising that:
• Makes children feel unpopular or
belittled for not buying a product.
• Exaggerates a product’s
performance or misleads.
• Encourages children to use pester
power.
• Undermines parental authority.
However, the codes make allowance
for the fact that the way children
respond to advertising depends on
various factors including their age,
social groups and experience, and
advise marketers that they should not
assume that ‘children’ are a single
group.
Specific restrictions include low-
alcohol drinks, vitamins, slimming
products, medicines and lotteries. For
the full information on the CAP and
BCAP codes see page 22.
books for professional marketers
With over 200 marketing and business
books available, CIM Direct is your
one-stop-shop for marketing knowledge
Place your order now:
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but isn’t,” reports Kotler.1
Before
you know it, senior management
describes the working relationship
between marketing and sales as
unsatisfactory – characterised by lack
of communication, underperforming
and over complaining.
The CIM believes this situation is not
inevitable. With a top-down focus
on keeping marketing and sales
together rather than separate, the
two functions can work in a genuinely
coordinated way, boosting both top-
line and bottom-line growth.
Nobody expects businesses to
throw out all the furniture on a Friday
afternoon ready for an entirely new
way of working on Monday morning.
Yes, the cultural shift that’s required
is significant, but the first step is to
recognise the need for it. Only after
this philosophical breakthrough in
UK PLC thinking can the consequent
structural changes make a lasting
difference. The result will be the
ability to present marketing and sales
in a far more commercial light, and
businesses that are more streamlined,
profitable and future-proof.
Executive Summary Marketing and sales fusion
5. 6 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 7
marketing, the ever widening discipline
of marketing would now encompass
sales. “The membership of the Institute
is in fact engaged, at every level, in the
performance of two related commercial
functions, ie the planning of sales and
the execution of sales plans, and these
are two sides of the same bright medal.
The members of this Institute are ALL
engaged in marketing” the Institute
announced in 1964.5
In reality, however, marketing developed
an increasingly academic and complex
worldview, incorporated into business
degrees and the subject of countless
textbooks, and as it did so, it continued
to move further and further away from
its sales-orientated origins. So while
sales might be said to have remained
true to its artisan roots, marketing
became a ‘quasi-science’ that many
would argue got carried away with
itself. In 1973, Peter Drucker reflected
a growing belief among marketers
of the time when he said, “The
aim of marketing is to make selling
superfluous”6
– an ironic statement,
given that the sales department has
more influence than marketing itself on
many so-called ‘marketing’ decisions’.7
By the 21st century, the two disciplines
had frequently become completely
fragmented, working in silos, often
in conflict and usually competing for
budgets. Marketing personnel were
perceived by sales as ivory tower
headquarters theorists, who were
unaware of field realities.8
Marketing,
meanwhile, saw sales as short-
termist and narrow in their thinking.9
It had, in short, become a relationship
lacking collaboration and harmony,
with Dewsnap and Jobber famously
describing it as “characterised by
lack of cohesion, poor co-ordination,
conflict, non-cooperation, distrust,
dissatisfaction and mutual negative
stereotyping”.8
“In many companies, sales forces
and marketers feud like Capulets and
Montagues – with disastrous results,”
says Kotler,1
whose research found
that some level of dysfunction usually
exists, even in cases where the heads
of Sales and Marketing are friendly.
Perhaps most worrying of all is that
so many companies seem to be
indifferent. According to a report by
CMO Council, just 40% of companies
now have formal programmes, systems
or processes in place to align and
integrate the two functions.10
“marketing went off
in its own direction”
Fast forward to the 1950s and a more
strategic, longer-term arm of sales
started to flourish. In other words, the
discipline of marketing was born and by
1961 ISMA added the term to its title,
becoming the Institute of Marketing and
Sales Management. It was, it said, “...
aware of the change in international
thinking, from a single selling action to
the wider concept of marketing as the
management operation embracing all
activities concerned with the relationship
between user and producer”.3
In The Profit Maximization Paradox,
Glen Peterson explains that the changes
in the competitive marketplace in the
1950s – notably the explosion of choice
for customers – pushed marketing
and sales into separate departments.4
But whilst in theory, the change was a
logical response to changing times, in
practice, marketing went off in its own
direction.
By 1963, even the Institute had resolved
to drop the word sales from its name,
becoming The Institute of Marketing.
