HBR's 10 Must Reads Collection (12 Books)

Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing

by Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham, and Suj Krishnaswamy

PRODUCT DESIGNERS LEARNED YEARS ago that they’d save time and money if they consulted with their colleagues in manufacturing rather than just throwing new designs over the wall. The two functions realized it wasn’t enough to just coexist—not when they could work together to create value for the company and for customers. You’d think that marketing and sales teams, whose work is also deeply interconnected, would have discovered something similar. As a rule, though, they’re separate functions within an organization, and, when they do work together, they don’t always get along. When sales are disappointing, Marketing blames the sales force for its poor ...