Integrating Sales and Marketing

The objective of this chapter is to disentangle the complex issue of managing the integration of Sales and Marketing units. Although several companies strive for an effective coordination of these two units, achieving an appropriate level of integration is all but a simple task. The chapter will start with a review of market and organizational conditions that make Sales-marketing integration a necessity for many companies. Then, attention will be paid to the different levels at which integration can be reached and to the cultural, organizational and infrastructural barriers that make it difficult to gain effective integration at the different levels. The hearth of the chapter consists in a review of the integration mechanisms a company can use in order to achieve that objective. Specifically, the focus will be on managerial systems and changes in the organizational structure allowing the company to improve the level of Sales-Marketing integration. A final section of the chapter reports on the results of a survey conducted on a pan-European sample of companies regarding the level of Sales-marketing integration achieved and the integration mechanisms mostly used to gain this result. The Appendix will provide a simple tool to help the reader assess the level of integration reached by her company and the usage of integration mechanisms.