SHIKHAR VISHNOI

SECTION C
61610395

AVAYA .

Avaya, launched in 2000 was a spun off from Lucent Technologies which initially was
AT&T originally comprising Bell Labs research group. Avayas current problem can be
summed up as being an ambiguous relationship between sales and marketing resulting
in poor coordination and blame game, therefore affecting sales revenue. We in this
paper shall look into the cause of misalignment of the objectives of both departments
and suggest steps to align the same.
The problems can also be listed down as follows:
1. The regions dont have the funnel needed to achieve their targets. The approach
to create demand is inconsistent.
2. The approach is not that of a single organization. Sales and marketing
departments are working as separate entities and doing their own things. There
is no alignment in the actions or objectives. Both departments have separate
funnels and exist independently of each other.
3. To integrate all the information collected into a coherent set of findings and
form recommendations on the basis of those on how to build the demand
generation engine that Avaya needed.
Let us try to understand where the misalignment originates from and how the
objectives stand different for each department.

Impressions

Leads
Qualified Leads

Marketing Funnel

Solicits
Proposal
Responders

Leads

PreContract
Closed
sales

Sales Funnel

As we can see that there is clear conflict of interest in terms of input, focus, metrics and output of
both funnels.
Marketing
Sales
INPUT
Impressions
Leads
FOCUS
On generating new leads
On existing customers
PERFORMANCE METRIC
Number of leads generated Meeting revenue targets
OUTPUT
Leads
Closed sales
Such differences can imply to marketing department creating bad quality leads and not be
concerned with sales closure. On the other hand, Sales department might simply overlook the
genuine leads created by Marketing department believing them to be bad quality and not be
concerned with generating good quality leads.

Both departments indulge in pure blame game leading to no

positive outcome.
To solve this issue, sales and marketing departments should be
defined, aligned and integrated by following methodsDEFINE by creating clear rules of engagement, including hand-off
points for important tasks (such as lead follow-up)
ALIGN by establishing regular meetings between Sales and Marketing
to discuss major opportunities and Define who should be consulted on
which decisions (e.g., Involve the brand manager in $2 million+ sales
opportunities). Create opportunities for Sales and Marketing to
collaboratefor example, planning a conference together or rotating
jobs.
INTEGRATE by having downstream marketers develop sales tools,
help salespeople qualify leads, and use feedback from Sales to sell
existing offerings to new market segments. Evaluate and reward both
teams performance based on shared important metrics. For instance,
establish a sales goal to which both teams commit. And define key
sales metricssuch as number of new customers and closingsfor
salespeople and downstream marketers.
Let us see how the buying process can be mapped into activities under marketing and
sales departments using the funnel as shown aboveDevelop a business strategy and define initiative
Marketing
Determine needs and requirements
Marketing
Evaluate options for vendors and solutions
Marketing
Select solutions and evaluate risk using ROI and risk reward Marketing
and
perspective
Sales
Resolve issues and concerns
Sales
Negotiate agreements
Sales
Implement solutions and assess outcomes
Sales