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Marketing-sales
Designing the marketing-sales interface in
interface in B2B firms B2B firms
Wim G. Biemans
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, and 257
Maja Makovec Brenčič
University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia Received May 2005
Revised September 2005,
October 2005
Accepted November 2005
Abstract
Purpose – This paper explores the marketing-sales interface in Dutch and Slovenian B2B firms.
Design/methodology/approach – The study included 11 Dutch firms and ten Slovenian firms,
with both samples as closely matched as possible. The firms were all manufacturers of physical
products that operate internationally, but varied in terms of size and industry. Personal interviews
with respondents from both marketing and sales were conducted, followed by interviews of a
semi-structured format.
Findings – In some firms it was difficult to identify the marketing-sales interface. For instance, in
small firms marketing and sales would frequently be combined in one individual.
Research limitations/implications – Since the paper is based on an exploratory investigation of
11 Dutch firms and ten Slovenian firms, the findings are only indicative. Follow-up research might
investigate a larger sample, different industries or different economic contexts. In addition, future
research might study the relationship between marketing as an organisational capability and
marketing as an organisational function or the development of scales to measure various aspects of the
marketing-sales interface.
Practical implications – The findings emphasize the role of developing an effective
marketing-sales interface in becoming a truly market-oriented organisation. Thus, they can help
managers to evaluate their own marketing-sales interface and look for improvements as part of
becoming more market oriented.
Originality/value – The findings describe how the marketing-sales interface is organised and
managed in B2B firms operating in different contexts. It positions the marketing-sales interface as just
part of a market-oriented organisation. The findings help academics to understand the functioning of a
marketing-sales interface and assist managers in evaluating their own marketing-sales interface and
develop ways to improve it.
Keywords Business-to-business marketing, Selling, Team working, European Union, The Netherlands,
Slovenia
Paper type Research paper