“The proposal for this change in
name...” stated the Council’s Report
to Members in 1964,3
“... is a sign of
the Institute’s looking outwards to new
and changing conditions in the world
of commerce.” It went onto explain
in an article published in its magazine
Marketing, “... the change of name is in
keeping with a general change taking
place nationally – that it is in keeping
with an unmistakable change which is
taking place in world conditions – and
perhaps most important of all that it is in
keeping with a change in management
thinking throughout industry and
commerce today.”5
Let’s be clear – this was not a case of
the Institute turning its back on sales.
At least that wasn’t the intention. Its
aim – possibly naïve in hindsight – was
that just as sales had once incorporated
SECTION ONE
History
A hundred years ago you’d have been met with a blank
look if you mentioned the term marketing. Sales was the
only game in town and it incorporated everything we now
call marketing. What became The Chartered Institute of
Marketing was originally called the Incorporated Sales
Managers’ Association (ISMA).
6. 8 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 9
Anniversaries are inevitably a time for
reflection and if there is one overriding
trend that has shaped our 100-year
history, it is our growing separation
from our brethren in sales. What better
time to attempt to right this wrong and
work towards a brighter future for UK
PLC through reunification? The Institute
has always recognised marketing as a
constantly evolving discipline and this
decision is testament to that.
Further rationale to act now comes as
the online sphere increasingly shows
up the divide between marketing
and sales as artificial. As it becomes
harder and harder to distinguish a
sales activity from a marketing activity,
companies that don’t align the two
functions as a unified team will miss
out on valuable opportunities. Think
about it: sales has always remained
at the sharp end – close to customers
and the market – whilst marketing
has traditionally had a more strategic
focus on the entire business. But online
marketing regularly involves engaging
directly with customers in a way that
would have historically been limited to
the sales function, whilst with social
media, the marketing team often
carries out all the early stages of the
sales cycle.
Even outside the online sphere,
changes are taking place that are
blurring the lines between marketing
and sales. “In order to deliver superior
customer value in the consumer
goods sector, firms are forced to
consider changes in the conventional
distinction between marketing strategy
formulation and sales implementation,”
say Dewsnap and Jobber.8
“Many
traditional marketing responsibilities
have shifted to the key account
sales manager, and marketing is
increasingly dependent on input
from their colleagues in sales for the
development of brand plans that will
receive adoption by an increasingly
demanding trade customer (Cespedes
1993). Furthermore, required levels of
sales-marketing integration increase in
line with the increase in value added
demand by customers operating in the
SECTION TWO
Time for change
type of concentrated trade channels
found in the consumer goods sector.”
Meanwhile, Nigel Piercy reports that
the strategic importance of managing
relationships with B2B customers
has escalated dramatically in most
markets. “The challenge to the sales
organisation is to deliver effective
strategy in a dramatically changed
world of buyers,” he says.6
A third reason for change is the
growing recognition that even where
the two functions may not conflict
openly with one another, underlying
clashes can still do strategic harm to
business. “Many subtle differences
between the two may work against
forging stronger connections,”
reports Malshe.2
“Lack of alignment
over objectives or lack of clear role
definition may cause subtle acrimony.
Firms may also encounter challenges
such as cultural mismatch between
sales and marketing.”
These cultural differences between
sales and marketing often lead each
function to not give due importance
to the work performed by the other.
Many times, sales people do not
follow suggested marketing strategies
or utilise marketing collateral, since
they think that marketing is out
of touch with reality.11
Equally, the
marketing function can’t perform
adequately unless it is sufficiently
connected with what is happening
in the marketplace, say David Lyus
et al.12
Conversely, the few businesses that
have successfully integrated the two
functions reap the benefits – not least
because an effective sales-marketing
interface becomes an important
determinant of how well the firm
creates, delivers and communicates
its value proposition.2
Fourthly and perhaps most
significantly, marketing has no choice
but to go back to its roots because
it has reached an evolutionary
cul-de-sac. “Marketing is already
dead in the water in the majority of
organisations,” confirms Malcolm
McDonald, professor at Cranfield
School of Management and chairman
of Brand Finance. One of the main
reasons, he says, is that the ‘division’
of marketing and sales has led to the
latter being increasingly perceived
merely as a wasteful promotional
“marketing is already
dead in the water”
This is The Chartered Institute of Marketing’s centenary
year. Whilst this may appear a superficial reason for
addressing the growing divide between marketing and
sales, it in fact provides a perfect opportunity.
