All together now? Exploring sales and marketing integration

Abstract

Purpose – Building on prior research in interactions between sales and marketing departments, the purpose of this paper is to investigate departmental alignment among professional hockey teams. By using a single industry sample, the authors are able to identify high and low performers, along with structural antecedents that lead to higher alignment (Rouse and Daellenbach, 1999). Expiring inventory, customer knowledge, and volatile demand enhance the need for alignment and suggest opportunities for innovative mechanisms to share information among departments (Mullin et al., 2007). Design/methodology/approach – Through the usage of Kotler et al.’s (2006) survey instrument, the authors survey NHL Vice Presidents of sales and marketing to assess levels of structural alignment. The authors further explores strategies for alignment through qualitative interviews of select team executives. Findings – The authors find examples of high alignment, achieved through structural elements of proximity, cross-functional tasks, financial incentives, and new technologies. The qualitative interviews provide insight into how organizations attempt to create high levels of alignment. Originality/value – These results help advance the literature by identifying high performers and going inside organizations for the source of a competitive advantage, thus following Rouse and Dallenbach’s (1999) approach for theory development. The authors also contributes by identifying strategies for practitioners to apply as they attempt to design optimal work structures.

How do sales and marketing produce business to business value propositions?

“…Overall the volume and level of debate seems to be in its infancy in relation to academic studies into how the SMI works. Most of the recommendations coming out of the literature are normative (Kotler et al 2006;Snyder et al 2016;Strahle et al 1996). There are a number of one off pieces of research into issues like thought world differences (Homburg & Jensen 2007) that could be accused of academic eclecticism, borrowing theory from other disciplines without fully developing it (Burton 2005;Corley & Goya 2011).…”

“…The sociological stance being taken here elevates the need to understand what the generative mechanisms are in the SMI for constructive interaction facilitating effective value proposition production (Danermark et al 2002;Easton 2010;Fletcher 2016). Up to date consideration of these generative mechanisms has been largely absent from the SMI literature (Kotler et al 2006;Malshe et al 2016;Snyder et al 2016). To get beneath the under socialised views of logical positivism and surface level interpretivism I will deploy a critical realist approach.…”

“…SMI is operating effectively (Dawes & Massey 2005;Massey & Dawes 2007). Exploring sales and marketing integration (Snyder et al 2016). Quantitative Marketing-sales Interface and organisational competitiveness (Avliontis & Lionakis 2015).…”

“…In contrast practitioner focused sales literature does focus on techniques, skills and competencies required to move a sale forward from the opening approach to a customer to post-sale (Adamson & Dixon 2013;Miller, Heimann & Tuleja 2011;Rackham 1988). The specialist SMI literature seems only to offer normative solutions for better SMI process, offering norms for surface level factors such as goal setting, and views sales and marketing as monolithic organisations, largely absent of actors (Kotler et al 2006;Snyder et al 2016;Strahle, Spiro & Acito1996).…”

“…In providing recommendations for operationalising a more market and customer centric approach my motivation is to help humanise academic marketing by providing an explanation of how sales and marketing actors help operationalise marketing, not just monolithic holistic organisations known as sales and marketing, as per extant SMI literature (Dewsnap & Jobber 2000;Homburg & Jensen 2007;Snyder et al 2016). I also want to give both the sales and marketing functions appropriate consideration from both a strategic and tactical perspective, in contrast to extant mainstream marketing literature which portrays sales as a small tactical piece of marketing communications (Fill 2013;Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick 2013;Kotler & Keller 2015).…”