What Makes Strategy Making Across the Sales-Marketing Interface More Successful?
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Marketing Department Faculty Publications Marketing Department (CBA) 12-2009 What makes strategy making across the sales-marketing interface more successful? Avinash Malshe University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, [email protected] Ravipreet S. Sohi University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/marketingfacpub Part of the Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Marketing Commons, Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons, Sales and Merchandising Commons, and the Strategic Management Policy Commons Malshe, Avinash and Sohi, Ravipreet S., "What makes strategy making across the sales-marketing interface more successful?" (2009). Marketing Department Faculty Publications. 17. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/marketingfacpub/17 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Marketing Department (CBA) at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marketing Department Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 37 (2009), pp. 400–421; doi: 10.1007/s11747-009-0132-6 Copyright © 2009 Academy of Marketing Science ; published by Springer Verlag. Used by permission. Submitted March 24, 2008; accepted January 21, 2009; published online February 17, 2009. What makes strategy making across the sales-marketing interface more successful? Avinash Malshe1 and Ravipreet S. Sohi2 1. Opus College of Business, University of St Thomas, Mail #TMH343, 1000 LaSalle Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403, USA; email [email protected] 2. College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0492, USA; email [email protected] (Corresponding author) Abstract Yet, evidence from both the academic and trade lit- Extant research on marketing strategy making (MSM) lacks erature suggests that very often the sales function is not process-based theoretical frameworks that elucidate how mar- involved in strategy making (Carpenter 1992; Viswa- keting strategies are made when sales and marketing func- nathan and Olson 1992). Rather, in many organiza- tions are involved in the process. Using a grounded theory ap- tions, strategies are created by marketing without input proach and data collected from (a) 58 depth interviews with sales and marketing professionals and (b) a focus group with from sales; the sales personnel are introduced to these 11 marketing professionals, we propose that MSM within the new strategies only when their marketing counterparts sales-marketing interface is a three-stage, multifaceted process hand them over for implementation (Kotler et al. 2006). that consists of Groundwork, Transfer and Follow-up stages. Consequently, many salespeople do not support the Our process-based model explicates the specific activities at strategies marketing develops because they feel these each stage that are needed to develop and execute marketing strategies are inappropriate, ineffective, irrelevant, or strategies successfully, the sequence in which these activities disconnected from reality (Aberdeen Group 2002; Don- may unfold, and the role sales and marketing functions may ath 1999, 2004; Strahle et al. 1996). play in the entire process. Managerially, this paper highlights An examination of the literature reveals limited in- that successful strategy creation and execution requires mar- keting and sales functions to be equally invested in the entire sights with respect to the specific roles marketing and process. sales functions play in creating marketing strategies successfully (cf. Smith 2003 for an extensive review). Keywords: Sales-marketing interface, Marketing strategy Further, while scholars studying the sales-market- making, Grounded theory approach ing interface have stressed the importance of joint in- volvement of sales and marketing in strategy making, As the two primary revenue generating functions no academic study has explored in depth what such within an organization, sales and marketing should be joint involvement entails. Overall, there is a paucity of working together to create and execute successful mar- guiding theoretical frameworks in this area that out- keting strategies. This view is held by several scholars line how strategy making within the sales-marketing who exhort that the sales function be involved in mar- interface unfolds, and what makes this process more keting strategy creation, and that both sales and mar- successful. Given that sales and marketing are the pri- keting functions synchronize their strategic and tactical mary revenue generating functions for a firm, we wish activities to create, deliver, and communicate superior to delineate the nuances of successful marketing strat- customer value (Cespedes 1996; Guenzi and Troilo 2007; egy making (henceforth MSM) across the sales–market- Homburg et al. 1999; Rouziès et al. 2005; Slater and Ol- ing interface, and highlight what may make strategy son 2001). 400 S TRATEGY MAKING ACRO ss THE S ALE S - MARKETING INTERFACE 401 making more successful within this interface. We do Second, some scholars have viewed strategy mak- this using the Grounded Theory Approach (Strauss and ing process as a set of rational choices, whereas, other Corbin 1990, 1998). scholars have taken an incremental planning perspec- Specifically, based on depth interview data from 58 tive (Menon et al. 1999). Specifically, the rational per- marketing and sales professionals and focus group data spective distinguishes between strategy planning and from 11 marketing professionals, we propose that MSM execution, suggesting that a select group of individuals across the sales-marketing interface is a three-stage mul- within an organization (usually the top management) tifaceted process, constituting a continuum of activities is responsible for creating strategic plans (Smith 2003). that begin at the strategy conceptualization stage and The incremental perspective, on the other hand, argues continue through the follow-up stage. Our grounded- that in many firms, strategy creation and implementa- theory based model explicates the specific set of activi- tion is intertwined and that it is an emergent phenome- ties and processes needed to develop and execute mar- non (Sashittal and Jassawalla 2001). keting strategies successfully, and highlights what joint Third, scholars have further fragmented this field by involvement of sales and marketing functions in MSM narrowing their foci to a specific aspect of strategy. For entails. Our findings indicate that during the various example, Shrivastava and Grant’s (1985) command and stages of the strategy making process, sales and market- control perspective views strategy making as a prerog- ing functions assume different roles and responsibilities. ative of the top management. The planning and proce- Successful strategy creation and execution requires both dures-based perspective argues that strategy is derived functions to be equally invested in the entire process. mainly from the logical, sequential, and deliberate set of We organize this paper as follows. In the next sec- processes and activities (Ansoff 1965; Mintzberg 1978). tion, we review two streams of literature that provide The cultural perspective suggests that strategy creation the foundation for this study: (a) literature on market- is often guided by organizational norms and cultural ing strategy making, and (b) sales-marketing interface frames. Other perspectives such as enforced choice (Al- literature. Next, we discuss the study methodology, fol- drich 1979) and political orientation (Anderson 1982; lowed by a presentation of the study findings. We con- Cyert and March 1963) have also contributed to this clude by highlighting the study contributions, man- stream of literature. Some scholars have taken a nar- agerial implications, research limitations, and future rower focus and examined strategies for properties such research directions. as its internal consistency and synergy between areas in- volved in strategy making process (Piercy 1997), its fea- sibility within organization’s resources, and whether Literature review strategy provides guidance to tactical activities (Ansoff 1965). Marketing strategy making Sales-marketing interface Menon et al. (1999) define MSM as “a complex set of activities, processes, and routines involved in the design Over a decade ago, an urgent need to study sales- and execution of marketing plans.” They present a par- marketing interface was expressed by Montgomery and simonious model for MSM and highlight how success- Webster (1997). Acknowledging its academic and man- ful MSM may positively affect organizational learning, agerial importance, it is only recently that scholars have market performance and strategy creativity. A review of started to examine this interface in greater detail (e.g. the extant literature in both marketing and management Homburg et al. 2008; Rouziès et al. 2005; Dewsnap and indicates that the extant knowledge around strategy Jobber 2000, 2002). Barring a few notable exceptions, lit- making is fragmented. We outline the many dimensions erature in this area is largely conceptual. In addition, and perspectives scholars have used to study strategy scholars have investigated disparate phenomena in or- making within organizations. der to explore the interface between these functions and First,