There is a massive amount of confusion regarding the role of marketing in many organizations. This confusion grows when you add in sales and business development (BD). It’s no accident that marketing and BD are known as ‘fee burners’ and relegated to back office (or mid office) functions since many organizations believe them to be exactly that. Even more so, they see little interaction between what they do and how marketing actually adds value to the customer. Marketing is the foundation of the value that professionals deliver to customers and rather than being a cost, revenue does not exist without it!
The above figure shows the explicit link between marketing (as strategy, in other words the orientation and culture of the firm), firm behaviours, and the link to the manifestations of marketing, BD, and the areas of sales team work that it affects. What this figure details is that aside from technical advice, customers demand an increasing amount of business advice and industry knowledge that is linked to the technical advice sales people provide. For a professional (and firm) to effectively differentiate themselves in the eyes of the customer, they must be able to deliver a level of value (whether through industry and technical know how, responsiveness, pro-activity etc) to customers that is different from what other providers can offer. Additionally, since a marketing culture is associated with job satisfaction and engagement, it acts as a motivator for sales people to engage in individual level market oriented behaviours which are aligned with the needs of customers. In this sense, marketing in its truest form becomes a key pillar in the work of sales teams and what they deliver to customers.
To get people within the firm to accept and fully understand this requires a change process that unfortunately is anathema to most organizations.
More than anything, it is crucial to fully articulate the meaning of marketing and how it differs to BD/sales and the tactical level marketing most firms recognize as the be all and end all of marketing. This process can be significantly enhanced by finding the pockets of excellence in the firm that this intuitively works well (and probably outside of the stated strategy of the firm) and using these (with senior management involved in training) as part of innovative learning programmes that go well beyond the standard training of most firms which create little lasting change.
Strategy & Competitiveness 