Page 35 - HBR's 10 Must Reads - On Sales

KOTLER, RACKHAM, AND KRISHNASWAMY
Idea in Brief

Sales departments tend to believe tributions of these two functions.
that marketers are out of touch Among their findings:
with what’s really going on in the
marketplace. Marketing people, • The marketing function takes
in turn, believe the sales force is different forms in different
myopic—too focused on individual companies at different product
customer experiences, insuffi- life cycle stages. Marketing’s
ciently aware of the larger market, increasing influence in each
and blind to the future. In short, phase of an organization’s
each group undervalues the other’s growth profoundly affects its
contributions. Both stumble (and relationship with Sales.
organizational performance suf- • The strains between Sales and
fers) when they are out of sync. Yet Marketing fall into two main cat-
few firms seem to make serious egories: economic (a single bud-
overtures toward analyzing and get is typically divided between
enhancing the relationship be- Sales and Marketing, and not
tween these two critical functions. always evenly) and cultural (the
two functions attract very differ-
Curious about the misalignment ent types of people who achieve
between Sales and Marketing, the success by spending their time
authors interviewed pairs of chief in very different ways).
marketing officers and sales vice
presidents to capture their per- In this article, the authors describe
spectives. They looked in depth the four types of relationships
at the relationship between Sales Sales and Marketing typically ex-
and Marketing in a variety of com- hibit. They provide a diagnostic to
panies in different industries. Their help readers assess their compa-
goal was to identify best practices nies’ level of integration, and they
that could enhance the joint per- offer recommendations for more
formance and increase the con- closely aligning the two functions.

Different Roles for Marketing
Before we look closely at the relationship between the two groups,
we need to recognize that the nature of the marketing function var-
ies significantly from company to company.
Most small businesses (and most businesses are small) don’t es-
tablish a formal marketing group at all. Their marketing ideas come
from managers, the sales force, or an advertising agency. Such

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