The future of business is not only about new technologies and emerging trends. It also raises questions about how companies organise their teams, responsibilities, and ways of working.
In this edition of PSM’s Future of Business series, Professor Hela Chabchoub Ben Hamadi, Maître de Conférences, HDR, looks at the evolving relationship between sales and marketing.
At Paris School of Management, Professor Chabchoub Ben Hamadi teaches Smarketing: Integration of Sales and Marketing and Innovation and Change Management, giving her a strong academic perspective on this topic.
Her article considers how these two functions may work together in the future and whether they will continue to exist as separate departments.
Sales and Marketing: Will They Continue to Be Separate Departments?
Article By Hela Chabchoub Ben Hamadi, Maître de Conférences, HDR
Professor of Smarketing: Integration of Sales and Marketing and Innovation and Change Management
Abstract
In a saturated market where consumers move easily between physical and digital spaces, companies face a major challenge: the fragmentation of the customer experience. This article argues that a truly integrated customer journey does not primarily depend on technological innovation, but on the strategic alignment of sales and marketing teams — “Smarketing.” Drawing on established models (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016; Kotler et al., 2006) and two company cases (Disney and Stanley Black & Decker), we show that breaking down silos and integrating data are key drivers of sustainable growth, before examining the future of the boundary between sales and marketing.
Introduction: From Touchpoint Management to Customer Journey Management
The traditional model, focused on managing touchpoints separately, now appears outdated. According to Lemon and Verhoef (2016), the customer journey is a complex construct that integrates cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses throughout the entire purchasing process. However, many organisations struggle to provide a consistent experience because they remain structured in silos inherited from an outdated industrial logic. From the customer’s perspective, this internal structure is invisible and irrelevant: the distinction between marketing, which communicates the message, and sales, which completes the transaction, does not exist in their experience. Edelman and Singer (2015) go further: companies must stop simply reacting to the customer journey and begin actively shaping it, making every interaction a source of competitive advantage.
1. Smarketing and the Key Areas of Customer Journey Transformation
Sales-marketing alignment is the driving force behind this consistency. Kotler, Rackham, and Krishnaswamy (2006) show that highly aligned companies achieve significantly higher growth than less integrated competitors. This convergence is organised around three complementary areas.
1.1 Strategic Alignment and the Definition of the Customer Lifecycle
Integration begins with shared terminology: marketing and sales must agree on what constitutes a qualified prospect, as the distinction between MQL/ SQL remains a persistent source of tension. According to Homburg et al. (2017), marketing shapes the customer’s mindset, while sales ensures behavioural engagement. Without this alignment, the handover between teams occurs with interruptions that directly affect customer trust.
1.2 Orchestrating the Stages of the Customer Journey
From the awareness stage, marketing can generate content grounded in real-world experience through feedback from sales. With this in mind, both teams benefit from collaborating to create evidence of value — case studies and demonstrations — rather than each producing their own materials. During the purchase stage, the transition should remain invisible to the customer: the salesperson has access to the complete history of marketing interactions in order to adapt their approach. After the sale, data integration helps anticipate needs and transforms after-sales service into a driver of customer loyalty (McKinsey & Company, 2014).
1.3 Governance and Cross-Functional Coordination Practices
Integration is never guaranteed: it requires coordination practices (joint pipeline meetings, feedback sessions) and, above all, shared performance indicators. Rather than separately examining marketing leads and immediate sales revenue, the most successful organisations prioritise shared indicators such as Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) or Net Promoter Score (NPS), which involve both teams in the long-term customer relationship.
2. The Infrastructure of Integration: Data and Technology
An integrated customer journey requires an infrastructure capable of supporting a “comprehensive view of the customer.” McKinsey & Company (2009) indicate that the most effective companies treat this journey as an ongoing process rather than as a succession of separate touchpoints. Brynjolfsson, Hu, and Rahman (2013) emphasise that, in an omnichannel environment, information must flow freely between physical and digital channels; otherwise, blind spots may damage the customer relationship. This requires a direct connection between CRM, marketing automation, and customer data platforms (CDPs), ensuring that every employee has immediate access to reliable information.
3. Empirical Analysis: Two Contrasting Cases
| Company | Integration Lever | Impact on the Customer Journey |
| Disney (MyMagic+) | IoT ecosystem (MagicBand) and database integration | Reduced transactional friction and a measurable increase in spending per visitor |
| Stanley Black & Decker | Smarketing alignment and connected products | Transformation from a product manufacturer into a provider of ongoing solutions and services |
Disney highlights the technological aspect of integration: the MagicBand, linked to MyMagic+, brings together ticketing, reservations, payments, and behavioural data. Following its launch, financial statements showed an increase in spending per visitor (apparently modest, but significant given the number of visitors), supported by a smoother customer journey and greater personalisation.
Stanley Black & Decker, as explained by McKinsey & Company (2014), illustrates the organisational and cultural dimension: this traditional manufacturer incorporated connected features into its tools (button alerts, notifications when a toolbox is left unlocked), transforming a one-time transaction into an ongoing relationship. The key lies not only in product innovation, but also in the cultural transformation that accompanies it: executives surveyed by McKinsey describe a marketing function that views sales as its internal customer, with both departments sharing a common view of the customer through to after-sales service — a condition that, according to McKinsey, is necessary for delivering a consistent customer experience at scale.
Conclusion: Towards the End of Separate Departments?
Creating a consistent customer experience goes far beyond simple technological adaptation: it requires a transition from a compartmentalised approach to expertise towards an approach centred on the flow of collective value. While technology provides the foundation, Smarketing represents the human element, and it is this dimension, which is more difficult to establish over time, that distinguishes superficial integration from genuine transformation. Should we therefore expect the complete elimination of sales and marketing departments as separate entities?
The cases of Disney and Stanley Black & Decker provide a clear answer: specialised capabilities (content creation and demand generation on one side, negotiation and closing on the other) will most likely remain distinct, but the current organisational structure that separates them is expected to become less pronounced in favour of consistent customer experience management, supported by shared objectives, data, and coordination practices. Companies capable of achieving this transformation will benefit from a competitive advantage based on agility, which is now crucial to their continued existence in today’s digital economy.