Background
The widely accepted market orientation construct emphasises the critical role of
effective internal interfaces in a market-oriented organisation (Kohli and Jaworski,
1990; Slater and Narver, 1994). Smoothly functioning interfaces ensure the timely
dissemination of market information and the coordination of marketing activities in
creating superior value for customers. For instance, an engineer that hears new European Journal of Marketing
Vol. 41 No. 3/4, 2007
information about a competitor’s upcoming new product while he carries out pp. 257-273
maintenance at a customer plant should relay that information to the firm’s R&D and q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0566
marketing departments as part of the firm’s market sensing process. Similarly, DOI 10.1108/03090560710728327
EJM representatives from two business units that sell to the same customer need to
41,3/4 coordinate their activities both to create maximum value for the customer and to enable
the supplier to capitalise on new opportunities that present themselves. Several authors
have argued for a horizontal organisation in which cross-functional teams focus on
value-creating processes, such as new product development and order fulfilment
(Barabba, 1995; Hammer and Stanton, 1999). Managers structure their organisations as
258 “flexible groupings of intertwined work and information flows that cut horizontally
across the business, ending at points of contact with customers” (Hammer and Stanton,
1999, p. 108). In such a process organisation, each core process is assigned a process
owner who is responsible for coordinating activities from several departments to create
superior customer value.
But in practice, most firms are still structured vertically, e.g. as a series of business
functions, product groups or geographical areas. Such vertical organisational
structures typically function as a series of corporate fiefdoms, where managers
jealously guard their turf, resulting in fierce battles for resources, misunderstandings
and conflicts. This is aptly illustrated by the substantial body of research into the
marketing-R&D interface in the context of new product development (Griffin and
Hauser, 1996; Gupta et al., 1986; Parry and Song, 1993; Souder, 1981). Similarly, other
researchers investigated the interfaces between marketing and engineering,
manufacturing or purchasing (Lancaster, 1993; St. John and Hall, 1991; Crittenden
et al., 1993; Williams et al., 1994). Building on this research about interfunctional
coordination, several researchers investigated the interplay between various functional
areas in an organisation and stress the importance of cross-functional teams (Ashkenas
et al., 1995; Moenaert et al., 1994).
One of the major findings of this stream of research is that most problems in
intraorganisational cooperation can be traced to differences in cultural thought worlds,
language barriers and differences in goal orientations (Griffin and Hauser, 1996; Maltz,
1997). For instance, the often noted differences between marketers and developers
foster a lack of interest in each other’s work and thinking in stereotypes, causing many
authors to argue for open communication and joint activities to bridge cultural
differences. Rosenthal (1992) points out that even representatives from closely related
specialties, such as design engineers, manufacturing engineers, industrial designers
and human factor specialists, have very different backgrounds. Similarly, Cespedes
(1994) stresses the need for coordination between the three disciplines involved in
marketing in most B2B firms: marketing, sales and customer service.
This study explores the interface between marketing and sales in B2B firms. Both
marketing and sales aim to serve customers, with marketing focusing on facilitating
and equipping salespeople and building consistent brand images in the marketplace
and sales performing operational tasks such as contacting customers and closing the
sale. But such a harmonious interface is frequently absent in practice. For instance,
because sales deal with it owns the customer relationships and resists every effort from
other departments to contact their customers (Hulbert and Pitt, 1996). Salespeople
perceive themselves as the ones generating income and question the value of an
expensive marketing department. Marketing, on the other hand, frequently complains
about good leads disappearing into the “black hole” of sales. Donath (2004, p. 5)
suggests that the divide between marketing and sales in B2B firms may be caused by
fundamental job differences:
 Marketing people talk to . . . business end-users, while salespeople typically spend their time Marketing-sales
with distributors and purchasing agents. Marketers deal with market segments and specific
product groups. Sales, however, sees the world account by account. interface in
In addition, many firms exacerbate the problem by how they organise both commercial
B2B firms
functions. For instance, by creating separate marketing and sales functions, with the
sales vice president often outranking the senior marketing manager. The results from a
recent study by the AberdeenGroup (2002, p. 2) confirm the problematic nature of the 259
marketing-sales interface:
[. . .] in many companies as much as 80 per cent of marketing expenditures on lead generation
and sales collatoral are wasted – ignored as irrelevant and unhelpful by sales.
This finding is echoed by Schmonsees (2005) who conducted interviews with
executives of more than 250 companies and concludes that:
[. . .] 80 to 90 per cent of the content produced by marketing is considered useless by
salespeople; 70 per cent of the leads generated by marketing are not followed up by
salespeople.
These fundamental differences between marketing and sales are expected to be even
more prevalent in emerging markets, where firms are predominantly sales oriented and
the separate but complementary roles of marketing and sales are still at the first stages
of development. The study presented in this paper explores the marketing-sales
interface in Dutch and Slovenian B2B firms to identify the major problems involved
and suggest strategies for improvement.

Comparison of Slovenia and the Netherlands

While The Netherlands is one of the EU’s founding countries, Slovenia just recently
entered the EU. Since its independence in 1991 (after the split with Yugoslavia),
Slovenia implemented far-reaching market liberalisation measures to transform its
economy, including aligning its political and economic systems with those of the EU. It
met the entrance criteria and became a full member of the EU on May 1, 2004. Very
quickly, Slovenia became one of the most successful new EU countries in terms of
economic development. For instance, in terms of 2004 GDP per capita Slovenia ranks in
front of Portugal and has 70 per cent of the GDP per capita of The Netherlands.
Slovenia represents a market of two million inhabitants, compared to 16 million in The
Netherlands, and suffered an employment rate of 6.3 per cent in 2004, while the
unemployment rate in The Netherlands was 4.6 per cent. Slovenia’s quickly growing
GDP highly depends on export; more than 70 per cent of GDP is created through
export, with the EU countries being the most important target markets (similarly, in
the Netherlands exports within the EU exceed 80 per cent). Slovenia now deals with
entrance to the Euro monetary union and raising its foreign direct investment (in and
outgoing).

