A Vigorous Play Of Marketing & Sales In An Organization
The marketing and sales function takes different forms in different companies at different product life cycle stages all of which can profoundly affect the relationship between Sales and Marketing. An Excellent Communicator/ leader with more than 22 years of experience in sales, marketing, branding, team management, business development, etc. Daxesh Parikh, CCO, Aegis Telecom, shared his view on marketing & sales.
Marketing & Sales have many similar and distinct roles. How does their alignment make a difference in an organization?
Sales and Marketing are two different segments, working on ONE common GOAL, are very creative and productive parts of any organization. The proper alignment of sales and marketing is in fact a long term strategy, can give any or any organization 90 to 95% better results. Any company has terrible consequences, if there is no adequate alignment between sales and marketing. To align sales and marketing, the company or the head of these two departments has to go step by step and side by side on transparent NOTE,for following given strategic planning to provide satisfactory results. Generally on very first or second day of the month, Management heads used analyse results of previous month and keep modifying strategic actions and extensive planning to follow for delivering satisfied results.
The company or head of the departments expects everything to be done in 2-4 days or in the first week itself, and then they start pressurizing their employees in sales. Sometimes it can give reverse actions or results on the same page when two divisions are working. Sales and Marketing must understand each other's requirements and expectations and work according to that. For example, if they have to do some planning and go with exact execution. One person of the team or team head should be there to evaluate the actual results every day or every week, and they have to redesign and report the program, then only they can have some good results at the end of the month.
The alignment will give an excellent result for the company, and they have to create a platform for any salesperson that who comes up with a new idea. Management must have to arrange regular brain storming events between sales & marketing almost once in a month to have open discussion to learn what more to get done or to change in favour of organization and both the team. Being soft with impressive hard & smart working manners of Head from both departments will set up a strong relationship and alignment in favour of organization. From this, you can expect the desired results. If some limitations restrict the salespeople, it stops them from reaching their expectations. We have to set and strategized to improve the need of the market.
Essential measures adopted while executing revenue strategy and generation
Referring to SWOT analysis and the records of the past three years, the company starts to make a new strategy, and after that company should give a new target/ goal. Once strategic planning is done, we will have to implement that in some small steps to decide on the strategy framework. We need to discuss some innovative ideas with the team and guide them on how to reach the goal. Because the company has some plan, sales managers or marketing managers have their own plans and sales executives will also have their own agenda; that's how revenue strategy is executed in an organization.
When talking about revenue generation, I follow a few steps i.e., keep reaching out Market regularly for keep finding new prospective opportunities from Market, Strategic planning needs to be envisioned and briefing the team about the value of the plan, designing a Key Performance Indicator (KPI), Keep motivating and respecting every person and in the organization. We should create 3-4 focus areas for strategic objectives along with the plan otherwise, people will go around and around.
Intelligent people who work hard will always come quickly to the upper level. They know what they are doing, how their company, family, and they will benefit from what they do, and the result comes out very quickly. A company can have different revenue streams depending on the industry, type of business, products, target audience, and more. As they grow and scale, they can also add new revenue sources.
Role of Technology in Marketing & Sales
Yes this is an absolutely UNIVERSAL truth that Technology is saving time and energy.
Since last few years we have been witnessed for very beneficial support from technology like CRM, Video conferences, Mobile, Virtual meetings, Social networks, and some more technical tools to enhance level of branding and sales value in market. This helps to upgrade Volume, Revenue and Profit margin to concern organization. In this way Large & Medium organizations have been already started to adopt it and setting up their suitable technology for different departments as per functionality.
Customers' interactions with companies via digital channels have improved day by day. Industries admit that this shift creates significant prospects for sales and marketing to enhance and simplify operations. As a development, the internal relationship with the IT function is evolving as sales and marketing functions move to take control of their technology destinies by defining new solutions that take advantage of emerging trends, including mobile computing and social media. This whitepaper explores how technology impacts sales and marketing functions and why organizations need to refocus the collaboration between these departments to develop lasting strategies and effects.
Technologies are enabling marketers to understand the customer's pulse and create marketing strategies that can have the maximum positive outcome. Technologies allow for mitigating the risk involved in marketing and marketing products aligned to the consumers' needs. It also enhances sales communications and supports effective product and service presentations.
Significance of Chief Commercial Officer(CCO)
The Chief Commercial Officer works closely with the CEO and is responsible for developing commercial and business development strategies optimized for both short-term and longterm results. Responsibilities include Leading and scaling Sales,Business Development, and Customer Success teams, Creating accountability within the company by developing appropriate metrics and coordinating compensation and promotions with these metrics, Defining sales objectives and driving the team to achieve targets, and Generating and qualifying new leads and using different approaches to penetrate prospective accounts, Building a high performing sales team to execute end to end sales including outreach, pitching, getting alignment, negotiation, closing deals and implementation
Ensuring a robust after-sales process to deliver strong customer engagement, Ensuring timely recognition and reward for top achievers and implementing performance management actions when needed, Building solid and collaborative relationships with other internal stakeholders and Monitoring market trends and providing regular competitor analysis.
Future Perspective of CCO
Many brands appoint their top marketers as chief commercial officers, signifying a broader change happening in the boardroom as marketers steadily gain more respect and responsibility with more data to back up their actions. Changing times calls for different leadership skills. More than ever before, company stakeholders expect more from their C-suite executives, who need to have skills closely aligned to today's business. Along with this
CCO is and will be more responsible to responsibility in preparation of sales plans, marketing, profit and loss estimations and budgets, using market demand, corporate goals and historical figures to achieve this. He will have to regularly analyse activity within the company’s industry to develop the best and most effective business plans and establish realistic and meaningful KPIs.
