This course focus on what is considered by most academics and practitioners as the biggest challenge that sales professionals have to face. As we discussed in Course 1 – Effective Sales, strategy, and sales must be integrated to support a high potential for value creation through the sales functions. We also mentioned that strategy and sales integration can be supported by marketing functions. The discussions then went through sales strategy supported by intelligence analysis (Course 2), sales models and frameworks to support sales planning (Course 3).
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By the consequence, at this point of this specialization, you are in a good position to go further in the sales planning and management functions. And this is the moment to tackle one of the biggest challenges that most sales professionals must address with diligence – Sales & Marketing Alignment.
The primary learning outcome of this course is to prepare you to apply concepts to support this alignment, with prescriptions and recommendations that contribute to improving the alignment. The improvement in the knowledge, competencies, and skills regarding sales & marketing alignment will contribute to increasing the potential for value creation from a strategic sales planning approach.
Course 4 of 5 in the Strategic Sales Management Specialization
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Marketing Principles for Strategic Planning
This module is aimed to deepen the discussion regarding marketing and strategy concepts. And these concepts play a critical role in the sales planning and management functions. A company's managers can perform this role smoothly; another company's managers may have limitations in this process. In the latter case, marketing and sales functions will be misaligned, which reduces the company's value creation potential through the sales. Therefore, this module initiates Course 4 with focus on the marketing foundations that relate to sales. The module's primary learning outcomes are - Improved understanding of the foundations of marketing and how they interact with sales; identify the interactions between marketing related variables and the sales functions; and improved knowledge and skills to support marketing planning through the sales team contributions in product development, pricing, place, and promotions.
WEEK 2
Sales & Marketing Harmonization
Welcome to Sales & Marketing Harmonization module. The learning outcomes of this module are - Deeper awareness and understanding of the typical conflicts between marketing and sales; depicting the roots of the conflicts to support more accurate analyses to address them, and integrating the recommendations and prescriptions applicable to mitigate the conflicts' effects or to prevent them from occurring. In this module, you'll go further on the conceptual basis to improve the potential of value creation through the sales functions, by strengthening the cohesion of marketing and sales functions.
WEEK 3
A Checklist On Sales & Marketing Integration
Welcome to A Checklist on Sales & Marketing Alignment Module. This module's learning outcomes are - Deepen the knowledge of sales & marketing alignment and business success, identifying the level of alignment and what are the gaps to be filled, and analyzing what to do to and implementing the actions to align sales and marketing. By the end of the module, you'll be able to do a critical analysis of the major issues between sales and marketing, identify the roots of the problems, and design alternative approaches to implement to mitigate the consequences and strengthen sales and marketing alignment.
WEEK 4
Strategic Sales Management In Action – the journey goes on
Welcome to Applying Sales & Marketing Alignment Module. In this module, you'll develop a final assignment on the topics regarding sales & marketing alignment. And you'll do it on a real-life business case. The instructions for the final assignment bring the business case; the questions prompts to develop the analyses and the peer-review rubrics that you'll apply to evaluate another Learner's assignment. The primary learning outcome of this module is the design of actions and recommendations that support the alignment of sales & marketing.