7. 10 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance
department, often spending very
large sums of money with little or
no financial justification. “Just think
about it for a minute. Sales people
will often sell the products they find
easiest to sell to customers who
treat them nicest (please forgive this
slight exaggeration). This is a million
miles removed from the classical
role of marketing, which plans the
product mix, the market mix and the
customer mix. But with many sales
directors being ‘barons’ in their own
right, most organisations end up
with a situation where the tail (sales)
wags the dog (marketing). Hence
marketing gets driven inexorably
down the promotions route. Indeed,
in most organisations, marketing has
been relegated to a promotional role
precisely because of this separation.”
Professor John Saunders, at Aston
University, agrees. Whilst researching
the CIM’s White Paper on the Future
of Marketing, he found the leader of
the four Ps always winds up being
‘promotion’. 13
Marketing and Sales
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SECTION TWO Time for change
8. 12 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 13
It sounds obvious enough. But all
too often marketing and sales are
treated as separate entities, rather
than two sides of the same coin,
often with completely separate
senior management and directorship
(and even if there is a joint head,
there tends to be a much stronger
emphasis on either marketing or
sales, depending on their own career
history). The upshot of the inevitable
tribal mentalities is damage to
customer interests and the company
as a whole. Integrating the functions
as genuinely unified departments, on
the other hand, puts the customer at
the centre of operations and has been
proven to lead to better performance
and increased employee and
customer satisfaction.2
“Product designers learned years
ago that they’d save time and
money if they consulted with their
colleagues in manufacturing rather
than just throwing new designs over
the wall. The two functions realised
it wasn’t enough just to coexist – not
when they could work together to
create value for the company and for
customers. You’d think that marketing
and sales teams, whose work is
also deeply interconnected, would
have discovered something similar.
As a rule, though, they’re separate
functions within an organisation,”
says Kotler,1
who reports that he’s
seen “only a few cases where the two
functions are fully integrated”.
Even when they do work together,
they are often set up so that they don’t
always get along, he says. “When
sales are disappointing, marketing
blames the sales force for its poor
execution of an otherwise brilliant
rollout plan. The sales team, in turn,
claims that marketing sets prices too
high and uses too much of the budget,
which instead should go toward
hiring more salespeople or paying
the sales reps higher commissions.
More broadly, sales departments tend
to believe that marketers are out of
touch with what’s really going on with
customers. Marketing believes the
SECTION THREE
Best for business
sales force is myopic – too focused
on individual customer experiences,
insufficiently aware of the larger
market, and blind to its future. In short,
each group often undervalues the
other’s contributions.”
No wonder this lack of alignment,
which can only be resolved by a
top-down integrated approach, ends
up hurting corporate performance.
“Time and time again, during research
and consulting assignments, we’ve
seen both groups stumble and the
organisation suffer because they
were out of sync,” says Kotler.
“Conversely, there is no question
that, when sales and marketing
work well together, companies see
substantial improvement on important
performance metrics – sales cycles are
shorter, market-entry costs go down,
and the cost of sales is lower.”
Research shows that this is exactly
what happened when IBM integrated
its sales and marketing groups
to create a new function called
Channel Enablement. When the
functions operated independently
of one another, marketers failed
to link advertising money spent to
actual sales made, so sales couldn’t
see the value of marketing efforts
and because the groups were so
disparate, marketing’s new product
announcements often came at a time
when sales felt they couldn’t capitalise
on them.1
In Rolls Royce, says Robert Nuttall,
marketing and sales functions have
never been separate. “They have
always been distinct disciplines, but
they have worked side by side within
the same team. Our business is such
that according to the task in hand, we
form bespoke teams, but the point is
they are always made up of both sales
and marketing. Complexity is high in
our projects because they are so large,
but whilst some might say this is a
good reason to keep things separate,
we say it’s even more reason to keep
them together. The result is good for
business – in fact, I cannot imagine it
functioning any other way.”
