Sales and Marketing Integration: Enhancing Competitive Advantages

IntroductionSignificant research efforts have been devoted to considering cooperation and collaboration between functional departments in organizations based on the premise that interdepartmental collaboration is linked to improving business performance. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the interdepartmental relationship between sales and marketing as compared to other functional relationships with marketing. Only recently, sales and marketing interaction has gained more conceptual attention (Homburg et al., 2008). Sales and marketing interface exhibits one of the most contentious relationships within organizations and is one that is attracting increasing attention from both academicians and practitioners.There is a need to have collaboration between sales and marketing to alleviate their behavioral conflicts (Matthyssens and Johnston, 2006). Sales and marketing interface has a direct and significant impact on customers and the revenue-earning potential of the organization. Collaboration between sales and marketing may be important in reducing inter-functional conflict and creating high performance. Hence, every organization should improve the relationship between sales and marketing.The major objectives of this paper are: firstly, to introduce sales and marketing integration as a process which combines the strengths of sales and marketing by shifting the focus to the customer; secondly, to demonstrate how such integration can leverage the strengths of sales and marketing and meet the challenges of customer value creation in today's fast changing and highly competitive marketplace; and thirdly, to suggest various research frameworks of sales and marketing integration for better understanding the interface of sales-marketing from inside out. This study focuses on how collaboration between sales and marketing, improves business performance rather than evaluating its consequences. Hence, this research focuses on drivers of sales and marketing integration for creating superior customer value.Literature ReviewPreviously the academic focus was more on marketing's interaction with other functions such as R&D or finance, and researchers did not differ between the sales and marketing functions at all (Kahn and Mentzer, 1998). Many researchers found sales-marketing interface as a rather unexplored area with either limited research study (Dawes and Massey, 2005) or not researched systematically and deeply (Homburg et al., 2008). Both sales and marketing may be following their own agendas, creating conflict, coordination problem, and ultimately generate greater tension between the two groups. These issues can negatively characterize the interface between sales and marketing and may lead to conflict that is detrimental to collaboration (Dewsnap and Jobber, 2000). According to Corstjens and Corstjens (1999), a lack of cooperation between sales and marketing has the potential to damage the overall success of the organization. Both sales and marketing serve customers, with sales traditionally performing tactical tasks such as contacting customers, executing marketing strategies, and closing the sale in the field and marketing entrusted with providing support to salespeople and building consistent brand image in the market place (Matthyssens and Johnston, 2006). Improvements in collaboration and interdepartmental relations may reduce conflict as well as enhance the formulation of strategy (Menon et al., 1996). For the success of the organization, market responsiveness and adaptability are important conditions and require seamless integration of the organization's many functional parts. The overcoming of functional boundaries and (often) the development of cross-functional teams are important facets of customer-focused organizations (Homburg et al., 2000). Le and Piercy (2007) studied collaboration between sales and marketing in Business-to- Business (B to B) setting and found that it is positively related to enhanced business performance. …