Exploring collaboration between sales and marketing

Purpose The study seeks to explore the antecedents and implications of collaboration between sales and marketing and further to identify whether there are benefits in terms of business performance of improving collaboration between sales and marketing. Design/methodology/approach Three exploratory case studies and a review of the literature are used to examine the antecedents to collaboration between sales and marketing. The case studies allow this fuzzy and undefined area to be clarified and existing theories to be empirically tested. Findings The study identifies that there are three types of factor influencing collaboration between sales and marketing: integrators, facilitators, and management attitudes towards coordination. The exploratory case studies establish that senior management plays a pivotal role in creating and improving collaboration between sales and marketing, and that there is a positive correlation between collaboration between sales and marketing, and improved business performance. Research limitations/implications The limitations of this study are that it is qualitative in nature and the conceptual framework needs be tested through a large‐scale survey. In addition, the study considers only large UK organisations and, therefore, future research should consider expanding the study to overseas organisations. Practical implications There appears to be an established relationship between the level of collaboration between sales and marketing and business performance. Further, the attitude of senior managers to improving coordination is critical to influencing collaboration between sales and marketing. Originality/value This study contends that sales and marketing need to collaborate rather than integrate and uses exploratory case studies to support the development of the framework.