Research method
That firms require smoothly functioning intra-organisational interfaces but frequently
have dysfunctional marketing-sales interfaces suggests a need for research to increase
our understanding of the marketing-sales interface. For instance, a Marketing Science
Institute workshop on inter-functional interfaces identified the conflict between
EJM marketing and sales as one of the critical areas that need to be addressed (Montgomery
and Webster, 1997). Because B2B firms in particular appear to be in need of an
41,3/4 improved connection between marketing and sales, we conducted an exploratory study
of the marketing-sales interface in B2B firms. In addition, since the nature of the
marketing-sales interface is expected to differ between economic contexts, we selected
firms from both the Netherlands and Slovenia. The differences between the
260 Netherlands, as an economically more developed country of the EU, and Slovenia, as
one of the EU’s rising new members, are expected to significantly influence how firms
in these countries organise and manage the marketing-sales interface. A total of eleven
Dutch firms and ten Slovenian firms participated in the study. Although we used a
convenience sample for both countries, both samples were as closely matched as
possible. For instance, while the Slovenian sample consists of three small, four
medium-sized and three large firms, the Dutch sample has two small, four
medium-sized and five large firms. For all firms participating in this study, firm size
varied from 35 to over 1,000 employees and a turnover of EUR 5 million to 175 million.
Also, in both samples, all firms are manufacturers of physical products that operate
internationally. In addition, both samples include firms from a wide variety of
industries, such as electrical motors, industrial equipment, chemicals, electrical
components and raw materials.
In every firm, we tried to investigate both perspectives by conducting in-depth
personal interviews with respondents from both marketing and sales. Most
respondents were senior marketing managers and sales managers, with some of
them representing both areas. Many respondents were employed by the firm for more
than ten years and were able to provide detailed information about both the current
marketing-sales interface and how the interfaced evolved over the years. The
interviews followed a semi-structured format and sought information on subjects such
as decision-making involving marketing and sales, the organisation of the
marketing-sales interface, the use of formal and informal coordination mechanisms,
the perceived quality of the marketing-sales interface, and problems concerning the
marketing-sales interface and how firms tried to deal with them. The average interview
lasted two hours. All interview reports were reviewed by the interviewed managers to
check for mistakes, test interpretations and obtain additional information.

Marketing-sales interface in Dutch and Slovenian B2B firms

Our findings are structured around the following three major themes:
(1) How is the marketing-sales interface organised?
(2) How do firms manage the marketing-sales interface?
(3) What is the perceived quality of the marketing-sales interface?

Location of the marketing-sales interface

Most B2B firms are vertical organisations, structured around business functions. Some
of them have both a marketing department and a sales department, while others use an
integrated marketing and sales department. For instance, a Dutch manufacturer of raw
materials has a marketing and sales department structured around application areas
(Figure 1).
Each application area is headed by a business manager and employs several
account managers and a technical services and development manager. All business
 Marketing-sales
interface in
B2B firms

261

Figure 1.
Marketing-sales interface
at a large Duch
manufacturer of raw
materials

managers operate largely autonomously. While they report to the marketing and sales
director, they are free to determine how they will compete in their assigned application
area and present their plans annually as a three-year strategic plan. The marketing and
sales director uses these plans to allocate available production capacity across
applications. To support their communication with the market, the application areas
EJM use a corporate communication department. Thus, the marketing-sales interface is
41,3/4 located in the relationship between the business manager (marketing), the
communication department and the account managers (sales). But the reality is not
always as clear-cut as the organisation chart suggests. For instance, in one of the
application areas the business manager asked one of his account managers to prepare
the first draft of the three-year communication plan. This blurred distinction between
262 marketing and sales was also emphasised in another firm, where area managers are
responsible for sales in their area, but also have marketing objectives and perform
marketing activities. This diffuse division of roles between marketing and sales is
aptly illustrated by a remark of one of the respondents:
I am a product manager, which is typically a marketing function, but I really don’t know
whether I‘m part of marketing or sales. I am part of marketing and sales.
In some firms it was quite problematic to locate the marketing-sales interface. For
instance, one of the Dutch firms is structured around business units and lacks an
explicit marketing function. Each business unit manager makes his own positioning
and other critical marketing decisions. But the location of sales depends on the
business unit. The largest business units sell through fully-owned local sales
organisations, while others use distributors or have their own salespeople. In some
smaller business units, sales are even carried out by the business unit manager.
In the majority of the Slovenian firms (except for a few large firms) marketing and
sales are combined into one department, with integrated decision making and
planning. For instance, in a medium-sized manufacturer of components both
marketing and sales was done by the firm’s general manager, which is supported by a
communication/PR department (Figure 2). Many Slovenian respondents emphasised
the close connection between marketing and sales. As one of the respondents
remarked:
[. . .] it is very difficult to separate these two areas, especially in B2B firms.
This is also the case for the small firms in the Dutch sample. One sales manager stated
that he considers marketing to be an integral part of his job:
I’m a sales MANAGER; so I have to use a long-term perspective. . .

