Ending War Between Sales and Marketing

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In many companies, sales

forces and marketers feud like

Capulets and Montagues—

with disastrous results. Here’s

how to get them to lay down

their swords.

Ending the War

Between Sales and

Marketing

by Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham, and

Suj Krishnaswamy

Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article:

1 Article Summary

The Idea in Brief—the core idea

The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work

3 Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing

14 Further Reading

A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further

exploration of the article’s ideas and applications

Reprint R0607E

Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing

The Idea in Brief

The Idea in Practice

In too many companies, Sales and Marketing feud like Capulets and Montagues.

Salespeople accuse marketers of being out

of touch with what customers really want

or setting prices too high. Marketers insist

that salespeople focus too myopically on

individual customers and short-term sales

at the expense of longer-term profits.

How interconnected should your Sales and Marketing teams be? The authors recommend determining their existing relationship, then strengthening interconnection if conditions warrant.

Result? Poor coordination between the two

teams—which only raises market-entry

costs, lengthens sales cycles, and increases

cost of sales.

COPYRIGHT © 2006 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

How to get your sales and marketing teams

to start working together? Kotler, Rackham,

and Krishnaswamy recommend crafting a

new relationship between them, one with

the right degree of interconnection to

tackle your most pressing business challenges.

For example, is your market becoming

more commoditized or customized? If so,

align Sales and Marketing through frequent, disciplined cross-functional communication and joint projects. Is competition

becoming more complex than ever? Then...