CCO can set the establishment and execution of commercial strategies in his specific region and across the Globe as well.
Marketing & Sales have many similar and distinct roles. How does their alignment make a difference in an organization?
Sales and Marketing are two different segments, working on ONE common GOAL, are very creative and productive parts of any organization. The proper alignment of sales and marketing is in fact a long term strategy, can give any or any organization 90 to 95% better results. Any company has terrible consequences, if there is no adequate alignment between sales and marketing. To align sales and marketing, the company or the head of these two departments has to go step by step and side by side on transparent NOTE,for following given strategic planning to provide satisfactory results. Generally on very first or second day of the month, Management heads used analyse results of previous month and keep modifying strategic actions and extensive planning to follow for delivering satisfied results.
The company or head of the departments expects everything to be done in 2-4 days or in the first week itself, and then they start pressurizing their employees in sales. Sometimes it can give reverse actions or results on the same page when two divisions are working. Sales and Marketing must understand each other's requirements and expectations and work according to that. For example, if they have to do some planning and go with exact execution. One person of the team or team head should be there to evaluate the actual results every day or every week, and they have to redesign and report the program, then only they can have some good results at the end of the month.
The alignment will give an excellent result for the company, and they have to create a platform for any salesperson that who comes up with a new idea. Management must have to arrange regular brain storming events between sales & marketing almost once in a month to have open discussion to learn what more to get done or to change in favour of organization and both the team. Being soft with impressive hard & smart working manners of Head from both departments will set up a strong relationship and alignment in favour of organization. From this, you can expect the desired results. If some limitations restrict the salespeople, it stops them from reaching their expectations. We have to set and strategized to improve the need of the market.
Essential measures adopted while executing revenue strategy and generation
Referring to SWOT analysis and the records of the past three years, the company starts to make a new strategy, and after that company should give a new target/ goal. Once strategic planning is done, we will have to implement that in some small steps to decide on the strategy framework. We need to discuss some innovative ideas with the team and guide them on how to reach the goal. Because the company has some plan, sales managers or marketing managers have their own plans and sales executives will also have their own agenda; that's how revenue strategy is executed in an organization.
When talking about revenue generation, I follow a few steps i.e., keep reaching out Market regularly for keep finding new prospective opportunities from Market, Strategic planning needs to be envisioned and briefing the team about the value of the plan, designing a Key Performance Indicator (KPI), Keep motivating and respecting every person and in the organization. We should create 3-4 focus areas for strategic objectives along with the plan otherwise, people will go around and around.
Intelligent people who work hard will always come quickly to the upper level. They know what they are doing, how their company, family, and they will benefit from what they do, and the result comes out very quickly. A company can have different revenue streams depending on the industry, type of business, products, target audience, and more. As they grow and scale, they can also add new revenue sources.
Role of Technology in Marketing & Sales
Yes this is an absolutely UNIVERSAL truth that Technology is saving time and energy.
Since last few years we have been witnessed for very beneficial support from technology like CRM, Video conferences, Mobile, Virtual meetings, Social networks, and some more technical tools to enhance level of branding and sales value in market. This helps to upgrade Volume, Revenue and Profit margin to concern organization. In this way Large & Medium organizations have been already started to adopt it and setting up their suitable technology for different departments as per functionality.
Customers' interactions with companies via digital channels have improved day by day. Industries admit that this shift creates significant prospects for sales and marketing to enhance and simplify operations. As a development, the internal relationship with the IT function is evolving as sales and marketing functions move to take control of their technology destinies by defining new solutions that take advantage of emerging trends, including mobile computing and social media. This whitepaper explores how technology impacts sales and marketing functions and why organizations need to refocus the collaboration between these departments to develop lasting strategies and effects.
Technologies are enabling marketers to understand the customer's pulse and create marketing strategies that can have the maximum positive outcome. Technologies allow for mitigating the risk involved in marketing and marketing products aligned to the consumers' needs. It also enhances sales communications and supports effective product and service presentations.
Significance of Chief Commercial Officer(CCO)
The Chief Commercial Officer works closely with the CEO and is responsible for developing commercial and business development strategies optimized for both short-term and longterm results. Responsibilities include Leading and scaling Sales,Business Development, and Customer Success teams, Creating accountability within the company by developing appropriate metrics and coordinating compensation and promotions with these metrics, Defining sales objectives and driving the team to achieve targets, and Generating and qualifying new leads and using different approaches to penetrate prospective accounts, Building a high performing sales team to execute end to end sales including outreach, pitching, getting alignment, negotiation, closing deals and implementation
Ensuring a robust after-sales process to deliver strong customer engagement, Ensuring timely recognition and reward for top achievers and implementing performance management actions when needed, Building solid and collaborative relationships with other internal stakeholders and Monitoring market trends and providing regular competitor analysis.
Future Perspective of CCO
Many brands appoint their top marketers as chief commercial officers, signifying a broader change happening in the boardroom as marketers steadily gain more respect and responsibility with more data to back up their actions. Changing times calls for different leadership skills. More than ever before, company stakeholders expect more from their C-suite executives, who need to have skills closely aligned to today's business. Along with this
CCO is and will be more responsible to responsibility in preparation of sales plans, marketing, profit and loss estimations and budgets, using market demand, corporate goals and historical figures to achieve this. He will have to regularly analyse activity within the company’s industry to develop the best and most effective business plans and establish realistic and meaningful KPIs.
CCO can set the establishment and execution of commercial strategies in his specific region and across the Globe as well.
