Marketing Charts summarized a recent study done by the CMO Council, called “Driving The Bottom Line From The Front Line”. The study highlights an alarming reality among large, multinational companies: marketing and sales collaboration and effectiveness are rated as poor according to the organizations’ own assessment.
Here are some results summarized at the Marketing Charts page (noted here with my thoughts on the subject):
Unifying Sales and Marketing Still a Challenge for Most Companies.
- Barely 12% of sales and marketing professionals say they have a well-integrated, real-time view of all customer interactions, while only 37% report good visibility into prospects, pipeline, deal flow and conversion rates.
- Thoughts: It is not a surprise on this one since we all experience very busy workload during a typical day, thus having no time to look at or analyze the data. Eighty-eight percent lacks visibility into customer interactions – that could be a lot of sales being missed. And 63% lacks the ability to see the sales process, prospects and pipeline- again this may lead to sales left on the table or going to competitors. To improve these numbers I think companies will have to either 1) add analysts to their team to provide additional support, or 2) implement policy to force the team to regularly slow down and look at what they have and re-prioritize, then proceed again.
- By comparison, 20% indicate that marketing hands off leads to sales, yet marketing has no insight into conversion and close outcomes; 13% say most leads are never captured, qualified or acted upon; and about 11% report they have no on-premise or on-demand CRM system in place.
- Thoughts: Seems like a regular team communication is one solution to implement here. The goal here should be to get everyone on the team to collect data and report on results. One good approach is to do this manually for a while so it becomes second nature or habit to all parties involved. Then phase in a new work flow to automate and streamline the process. A full-featured CRM system is not necessary in the initial step. One needs to take baby steps first before walking and running. My motto The speed of going slow™ has served me well in many occasions and can be applied successfully here.
- Among those who have CRM applications, only 13% view the application as highly valued and widely deployed, while 42% see growing acceptance and adoption.
- Thoughts: I think CRM systems are too complex, not user-friendly and require a steep learning curve. And it’s difficult to remember and use all the features in order to maximize the benefits. In addition people tend to have preferences for a particular tool, maybe something they’re already using or have used. On the other hand it’s very important to have a single system that the team can share, especially in corporate environments. Again I think The speed of going slow™ also applies here. The key is do not train people in one single session and turn them loose. A more effective implementation method is to give everyone an overview, then phase in portions of the system over time, in small chunks. This would force everyone to take small bites at a time, use them, get used to them, understand and like them, while keeping the level of competency consistent across individuals. No one on the team should feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the tool. Do this over time and the collaboration will improve. Problem solved.
- While CRM systems tend to be mandated and adopted across the sales organization, they tend to be more selectively embraced by marketing teams in business units and departments.
- Comment: Ha I spoke too soon. The thoughts above also apply to this one.
- Data analytics, reporting and forecasting tend to be the biggest deficiencies in optimizing the functionality and usability of current CRM solutions. The top three areas highlighted by nearly 50% of respondents were the ability to easily create analytic reports, customization of the application and forecasting capabilities. Real-time and historic analytics placed a close fourth (40%) adding to the call for more analytics and user friendly tools.
- Comment: While this may be partially due to the tools (and their limitations themselves), I think there are 2 factors playing out here. One, it’s just a convenient excuse by the users so they don’t have to deal with it. Or, two, the organization picked the wrong tool to begin with. While it is expected that tool developers should constantly improve enterprise CRM systems and/or create new and better ones, my experience tells me that, for a tool to be successfully implemented, it has to be properly evaluated and tested against understood, real requirements. Requirements should drive everything. Once the requirements are known, a set of best practices/processes/workflows must be created and evaluated against each candidate CRM system. The two critical elements here are the requirements and the best practices/processes/workflows. Too many people just jump in, buy the tool and start using without doing those two things. They’re setting themselves up for failure for sure.
- While 50% of those surveyed said they had pretty good or extensive visibility in to customer accounts and business activity, the other 50% said they had trouble finding customer account data, did not have enough information, or none at all.
- Thoughts: Hmmm, assuming these are in context of the previous findings above, I would venture to say: know your requirements, get the proper tool, understand how to use it, then create a process and a habit to use it, and always improve your process and tool.
On other key findings:
- Most respondents consider their companies to be sales-driven and, to a lesser degree, product-centered or customer relationship-based. Just over 10% viewed themselves as channel dependent, and only 27% believed they were marketing-minded.
- Thoughts: Gotta get 100% (or the majority) of those employees to be marketing-minded.
- Respondents agree that the top three measures of sales performance and productivity are lead quality and ROI, conversion and close rates, and level of action on opportunities – all of which would benefit by a deeper alignment and integration between sales and marketing.
- Thoughts: I think this should/must be a top-down policy/directive. Left alone, individuals within the two departments may start on their own to collaborate. But in my view it’s just an accident that they do so. Why wait for accidents to happen? The C-levels should initiate it.
- When marketers were asked how they viewed sales, 40% said they had some top producers but there was mostly a need for improvement.
- Thoughts: I don’t quite understand this one. All organizations have some top producers, and everyone can stand some improvement.
- Sales professionals tend to have a tactical view of marketing, with only 10% seeing marketers as market-savvy and on-target with demand-generating campaigns. Some 41% say marketing provide good/right content and sales-support materials.
- Thoughts: I would agree with the sales guys here. Not everyone wants/has the ability to do sales. But almost everyone thinks he/she can do marketing. My observation tells me many marketers are not qualified at their posts, lacking a lot of marketing basics (either learned through formal schooling or from the trenches), while they employ the “trial-and-error” marketing technique.
Todd Ebert has his own take about it in his blog here: CMO Council research: 2/3rds of us are not effective.
So what do you think about this sales – marketing relationship? How does it work at your organization? What’s your best/worst experience?
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Tags: analytics, CMO Council, collaborate, CRM success, Customer Facing, customer leads, forecasting, marketing challenge, marketingcharts.com, reporting, sales
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