Exploring collaboration between sales and marketing

Purpose – The study seeks to explore the antecedents and implications of collaboration between sales and marketing and further to identify whether there are benefits in terms of business performance of improving collaboration between sales and marketing.Design/methodology/approach – Three exploratory case studies and a review of the literature are used to examine the antecedents to collaboration between sales and marketing. The case studies allow this fuzzy and undefined area to be clarified and existing theories to be empirically tested.Findings – The study identifies that there are three types of factor influencing collaboration between sales and marketing: integrators, facilitators, and management attitudes towards coordination. The exploratory case studies establish that senior management plays a pivotal role in creating and improving collaboration between sales and marketing, and that there is a positive correlation between collaboration between sales and marketing, and improved business performance....

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