article thumbnail

Executives and Salespeople Are Misaligned — and the Effects Are Costly

Harvard Business Review

Companies fail to get the most out of the $12 billion a year they spend on sales enablement tools and the billions more on CRM technology. But good planning and proper leadership support can help. Consider a large home energy provider in a mature, commoditized market where deregulation is driving down revenue and profit.

article thumbnail

What It Takes to Become a Great Product Manager

Harvard Business Review

If the company is building a SaaS CRM, there may be more requirements around experience with go-to-market and customer lifecycles than how the product itself is built. Eriksson, Banfield and Walkingshaw ’s book Product Leadership has a section that has a lot more detail on this topic).

article thumbnail

What Salespeople Need to Know About the New B2B Landscape

Harvard Business Review

The typical funnel starts with a marketing-generated lead for a “suspect” that, after qualification, becomes a “prospect,” and then a customer through steps that are measured and managed. The cross-functional communication and coordination that is required to navigate this change is the job of leadership.

B2B 8