Several conversations over the past week with top-level executives has me thinking – and thinking hard – about what is often broken in sales, marketing and business.

First, a re-cap:

1) One global Director of Innovation for a mega-consumer brand was quipping about the lack of alignment between sales, brand management and innovation/product development. Sales is out selling something that is not ready to roll out so they can meet their quotas and make money; product development is not adhering to baseline global standards; innovation is not engaged in product development; marketing provides data about where the customers are, yet sales does not develop in those target areas; the company is not reaching its revenue goals.

Soooo, whose problem is this? Everyone’s. And, it’s not a sales problem, a product development problem, nor a marketing problem. It’s a business problem. It’s a revenue problem, an alignment problem. It’s the problem of everyone in the business. But do they know that? Do they take ownership for it? Do they even know across the business that the problem exists?

What’s the solution? Not to over-simplify, because getting everyone pointed in the same direction and synced up is not easy, but a robust, interactive, internal communications platform fed by external inputs would be a great start, in addition to a communications process and cadence that drives human collaboration and conversation. What about a cross-team, facilitated, action-oriented session to tackle issues and opportunities, one or two at a time?

(Ref: My first blog post, “Shortcuts make long delays…”)

2) A CFO shared an analysis of his company’s lack-of-growth woes and identified the issue as a “sales problem,” owned by the sales executive. In talking with him, it was clear that the problem was not isolated to sales, but also extended to marketing and, possibly, customer service and product development.

How can sales sell if marketing is not in lock-step and equipping the sales team with relevant messages, targeting insights and collateral? How can a company effectively sell products and services that are not directly addressing their customers’ pain points and needs? How do you determine how to solve the problem across the business vs. taking a silo approach?

3) A CEO of an established and growing software company struggled with the lack of their customers’ implementation of marketing insights into their overall strategy. Their clients don’t lack data from their customers and prospects, they are just not analyzing and executing on it to drive customer engagement, retention and acquisition.

He said that the context for the data is missing; the power of the human element and strategic context is being de-valued and diluted with the emphasis on marketing operations over marketing strategy and the proliferation of marketing automation and technology tools, replaced by stats on clicks and likes, which – in his words – are meaningless.

My takeaways from these insightful conversations – not surprisingly – validates some of my previous musings. In short:

– Marketing data does not replace marketing strategy, it feeds it.

– Marketing operations is not marketing strategy. Operations is, by nature, tactical. Don’t let tactics drive your strategy and path to success.

– Do not let technology supplant the human aspect of your marketing and communications efforts. Your customers are human. Your partners are human. Your investors are human. Your employees are human. Don’t forget it. Recognize and embrace that important fact by nurturing conversation and engagement.

I hope to have many more discussions with business leaders over the coming weeks and months about how they are driving business alignment to overcome obstacles and seize opportunities to drive revenue.  Think about your business issues and consider how other teams and divisions could support success through alignment, conversation and collaboration.