I do sales during the daytime and marketing in the car and in bed at night.
In the majority of Slovenian firms in our sample (6 out of 10) marketing and sales are at
the same hierarchical level and led by programme managers or directors. This means
that a single individual performs both marketing and sales for a certain geographical
area or product. The respondents in these firms maintain that organisational structure
is not a key element of a successful interface, since the majority of product/
programme/region managers need to be aware of both marketing and sales issues. But
these firms lack strategic marketing, analysis and planning and responsive
decision-making at top levels. Sales are considered most important and marketing
does not (yet) have an appropriate strategic position in the firm. Such an attitude
towards the marketing-sales interface is typical for most small Slovenian firms, but
was not found at the Dutch small firms. For instance, the sales manager at a small
Dutch firm emphasised the role of marketing:
 Marketing-sales
interface in
B2B firms

263

Figure 2.
Marketing-sales interface
at a medium-sized
Slovenian manufacturer of
components

Sales looks at the short term. But it is sales’ responsibility to communicate to marketing the
tools that are needed. Without marketing you cannot have an effective sales-oriented
organisation.
The other four Slovenian firms are very successful global niche operators of various
sizes, specialised in technology and knowledge driven products (such as electronic
devices and motor vehicle parts) and highly customer or even market oriented.
Nevertheless, most do not separate marketing and sales. Some do not even have a
formal marketing function or department. The respondents in these firms claim that
final decisions are made either by sales or together with marketing. In one of them, the
managing director stated that
[. . .] marketing is the first to approach new markets and customers and sales follows
instructions from marketing and performs operational activities.

Managing the marketing-sales interface

Firms employ both formal and informal mechanisms to coordinate the relationship
between marketing and sales. Examples of formal mechanisms are procedures for
carrying out interfunctional activities and meetings to deal with a variety of issues.
Especially the Dutch firms in our sample use a variety of formal mechanisms to
coordinate marketing/sales-related activities, such as regular sales meetings, marketing
and sales meetings, strategy meetings and joint customer visits by representatives from
marketing and sales. In one of the Dutch firms, no less than 27 people regularly attend
weekly marketing and sales meetings, where even the firm’s CEO shows up frequently to
EJM demonstrate his commitment and keep in touch with market developments. Although
41,3/4 these weekly meetings require substantial resources, they work because of the firm’s flat
organisational structure and culture of open communication, which allows for meetings
where issues are freely discussed and decisions are made on the basis of an individual’s
expertise (rather than his position). Another firm uses sales manuals that translate key
marketing decisions into “rules of the game” for sales, e.g. by specifying the kind of
264 customers the firm wants to target, the appropriate products for these customers and the
accompanying selling points. The development of such sales scenarios improves both
the quality of sales and of the marketing-sales interface. The three large Slovenian firms
also rely heavily on formal coordination mechanisms. The managers in these firms claim
that they possess and develop very efficient and well-organised formal and informal
information systems, in both cases supported by computerised CRM systems.
Despite the frequent use of such formal mechanisms, most firms rely heavily on
informal communication and ad hoc meetings to deal with unexpected problems. This
is especially the case for the majority of Slovenian companies, where formal interfaces
were seldom found. Indeed, several Slovenian managers expressed the need for more
formalised decision-making. Frequently, this reliance on informal communication is
prompted by close physical proximity of the individuals involved. Several respondents
in both samples explained that marketing and sales are located in adjacent offices and
talk on a daily basis. Also, especially in the Slovenian small and medium-sized firms,
the roles of sales and marketing are often combined in one individual, resulting in an
emphasis on horizontal coordination with other programme/product/regional
managers. Some managers expressed that “they like the noise” because it means
that there is some coordination and exchange of information.
The extent to which such informal communication will be effective is strongly
influenced by the firm’s corporate culture and the characteristics of the individuals
involved. For instance, in one firm the marketing manager and sales manager seemed
to operate as a smoothly functioning team. They communicate on a daily basis about
all marketing/sales issues and make joint decisions, but respect each other’s specific
expertise. As the sales manager remarked:
I don’t have a background in marketing; I don’t know anything about marketing and I
gladly let my marketing colleague inform me about marketing.
But during the interview, the sales manager began to realise how the apparently
effortless cooperation with marketing is based on a lot of hard work, and he said to his
marketing colleague:
It all seems to work so effortlessly, but maybe we underestimate how much time and effort we
actually spend on making this work.
A strong reliance on informal communication to deal with marketing/sales issues may
also be explained by the limited size of the marketing and sales group. In most firms in
our sample, this group consisted of 5-10 individuals.

