The Importance of Effective Working Relationships Between Sales and Marketing

© Oxford University Press 2011. All rights reserved. This article examines the importance of effective working relationships between sales and marketing. It provides a framework for analysis and discussion concerning this important organizational relationship. It reviews current thinking on sales-marketing cross-functional relationships, identifies gaps in academic literature, and discusses a range of controllable and uncontrollable factors that may influence this interface. Many organizations are unsure how to manage the sales-marketing cross-functional relationship. The few empirical studies published to date examine the contextual conditions under which such relationships are enacted, e.g., the level of functional interdependence, power relations, and cultural differences. This article discusses the main types of variable that influence the effectiveness of such relationships. These include organizational structure variables, the types of interaction and communication prevalent in the cross-functional relationship, and key variables such as interpersonal trust

Improving relationships between sales and marketing: the relative effectiveness of cross-functional coordination mechanisms

The importance of effective sales and marketing working relationships is well known and this article examines the effectiveness of various coordination mechanisms used to improve this cross-functional relationship. Six coordination mechanisms are measured to identify their effect on sales and marketing conflict and collaboration, which in turn influence business performance. The results reveal that not all coordination mechanisms are equally effective. Structuring sales and marketing as a single unit and creating cross-functional project teams improve the interface, as do providing opportunities for job rotation and establishing cross-functional meetings. However, employing cross-functional training and co-locating sales and marketing do not influence this working relationship. Finally, reducing conflict and increasing collaboration between sales and marketing is shown to independently, and positively, influence business performance

Artificial intelligence (AI): multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research and practice

As far back as the industrial revolution, great leaps in technical innovation succeeded in transforming numerous manual tasks and processes that had been in existence for decades where humans had reached the limits of physical capacity. Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers this same transformative potential for the augmentation and potential replacement of human tasks and activities within a wide range of industrial, intellectual and social applications. The pace of change for this new AI technological age is staggering, with new breakthroughs in algorithmic machine learning and autonomous decision making engendering new opportunities for continued innovation. The impact of AI is significant, with industries ranging from: finance, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics all set to be disrupted by the onset of AI technologies. The study brings together the collective insight from a number of leading expert contributors to highlight the significant opportunities, challenges and potential research agenda posed by the rapid emergence of AI within a number of domains: technological, business and management, science and technology, government and public sector. The research offers significant and timely insight to AI technology and its impact on the future of industry and society in general

Rewards - Can they be used to help the coordination of sales and marketing activities?

This paper considers the role that rewards play in improving sales and marketing coordination. The findings highlighted that organizations may use an aligned rewards to encourage greater collaboration between sales and marketing personnel, but that this needs receive support from senior managers through goal and activity alignment to be effective