Christian Homburg & Ove Jensen
Executive Summary
The interface between marketing units and sales units is highly conflict-laden in many companies. These conflicts are often attributed to different "thought worlds" in marketing and sales. For example, it has been claimed that marketing focuses on long-term strategy, whereas sales is driven by short-term revenues. Marketing has been blamed for not understanding customers' needs, and sales has been lauded for customer insight.
Against this background, it has often been claimed that marketing and sales should be brought together to improve the effectiveness of their cooperation. This study investigates whether differences between the thought worlds of marketing and sales are indeed deleterious or beneficial. The results show that identical thought worlds in marketing and sales are not desirable. The study refutes the often-heard claim to level any differences between marketing and sales. Managers should not maximize harmony between marketing and sales because what is good for the quality of cooperation between marketing and sales is not necessarily good for the market performance of the business unit.
As an example, if marketing plays the "devil's advocate" for the decisions of sales and sales plays the devil's advocate for decisions of marketing, this will not lead to perfect harmony between marketing and sales, but it will ensure that more relevant information and more arguments enter into market-related decisions. Thus, thought-world differences are both good and bad. The study also shows which kind of differences makes a difference. Different goal orientations (customers versus products) and different time orientations (short-term versus long-term) of marketing and sales are bad for the cooperation quality between marketing and sales, but they are good for the market performance of the business unit. One side should champion the product dimension of the business, and the other side should champion the customer dimension of the business.
Likewise, one side should champion the long-term dimension of the business, and the other side should champion the short-term dimension of the business. In contrast, differences between marketing and sales with regard to interpersonal skills and product knowledge are detrimental to both cooperation quality and market performance. To summarize, the mode of symbiosis suggested by this study is that marketing and sales should have similar competences and different orientations and should cooperate in an atmosphere of constructive tension—in other words, similarly competent people with different missions.
Biography
Christian Homburg holds a diploma in Mathematics and Business Administration (1986) and a doctorate in Business Administration (1988) from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. Between 1989 and 1992, he worked for one of Germany's largest machinery companies, serving as a director of strategic planning, marketing, and management accounting. After receiving his habilitation degree from the University of Mainz in 1995, he became Professor of Marketing at WHU Koblenz. He joined the University of Mannheim in 1999. Christian Homburg is currently serving as chairman of the Marketing Department, director of the Institute for Market-Oriented Management, and president of Mannheim Business School. His research interests include market-oriented management, customer relationship management, and sales management. He has published in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and International Journal of Research in Marketing. Professor Homburg is also founder and chair of the advisory board of Professor Homburg & Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in marketing and sales management.
Ove Jensen is Professor of Marketing and holds the Chair for Business-to-Business Marketing at WHU–Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany. Before joining WHU, he was Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Mannheim. Before his academic career, he worked as a marketing and sales consultant and eventually as managing director of the consulting firm Professor Homburg & Partners. He holds a diploma in business administration from WHU–Otto Beisheim School of Management and a PhD from the University of Mannheim. His research interests include business-to-business marketing, sales management, and marketing implementation. His international publications include articles in Journal of Marketing and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. One article was distinguished by the Jagdish N. Sheth Award as the best article of 2000 in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 71, No. 3, July 2007
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