Perceived quality of the marketing-sales interface

Most respondents (in both the Dutch and the Slovenian sample) perceived the
marketing-sales interface to be of high quality and were generally satisfied with the
various coordination mechanisms employed in their firms. Also, there were no
significant differences between marketing managers and sales managers. In many Marketing-sales
Slovenian firms, this was caused by the marketing and sales being handled by one interface in
individual. In other firms, constructive cooperation between marketing and sales was
stimulated by the firm’s corporate culture or the individuals’ backgrounds and personal B2B firms
characteristics. For instance, at a Dutch manufacturer of industrial machinery the
marketing manager and sales manager work very closely together. The sales manager
has a background in sales, but employs a long-term perspective on the business and thus 265
understands marketing’s point-of-view. At the same time, his marketing counterpart
used to work in sales at the same firm and thus is familiar with the sales context.
Despite the overall positive perception of the marketing-sales interface, several
respondents discussed issues that cause friction in this relationship. For instance, in
one Dutch firm, the respondents emphasised that marketing is dispersed in the
organisation (“everybody does some marketing”) and the distinction between
marketing and sales is often blurred. While this results in open communication it
also causes tension about the allocation of responsibilities with different people
claiming responsibility for an issue. Nevertheless, the respondents were quick to point
out the constructive nature of this tension and that all discussions are quickly resolved
through open communication. Several other respondents reported constructive friction
between marketing and sales, mostly caused by different objectives (long-term
positioning versus short-term sales) and perceived as “part of the game”. For instance,
in one firm both the marketing manager and sales manager remarked how an economic
downturn may cause salespeople to deviate from existing marketing policy and be a bit
more creative in obtaining orders.
In the Slovenian firms, most friction is caused by the predominant production or sales
orientation, with marketing being an underdeveloped business function (sometimes even
as part of sales!). A common factor for these firms, except for the global niche players
that are more customer oriented, is that they face increasing problems because they are
not equipped to deal with the competition. As one of the managers remarked:
Although we try to warn our directors, our company still does not have a clear vision and
does not understand what strategic marketing and decision-making means.
Although almost all Dutch firms in our sample have a formal marketing department in
their organisation and perceive the marketing-sales interface as being very effective,
some respondents realise that improvements are still needed to become a truly
market-oriented organisation. One marketing manager told about her fear of becoming
too isolated from sales, because she has no information about what happens to sales
leads after they have been handed over to sales. The firm’s current information system
only provides information about sales leads and orders, but fails to link them. Ideally,
the system would allow both marketing and sales to track where sales leads come from
and what happens to them during the sales process. At another Dutch manufacturer
the marketing manager struggles with a similar problem: sales uses a sales
administration system that cannot communicate with marketing’s lead management
system. The marketing manager tries to convince sales of the benefits of the system
(“we can only improve the quality of our sales leads if we know what happens to
them!”) and thus to enter the information systematically in the lead management
system as well.
EJM Evolution towards a market-oriented organisation
41,3/4 In the Slovenian firms marketing and sales are typically closely integrated. Most of
them do not distinguish between marketing and sales, which reflects the overall
development stage of Slovenian B2B firms. Compared to Duch firms, the majority of
Slovenian companies are either guided by a product orientation or show a strong sales
orientation (Makovec Brenčič and Rojšek, 2005). These firms are still exploring the
266 meaning of strategic marketing, developing the marketing function and experimenting
with organisational positions and roles for marketing and sales. Respondents in these
production or sales-oriented firms blame the organisation for a lack of responsible
decision making and fail to identify the central issues of establishing a more efficient
marketing-sales interface and changing the organisational culture into a marketing or
customer-oriented one. They appear to be waiting for some “push from the outside
world to wake them up”. But there are also other Slovenian firms, especially global
niche operators (mostly small- and medium-sized firms), that are highly specialised in
satisfying customer needs and long-term oriented with well-developed networks of
suppliers and buyers. Their competitive advantage is based on R&D and product
