CIM is wrong to call for merger with sales
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Sales and marketing departments have a bit of a difficult relationship. There’s some underlying tension there and that has always been the case. So what’s the answer? Well, merge the two, obviously. That’s the solution according to the latest report coming out of the CIM.
The CIM’s Marketing and Sales Fusion report predicts an imminent dead end in the evolution of the separate marketing function and urges organisations to bin it.
A joint sales and marketing department, says the CIM, can increase alignment, help an organisation hit its revenue targets, increase accountability and work at the speed necessary to compete.
We already know from responses to the story we wrote when we covered this online last week that many of you agree. “It’s a good idea that has worked,” say some of you. “Not something I’d feel too aggrieved about,” say others.
A merger of the functions ignores the fact that sales isn’t the only key relationship the marketing department should have
So why am I not convinced? Well, there’s a lot of stuff in there to unravel. Not least the question of how bloody odd it is that something like this should come out of the CIM (one sceptical senior marketer that we spoke to described it as the marketing body “waving the white flag of surrender” in the face of diminishing budgets).
But the main concern for me is whose job it would be within a joint sales and marketing force to look after the brand. If the measure of success is short-term sales numbers being hit, whose job is it to build the sort of brand power that sees McDonald’s and Coca-Cola as market leaders despite losing out in blind taste tests?
The sales function is vital to any business and needs to be treated as such but I wouldn’t want to leave marketing to a sales director (or, as Mark Ritson argues, the responsibility of sales to your marketing director).
And who is looking after the customer experience? Marketing should be more closely aligned with sales, but a merger of the functions ignores the fact that sales isn’t the only key relationship the marketing department should have. Our recent coverage of the latest in customer experience built a strong business case for effective working relationships with your operations and logistics departments. And with consumption of digital media increasing by the day, the relationship you have with your technology or IT department is vitally important. Think too about your agency relationships. Will a sales-led marketing function really fully grasp the need for some serious time spent with your creative partners as you struggle with embodying the brand in your creative work?
There’s a reason why we at Marketing Week argue for marketing to be placed at the heart of the organisation and it isn’t just self-serving. It’s because by doing so you place the customer’s needs at the heart of the organisation - something a lot of us already claim to do.
We publish again on the January 5. From all of us at Marketing Week, a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year to all.
Mark Choueke, editor
Readers' comments (7)
John | Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:49 pm
You sound very afraid that if Sales & Marketing were merged the business would emphasise the sales would win out & marketing would be lost... forever. I think what CIM were getting at is that both Sales & Marketing worked closer together then both would come out stronger & in that respect a merger is not necessarily a bad thing.
Personally both Sales & Marketing should be departments under CRM and it is CRM that should coordinate communication between the two.
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Ben Turner | Wed, 14 Dec 2011 1:18 pm
As the Head of Sales for the Institute of Sales I have a clear commerical interest in this story, but couldn't agree more with the comments here.
Of course Sales & Marketing working closer together is of value to the business, but so would a closer relationship with Operations or Finance?
Will we soon have the Chartered Institute of Sales, Marketing, HR, Operations and Finance?
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Rod Sloane | Wed, 14 Dec 2011 2:55 pm
Alignment, Merger, Reporting to...it doesn't really matter what you call it, but Marketing has to get out of the silo, out of the tower and start contributing more to the company goals.
Now, I only work in the B2B area and there is simply no exuse for a lack of alignment. If you are B2C, then I can see why the centralised, Soviet style approach may still work.
2012 will be the year of Alignment and Revenue.
We all know that mergers rarely deliver what they promise.
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Paul Overton | Thu, 15 Dec 2011 0:21 am
I found this article on the sales fusion paper rather amusing. To me it really highlights the huge gulf that has opened up between the well defined sales and marketing functions. It reveals the lack of understanding of the brave new world customer buying practice and experience. Mark utilizes the term “merger” whereas the SLA paper refers to a “fusion”. Mergers to me have connotations of “compromise”. Rarely do mergers create something bigger than the parts. Fusion in contrast, from a lapsed scientist, means something new, more exciting and much greater.
Mark uses the term “tension”, I would prefer to use the term “constructive friction”. It’s an old management adage the sand deliberately sprinkled in the oysters shell creates the pearl.
The terms “Sales Director” and “Marketing Director” I believe need to be re-scoped and defined in this new revenue generating function. The titles don’t actually have any value these days. My personal view is the customer expects that the person standing before them is responsible for that company’s complete service in its entirety. The sale, the product or service delivery and follow up. The segmentation of the two roles doesn’t help the customer. The comments made about the relationship with other functions are clearly important, but it’s not a “fusion”. Brand identity and awareness are clearly critical to many businesses, but they can be re-shaped and owned by this revenue creating function. This new revenue generating function will, I believe be a fusion of strategy, sales and marketing.
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Neil Warren | Thu, 5 Jan 2012 4:22 pm
Hello Mark and all.
I suspect when your roots and reference points are McDonalds and Coca-Cola, you do and can see "selling" as more of a vending machine requirement than the need for a trusted adviser.
Twenty five years of publishing and data research though, and a show of hands at Successful Selling 2011, confirms that 90%+ of the UK's sales professionals work in B2B. And numerous surveys and reports and communities are reporting that marketing have been of very little assistance at all, in that vast and important arena. E.g. we can be a nation of shopkeepers if you like, but it's probably better if somebody sells something to the foreigners too?
Anyway, loving the discussions, and hoping to encourage much, much more, with engagement, and some actions, leading to change...
Google...
CIM-SLA-Sales-Leadership-Alliance-Marketing-Sales-Fusion-discussion-Neil-Warren-20124057.aspx
...which is surely well overdue.
(And your place or mine? I'm easy ;-)
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Richard Nockolds | Fri, 6 Jan 2012 3:01 pm
I'm sure you all know that the CIM was originally called The Sales Managers' Association. A few years later it became the Incorporated Sales Managers' Association. Then, some fifty years ago, it became The Institute of Marketing and Sales Management. And in 1968 it became the Institute of Marketing - sans Sales. And that's how it should remain.
What we actually need [with apologies to Mr Turner] is something with more beef to professionalise the world of selling. Sadly, we're still woefully lacking all the necessary accoutrements of a modern profession, so that's not going to happen for some time.
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John Hill | Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:54 am
The reality is that there are 2 environments one is B2C and the other B2B. CIM which is a commercial organisation is scrabbling to grab the biggest share it can of the lot.
The reality is that Marketing is much more important in the FMCG space, sales in the large capital project in B2B. What we really need is a clearer realisation of which function has greater value in the business and how they can support each other.
We are producing a whitepaper on this and the need for different approaches and using different techniques that illustrate this
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