Everything from better information
flows to accurate return on investment
(ROI) and cost benefit accounting
to strategic direction setting, reports
Professor Alan Tapp, professor of
“create value for the
company and for
customers”
“The organisational separation of the two functions of
marketing and sales is nonsensical in the extreme. It is a
bit like separating market research, sales promotion and
advertising from marketing,” says Professor McDonald.
9. 14 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 15
marketing at the University of the West
of England. The alternative – that is,
a fragmented marketing and sales
team – makes customer relationship
management harder, is an obstacle to
retaining customers in a cross-channel
world where the customer needs to be
pulled rather than pushed, is harder to
accurately measure ROI; and value-
chain thinking harder to calculate.
The impact on other departments
is also significant, adds Holger
Ernst, providing the example of
NPD performance.14
“Because
of their different departmental
orientations, marketing and sales
provide complementary information
that is valuable for the NPD process.
Marketing provides strategic marketing
information, while sales provides
specific customer information.
Combining this information is critical
because it helps avoid niche solutions
for an individual customer that, in turn,
neglect the attractiveness of larger
market segments or market trends or
are not aligned with the firm’s overall
product portfolio.”
Research, particularly from 2006
onwards, is packed with examples
such as this showing success when
marketing and sales are integrated
and failure where it isn’t, confirms
Beth Rogers, principal lecturer in
sales management at the University
of Portsmouth. “It all comes down
to the fact that their shareholders
benefit as a result of more profitable
revenue growth. Their customers
benefit because of better and
more streamlined customer service
experience and a better product or
service offering. And their employees
benefit because it’s nicer and certainly
more productive to work in a more
collaborative atmosphere than where
there are struggles.”
SECTION THREE Best for business
“nicer and certainly
more productive
to work in a more
collaborative
atmosphere”
10. 16 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 17
Nor does the reunification of
marketing and sales simply require
practical measures. It’s not that these
proposals, explored in depth in recent
academic papers, notably integrating
sales and marketing metrics,
introducing job rotations, setting
shared revenue targets and reward
systems, are unimportant – far from it.
But these measures cannot streamline
business processes successfully in
the long term without a whole new
philosophy acting as a framework.
The first step must therefore be the
conceptual leap – the recognition that
genuine integration can only come
from a new mindset from the top levels
of UK PLC.
This cultural shift will require analysis
on a number of issues. “Marketing
and sales have spoken a different
language for too long,” says Nick
Porter. “Marketing will go to sales
asking why they haven’t actioned the
leads they gave them. Sales say they
were rubbish. But when you peel the
onion back, it turns out the word ‘lead’
alone means different things. Sales
sees it as an opportunity – a nurtured
contact ready to make a purchase;
marketing sees it as a white paper.
This disconnect is often entrenched
between the two functions.”
Avinash Malshe agrees. “Before rolling
out a strategy, even if the VPs agree
upon definitions of a firm’s value
proposition of what constitutes a
lead, it is plausible that in the field, the
lower-level executives will hold different
notions compared to their superiors,
or their sales counterparts about what
value or a lead mean.”2
Then there is the fact that education
and training programmes for marketing
and sales have traditionally been
poles apart. Not only is there no under
graduate degree in sales, but there
are few marketing degrees with whole
modules devoted to sales. Meanwhile,
few salespeople have spent time in
marketing disciplines and vice versa.
A unified model for anyone wanting
to go into sales or marketing would
enable marketers to be more aware
of how the sales process works and
what’s involved and sales people to
be more aware of marketing functions
and how they can deliver the results
the company is looking for.
If sales and marketing are to be truly
cohesive, thought could also be given
to the possibility of shared budgets.
Colin Hurst, Change Communication
and Training EMA SAP Implementation
at Merck, explains, “It makes far more
sense to keep share of budget under
one head. If sales and marketing can
see the logic for why a selection of
budget isn’t forthcoming, even if they
don’t agree with it, it will help them see
the same direction they are travelling in
for the benefit of the company; rather
than retiring to their respective covens
and fostering discontent.”