development in response to customer needs. Some of them possess elements of a
market orientation and may even separate marketing and sales. But even though the
respondents in these firms reveal a proactive attitude, e.g. by developing effective
informal marketing-sales interfaces and using modern techniques such as CRM, they
realise that there are still opportunities for improvement. One manager at a
medium-sized global niche operator said:
We are in constant contact with our buyers, trying to figure out what they dream of; for that
reason we make more than 40 per cent of turnover with new products. Practically everyone in
this business in the world knows our brand. . .
In contrast to the Slovenian firms, the Dutch firms display a greater understanding of
marketing and are clearly further ahead in their evolution towards a market-oriented
organisation. Nevertheless, most Dutch respondents emphasised that their firms had
only recently started to implement marketing. Typically, they started with
coordinating their communication with customers by developing one unified
housestyle and then focussed on streamlining other commercial activities. In several
cases, the resulting organisational culture was still described as sales driven. Other
firms showed signs of ongoing changes towards a market-oriented organisation. For
instance, a large manufacturer introduced a marketing department three years ago and
the marketing manager recounts how the attitude of sales has changed during this
period:
In the beginning, sales expected marketing to be active only at the end of the sales process.
For instance, salespeople would ask marketing to produce brochures for specific customers.
But this attitude has changed and the sales department now appreciates the added value of
marketing.
Although most Dutch firms only recently introduced marketing in their organisation
they perceive the marketing-sales interface as being very effective. But some realise
that having a marketing function and an effective marketing-sales interface is just part
of becoming truly market oriented. The evolution from production orientation towards
market orientation may require changes in organisational structure, culture, strategy,
evaluation and compensation schemes, information systems and HRM. A marketing
manager at a manufacturer of computer-based systems for agricultural producers Marketing-sales
describes how his firm recently changed its strategic direction from “product interface in
leadership” to “customer intimacy”. This change was initiated by a new CEO and
involved the implementation of a series of related changes. The firm’s structure was B2B firms
redefined according to three core processes: marketing and innovation, sales and
services, and operations, thus giving marketing a central position in the organisation.
The firm’s new market strategy emphasised its distributors and large customers and 267
referred all other customers to local distributors, thus, effectively reducing the number
of customers from 700 to 200. This required its salespeople to become account
managers that are able to deal with large customers and long-term strategic issues.
Their desired new behavior was communicated in explicit terms and also incorporated
in the firm’s evaluation process.
When we compare all Dutch and Slovenian firms on their managerial orientation, as
well as take their reported and planned evolutions into account, we can identify a
four-stage evolutionary process consisting of four stages (see Table I).
(1) Production orientation, – with the firm focusing on its products, technologies
and production process. The firm is mostly short-term oriented and has no
marketing function. Typically, the majority of the firm’s production is in house.
(2) Sales orientation – with a managerial emphasis on selling products to
customers. The firm may start to develop a network of partners (distributors,
outsourcing partners).
(3) Marketing orientation – where the firm establishes a formal marketing
function, e.g. in response to differences between customer segments.
Management’s focus changes from sales to marketing and the firm starts to
adapt to this new orientation.
(4) Market orientation – with the firm developing a market orientation throughout
the firm, aligning all elements of its organisation to interact optimally with the
marketplace (including customers, downstream customers, suppliers etc.).

Most Slovenian firms in our sample are predominantly sales oriented and can be
positioned at the second stage (or at the transition to the third stage). Most Dutch firms
in our sample just started to implement a marketing function and are thus at the third
stage. Some of them are even transitioning to the fourth stage. Nevertheless, even some
Slovenian small and medium-sized niche players display some elements of having a
market orientation. But none of the firms in our sample can be characterised as a fully
aligned market-oriented organisation.

Managerial implications
Even though our exploratory investigation of the marketing-sales interface involved
only a limited number of Dutch and Slovenian firms and many different industries and
products, we can formulate several tentative conclusions.

