eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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This study explores the marketing-sales relationship and the impact it has on business performance. Literature review of this study draws together relevant research and literature on this topic, based on which the conceptual framework is formed. Empirical part of this study investigates the state of marketing-sales relationship in Finnish companies and the effects it has on business performance of the company or business unit.

The empirical part of this study was conducted as internet-based questionnaire, which was targeted at the upper management in Finnish companies. This “State of the Marketing 2010” – survey covers the most important areas of marketing, including marketing-sales relationship. The survey generated 1134 respondents, who are in the upper management in their organization. Thus, in national level the sample can be seen as extensive. Also internationally the sample size is remarkable, but it has to be noted that the results cannot be straightforwardly generalized to other countries as well, as national aspects might affect the results. The data was analyzed with two multivariable methods. First, with cluster analysis groups of companies were identified, which are different from each other based on their marketing and sales departments time and goal orientation. This cluster analysis was done in two contexts: companies operating mainly in business-to-business markets and in business-to-consumer markets. Second, with analysis of variance it was investigated how these different clusters affect the business performance.

The most important finding of this study is that marketing-sales relationship does affect the business performance of the company or the business unit in question when operating in business- to-business markets. Moreover, it is shown that the form of marketing-sales relationship, meaning whether the two functions are clearly separate, cooperate to some extent or are inseparable, and time and goal orientations together affect business performance too. Also, there are clear differences between companies in time and goal orientations of their marketing and sales departments so that companies can be grouped based on this dimension.

This study offers an overall view on the marketing-sales relationship of the company, its different dimensions and its effect on business performance in Finland. This serves as a basis for further quantitative and qualitative studies for example in other countries, and in investigating this issue further.