Shared goals may be beneficial too,
say some researchers who have
found that employees who believe
their goals are cooperative interact
effectively and make progress on
their tasks.2
In the sales-marketing
context, Kotler proposes that if
revenue generation is made a joint
responsibility for marketing and sales,
it motivates them to integrate their
thought worlds, market perspectives
and organisational structures.1
These are just a few examples of
the kinds of areas requiring attention
under the new mindset. But above
and beyond the finer detail, there
must be one overriding goal – for
marketing and sales to cover a single
process that exists on a continuum,
says Kotler. The point of failure, he
points out, is the handover between
marketing and sales – which ultimately
means that nut can be cracked by
reunification.1
SECTION FOUR
Success in practice
“the first step must
therefore be the
conceptual leap”
Integration does not just mean more talking. “There are
companies that have tried to address this problem by
endless meetings where the two teams co-operate and
socialise, but that’s missing the point,” says Beth Rogers.
“This isn’t just about exchanging information.”
11. 18 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 19
“This isn’t about group think,” confirms
Beth Rogers. “It is in business interests for
marketing and sales to have their different
points of view, but to work closely together.
It is, after all, an artificial distinction.” Or
to put it another way, same job, different
angle.
“What marketing and sales have in
common is responsibility for revenue
generation and a responsibility for the
interface with customers, which annual
reports keeps telling us is the most
important thing of all. With those two things
in common, anything they don’t share is
pretty unimportant,” concludes Rogers.
Many small businesses have got it
right already. Such businesses already
equate marketing with selling and the
two functions’ work is closely aligned
in order for the company to achieve
maximum profit.1
The two groups
develop and implement shared metrics,
for instance, and budgets are flexible
and less contentious than in their larger
counterparts. Large corporates, it seems,
have much to learn from them.
It is time for marketing and sales to put
aside our differences and realise there is
more in our DNA that is the same than is
different. The result will be a new, dynamic
approach to business that we hope will
shape the next 100 years of sales…and
marketing.
SECTION FIVE
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
“the result will be
a new, dynamic
approach to business”
The Chartered Institute of Marketing gratefully acknowledges the co-operation of
the following practitioners. The views expressed in this paper are not necessarily the
views of the individuals below.
Nick Porter
European Sales Director
Iron Mountain
Giorgio Delpiano Benedetto
General Manager Sales
West Europe and South Africa
Shell
Robert Nuttall
VP Strategic Marketing
Rolls Royce
Pippa Craddock
Director of Marketing
and Development
South West Environmental Parks
Cheryl Harding
Director
Effectiv8
Stephanie Henderson
Head of Communications
MCA
Colin Hurst
Change, Communication and Training
EMEA SAP Implementation
Merck
Diane Kilkenny
Operations Manager
Sales Leadership Alliance
Deborah Leary
Deputy Director
UN Global Compact Network UK
Malcolm McDonald
Professor at
Cranfield School of Management and
Chairman of Brand Finance
Jeremy Noad
Global Programme Manager –
Sales Excellence
The Linde Group
Neil Rackham
Visiting Professor
Portsmouth University
Beth Rogers
Principal Lecturer
in Sales Management
University of Portsmouth
Todd Snelgrove
Global Manager, Value
SKF Group
Professor Alan Tapp
Professor of Marketing
University of the West of England
This is not an argument against specialism. Nobody is
suggesting that marketing and sales should be merged
into one discipline. But by integrating the two functions
– as they once were – there is ample evidence that they
would complement each other, rather than compete
against each other.
12. 20 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 21
Sources
1. Kotler, P., Rackham, N. and
Krishnaswamy, S. (2006) Ending the
war between sales and marketing.
Harvard Business Review, Vol 84
(7/8), pp68-78.
2. Malshe, A. (2011) An exploration
of key connections within sales-
marketing interface. Journal of
Business and Industrial Marketing.
Vol 26(1), pp45-57.
3. Institute of Marketing (1964) 1963-4
Annual report. 30 June, p3.
4. Petersen, G. (2008) The Profit
Maximization Paradox. Charleston,
Booksurge Publishing.
5. Collischon, R.F. (1964) Institute
change of name. Marketing, April,
p202.
6. Piercy, N.F. (2006) The strategic
sales organization. The Marketing
Review, Vol 6(1), pp3-28.
7. Troilo, G., Guenzi, P. and Ancarani,
F. (2005) Antecedents and
consequences of marketing and
sales integration: an empirical
examination. Proceedings of the
European Marketing Academy
Conference, CD, Milano, May 24-27.
8. Dewsnap, B. and Jobber, D. (2009)
An exploratory study of sales-
marketing integrative devices.
European Journal of Marketing, Vol
43(7/8), pp985-1007.
