Indian firms best at tying marketing with sales: LinkedIn

India has the highest level of collaboration globally between sales and marketing departments of companies to drive business success and achieve revenue growth, showed a research by networking website LinkedIn.

India has a higher level of collaboration (85 per cent) compared to South East Asia (84 per cent), Australia (74 per cent), the United States (76 per cent), and the United Kingdom (73 per cent), the research showed. 

Commissioned by LinkedIn and conducted by Join the Dots, the research examined 7,140 sales and marketing professionals from 26 September 2016, to 19 October 2016 across five key markets, including Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, India and South-East Asia.

About 89 per cent of employees surveyed strongly believe that the current relationship between sales and marketing is highly collaborative, the research said, adding that some of the reasons for this higher collaboration level in India include encouragement by company leadership (81 per cent) and both teams aligning on the same strategy and objectives (77 per cent).

A majority of the employees surveyed believe that a common goal and a high-level of collaboration between sales and marketing have a positive impact on businesses.

About 70 per cent employees stated that collaboration positively impacted customer experience, 49 per cent said it impacted financial performance, while 65 per cent believed it improved customer retention.

Interestingly, 65 per cent believed that poor collaboration leads to missed business opportunities, the LinkedIn research found.

"Traditionally seen as separate functions, sales and marketing within a company are now much better aligned, with India leading the world in promoting collaboration between the two.

''This survey has established that businesses that promote this dialogue are likely to see accelerated financial growth, with better performance in sales productivity and marketing Return on Investment (ROI)," LinkedIn India, director, marketing solutions, Virginia Sharma said.

In India, 77 per cent small businesses see collaboration of sales and marketing as a top priority, compared to 70 per cent large businesses, the research said.

Moreover, 76 per cent involve their sales teams early in the marketing process against 68 per cent in large businesses.

Further, it said, 79 per cent of the small business marketers involve their sales teams in content creation and planning.

Top three key performance indicators used by businesses to measure impact of collaboration between the two departments include - revenue growth (75 per cent), pipeline growth (57 per cent) and net promoter score (57 per cent).

Businesses attributed the gains in improved sales and marketing collaboration to three key factors, including frequent meetings to share ideas (57 per cent), coordination in planning and outreach (52 per cent) and agreement on shared objectives and measurements (49 per cent), it added.