Trillions lost due to sales and marketing chasm, claims study
Businesses are working harder to get sales and marketing teams to collaborate, but new research suggests many are still struggling to find a common language and measure the impact of working more closely together.
Tindale: Businesses were being judged on experience so alignment is crucial
The global survey by LinkedIn, which included Australia, found that Australian companies are prioritising a more collaborative approach between marketing and sales, with 68% of businesses saying they have improved internal relationships over the past year.
But while many businesses now believe a closer bond between sales and marketing is a path to growth, nearly half are failing to measure exactly what the impact is.
“It’s clear from the research that a lack of understanding of the customer and channels of communication is where the divide between sales and marketing teams is most apparent,” LinkedIn APAC head of enterprise marketing solutions, Matt Tindale, said.
“Focusing on the customer is key for both teams as 73% of businesses believe good collaboration is leading to positive impact on customer experience.”
Tindale said that the alignment was crucial as businesses were being judged on experience.
“Gone are the days where you were just compared to your competitors,” Tindale said.
“The Commonwealth Bank is not just compared to NAB or Westpac, you are compared to every single experience. Experience now has almost become more important than the product so if you get that wrong there is just huge implications.”
Tindale said that every business experience as being compared to the experience consumers were having with brands such as Netflix and Uber.
“Now in the whole internet age it is so personalised. It is all about the experience,” he said.
“It really boils down to a few things and this alignment between sales and marketing, more often than not, is the most important part.”
He said that in the US it had been found that more than $1 trillion was being lost every year as a result of the misalignment between sales and marketing.
“If you get it right there is amazing consequences, not only for business but for the economy in general.”
Tindale said that while it was not a case of uniting sales and marketing into a single role, a more strategic approach needed to be found.
“Our research found that strategic alignment around shared objectives and understanding of the customer is far more important than tactical alignment such as job swaps or cross-skills training,” he said.
“Both marketing and sales functions perform specific roles in reaching the customer so they do need to align well to ensure the customer journey and experience is seamless.”
Mark Dick, director of sales solutions for Linked In, said poor collaboration was a major issue.
Dick: “Poor collaboration results in customer frustration”
“When there is poor collaboration it can actually be devastating for the business,” he said.
“63% of respondents indicated that through poor collaboration they actually missed out on business opportunities. And even bigger than that, if you actually think about that customer experience, almost half said that it resulted in customer frustration.”
He said that half of organisations taking part in the research declared they were not measuring collaboration and 39% didn’t know how they could measure it.
He said that another issue was that marketing and sales were often measured on entirely different metrics, further complicating alignment.
The LinkedIn report says that Sales & Marketing misalignment is a US$ 1 trillion problem in the USA alone.
Conversely, solving this problem is a US$ 1 trillion opportunity to overcome:
– 65% of missed business opportunities
– 46% of customer frustration
– 45% duplicated processes
– 40% lost staff morale
Peter Strohkorb
@pstrohkorb
User ID not verified.
LinkedIn report is nothing new. This is how every business should run their front end operations. Marketing and Sales have to work on a collaborative model. Most companies do not understand the relationship between the two and have consistently implemented their strategies around Marketing and Sales, disjointedly.
Another aspect that most businesses forget to work on is “The Customer”. They are so engrossed in promoting the “ME and MY PRODUCTS/ SERVICES” that they completely skip the needs of their customer – who essentially should be their prime focus.
What selling organisations need to understand is that the “Customer” has become “Tech Savvy” and is no more intimidated by “Push Selling”. And organisations in different commercial regions/ countries buy, based on their commercial norms and not on the commercial norms of the selling organisation’s region/country.
User ID not verified.
I completely agree, @Sunil K Jha. I see one of the main issues fueling this dilemma is the conflict between customer experience and making budget. Too often are companies focused on short term revenue goals and neglecting the customer experience, because it’s simply not as tangible as a dollar. Therefore, I believe upper management need to be brave and stand up for the long-term effects of a satisfied customer to realise revenue will follow in due course.
User ID not verified.