9. Beverland, M., Steel, M. and
Dapiran, G.P. (2006) Cultural frames
that drive sales and marketing apart:
an exploratory framework. Journal of
Business and Industrial Marketing,
Vol 21(6), pp386-394.
10. CMO Council (2008) Closing the
gap: the sales and marketing
alignment imperative. Executive
Summary. CMO Council.
11. Malshe, A. and Sohi, R. (2009) A
nuanced perspective on sales-
marketing integration. Proceedings
of the European Marketing Academy
Conference, CD, Audencia Nantes,
May 26-29.
12. Lyus, D., Rogers, B. and Simms,
C. (2011) The role of sales and
marketing integration. Journal of
Database Marketing and Customer
Strategy Management, Vol 18(1),
pp39-49.
13. Verhoef, P., Leeflang, P., Natter, M.,
Baker, W., Grinstein, A., Gustafsson,
P. and Saunders, J., Morrison, P.
(2009) A cross-national investigation
into the marketing department’s
influence within the firm. MSI
Working Paper [09-117].
14. Ernst, H., Hoyer, W.D. and
Rübsaamen, C. (2010) Sales,
marketing and research-and-
development cooperation across
new product development stages:
implications for success. Journal of
Marketing, Vol 74(5), pp80-92.
Further information
Cespedes, F.V. (1993) Co-ordinating Sales
and Marketing in Consumer Goods Firms.
Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol 10(2),
pp37-55.
Farrell, M.A. (2005) The effect of a market-
oriented organisational culture on sales-
force behaviour and attitudes. Journal of
Strategic Marketing, Vol 13(4), pp261-273.
Le Meunier-FitzHugh, K. and Piercy, N.F.
(2007) Exploring collaboration between
sales and marketing. European Journal of
Marketing, Vol 41(7/8), pp939–955.
Lynch, J. and de Chernatony, L. (2007)
Winning hearts and minds: business-
to-business branding and the role of
the salesperson. Journal of Marketing
Management, Vol 23(1-2), pp123-135.
Massey, G.R. and Dawes, P.L. (2007)
Personal characteristics, trust, conflict,
and effectiveness in marketing/sales
working relationships. European Journal of
Marketing, Vol 41(9/10), pp1117-1145.
Oliva, R.A. (2006) The three key linkages:
improving the connections between
marketing and sales. Journal of Business
and Industrial Marketing, Vol. 21(6),
pp395–398.
Storbacka, K., Ryals, L., Davies, I.A.,
Nenonen, S (2009) The changing role of
sales: viewing sales as a strategic, cross-
functional process. European Journal of
Marketing, Vol 43(7/8), pp890-906.
Members have access to many of these
papers via www.cim.co.uk/elibrary
13. 22 | The Chartered Institute of Marketing and Sales Leadership Alliance Marketing and sales fusion | 23
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Glen Petersen
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Related reading
14. Marketing and sales fusion | 25
Using Customer Value to
Integrate Sales and Marketing
Marketing and sales often seem disconnected,
with marketing accused of lacking understanding
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marketing and sales into a seamless unit focused
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2 day advanced level course
Next course date:
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Courses combine to show
how marketing and sales can
work together in practice...
CIM take a unique approach to two of their
strategic level courses Strategic Marketing
Masterclass and Strategic Sales Planning
Masterclass. These courses are scheduled to
run at the same time so that delegates from both
courses can join together and take part in specific
exercises designed to explore the complex
relationship between marketing and sales.
Two joint exercises have been developed to look
at the issues and challenges between marketing
and sales and see how barriers can be broken
down. Discussions include:
• What are the underlying causes of tension
between marketing and sales and what
practical steps can be taken to resolve them?
• What processes, protocols and
recommendations could you make to align the
strategic marketing and sales plans?
• How to identify key decisions or areas of
control that need to be made by marketing and
sales. Which is clearly a sales decision, which
a marketing one? See areas of overlap and try
and work out who should take the lead.
• How to design a truly integrated marketing and
sales function for a large organisation.
The overall objective is to show how marketing
and sales should be aligned and integrated and
how this can benefit the organisation. For further
details on either of these courses, please see
details opposite.
Related courses
Strategic Marketing
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This masterclass shows you how
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This masterclass provides delegates with
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