Coordinating Marketing and Sales in B2B Organizations

This chapter focuses on the topic of coordinating marketing and sales in Business-to-Business (B2B) organizations. It provides an historical overview, indicating that this is not a new issue facing firms, that the business press has outlined a recurring set of prescriptive advice about the topic to practitioners, and why (despite its recurring nature) that advice seems to have limited usefulness. The chapter then reviews some common delineations of marketing and sales activities in companies and the implications. Finally, the chapter concludes with a sample of what B2B companies have done in their attempts to improve marketing-sales coordination, including suggestions for future research.