The great divide: Companies’ sales teams unhappy with marketing

And it's not a one-way discontent, as 45.4% of marketing teams in Asia believe that sales teams need to improve in their follow up on leads.

In a statement, Huthwaite Asia Pacific released the results of a global survey conducted in July highlighting the widening gulf between sales and marketing teams within organisations. The Huthwaite Sales Survey 2011 received over 6500 responses, of which 58.9% are from North America, 27.4% from the Asia Pacific region. The survey covered sales and marketing executives from industries such as banking and finance, information technology, manufacturing, professional services, advertising and media, real estate and retail.

While the economic slowdown is impacting global businesses, in Asia price pressures and increased competition surface as bigger challenges, indicating that Asian businesses are weathering the slowdown better. However, while there is increasing pressure on sales and marketing teams to deliver results, there is a distinct divide between both teams.

Based on the survey results, sales teams are generally unhappy with marketing, stating that marketing teams should generate more leads and improve key messaging components. There is a general sense that marketing needs to develop better quality leads for them to follow up, with nearly 30% deferring poor quality leads back for further nurturing prior to follow up.

On the other hand, marketing teams feel that sales teams are slow on follow ups, with almost a quarter of the leads being followed up only after one and four weeks. They generally believe that sales teams are not communicating a consistent message aggressive enough and need to use CRM tools more effectively.

“The current state of the global economy is putting greater revenue pressures on sales and marketing teams,” says Greg Moore, Managing Director, Huthwaite Asia Pacific. “However, there seems to be a growing disconnect between sales and marketing teams in organizations of all sizes. As a result, we are seeing more firms considering the creation of a Chief Revenue Officer position to better align sales and marketing in order to reach their goals. The feedback here is consistent across industries which further underlines the systemic failure of traditional organisational silos to work towards a common goal.”

In summary, the Huthwaite Sales Survey 2011 highlighted the following:

• The greatest external challenges for Asian businesses are increase in competition (22.3%) and consumers being price-conscious (22.3%), as compared to Australia and NZ(14.6% and 14.1% respectively) and North America (14.3% and 14.7% respectively). While this indicates continued spending in the region, customers now a wide choice in terms of vendors and can afford to hunt for bargains.
• Only 4.7%of Asian respondents feel that that sales and marketing teams are working together effectively, as compared to 11.4% globally.
• Sales teams in Asia would prefer marketing to better assist them by generating better quality leads (55.1%) and creating more compelling messaging for the customers (49.2%). In all other regions, sales teams prioritise messaging as the component marketing can better assist them with (Australia and NZ – 54%, North America – 50.3%)
• Marketing teams in Asia believe that sales teams need to improve in their follow up on leads (45.4%), while it is not prioritised as such in Australia and NZ (34.4%)
• 35.4% of Australia and NZ marketing teams prioritise more effective use of CRM systems, while only 26.8% of Asian teams find this an issue.
• Asian marketing teams find that their sales teams communicating a consistent message only some of the time (50.5%).
• Globally, 50.6% of marketing teams find that sales teams are considered to communicate a consistent message most of the time.