SHOULD YOU HAVE A MARKETING AND SALES DEPARTMENT?
BY TOSIN EKUNDAYO
It is common practice for companies to have marketing and sales departments, but it amazes me how the marketing function and department is considered less major to sales and often is combined with a sister department. Some consider the amalgamation a logistics-related cost strategy. While this may be true in some regard, aren’t we unconsciously undermining the relevance of the marketing profession and the value it proffers?
The complexities of marketing in the light of the dynamic business environment, as a business practice contributes to its miscued understanding. The vagueness of ‘marketing’ and ‘sales’ makes it uncontrollably easy for marketing personnel to invariably become salespersons since they are considered in the same department, thereby neglecting the actual function/responsibility of a marketing unit.
Marketing is a business activity that is common yet requires some clarification in terms of professionalism. If well clarified, perhaps, practitioners would accord marketing, the attention it deserves. In a book I co-authored with a dear colleague titled, “Market or Shut Down”, I researched definitions of marketing in sync with what the modern practice of the profession truly reflects. It is no surprise that because there is an abundance of definitions, very few capture the essence and nature of modern marketing.
Though, a common position that most definition insinuate, is that marketing is a lot of things at different times, aimed at creating awareness about the existence of a product and/or service. On the other hand, the objective of the sales department is the actual exchange of goods/services for value (money). Sales is an actual event in comparison to marketing, which is a series of events, that takes the potential customer from a position of awareness to a stage where actual sale is debated and actualised.