Influence of economic environment

Our comparison of Dutch and Slovenian firms suggests the influence of the economic
environment on a firm’s marketing-sales interface. Many Slovenian firms face changed
economic conditions after the split from Yugoslavia and entrance to the EU and must
 EJM

268
41,3/4

Table I.

organisation
market-oriented
moving towards a
Evolutionary stages in
Production orientation Sales orientation Marketing orientation Market orientation

Management Characteristics of the product Understanding customers’ Understanding (differences Implementing a customer focus
focus and optimising the production buying processes and adapting between) customers and throughout the organisation
process the sales approach providing them with the right
products
Time horizon Short-term Short- to medium-term Medium- to long-term Long-term
Role of sales Sell the products that are Adapt to customers, overcome Understand the customers Create value for customers with
manufactured customer objections and close selected by marketing and offerings that match customer
the sale optimise the selling process needs
Role of marketing NA NA Select target customers, Design customer value and
develop the appropriate facilitate sales
positioning and support sales
Importance of High Medium Medium Low
manufacturing
Use of network Solitary firm Establishing/expanding the Establishing/expanding the Managing an established
network network network position
Organisational Directed inward, focused on Directed outward, focused on Directed outward, focused on Directed both inward and
culture technology obtaining orders anticipating and reacting to outward, focused on creating a
customer needs responsive organisation that
creates value for customers
deal with increased competition. Because of these economic pressures, some of these Marketing-sales
firms begin to feel the need for more long-term decision making and marketing, interface in
resulting in the establishment of marketing and sales as two distinct business
functions and the need for an effective marketing-sales interface. Similarly, several B2B firms
Dutch managers mentioned how increased competitive pressure caused them to
implement marketing in their organisations and design an effective marketing-sales
interface. 269
Formal and informal coordination mechanisms
A successful marketing-sales interface requires both efficient formal coordination
mechanisms (e.g. periodic meetings, joint customer visits) and a supporting
organisational culture (characterised by open communication and decision-making
based on knowledge rather than organisational position). Even firms that extensively
use formal coordination mechanisms acknowledge the importance of informal, open
communication. Spontaneous communication during informal encounters is necessary
to create the open dialogue that is key to bridging different thought worlds (Maltz and
Kohli, 1996). Several managers emphasised that open communication was stimulated
by close proximity of the people involved, implying that co-location is an important
factor in stimulating such informal communication (Allen, 1986; Maltz, 1997). These
findings suggest that firms can improve the effectiveness of their marketing-sales
interface by stimulating a continuous open dialogue through co-location of all relevant
individuals.

Role of personal characteristics

In many of the firms investigated, the quality of the marketing-sales interface is
strongly determined by the characteristics of the individuals involved. For instance,
marketing managers with a background in sales bring a natural affinity with sales to
their marketing job. And sales managers that “like to do marketing” (as one of the sales
managers put it) automatically bring a long-term perspective to their sales activities
and thus facilitate the marketing-sales interface. When several individuals are part of
the marketing-sales interface, their interpersonal chemistry may go a long way to
explain the quality of the marketing-sales interface. For instance, one sales manager
emphasised the importance of the personal chemistry between himself and his boss:
“That was evident from the start; within a couple of months we were finishing each
other’s sentences.” These observations suggest the need for both careful hiring
processes and informal interaction to stimulate an effective marketing-sales interface.
But there are also risks involved. The sales manager that pointed out the role of
personal chemistry with his boss also warned that a good personal relationship could
result in polarised thinking and critical questions left unasked.

Firms are at different stages on the road to becoming market oriented

Establishing a formal marketing function and creating an effective marketing-sales
interface is part of evolving into a market-oriented organisation. The Slovenian and
Dutch firms that participated in our study are positioned at various places across the
evolutionary spectrum. Most Slovenian firms are at or near stage two and lack the
required understanding of strategic marketing to develop and implement effective
marketing-sales interfaces. While this was often not perceived to be a problem (mostly
EJM because marketing and sales are performed by the same individuals), it will become a
41,3/4 key issue as these firms evolve further in the direction of market-oriented
organisations. A second and growing group of Slovenian firms are moving towards
stage three by implementing marketing or at least emphasising the need for a formal
marketing function. A few other Slovenian firms even display elements of stage four,
e.g. by having a customer orientation that includes attention to downstream customers.
270 In contrast, most Dutch firms recently arrived at stage three, with a few of them
making tentative changes towards stage four. Thus, all firms in our two samples have
some way to go in becoming truly market oriented. Considering the time required for
such organisational changes (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990), rather than wait for
competitive pressure, management should design and start implementing a detailed
change process to gradually transform the organisation (Lichtenthal and Wilson, 1992;
Narver et al., 1998; Slater and Narver, 1994).

Evolution towards market orientation is a cumulative process

A firm’s evolution through the four stages towards becoming market oriented is a
cumulative process, with each subsequent stage building on the success of previous
stages. For instance, a firm improves its sales processes during stage two, creates an
effective interface between sales and marketing at stage three and makes this interface
an integral part of a market-oriented organisation during stage four. Stage three, where
the firm establishes a formal marketing function, should be interpreted as an
intermediate stage on the road to becoming a real market-oriented organisation. As the
firm’s management grows more sophisticated and the industry context more
competitive, they will come to recognise the successive actions that need to be
undertaken to become truly market oriented. Thus, the decision of how far along the
spectrum a firm wants to evolve depends on its strategic objectives, industry context
and level of marketing/management sophistication.

Market orientation requires a completely aligned organisation

Being truly market-oriented requires much more than an effective marketing-sales
interface. In addition to desiging the marketing-sales interface, firms may need to
change their culture, core value-creating processes and competences, and supporting
infrastructure to become an organisation that is capable of sensing market
developments and responding to them quickly and effectively. Management needs
to realise that the establishment of a marketing function and an effective
marketing-sales interface is simply not enough. For instance, an orientation towards
immediate customers needs to be supplemented with a focus on downstream
customers and upstream suppliers to implement a holistic supply chain orientation
geared towards the development and delivery of superior customer value. In addition,
management needs to address the relationships between the various elements of a
market-oriented organisation. For instance, a focus on creating value for customers
must be accompanied by evaluation and compensation systems that encourage the
desired behavior (e.g. with compensation based on customer satisfaction rather than on
realising a predetermined sales objective).
Changing role of marketing function and marketing department Marketing-sales
The role of the marketing function and the marketing department changes during the interface in
various stages. Stage three emphasises the establishment of a formal marketing
function and marketing department, with marketing taking care of all traditional B2B firms
marketing activities. But when the organisation evolves to stage four and obtains a
market-oriented culture in which all relevant employees focus on creating value for
customers, the role of the marketing department changes towards being the customer’s 271
advocate, performing strategic analyses, determining the firm’s positioning and
maintaining the firm’s marketing competences (Webster, 1994). In such an
organisation the size of the marketing department may be reduced significantly.
In this paper we report the findings from our exploratory investigation of the
marketing-sales interface in a limited number of Dutch and Slovenian firms. While we
investigated only a limited sample, our results consistently show firms struggling with
the establishment of a marketing function in their firm and developing the
accompanying marketing-sales interface. The more sophisticated firms look beyond
the marketing-sales interface at other related issues that contribute to the creation of an
effective market-oriented organisation. The findings from our exploratory
investigation suggest a number of fruitful areas for further research, such as:
.
studying the relationship between marketing as an organisational capability and
marketing as an organisational function;
.
the development of scales to measure various aspects of the marketing-sales
interface (such as organisational location, use of formal mechanisms, role of
organisational culture); and
.
investigating the marketing-sales interface in a larger sample of firms, different
industries and different economic contexts.

Obtaining a larger sample would also allow the investigation of the relationship
between the structure and quality of the marketing-sales interface and various
business performance measures.

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About the authors
Wim G. Biemans is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Groningen in the
Netherlands. His research interests are business-to-business marketing, product development
and market orientation. He has published in various international journals and is author or
co-author of several books on product development and business-to-business marketing. Wim
Biemans is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: w.g.biemans@rug.nl
Maja Makovec Brencic is Assistant Professor of International Marketing and International
Business at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Her teaching and research focus is on
international marketing and the internationalisation of firms, marketing in South-East Europe
and relationship marketing. Dr Makovec Brencic has published numerous refereed journal
articles and contributed chapters to many books.

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